Daily news roundups / Featured

Mac expects 4-4-2, Reserve League/USL-PRO integration, some great videos, more

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Philadelphia Union

Following Tuesday’s announcement that the Union will finally open a season at home on March 2, here’s a look at how the club has fared against their first opponent, Kansas City, and the second team on the schedule, Colorado.

While admitting that he’s “a little disappointed” that the Union got a second striker in Conor Casey “because I’m not sure what to expect,” Jack McInerney says, “it just shows that I’m going to have to fight for my spot on the field.” McInerney says he believes it is unlikely the team will field himself, Casey, and Sebastien Le Toux out together and expects the team will go with a 4–4–2.

Brian Carroll comes in at No. 10 in this top ten list of players with the best secondary-pass completion rates in MLS. Secondary-pass completion rate is aimed at measuring “the likelihood that a particular player’s completed pass would result in a subsequent completed pass.”

The “wine connoisseur” comment made by Nick Sakiewicz when Peter Nowak was fired made the Best Quotes of the Year list on the league website.

The Union has a hoot of new video promoting the upcoming season à la those ESPN commercials:

MLS

Jason Davis reports that MLS is working USL-PRO on Reserve League integration.  While details are still emerging, the plan would be:

  • If an MLS city has a USLPRO team nearby, MLS will provide 5 players and pay their salary.
  • If there’s no USLPRO team, the MLS reserve side will become a new, permanent team in USLPRO.
  • All USLPRO teams will have an MLS affiliate.

Davis says the plan is for some interplay between the Reserve League and USL-PRO in 2013 with full integration in 2014.

On Tuesday, Sporting Kansas City unveiled 28 year old forward Claudio Bieler as their new Designated Player.

Local lad Bobby Convey answers some questions at American Soccer Now.

FC Dallas have signed Brazilian striker Wesley “Pipico” Silva.

New York have signed Ryan Meara to a new contract.

Black and Red United have an interesting analysis of historical soccer specific stadium building costs in the league and estimates of what it would cost to build those stadiums now in DC.

At Goal.com, Frank Isola calls Rafa Marquez a loser.

Women’s Soccer

Ali Krieger, the USWNT right back who missed the Olympics with a knee injury, is returning Stateside after playing in Germany for Frankfurt for five years and wants to play for Washington Spirit in the NWSL.

The Guardian looks at the new league’s prospects.

US

Al Bann Media have announced that they will be live streaming the USWNT games from February’s Algarve Cup tournament in Portugal.

The USMNT has dropped one spot to No. 28 in the latest FIFA rankings. Spain remains at No. 1 while Mexico  dropped one spot to No. 15. Colombia is now ranked at No. 5 while Brazil falls five spots to No. 18.

Jozy Altidore and Oguchi Onyewu both scored on Tuesday, Altidore for AZ Alkmaar in the Netherland’s KNVB Cup, Onyewu for Malaga in Spain’s Copa del Rey. It was Altidores’s third goal in two matches and Onyewu’s goal was a last gasp equalizer in stoppage time.

According to his agent, Michael Parkhurst has completed a move from Danish side Nordsjælland to FC Augsburg in the Bundesliga.

PSP contributor Steve Holroyd has posted on YouTube what may be the earliest surviving footage of soccer in the US. The footage is from the 1924 US Open Cup final, won by the Fall River Marksmen 4-2 over the Vesper Buick team of St. Louis. Hopefully this will lead to the discovery of more early footage of soccer in the US.

Elsewhere

Thus spake Zlatan: “Messi is the best player in the world, he deserves the Ballon d’Or. I know he’s won it several times, but it is deserved. He plays like he’s on PlayStation, it’s unbelievable. People who say otherwise either don’t know anything about football or are just talking nonsense.”

A high court ruling quashing the original verdict of accidental death opens the way for a new inquest into the deaths of 96 people in the Hillsborough disaster.

The Guardian reports on the recent series of interviews Sir Alex Ferguson did with the Harvard Business School on the secrets of his managerial success.

Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba reportedly want out of China.

 

9 Comments

  1. – The Reserve League combining with the USLPRO is a great idea. I feel like the MLS needs to do more to increase the quality of depth and creating a more refined and legitimate reserve league is one way to do it.
    – While I usually always agree with Jack, he’s always pretty frank isn’t he?

  2. Those Union promo spots are both very fun.

  3. Great report in the Guardian on what Sir Alex Furguson had to say. Every coach should read that!

  4. I love the proposed MLS and USL-Pro reserve league integration idea. If MLS is pushing the home grown player route as the future for young player development then it needs to better provide those young players with quality playing experiences. This proposal should go a long way to providing just that.

  5. The holiday video made me giggle…

  6. WilkersonMcLaser says:

    Love the USLPro integration. We should work on a local agreement so that a Philly USL franchise is awarded to the top team in the Casa pyramid. 🙂

    Videos are a good start (Love the Le Toux cameo!), but we have a long way to go before we’re in side-splittin’ territory like they got in KC.

Leave a Reply to Greg O. Cancel

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

*