Daily news roundups

Reaction to US Gold Cup win, Jack’s an All-Star, OC in PDL national finals, Lehigh Valley national U-19 champs, more

US

While Jurgen Klinsmann looked on from the stands, the USMNT defeated Panama 1-0 to claim the Gold Cup for the first time since 2007.

Klinsmann said of the victory, “It’s always nice winning a trophy. You just want to win it in a way that you also have the feeling that you deserve it. And this group really deserves this trophy. There is absolutely no doubt that this was the best team of the Gold Cup. That’s what we already said this morning when we had our team talk. With how the team played in this tournament, they wanted to send out a signal that they’re No. 1 in CONCACAF at the moment. They reached it—as of today. Tomorrow, we’ll see.”

And how was watching the game from the stands? “From the box, watching it was horrible,” Klinsmann said. “I think I hit a TV at one point or something like that. I tried to keep myself together.”

Match reports and recaps from PSP, US Soccer, CONCACAF, MLSsoccer.com, LA Times, New York Times, ASN, Soccer America, SBI, ProSoccerTalk, Goal.com, Stars and Stripes FC, Brotherly Game, Reuters, and The AP. Postgame quote sheet here.

Player ratings from Soccer America, MLSsoccer.com, ESPN, New York Times, SBI, and Goal.com.

Landon Donovan was awarded the Golden Ball as the player of the tournament. With five goals, he shared the Golden Boot with Chris Wondolowski and Panama’s Gabriel Torres (who Colorado is looking to sign sometime this week).

All of which means he’s a shoe-in to be with the US when World Cup qualifying begins again in September, right? Klinsmann said, “It’s absolutely normal that there’s a high probability that he joins us for the September games. It’s absolutely a non-discussion. But he also knows that it’s always the present. It’s always about today and tomorrow. He took that very well. He accepted that role. He swallowed a couple pills, which is normal.”

Donovan said, “The reality is—and it’s shown this tournament—that [Jurgen] makes decisions based on how you’re doing at the time…This is not the end. It’s the end of the tournament, but hopefully it’s just the beginning for a lot of us. We want to be a part of the bigger picture.”

At Goal.com, ALex Labidou writes that as many as six US players made a case for themselves to be included in the US World Cup squad.

Klinsmann said of Stuart Holden’s knee injury, “We are very concerned about his situation. It looks like a very serious knee injury…We’ll wait until hopefully tomorrow, they’ll look at it, we’ll get an MRI, we’ll get all the tests done, but he is a player that when something happens, he knows. And something happened. Hopefully it’s not as bad.”

At the Daily News, John Smallwood writes that the Gold Cup victory is thanks to Jurgen Klinsmann. “USA soccer needed a shake-up in culture. It had become complacent and stale. It seemed resigned to go along with the belief that it didn’t have the talent to play an aggressive style. It took a German coach with the patience of a rattlesnake to remind us that as Americans we’ve never done that well with being passively aggressive.”

At SI, Brian Straus has three thoughts about the US win. Joe Prince-Wright has five over at ProSoccerTalk.

Also at SI, Grant Wahl says pay attention when Klinsmann uses the word “benchmark.”

CBSsports.com says the success of the US is all about depth.

Despite all the recent rumblings about the 2014 and 2022 World Cups, Sunil Gulati wants everyone to know that the US had not been contacted as a replacement host.

Philadelphia Union

The goal took an eternity after the Union went up a man less than ten minutes after the start of the game, but in the end they handed Vancouver their first loss at home of the season of of a goal from Antoine Hoppenot.

John Hackworth said after the game, “I think that shows we don’t go on the road and play for a draw. We made three attacking changes in the second half, we were going for it, we changed our formation trying to get the three points…It wasn’t perfect, but we tried to kill off that game with possession. We rolled the ball around a lot, and we didn’t really put ourselves in difficult spots. Earlier in the year, that wouldn’t have been the case…We talked a couple weeks ago about having lost some points along the way in this last month, [and] we really felt like we had to get those points back. This is an example of that.”

