Tag Archives: 2010 FIFA World Cup
USWNT To Face England April 2
Posted by on February 7, 2011
U.S. Soccer just announced that the USWNT will be facing England in the lead up to this summers World Cup. They are currently competing in the Algarve Cup in Portugal. Their schedule looks like this so far.
Algarve Cup Group Play
Japan-March 2
Norway- March 4
Finland- March 7
If they win the group placement matches are on March 9
England-April 2
World Cup Germany-June 26-July 11
The USWNT hasn’t faced England since 2007 and has only played England 10 times in its 27 years of existence.
A Few 2011 Women’s World Cup Links
Posted by on February 5, 2011
Image by pennstatelive via Flickr
An Interview with Pia Sundhage
http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/news/newsid=1377075/
Apparently there’ll be a ton more TV coverage of the Women’s World Cup this summer.
http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/organisation/media/newsid=1376651/
The USWMNT is starting to do things that we’ve been asking the USMNT to do for a while, by improving youth development. Which mean’s we can’t blame Sunil Gulati for it too much anymore.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/jeff_kassouf/02/05/wps.playerdev/
UPDATE:Marcelo Bielsa To NOT Stay With Chile
Posted by on February 3, 2011
UPDATE: apparently Bielsa will actually not be staying with Chile. Barely a day after Chile announced that Bielsa would stay on for the Copa America, Bielsa has again announced that he will be leaving.
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/news/newsid=1377371.html
For all those interested, (and because there’s not much going on right now, with the USMNT Egypt friendly being cancelled and the Union still in pre-season) Marco Bielsa, head coach of the Chilean Mean’s national team will be staying on. Although it had been constantly reported leading up to the recent US-Chile friendly that he was coaching without a contract and that no one really knew what exactly the situation was. It was known that Bielsa had a problem with the election of Jorge Sergovia as President of the Chilean federation, and he announced that he would be retiring due to the election. Later that election was proved to be invalid and the position was revoked from Sergovia. Eventually Sergio Jadue became president and Bielsa’s claims were called into question. Since then no one has really known what Bielsa would do, although it seems that a deadline has passed for him to resign from the post which apparently automatically reinstates his former contract through the Copa America this year.
Teal Bunbury Files His FIFA Switch
Posted by on February 3, 2011
While we may have all gotten caught up in the aura surrounding Juan Agudelo and Teal Bunbury, some may have forgotten that although Bunbury is already an American citizen he is not technically an American soccer player yet. He was able to play against South Africa and against Chile because they were not official FIFA matches, but he has just put in his official request to FIFA to change nations. This will allow him to participate in official events such as the Gold Cup. It’s the same process that Jermaine Jones went through recently. The process tends to take between two and four months which means that Bunbury will almost definitely be eligible to play for the U.S. in the Gold Cup by summer.
Updated: U.S. May Be Losing A Few Internationals
Posted by on February 2, 2011
A few days after seeing Giusseppi Rossi do this while also hearing that his back-up American Jozy Altidore will be transferring to Bursaspor , talking about dual-citizens may be a bit of a sensitive subject.
Yet it comes up again anyway. Connor Doyle, who was born and raised in Texas to an Irish father and therefore has both Irish and American citizenship, has been called up to the Ireland U-21 team. Doyle has a legitimate chance of being a part of World Cup Qualifying in this cycle, and being a part of the World Cup team in Brazil, but he is still undecided as to whether or not he will try to do so with the Republic of Ireland or with the United States. Decisions like this are always rough on both the player and the fan. New Jersey born Rossi gained many enemies when he chose to suit up for the Azzuri rather than for America, although his was a particularly sharp example due to the dearth of talented forwards in the U.S. player pool. Connor Doyle is in a slightly different situation as he would be much farther back on the depth chart in a crowded midfield. The key issue in his situation, is how to handle the fact that he seems to be leaning towards playing the field; playing for both youth teams until he is fully required to make a decision How does U-20 Coach Thomas Rongen handle a player who won’t commit to the team. There is somewhat of a precedent on this matter as Sonny Guadarrama did something very similar a few years ago according to Yanks Abroad (although that’s the only source I could find to verify the story). Guadarrama apparently played in the U.S. youth ranks, switched over to the Mexican U-20 team, and then attempted to return to the American team. At this point Rongen took it upon himself to have the players vote as to whether or note Guadarrama should or should not be allowed to play for the U.S. They voted against it and Sonny never appeared again for the American team.
UPDATE: Andy Najar says he was misquoted
The other related story is that DC United’s Andy Najar also is calling his nationality into question. The Honduran-American player was quoted in Diez as saying ”The shirt I’ll defend is the place of my birth.” The article also depicts him wearing a Honduras jersey with a Honduras flag draped around him. Although the quote is apparently not entirely reliable. Najar has also recently been rumored to have been invited to the Honduran U-20 camp, although this also has been called into question. Basically nobody really knows what Andy Najar will do, but he’s a good player for DC United and he’d fit in nicely if he established himself in the attacking fullback position he occasionally plays in DC.
Basically there is no right way for a player with Dual Citizenship to go about deciding what country to play for. The only one I would argue is really objectively agreeable from all sides is the way Mixx Diskerud went about resolving it. Mixx was eligible to play for both the U.S. and Norway, but has since appeared for the USMNT. He decided long before he was called up that his decision would be on a “first come, first served basis. The US called him up to the senior team to face South Africa last year and his fate was decided for him. he accepted that it was too tough of a decision for him to make himself so he would let fate decide it for him. I’m sure Norwegians may be disappointed at the outcome but they really can’t argue the method.
>>http://www.yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=blog&entry=154
>>http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5813765/mikkel-diskerud-gets-shot-us-national-team
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MLS Set For Major Announcement
Posted by on January 31, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
MLS is set to make a major announcement at 10:0o am and to stream a live teleconference at 3:30pm Tuesday, all available information is here.
