Daily news roundups / Featured

Gaddis on All-Rookie Best XI list, Sermanni named new USWNT coach, more

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Philadelphia Union

Raymon Gaddis has been named to SBI’s All-Rookie Best XI.

Antoine Hoppenot earned an honorable mention for MLSsoccer.com’s Team of the Week. Would have thought Gaddis would have too after his monster performance against New York.

In the final power rankings of the season, the Union take a tumble. At Soccer America they fall three spots to No. 16 while at MLSsoccer.com, they fall two spots to No. 16. At ESPN, it’s a two-spot drop to No. 15. Goal.com generously leaves them at No. 14.

The seemingly eternal question of finishing aside, there’s no question that being without left fullback Gabriel Farfan for the last three games, and right fullback Sheanon Williams for all but 64 minutes over the same period, gravely harmed the Union’s chances of finishing the season on a positive note. While both players, who were out with ankle injuries, are looking forward to the opportunity to recover and come back stronger from the offseason, that didn’t make it any easier having to watch the end of the season from the sidelines. Said Williams, “It sucks.”

Williams said of the loss to New York, “For me personally, I’d like to forget this game. It was tough watching for sure. I’d like to forget this and the season because things didn’t go well a lot. In a lot of cases, everything that could go wrong went wrong. Now having said that, I can think of at least five games we could have won but didn’t win. I think we have to take those experiences and try and improve for next season. I think we’re going to improve in the offseason to get better and it’s going to be a different story next season. I’m looking forward to next season and getting back on track.”

Jack McInerney said, “It was a frustrating season in a lot of ways, and we’re all competitive, so it was pretty tough at times…I don’t think anyone in this locker room expected to finish the season this way. It happened and we have to move on, learn from it and get better next season…We made the playoffs a year ago, and this year, it was a crazy season with so much going on. It wasn’t all pretty. We did some good things. We had some frustrating things happen. I know we’re going to come back strong.”

Local

The Philadelphia Public League boys’ and girls’ championship games, rescheduled because of Hurricane Sandy, will take place today at Northeast High’s Charlie Martin Memorial Stadium. The boys’ championship game between Franklin Towne Charter and Northeast will kickoff at 3pm followed by the girls’ final between Franklin Towne Charter and Central at 5pm.

La Salle and Father Judge will meet in the Philadelphia Catholic League boys’ final at 5:45pm on Thursday at William Tennent.

The District 12 boys’ final between the PPL and PCL champions is tentatively scheduled to take place on Friday at Northeast High School.

A press release from Harrisburg City Islanders says defender Stephen Basso and forward Garett Pettis have joined MISL side Rochester Lancers for the 2012-2013 season. You will recall that earlier this month we linked to a report that JT Noone would be playing for Baltimore Blast.

MLS

Chicago hosts Houston tonight in the Eastern Conference single elimination play-in game (9pm, ESPN2). The winner will advance to play Kansas City on Wednesday, Nov. 7.

Interestingly, Kansas City has a better record this season against second place DC and third place New York than against either Chicago or Houston.

At Goal.com, Kyle McCarthy previews the Eastern and Western Conference knockout games.

Yesterday we linked to reports about MLS achieving new record highs in total attendance and average attendance for the second consecutive year. In case you were wondering, the league now ranks seventh in the world for average attendance, behind Mexico’s Liga MX and ahead of Ligue 1 in France.

The Central Winger looks at efforts to develop a soccer equivalent to baseball’s Pythagorean Expectation formula, which attempts to determine how many games  team should have won based upon runs scored and runs conceded. Attempts to do the same with soccer are complicated by the fact that games can end in a draw, but, for whatever it’s worth, one effort projects that the Union should have earned three more points than they actually did. A nice picture of the Union celebrating a late goal over New England illustrates the post.

US

Less than two hours after we tweeted a link to a report on Australian soccer website thewomensgame.com that Australian Women’s National Team coach Tom Sermanni would be named the new coach of the USWNT came the official announcement from US Soccer. Sermanni, who was born in Scotland, coached in the WUSA and was the manager of the Australian women’s team for 11 years, will take over the job on Jan. 1, 2013.

Soccer America presents the case for Sermanni’s appointment.

At the Equalizer, Jeff Kassouf writes, “Sermanni’s appointment comes as a slight surprise given the wealth of strong U.S. candidates with strong resumes.”

Former USWNT coach Tony DiCicco, himself a candidate for the job, said, “I’m going to be honest with you, I thought I was the best candidate and I still do. I’m disappointed that [Gulati] thinks so little of American coaches. But it’s hard to say for me that he didn’t make a good choice. Tom Sermanni is a good choice and can—as so many of us can—win with this team.”

Soccer America has an informative Q&A with US Soccer Team Physician Dr. Bert Mandelbaum about the development of the PEP (Prevent injury, Enhance Performance Program) and FIFA 11+ warmup program, which have been shown to reduce injuries among youth players by as much as half.

Elsewhere

In the wake of the announcement that NBC has acquired the rights to broadcast the EPL, here’s a brief history of NBC Sports Network and soccer broadcast rights in the US.

Two unnamed England U-21 players and an assistant coach are among 12 charged by Serbian police following an investigation into the mele that erupted in the minutes after the Serbia-England UEFA U-21 European Championship qualifier earlier this month. Five Serbia players and an assistant coach, as well as three fans, have also been charged.

No, I don’t want to talk about it.

Australia’s A-League is trending to surpass Brazil for average attendance and is currently at No. 14 in the world, up from No. 24 only 12 months ago. Much of the increase is attributed to the arrival of Alessandro Del Piero, Emile Heskey and Shinji Ono.

 

One Comment

  1. *USWNT coach stories*
    Ah, cue the “woe is us” American coaching tears. Right on time too.

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