Daily news roundups / Featured

2013 schedule to drop on Weds, Soccer Night in Newtown, Ballon d’Or, more

Photo: Courtesy of MLS

Philadelphia Union

The league announced on Monday that the complete 2013 schedule will be released at noon on Wednesday.

Twitter continues to keep the Carlos Valdes rumors flowing, this time with a report from La Oral Deportivo (crappy Google translation here) and another from golgolgol.com with the headline, “Carlos Valdés very close to signing for Nacional” (crappy translation here).

In this video previewing the SuperDraft, Matt Doyle expects the Union will be on the lookout to find a defensive midfielder and a left back (start at 1:14 for the Union bit):

The Examiner has a Q&A with Raymon Gaddis. Asked what he thinks the team will accomplish in 2013, Gaddis says, “I think the sky is the limit for our team. I will just say that, but the plan is to always win the ultimate prize and that’s MLS Cup.”

Soccer Long Island Magazine has an interview with the producer of the Sons of Ben documentary, Jeff Bell, who is hopeful for a July release of the film.

The club has extended an invitation for a drum line tryout on Jan. 22 “to showcase what your group brings to the table at an upcoming Union match.”  Drum line?

MLS

Some 1,500 residents attended Monday’s “Soccer Night in Newtown” event. Houston Dynamo president Chris Canetti, a native of Connecticut, promise that Monday’s event is but the first of several for the children of Newtown.

USA Today reports from Newtown.

Raymon Gaddis tweeted from the event, “A amazing event I was blessed to be apart of #SoccerNightInNewtown http://instagr.am/p/UNeK3bMD38/

MLS announced on Monday that five college seniors have been signed to league contracts ahead of next Thursday’s SuperDraft and Reading United alumni Ryan Finley is among them.

At ESPN, Jason Davis has some thoughts on this year’s draft class.

Soon after Toronto FC announced that technical manager Bob de Klerk would not return to the team for the 2013 season, SBI reported that former DC United defender Ryan Nelsen will soon be announced as the team’s new head coach. An announcement is expected today.

DC United’s Andy Najar will spend January on loan to Anderlecht. Najar was with the Belgian champion for a training stint in December.

US

The USWNT swept the women’s categories at the Ballon d’Or ceremony on Monday, with Abby Wambach being named Women’s Player of the Year and former USWNT coach Pia Sundhage named Women’s Coach of the Year. Both emphasized that their award was the culmination of the hard work of the players, coaches, and staff around them. Here’s a quote sheet for more.

At SI, Alecko Eskadarian says the January USMNT team camp, featuring so many players who have yet to establish themselves on the roster, is reminiscent of the 2006 camp that saw the emergence of Clint Dempsey as a national team fixture. The thought that this camp could be a tremendous opportunity for a number of players is shared by Grant Wahl.

This post popped up on my Twitter feed on Monday—though it first was published by soccersubjectively.com back in May—and features links to scores of video highlights (and recaps when available) of  USMNT matches in a variety of competitions going back as far as the 1950 World Cup. A great resource.

Elsewhere

In case you live under a rock, Lionel Messi was awarded FIFA Men’s Player of the Year award for an unprecedented fourth time at Monday’s Ballon d’Or ceremony, an event that was marked by the much anticipated, though entirely expected, appearance of Ronaldo Face.

With the exception of the Goal of the Year (a glorious long range volley from Fenerbahce’s Miroslav Stoch—I voted for it in the fan vote), the winners were another indication of the dominance of Spanish soccer, whether in national team or league play. In addition to Barcelona’s Messi winning the Men’s award, the FIFA Best XI was made up entirely of La Liga players (Or Barcelona/Real Madrid plus Atletico’s Falcao) and Spanish national team coach Vicente del Bosque was named Coach of the Year. Of course, Franz Beckenbauer won the the FIFA Presidential Award and Uzbekistan won the Fair Play Award but who pays attention to that crap?

Part of the fun after the awards are announced is looking at who voted for who, which you can do with this downloadable spreadsheet.

The ceremony itself was as interminable as it was bizarre, but it did provide Sepp Blatter the opportunity to back away from his earlier statements question the decision of Kevin-Prince Boateng to walk off the field after being subjected to racist abuse during a recently friendly in Italy. At the ceremony, Blatter called Boateng’s actions “strong and courageous.” Pillock.

 

3 Comments

  1. Kudos to Ray, Chris and Michael Lahoud for taking part in Soccer Night in Newtown! Well done gentlemen!!!

  2. I could not believe FSC did not have tranlators on standby during Monday’s Ballon d’Or Ceremony… I thought the only thing worthwhile were the clips of the previous winners, the clips of the contenders for the ‘goal of the year’, and the stories of the parents and coaches of Messi, Iniesta and Ronaldo.

  3. Its like you read my thoughts! You appear to grasp a lot about this, such as you wrote the book in it or something.

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