wolf stansson

Yeah it was interesting seeing Orozco in the old school sweeper role to start. When they went down a man, he moved back into the back 4. He was very solid. Even had that nice blast from the top of the box that Keller got a hand on. It was right at Keller, but it had some surprising power and technique to it. He's definitely someone to look at as a potential replacement for Boca. He's better with the ball at his feet than just about any of our center backs. Needs to work on marking. Zakuani is a guy to look out for. He wants to play for Congo but hasn't been called up yet. Freddy Montero is still a really fun MLS player. Pesky, slippery little bastard. Jack McInherney was Philly's best forward, which is not a good sign if the 17 year old is doing the best work out there making runs and getting involved. They need a #9 badly.

Charlie doing a little road work: http://www.fcsochaux.fr/fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1604&Itemid=106

Its scary to think what he will be like when he is 24-28. His form this past month is insane. I've lost count but I think that's 11 goals his last 4 games. edit: that was 10 in his last 4, and 34 in 38 games and on the verge of scoring his 200th for Barca. Hopefully not fat and/or injured like some of the superstars/would be legends of the past few years.

CBA is done. 5 year deal. Sounds really convoluted so far. No true free agency but an end of contract player draft. Some sort of guaranteed contracts as well. Overall it's sounding very mls'ish. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2010/03/mls_players_union_reach_deal_a.html

That'd be a dream, unfortunately I think he is manning the England post next cycle. Also, the Zamora story is amusing. This time last year he was declaring to play for T&T. Now he's getting some backing for an England call up. Tasty. I think Munich can beat United. At the very least, make it fun. The French derby will be fun. The Arsenal-Barca matchup is going to be fun, but is like Barca going up against Barca lite.

The cheeky bastard himself interviewed post-game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy2TFgtF4yo So pregame Hodgson keeps saying in interviews he thinks he sees things in Juve's back line that they can exploit. I saw that and didn't give it a second thought, not giving them much chance to come back. He's easily the best English manager in the world. Steve McLaren #2? So apparently English managers need to get run out of England before they reach their potential.

Good god. That's two remarkably sick goals for Dempsey this year. Oh btw, Charlie Davies is back in training w/Sochaux on Monday.

For our Belgish friends: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/gabriele_marcotti/article7061728.ece Brief snippet: Something is brewing in Belgium and it's not just delicious beer. I have started to notice the wealth of good young players coming up who are Belgian, but the true depth always sneaks up on you until they start showing up at glamor clubs, which looks like it's going to happen here shortly.

Final Friendly set v Socceroos. http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Mens-National-Team/2010/03/US-to-Face-Australia-on-June-5-in-Roodepoort-South-Africa.aspx I like it.

Nice. http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-acmilan-nesta&prov=ap&type=lgns Perfect timing for Gooch.

I just noticed this from the Davies update I posted earlier: Where exactly is this rehab resort for rich footballers? If I ever blow a knee or something, that's where I want to rehab.

Gun to my head, I agree. I still see both sides of the argument. If the players can put their services to the highest bidder in free agency, it may attract more, better players, up the quality of the product which would lead to more consumers of the product. I think that's possible, but it's also more risky. Stupid question of the day: I thought there were international rules about compensating previous clubs for development whenever a player was transferred before the age of 24? or are those UEFA rules only? I'm not sure. What I can tell you is that due to the single entity structure, from a financial standpoint these clubs aren't independent companies. They're basically branches of one corporation, so that helps them get around a lot of sticky labor and financial rules. What I'm guessing happens is MLS gets compensated for the development as well as the bulk of the transfer fee. They then decide how much they want to trickle down to the club to replace the roster spot vacated by the sold player. The rest they can keep under the nebulous title of "Operational Costs" which in theory goes back into the development of players league wide, new facilities and other day-to-day costs but in reality I'm not certain where it specifically goes. It's possible they've found a loophole and just haven't become big enough to draw attention to the situation.