Basically its another pre-announcement announcement, in the same vein as the announcement before Mondragon and Valdes joined the Union. I have a few guesses at what it might be, but they’re as good as meaningless really.
1. MLS is simply trying to drum up coverage of the schedule announcement, which is due to come out sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later.
2. There’s always the possibility of a new major sponsorship deal, maybe a TV deal something along those lines would definitely get a significant push from MLS. A TV deal in particular is something Garber has been putting a lot of his weight into recently. Hopefully a sponsor shows up that will put MLS into their top priorities, like Versus did for the NHL. It seems like a good investment to get in on the bottom of one of the fastest growing sports leagues in North America
3. I’ve heard speculation that it could be a promotion relegation concept, but I don’t think that makes sense at all. Especially with the Reserve league just restarting, it wouldn’t make any sense to turn that on its head.
4. I’ve also heard talk of changing the schedule to match the European leagues, also would seem horribly timed with all the speculation about Qatar and a potential Winter World Cup that would just force them to adjust it again.
5. Announcing the Cosmos as a 20th team would seem like a logical jump for some, but then another question rises. Why bring Thierry Henry and to a ceremony to welcome a city rival? Henry and Donovan will both be with Garber at the announcement
I honestly can’t figure out what it will be, at the moment I’m assuming its merely a sponsor, or TV deal. Probably something that won’t really have an effect, other than the monetary and what goes along with that, on the day to day on field operations of the league.
Donovan May Miss Egypt
Posted by on January 30, 2011
In what will be our first chance to see the Senior team in competition, even if just a friendly, they may be missing one of their biggest names. Landon Donovan of the L.A. Galaxy has said that ”It’s hard to know now,” Donovan told Goal.com’s Luis Bueno when asked about whether he would participate in the USA’s upcoming friendly match versus Egypt. “If you ask me today, I’d say ‘No chance’ because I’m pretty tired and sore.” Considering that, due to the World Cup and European Loans, Donovan hasn’t had much of a break from soccer in quite some time, it seems his playing in the game is not an absolute necessity. Also if he misses the game, it may allow Bob Bradley a chance to sort out the mass of midfield players that have suddenly become an issue for the team.
Red Jersey’s For Gold Cup!
Posted by on January 27, 2011
“There will be a third kit for Gold Cup this summer as confirmed by Gulati hollering back to his marketing team in the back of the room for confirmation. It will be a red jersey.”- The Shin Guardian
According to this article about a conference which USSF did for a few select fans and TSG (which is very cool, and if you want to read about it click the link, I recommend you do,) but the issue at hand here is that we have red jerseys for the Gold Cup. The supporters groups, at U.S. Soccer games will again match the team they put on the field. They wore Red Jersey’s most recently in 2006, but 1998 and 2000 also saw Red Jersey’s. before that there was the 1994 jersey, which I guess would technically be a red kit. Of course before then they hadn’t been used since 84, so it was news when they showed up. Apparently they’re back now, as a third kit, and hopefully look good and stay around. Presumably the Red Kit will look like the one that they announced before the World Cup, but haven’t worn yet, which is the image above.
>>For a solid history of USMNT Jersey’s check out http://project2010.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/better-know-a-kit-a-history-of-the-modern-u-s-soccer-jersey/. It’s a little old so it’s not up to the most recent jersey’s, but it’s very cool nonetheless.
Telefutura’s Call Of Bunbury’s Goal
Posted by on January 23, 2011
I was watching on ESPN3 but I’d have to say the two most successful things about last night were both noted in sufficiently successful ways by the announcers.
Video from USSF of Pablo Ramirez announcing, stolen from Match Fit USA.
Also as I haven’t heard much from Dax McCarty’s play in DC, it caught me a bit off guard to hear him referred to as the Ginger Ninja, but according to MLS.com its old news as DC United followers have been calling him this for a while. Still it’s great news.
On a more serious note Dax and Bunbury where two of the players who stuck out most of all in the Chile game, Dax holding solid possession and showing a bit of creativity in his passes, although he did lose a few more than he may like. It’ll be said a million times but if it weren’t for the crowded midfield on the senior team he might have played himself into a spot.
Bunbury and Agudelo, both of whom had significant parts in the lone American goal, came on together and their impact was noticeable immediately. From the second they got on the field you could see the attack was reinvigorated, they made Mixx Diskerud and Dax both look much better in the midfield as their forward passes no longer died in a generally poorly positioned Wondolowski. Mixx also looked good, especially as the game progressed, the ball movement between those four seemed to flow very well.
Diego Scores Again!
Posted by on January 22, 2011
In what was a very confusing story for me, Union Head Of Scouting Diego Guitiérrez recently scored for the 1994 US World Cup team against the Omaha Vipers of the MISL. First it is 2010 so I couldn’t exactly figure out why the 1994 World Cup team would be playing at all, but this article explains that it was merely an exhibition game to raise awareness of the new team in town. Then I thought when did Diego actually play for the USMNT? I couldn’t remember his name as an international so I looked it up. He did have one cap for the US national team which was a small surprise for me. Although that cap came in 2001, and he only became a citizen in 2000 so him playing as a member of the 1994 World Cup team didn’t really make much sense either, but again its an exhibition so I guess they bent the rules a bit to field a full team although apparently Alexi Lalas was there so that counts for a lot. The most interesting note I found is that amidst all this confusion Diego managed to find the back of the net, not horribly surprising considering he was one of the younger players on the team at 38. The game did come down to age though with the younger Vipers winning with ten unanswered fourth quarter goals (remember its indoor soccer) taking away what had been a 14 to 8 lead for the good guys and winning 18-14
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