Daily news roundups / Featured

Le Toux named in MLS Best XI, more news

Union

Want to know how cool Le Toux is? He is named to league’s Best XI, and his ultimate thoughts are for the Union: “I hope I can do better. But if I score less and the team wins more, I’d be happier with that.”

Want to work in the box office for the Union? An internship is open.

Local

Having earned an at-large bid for the NCAA Men’s Soccer Championships, Penn will host Patriot League champs Bucknell on Thursday at 7pm. On Tuesday it was announced that Christian Barreiro, Thomas Brandt and Jason Gorskie have been named to the All-Ivy first team. Ben Berg, Jake Levin and Stephen Baker were named to the second team and Loukas Tasigianis received an honorable mention.

Princeton will host University of Maryland Baltimore County in the NCAA Championships on Thursday. On Tuesday, Antoine Hoppenot was named Ivy League Player of the Year.

MLS

Don't call them the Wizards

Among the issues covered in Don Garber’s State of the League address yesterday were the increase in roster size from 26 to 30 players, an increase in the salary cap, the return of the reserve division, lifting the limit on homegrown players, improving officiating, possible changes in the playoff structure, and more. You can read a transcript here.

Landon Donovan was among four LA Galaxy players (and three Real Salt Lake players) named to the Best XI. He made the list as a midfielder, even though the ballot listed him as a forward.The league bent the rules to get him there. Said Don Garber, “Due to the large number of votes that he received, and the fact that he was on the Galaxy lineup as a midfielder nearly twice as many times as he was a forward, he was included as a midfielder [on the Best XI]. We needed to do the right thing.”

Kansas City Wizards, formerly Kansas City Wiz, will apparently be renamed Sporting Kansas City. I’m all for MLS team names evoking our soccer heritage rather than some fictional character, but doesn’t the new name strike you as just differently lame the the first two? One Kansas City soccer blog seems to agree.

The Columbus Crew, who could also use a new name, have declined to pick up the final option year on Guillermo Barros Schelotto.

It looks like Colombian goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon is leaving Köln for the Energy Drinks.

Given the quality of ESPN’s coverage of the Western Conference final, MLS Talk says it’s no wonder viewership for the network’s MLS games has declined by 12%. And if that wasn’t enough, how about the MLS coverage on ESPNsoccernet?

WPS

WPS announced its roster of teams for the 2011 season—Atlanta, Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington and Western New York—effectively making it a regional league with the demise of 2010 champions FC Gold Pride. Chicago Red Stars will have until December 15 to secure needed investors. Hopefully the Independence won’t pick up Marta—every WPS team she plays on folds.

US

Maybe they meant "Austrians"?

Fanhouse has three things to watch for in today’s friendly between the US and South Africa. You can watch the game on ESPN2 from 2pm.

More nervousness about the chances of the US hosting the 2022 World Cup as FIFA releases its bid evaluation report. The report calls the US bid a “medium legal risk” because of a possible lack of government support.

Maria Alejandra Espinoza, the driver in the crash that killed Ashley J. Roberta and injured Charlie Davies, has pleaded guilty.

Elsewhere

Airdrie United, a second division club in Scotland, mistakenly used a photograph of Nazi soldiers on the cover of its Remembrance Day matchday program over the weekend. Club secretary Ann Marie Ballantyne said, “We were told the soldiers were Australian.”

3 Comments

  1. I dont get the new Wizards logo.

    That’s clearly an S and C intertwined on the crest, correct? SC stands for Sporting Club, which isn’t uncommon. Yet the word Club is not in the new title Sporting Kansas City. Look again, no club.

    And the angled cut in the middle of the shield seems to be evoking a Y. No?

    This is closer to being the logo of the Yardley Sporting (or soccer) Club, than something called, Sporting KC.

    Foolish

  2. Looks a helluva lot like the Eastern Conference shield:

    http://logoinspirations.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/MLS-Eastern-Conference.jpg

    I think it’s too convenient for this to have been leaked. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it’s all a ploy to get people talking about it. Word is the Kansas City FO is telling people to wear their Wizards-branded gear to the announcement today (?). And I agree with some people’s sentiments that if you’ve won an MLS championship under that name, there’s no reason whatsoever to change it.

Leave a Reply to AD22 Cancel

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*