Man, I'm torn. I honestly find myself agreeing with both sides. Not having free agency in a pro sport is ludicrous. Single entity is ludicrous. On the other hand, if they got rid of the single entity, there probably would be some teams that don't make it. Some of them with expensive, soccer-specific stadiums like Dallas. It just seems like there needs to be some form of revenue sharing between the have's and have not's, but at the same time less restriction on player movement and ownership. If you pay for, develop and turn a prospect into a stud and then sell them to a European team, you should get the majority of the transfer fee. If you sign a contract for three years, it should be for three years, not three, one-year deals. Basically I want it to be capitalistic but with serious regulation and sharing. When you realize how contradicting that is, it's easy to understand the impasse. Basically at some point, MLS and SUM are going to have to cut the cord on these teams. It's just unclear whether now is the best time or not. What is clear is that a strike in a world cup year is [expletive]. Even that though, is unclear how damaging it would actually be. MLS has almost zero casual fans. In a strike the thing a sports stands to most likely lose is the casual fan, so if there are none, the die hards will most likely be back. A work stoppage would be damaging, but not devastating, imo. While thats a good thing, it's also an indictment in just how truly irrelevant MLS is. The problem is, MLS as a league still isn't profitable. Soccer United Marketing, which the league owns, is the profitable side of the ownership's business. Not only profitable, but wildly profitable in relation to MLS. I don't know how much MLS players deserve to get from that. It's not their product driving profits. It's the Mexican National team, the US national teams and European Clubs preseason tours. Joe Stiff from the [expletive] Kansas City Wizards who makes $18,000 a year to hold on to a dream has nothing to do with creating that income for the league. Why should he benefit from it? It really is a murky mess. I hope they both come to some reasonable concession, because the reality is that I believe MLS is really important to not only the future of US Soccer, but really deserves a lot of credit for it's present, relative success. It hasn't produced any world class players, but it has produced some good talent that would probably not have made it in Europe. It gives 90 minutes to players who need it, it gives the reality of playing professionally to kids who otherwise wouldn't see it in their country. It's critical to the continuation of American players playing the sport at a high level. I think it's a huge part of the question, why hasn't a country with a population of 300,000,000 people produced a world class player. If MLS had been around, even in relative obscurity like it's present state, since say the 70's, I think we would have by now. Chad Johnson is the perfect example. Chad Johnson said if there had been a league that offered a realistic option for him when he was growing up poor in a non-soccer neighborhood, he would have played soccer instead of wide receiver.

In more, awesome F YOU PAIN news: http://www.fcsochaux.fr/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1460&Itemid=106 "I’m hoping to be back as soon as possible and to play some matches by the end of April...I’m outside, running at a good pace, as far as jogging, cutting, agility and playing with the ball. I’m starting to dribble and trying to get the movements back. By the end of next week, I’ll think I’ll be pretty confident to end up joining the team again in training." -Chuck D

I don't know if he's got the mentality to belong at Chelsea, but I will say that he's a better passer than Cole.

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=fergie-to-nab-cole-15-years-on%26method=full%26objectid=22091457%26siteid=93463-name_page.html /boner

I agree. He's a better, more skilled Joe Cole. This loan has highlighted that he really is as good as the talent you surround him with. He's a truly class complimentary player. Kind of why he can be so hit or miss in MLS and with the Nats, he can't be expected to be able to enforce himself on a game with sub par supporting casts. I wouldn't hate him staying at Everton either. They were ridiculous today out there with the midfield of LD, Rodwell, Arteta and Pienaar. Just flying. That's also why Jozy needs to get the hell out of Hull. He can't get anything from his teammates.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1256088/Manchester-United-poised-swoop-free-agent-Joe-Cole--favour-Chelsea-stars-new-contract-talks-fail.html I'd be fine with it after the World Cup. If he doesn't play enough, that will be rectified by the end of the cycle.

