Daily news roundups / Featured

A wowzer, more news

Photo: Greg Carroccio, courtesy of Philadelphia Union

Union

Talk about your game of two halves! After giving up four goals in the first half and scoring one of their own, the Philadelphia Union became only the fifth team in MLS history to earn a result after being down by three goals. They are now in third place in the East on 35 points—five points behind Columbus and two points behind Kansas City—with a game in hand.

CSN Philly says, “It wasn’t a win, but it was still one of the gutsiest results in the Philadelphia Union’s short two-year history.”

The Union players rallied around Zac MacMath at halftime. Freddy Adu said, “I looked for him and just said, ‘Good things are going to happen and don’t worry about it.’ I told him, ‘We’re going to come back.’ We didn’t play really well in the first half and Zac didn’t have a chance on those shots.” More on MacMath’s first start at the Delco Times.

Adu added, “The whole halftime talk was, ‘We can do this.’ We said, ‘if New England can score four goals in the first half, we can score four goals in the second half.’ Because we feel like we have a pretty damn good offense, and a pretty damn good team. We just turned it up a notch and everything just kind of worked for us from there.”

Danny Califf said, “Almost the whole time we felt like we were in the game still, even though the scoreline was lopsided, especially coming in at halftime. I think we all felt that we were still in it. It just points to the character that we have in the locker room, guys that aren’t going to give up on each other.”

Sebastien Le Toux said of his two goals, “I think it’s good for me. My teammates joke around with me, especially Stefani Miglioranzi, that in the last 10 games I’m going to score every game and help the team the best I can like I didn’t do at the beginning of the season. I hope this is the case…In Salt Lake, we lost but I was happy to score my first one in the run of play because all of you guys [the media] were talking about that. So now you have something else to talk about. It’s out of the way now. It was good for me, but I hope in the future my goals will help the team win, not just tie.”

Peter Nowak on what he said to the team at the half. “There was not much to say. The movement was okay. We had a couple of good looks to score goals. Defensively, we were not so good. The four goals shouldn’t have happened. At times we looked like the expansion team from 2010.”

Nowak said further, “I’m not upset about the chances we created, what I am upset about is how easy we gave up four goals in the first half. We created a bunch of chances, which is not the first time we have done that, but when you create good looks you have to find a way to finish them.”

Nowak said of the Union defense, “We need to refocus ourselves to see, ‘OK, this is my part of the field and I’m not going to let anybody get anything.’ I think this was our strong side from the beginning of the season and now we’re thinking nothing will happen.”

In the end, what were Nowak’s feelings on the result? “The result we can be happy with because it could be worse, but we shouldn’t [be] there in the first place, like we were in the first half. It’s mixed emotions.”

Revolution midfielder Shalrie Joseph said, “We didn’t have the quality and we’re not good enough to hang onto a 4-1 lead. That’s going to cost us later on when we look at it.”

The fine match report at the Brotherly Game makes note of the inconsistent and, at times, downright bizarre officiating.

More match reports from the Union website, philly.com, SBNation, phillyBurbs.com, the AP, scoresaway.com.

Here’s the entire match report from the Washington Post, short but sweet:

Five goals in the first half. Two penalty kicks. Freddy Adu’s first goal since his MLS return. An extra-time equalizer. Eight minutes of added time. New England a man down because of injury. Union 4, Revolution 4.

Adu said after the game, “I just feel really a part of this team and I love it. I love being here and I love being around the guys.”

On Thursday morning, the Union reserves topped the New England reserves 2–0. Jack McInerney and Danny Mwanga scored for the Union.

Vote Zac MacMath and Faryd Mondragon for Save of the Week.

In this week’s power rankings at MLS.com, released before last night’s game, the Union drop three spots to no. 11.

Independence

Four Independence players were named to the WPS Best XI: defenders Kia McNeill and Nikki Krzysik, and midfielders Veronica Boquete and Jen Buczkowski.

Independence goalkeeper Val Henderson reflects on the shift to the WPS offseason. For her, it means playing in Sweden.

Local

The Penn men’s team is off to the West Coast this weekend for the Courtyard Marriott, San Diego Central Tournament hosted by San Diego State University.

The Inquirer rounds up PA boys and girl soccer results.

Here’s a look at Penn Charter’s efforts to defend their Inter-Ac League championship title.

A strike by teachers that began on Wednesday isn’t stopping Catholic League teams.

US

SB Nation says, “Sunil Gulati spent five years defying sanity as he chased Jurgen Klinsmann, which is why Klinsmann may be in the spotlight, but Gulati is on the hot seat.”

Elsewhere

FIFA have terminated a multimillion dollar TV deal after discovering the rights had been sub-liscened to a company owned by former CONCACAF president and well known crook Jack Warner. Warner said, “Such ignoble pursuit has nothing to do with the cleansing of corruption within the FIFA but rather to offer the perception of an aura of cleansing within the FIFA. The matter is designed to go after me …and is now with the [Caribbean Football Union’s] Swiss lawyers.”

Mohamed bin Hammam’s appeal of his lifetime ban from soccer will be heard by FIFA next week.

3 Comments

  1. Any referee who takes 12 steps (we all counted) for ten yards is a complete idiot. Talk about ask for abuse from the players and crowd. Doubtful penalty, marginal and even bizarre calls all night illustrate the biggest problem the MLS has to its growth. The standard of officials! And please somebody somewhere throw that stupid paint spray away…………

    As for the game well when we only have three defenders what do we expect? Can we pleeeeeeese get a full back to replace Harvey! maybe then our central defenders will not be pulled out of position as often

  2. MacMath and Mondragon are up for _SAVE_ of the Week.

Leave a Reply

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

*