Union v Seattle Watch

For those who will be watching Saturday’s match against Seattle from home, the 4pm game has been moved to TCN due to the broadcast of the Flyers playoff game being broadcast on CSN at 5pm.

A tweet from the Union on Wednesday: “Nowak: Brian Carroll trained today, but didn’t sprint full speed. He’s questionable for Saturday & will be fully tested tomorrow & Friday.”

Freddy Montero remains questionable for the Sounders on Saturday. He returned to training on Tuesday for the first time since undergoing wrist surgery.

This piece looks at the return of Sounders center back Jhon Kennedy Hurtado from injury. Coach RealSigiSchmid likes having options at center back.

Schmid says of the Union, ‘They bend a little bit, sort of like a willow, but they don’t break.” (The link goes to a massive Sounders quote sheet ahead of Saturday’s game.)

Philly Union Talk argues that the match against Seattle might be a good opportunity to try out some different offensive options.

Saturday’s match is the main topic on the latest installment of the “Unnamed Philadelphia Union Podcast” on The Brotherly Game.

More Union news

The Union are scheduled to play Real Salt Lake away on April 23, three days after RSL play Monterrey away in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League final and four days before the second leg at home. On Wednesday, the RSL beat reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune sent out a tweet saying the game against the Union had been rescheduled for September 3 “to aide preparation for second leg of Champions League finals.” Philly.com’s Jonathan Tannewald noted in a tweet, “So it was moved to a FIFA matchday when MLS was taking the weekend off… yeah, that works real well.” The Brotherly Game, citing “An anonymous source close to the situation,” then posted a story saying that “the Union have yet to approve the change.” The beat reporter for RSL then tweeted, “We’ll wait to see if it happens.” And so we shall.

Peter Nowak is pleased that veteran players such as Brian Carroll and Justin Mapp—who have both gone down with hamstring injuries—have been honest enough about their injuries to inform the staff and not try to play through them before they get worse. “We encourage guys to be honest with their situation. If you feel something is not right, why do you need to be on the field occupying a spot from someone healthy and ready? If you’re not 100 percent and can’t make it a full 90 minutes, we have other guys in the locker room waiting for their chance.”

The Union website has a Q&A with Faryd Mondragon where he talks about the Philly, MLS, Colombians in MLS and more. My favorite part is when he’s asked about what the Union hopes to achieve this season: “The first goal is to get in the playoffs, and when we make it, anything can happen.”

We all know about the Union’s Colombian connection. This piece looks at the club’s Trinidad & Tobago duo.

From the Department of What’s He Been Up To, ASN Philly roundups what every former Union player did last week with their current team. Just to piss Eli off, Andrew Jacobson is settling in quite nicely at FC Dallas.

The current edition of the excellent Home Grown Hopefuls column on The Brotherly Game looks at how the four Union academy players called up for the Union reserve match fared. FC Delco’s Jimmy McLaughlin went the full 90.

The Union has supporters in Britain and here’s one English fan’s take on the win over the Energy Drinks. He’s from Manchester and, thank the gods, he supports City, not United.

With less than 500 season tickets available, the Union have announced two new season ticket packages: “A pro-rated Full Season Ticket plan (16 games) starting at $258 in the Supporters Section and a Partial Season Pick‘em plan (9 games) are now on sale.”

More on the Villanova at PPL Park nonsense.

Independence

Nicole Barnhart, Lori Lindsey, Megan Rapinoe and Amy Rodriguez have been called up for another USWNT training camp. The four will be in Florida April 18 through May 6. According to the USWNT website, “Players will train Monday through Friday of each week with the WPS players traveling to the sites of their club’s matches on the days before the games, and then returning to national team camp the day after.”

MLS

In this week’s installment of the Philly Soccer Show podcast with KYW’s Greg Orlandini and the PSP’s Adam Cann, Taylor Twellman talked about the work he is doing to address the number concussions in the game. Here’s a look at the fact sheet he helped to develop for MLS players. Hopefully a copy is hanging inside every player’s locker.

Real Salt Lake beat Colorado 1–0 with a stoppage time goal that should have been called offside.

David Beckham earned his fifth yellow card in six games in Wednesday nights 0–0 draw with Toronto, which results in an automatic one-game suspension. Despite the fact that a ref let him off with a yellow for a red card worth challenge on Saturday, he’s not pleased.

Speaking of Beckham, this ESPN columnist wonders if it’s time to say good riddance. My short answer? Yes.

Vancouver leads the league in goals against.

Elsewhere

It’s official: Barcelona and Real Madrid will face each other four times in 18 days: April 16 in league play (at exactly the same time as the Union match – What the feck, MLS scheduling people?!?), April 20 in the Copa del Ray final (3:30pm on GolTV), and April 27 and May 3 in the Champions League semifinals. It’s a good time to be alive.

Carlos Tevez will miss Saturday’s FA Cup semifinal clash between Manchester United and Manchester City after being ruled out for up to four weeks with a hamstring injury.

Japan will participate in this summer’s Copa America.