Hackworth continued, “It was a really big win for us. We had some games earlier this month where we probable lost some points, let some goals in late. We knew we had to come in a place like Vancouver, and try to steal a couple points and that’s what we did today.”

Second half subs Aaron Wheeler and Antoine Hoppenot combined on the game-winning goal. Hackworth said, “Good players make coaches look good sometimes, and [Hoppenot] certainly did that. I thought Aaron Wheeler came on and did a great job. I thought Fabinho came in and did a good job. We’re a team that way. Every time we bring a guy off the bench, they’ve contributed this year. Once again, that was the case today.”

Hoppenot said of the goal, “It’s awesome. It’s why coach puts me in the game. He wants me to score goals. I’m happy to be able to do it.”

Match reports and recaps from PSP, here. Prost Amerika has a photo gallery of the game.

So, that red card that saw the Union go a man up for more than 80 minutes. That Keon Daniel was fortunate not to also be ejected is a given—goodness knows there are plenty of refs in the league who would feel justified to send him off for kicking Jun Marques Davidson.

Hackworth said, “Well, I think it’s unfortunate for Vancouver, but at the same time you can’t head butt. My opinion would be that the referee didn’t have an option to do anything other than that…I personally thought the play should have been called before because I thought it was a dangerous play.”

Davidson said of being sent off, “It’s just what happened. I reacted wrong. For all of it, I just want to apologize to all the players. It’s very tough to play nearly the entire 90 minutes with 10 men. I just want to apologize to all the fans and supporters that came to watch the game. It’s very disappointing and what I did was wrong.”

Keon Daniel said, “It was just me playing football, doing what I got to do, working hard and that’s about it.”

Vancouver news outlet The Province writes, “Daniel was booed every time he touched the ball, until he subbed off in the 65th minute. But it was Davidson’s rush of blood to the head that will linger as a talking point.”

Daniel said of being booed, “For me I love that; I think that only gets me stronger, I think that only makes me better. I’m one of the guys that when they’re against me I’m going to stand strong.”

Jonathan Tannenwald notes that Davidson’s ejection marked the tenth time this season the Union have seen an opposition player dismissed, Hackworth said, “[P]eople are going to say we’re getting lucky…I just think it’s going to be one of those weird stats. We haven’t had a penalty kick all year either.”

After the announcement that Landon Donovan was a late addition to the MLS All-Star roster, when he selected McInerney to replace the injured Tim Cahill for the All-Star team. More on the selection from PhiladelphiaUnion.com, CSN Philly, Delco Times, Union Tally, Brotherly Game, and SBI.

Vote Antoine Hoppenot and Zac MacMath for Top 3 Performer for Week 22.

David Murphy went to the Sons of Ben tailgate before the recent Portland game and found a “a pleasant, well-orchestrated affair…that is, until some of the opposing team’s travel group walks-by. Then, there’s some pretty amusing taunting.”

If you’re down in Tampa on August 8, JP Dellacamera will be hosting the 2013 Rowdies Soccer Summit.

Local

Ocean City Nor’easters claimed the PDL Eastern Conference champions ship on Sunday with a 3-1 win over Ottawa Fury. On Saturday they defeated Carolina 0-0 (5-3 APKs) in the semifinals.

Joining Ocean City in the Championship final weekend hosted by Austin Aztex are Thunder Bay Chill and Victoria Highlanders.

Reading United fell 3-2 to Ottawa Fury in Saturday’s semifinal. More from Ottawa Citizen.

Steve Neumann, the Reading captain who had recently left the team to take summer classes at Georgetown, returned for the semifinal game.

Lehigh Valley United, the Philadelphia Union youth development partner, won the 78th annual McGuire Cup on Saturday in Overland Park, Kan., defeating Chicago Fire Academy 1-0 off of a goal from Shane Campbell. More on the win from LehighValley Live.com, KansasCity.com, and US Youth Soccer.

