Photo: Paul Rudderow

Union

In this week’s power rankings roundup, the Union drop everywhere. At Soccer America, the Union fall three spots to tenth. The three spot fall at MLSsoccer.com is to ninth. At SBI, the fall is two spots to ninth while at ESPN the two spot decline is to tenth. At Goal.com the Union holds steady at seventh.

Pennlive.com previews tonight’s friendly against Harrisburg City Islanders and has this lowdown.

This piece from the Union website talks to two Harrisburg City Islanders players, Brian Ackley and former Union player JT Noone, about how the friendly is a chance to get noticed. City Islanders defender Stephen Basso talks to Upper 90 about the friendly.

One benefit of tonight’s friendly is that it will be a chance for Freddy Adu to get some meaningful time on the pitch with the Union in a competitive but non-league match. Just in case you have any doubts, Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz says, “We didn’t sign Freddy for marketing or ticket reasons. We signed Freddy because we think he can make our football team better.”

Sons of Ben president Corey Furlan gets a quote in this piece from MLS’ just released North American Soccer Almanac about how the internet and social media have changed the way we follow soccer. Also from the almanac, JP Dellacamera and Taylor Twellman come second and third in a fan-voted list of the top ten favorite local TV announcers. No doubt about it.

Veljko Paunovic says its time for the Union to pull itself up and get the job done. “Now we have games in front of us and we have recover from this loss and try—not try, we have to [start winning]. It will be hard, but it’s for men. The young guys need to realize this is for men, we have to grow up, wake up and say, ‘this is it.'”

Paunovic turns up in this “Potential international performances” post at the macedonianfootball.com blog. This isn’t an article calling for Paunovic to play for the Macedonian national team, it’s a news roundup of anyone remotely eligible to play for the Macedonian national team. A comment from what appears to be one of the website’s administrators states, “we know that paunovic won’t play for macedonia, but this is not important for us, our intention is to inform about all players that theoretically are eligible to play for macedonia and are playing football in at least a decent league.” Newsflash – Macedonian football fans think MLS is a “decent league”!

If you like to pick your scabs, take a look at this tactical analysis of Saturday’s game in Columbus. There’s also this match report from Union Dues.

Independence

Thinking about traveling to Saturday’s championship final in Rochester? The Independence have reserved section 131 at Sahlen Stadium for Independence supporters. You can get tickets by calling the WNY Flash ticket office at 585-484-KICK. The team has also made arrangements for supporters to stay at the local La Quinta Inn. Call 585-254-1000 and ask for Tina. The promo code is “WPS Championship.”

Here’s a head-to-head preview of the Independence and WNY Flash ahead of Saturday’s championship final. Another preview is here.

Independence captain Nikki Krzysik, recipient of the WPS Sportswoman of the Year Award, talks about the 2011 season, the impact of the 2011 Women’s World Cup and what her team is thinking about their championship final opponent in this Q & A.

The backline of Kia McNeill, Estelle Johnson, Krzysik and LeighAnn Robinson have been named the Philly Soccer News Player(s) of the Week in recognition of the way they held magicJack scoreless in last Saturday’s WPS Super Semifinal at PPL Park.

The magicJack player-coach Abby Wambach won’t be playing in the WPS Final but the Rochester-native will be at the game.

Local

A group of high school soccer players at Starfinder in Manayunk are hard at work constructing a mosaic mural that is a soccer timeline with club crests from around the world, which sounds totally cool.

MLS

MLS is now two for two in Mexico as Seattle defeats defending CONCACAF Champions League champion Monterrey 1–0. Colorado gave up a first half lead in their 1–1 draw at Real España in Honduras.

Sporting News reports that while SuperLiga has been shelved, a move to a single table for MLS is still a possibility.

This week’s Talking Tactics piece looks at the return of the holding midfielder.

That didn’t take long. I think you can catch a glimpse of some headless Union players around the 0:08 mark.

Elsewhere

Jose Mourinho is denying reports that he is leaving Real Madrid. Meanwhile he is facing a ban of four to 12 games or six to 15, depending on which of two possible charges is brought against him, as the Spanish football association begins its investigation of the eye poking/pinching/gouging/whatever it was incident in the last game of the Super Cup against Barcelona..