This is from Greg Seltzer at soccer365: Ajax would be pretty much my dream destination for Jozy's next stop. They've developed a forward or two in their time and they're definitely going to have to replace Suarez after the World Cup. In fact, he can go right ahead and follow the Suarez game plan. Go to Ajax at age 20, spend 3 years there, show at a World Cup and make a huge money move to a big club.

I agree. The top lineup is, I think, our best XI. The bottom lineup is our second best XI, but in my opinion, I'd switch Deuce and Holden so going forward, you could shift into a defacto 4-3-3 with Donovan and Dempsey cutting up and in.

See, I wasn't comforted at all. Our goal was an absolute disgrace to set piece defending, the Dutch had clearly checked out mentally and again we had the shocking lack of depth in our squad rubbed in our faces. We had 3 starters that flat out had no business being on that field. I guess you could take comfort in a) three of our players with real class were hurt, Bradley played an offensive midfield to start but when he brought in Beasley and Edu the bend-but-don't-break system that worked well in the Confed's cup worked well again (I still think it's flukey, but maybe less flukey than I did the day before yesterday) and also the players who did play didn't play to their potential (mainly Landon). Which pisses me off as a fan but also makes you feel like not all is lost for the World Cup. So I guess those things give you a shred of hope, but the results itself was totally misleading. We were owned. They lacked urgency. With good reason, it was a friendly in the height of their league seasons and the Champions league. If that was a must win game, they could have won 4-0. I wasn't bowled over by their play, but I think their talent is much better than England's. I think they're better in every area. The only place I'd give England the edge is striker because of one player and one player only. Take Rooney out of the equation and Holland is miles ahead in strikers. Their midfield is better. Their back line is faster, more athletic, more technically proficient and more talented. England's goalkeeping is a joke. Behind Brazil and Spain, I presume? Yes. In that order. They'll disappoint, falling apart with bad coaching, no organization and team in-fighting as is their wont, but their talent pool is superb.

For some reason I remembered this post today while I was listening to a podcast. Thought I'd come back and comment. I can't believe Jozy is only 20. It really wasn't that long ago when we were all screaming that he needed to get called in every game while Bob was running out people like Ching, EJ and sometimes even uber stiffs like Josh Wolff. The fact is, the guy is 20! Sometimes we US fans get angsty when he can't replicate his flashes of pure physical dominance over a full 90 and then even more so when he can't do it game-to-game. If we just remember that he's only 20, he's only now getting regular action in a top flight league and the fact that we've seen him do it time and time again against some truly superb competition like Spain, Mexico, Holland and in league play against Chelsea and City, we would give him more leeway. This isn't supposed to be his cycle. This is his first go round. The next one is supposed to be his coming out party and the one after that is when he's supposed to be going all Drogba on people. If he just keeps developing like he should, he is going to be a force. Yeah let's not get it twisted. England =/= Holland. I'm not saying we're going to definitely get a result. I'm just saying that this performance isn't a direct comparison of what we can expect against England. They're playing really well under Capello, but in terms of pure talent, I rate the Dutch 3rd in the world off the top of my head.

Ticket = punched, btw.

Everyone starts at 6: Tim Howard 7 Carlos Bocanegra 7 Jay Demerit 6 Jonathan Bornstein 3 Jonathan Spector 6 José Francisco Torres 4 Michael Bradley 8 Landon Donovan 5 Stuart Holden n/a Jozy Altidore 8 Robbie Findley 5 DaMarcus Beasley 7 Maurice Edu 6.5 Alejandro Bedoya 7 Heath Pearce 6 Eddie Johnson 4 Clarence Goodson n/a Jozy was electric even with [expletive] partners. Bradley was calm, controlled, stout and precise. Bedoya provided a nice spark. Howard made some good saves and couldn't do anything about the two goals. Beasley was a nuisance to the defense distributed adequately. Robbie Findley is [expletive]. Torres was weak, timid and would have been rated lower if not for his nice long range shot. Bornstein was a joke. Eddie Johnson is [expletive].

ESPN 2.