The Philadelphia Union will play the New York Red Bulls in their first MLS Play-in match for the US Open Cup. The match will take place on a still to be determined date in April. The Union will have to win three consecutive matches to reach the round of 16. A description of the Play-in format, which is for unseeded MLS teams, can be found here.
The Philadelphia Union announced yesterday that the away game with the San Jose Earthquakes originally scheduled for Saturday, September 18 has been moved to Wednesday, September 15 at 10:00 p.m. ET.
The Daily News looks at how Union trialist and former Temple All-American JT Noone is impressing the Union, picks the brain of Fred and has some more to say about Noone, who is pictured to the above right.
The Offside Rules has a funny video by Jeff Dryer about “The Meast” – half man, half cheetah – the Union’s own Michael Orozco.
The Union’s manager Peter Nowak players Shea Salinas and Chris Seitzwill will be at Dick’s Sporting Goods Brandywine Store from 1:00pm-3:00pm this Sunday for autographs and photos.
The Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association Workshop will be held on Saturday at the United Sports Training Center in Downingtown, PA, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can save money by registering before hand at the EPYSA website.
MLS commissioner Don Garber wants English Premier League clubs to buy or invest in MLS teams. Yikes.
Stuart Holden’s injury, US women win Algarve Cup, 90,000 at the Rose Bowl for Mexico v New Zealand, and Tevez says Terry would be dead after the jump
Stuart Holden will be out for at least six weeks after fracturing his right tibia in the US men’s national team2-1 loss on Wednesday to the Netherlands. The Netherlands’ Nigel De Jong insisted after the match that he had no “evil intent” in the challenge that led to Holden’s injury.
The US women defeated Germany 3-2 in the Algarve Cup final on Wednesday. Three Philadelphia Independence players – Heather Mitts, Amy Rodriguez and Lori Lindsey – all played in the match.
Over 90,000 were on hand at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday night to watch Mexico beat New Zealand 2-0. Who knew there were that many Kiwis in the States?
Following England’s victory over Egypt in a friendly yesterday in which John Terry was roundly booed by the crowd, Manchester City and Argentina international Carlos Tevez says of Terry, “If you acted like this in Argentina you’d be dead.” Ouch.
Nigel De Jong, Joris Mathijsen, Mark Van Bommel and Wesley Sneijder are all stout, powerful, aggressive footballers. There is no debating that, which is why it was so infuriating to watch the manner in which they all went to ground last night, ruining any opportunity of an interesting, entertaining contest.
To his credit, John Harkes does an admirable job of staying neutral in the face of horrendous officiating decisions and blatant player “simulation”, so when you start to hear his ire rise you can tell something is wrong. When “wow, he sure made the most of that” is replaced with “yeah, he didn’t even touch him”, I feel like I should give in to all the anti-american conspiracy theories and just be done with it.
There was one moment in particular that made me realize that the sides were playing with different rules. Late in the first half, Michael Bradley got stuck in to a good strong tackle. His feet were down, studs down and he got both feet on the ball and nothing else. The dutch player didn’t even contest the tackle, bailing out in favor of complaining to the referee. When a foul was awarded, it was clear the US were in for another long night.
Compare that incident to Nigel De Jong’s leg breaking tackle on Stuart Holden. Studs up, high and well after the play had passed him by. A clear red card if ever one existed. And the ref seemed bemused as he casually joked around with the dutch players, a sickening trend that continued as the night wore on.
Seems like the US can’t catch a break. The sentiment of officials in CONCACAF has long been clear, but to go to Europe and encounter an equal bias is a shame.
Compare the relative quiet in the press surrounding De Jong’s aggressive tackle of Holden with Shawcross’ tackle of Ramsey in the Stoke v Arsenal match last weekend. While the results were dramatically different, one could argue that De Jong’s tackle was far worse in intent. I haven’t seen any of the American coaches or players suggesting that the reason the US lost against Holland was because a conspiracy exists against the US team or that officials didn’t protect American players enough. Nor is the Dutch press, so far as I know, wringing its hands over some presumably inherent character flaw in the Dutch style of play.
Does the US not get a fair shake in CONCACAF – absolutely. Outside of CONCACAF – maybe. Do we moan about it – not really, and that’s to our credit. Most of us realize that the US has a great deal of improvement to make before bad officiating is a legitimate reason as to why the US repeatedly performs so poorly. The US lost because it largely conceded the midfield, repeatedly turned the ball over cheaply and was uncreative up front. And that’s nothing we haven’t seen before.