The team joins a long list of local winners of national U-19 championship, originally known as the National Junior Challenge Cup. These include Lighthouse Boys Club (1938, 1948, 1949, 1957, 1967), Mercerville SC (1941), and FC Delco (2001, 2003).

MLS

In Saturday’s Eastern Conference games, Third place Montreal (35 points) defeated first place Kansas City (36 points) 1-0 with a stoppage time goal. Second place New York (35 points) came from behind to equalize in the 89th minute and then scored in the 94th minute to emerge 4-3 winners over Real Salt Lake. The Union (34 points) remain in fourth place with their 1-0 win over Vancouver. New England (30 points) moves into fifth place with a 2-1 road win over last place DC (10 points). Houston (30 points) drops to sixth place after a 1-1 home draw against seventh place Chicago (25 points). Ninth place Toronto (17  points) came from behind with goals in the  87th and 94th minute to hand eighth place Columbus (23 points) a  2-1 defeat.

Executive vice president of MLS Dan Courtemanche says of Kansas City hosting Wednesday’s All-Star Game, “This is going to set an international spotlight on the region and really show people around the world what a great soccer, and ultimately sports, market that Kansas City is.” Did he say that when the Union hosted last year? I can’t remember.

Speaking of Kansas City, the original Supporters Shield, which will be retired this year, was designed by a couple of college students at the University of Kansas.

Apparently the stadium plan in Detroit is part of a $1 billion development project. Good luck with that.

NWSL

Three games took place over the weekend in the NWSL. On Saturday, fifth place Boston (23 points) thumped last place Washington (7 points), 5-2. On Sunday, third place Portland (31 points) squandered the lead at home and drew 3-3 with sixth place Chicago (23 points). Kansas City (35 points) solidified its first place position with a 1-0 win over second place Sky Blue (31 points)

Elsewhere

After 125 ears, the scorer of the first league goal has been identified: James Kenyon “Kenny” Davenport of Bolton Wanderers. Reuters reports, “The world’s first league fixtures took place on Sept.8, 1888 when the English League began with five matches including Bolton Wanderers’ home game against Derby County.”

What the what now? Footgolf? Hmm…

7 Comments

  1. Andy Muenz says:

    It was frustrating Saturday night after the Union game when I checked MLS.com after the Union game. Mtl was still scoreless in stoppage time and NYPC were losing late. The U were set to move up to 2nd. Then, 5 minutes later, they were back in 4th 🙁

  2. Just think of we didn’t give up them two goals in extra time? Surprisingly, we’re still in position for the Supporter’ s Shield. Seems this team is starting to get a little depth, I guess Hack knows what he’s doing.

    • If we didn’t give up those two goals in extra time, we’d be *leading* the Supporter’s Shield race. That’s … wow.

  3. Anyone else wonder when the red-card ratio is going to be a topic at a PRO meeting, and what could happen to the Union’s style of play as a result of the refs being ‘on to it’?

    • Andy Muenz says:

      The refs are definitely at least somewhat aware of it. Before the Chivas game, I remember hearing Gonzalez talking to a fan in my section and promising only yellow cards today. Then again, I don’t think he was expecting to get bumped by a player who already had a card. (Of course, he also probably wasn’t planning on calling a backpass to the keeper.) Let’s face it, at least the last four reds (head butt, bumping ref, studs up tackle on Farfan that caused him to miss the following game, and Greg Louganis in the box when you have a card already) were all basically stupidity on the opponents rather than anything they Union did.

      • Good point. It hasnt been the Union doing anything wrong. The backpass was a bad call and warranted argument, but you can’t bump the ref. The headbutt was just stupid, but you could argue Keon could have been sent off, and if it was later in the game he likely would have. They don’t seem afraid of anyone.

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