Daily news roundups

Nogueira, MacMath, and Edu on TOW lists, Pfeffer scores for US U-20s, more

Photo: Earl Gardner

Philadelphia Union

Vincent Nogueira has been named to MLSsoccer.com’s Team of the Week. Zac MacMath received an honorable mention.

At SI, both Nogueira and MacMath are named to the Best XI for Week 6.

At Goal.com, Maurice Edu is named to the Team of the Week with Nogueira listed as a sub.

Power rankings! At SI, it’s a one-spot drop to No. 8. At Soccer America, the Union drop one spot to No. 10. At ESPN, it’s a two-spot drop for the Union and “their maddening ways” to No. 12.

Edu said after Saturday’s draw with Real Salt Lake, “I think we’ve shown that we are capable of being a good team in this league. We’ve shown we can play. We can beat the best teams. We’ve also shown that we have to be able to play 90 minutes.”

He continued, “We have so much talent on this club. There’s so much talent at every position. We have a group here with extremely high character and passion for the game. I’m excited to be here and part of this club and to see where we can go. I don’t think anyone is panicking or anything like that. We just have to stay the course, keep training hard and working hard and everything will take care of itself.”

At the Union website, Kevin Kinkead has three observations from Saturday’s draw.

The Union are in the midst of a busy week, with New York away on Wednesday before Houston at home on Saturday. Ray Gaddis tells KYW NewsRadio’s Matt Leon, “We have to take it one day at a time. We got through (Saturday) and now we look towards Red Bull. Our perspective is take it one day at a time and one game at a time. We’ll look back on this game and try and improve and take some things out of it and go towards Red Bull.”

Gaddis is looking forward to playing Red Bulls, “That’s what it’s all about. A chance to play against a rival right up 95 is great. I know they’re going to be up for it and we’re going to be up for the task at well. Should be a tremendous atmosphere with the fans from both sides getting into it as well.”

Local21news.com reports on Andrew Wenger’s appearance on Sunday at the Angelo’s Soccer Corner in Lancaster, the store where he once worked. WGAL-HAR also has a report.

Zach Pfeffer scored a goal and an assist in the US U-20 MNT  3-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Dallas Cup on Monday. A report from ASN’s Josh Deaver says, “The attacking quartet of Real Salt Lake’s Benji Lopez, Philadelphia’s Zach Pfeffer, and the Tijuana duo of Amando Moreno and Paul Arriola—who joined the team Sunday evening—combined splendidly and were a constant threat.”

The Union Academy fell 1-0 to FC Dallas in its opening game at the Generation adidas Cup on Monday. The team next faces Chivas De Guadalajara later today.

Local

Drexel’s women’s team has announced the signings of nine new players ahead of the 2014 season. Those players are Hannah Babjak, Madison Dunn, Heidi Gspurning, Wilhelmina Hauch-Fuasbøll, Kiera Hennessy, Aoife Schanche, Stephanie Soroka (Philadelphia, Pa.), Kylie Strong (Felton, Pa.), and Imani Walker.

The Harrisburg Heat are among the Professional Arena Soccer League teams that have committed to join five teams from the recently folded Major Indoor Soccer League teams to form a new indoor soccer league circuit.

MLS

Following his brace against Dalls, Clint Dempsey has been named MLSsoccer.com’s Player of the Week for the second week in-a-row.

The New York Times reports that, “according to two people familiar with the team’s plans,” NYC FC, which will take the field in 2015, will play its first three seasons at Yankee Stadium. Well, that ought to suck.

Soccer America says the Atlanta expansion, expected to be announced on Wednesday, may be a deal that’s too good to pass up.

Chivas USA have signed defender and 2014 Fourth-Round SuperDraft pick Michael Nwiloh.

The Miami Herald reports, “Royal Caribbean Cruises and its allies have formed an organization to oppose a Major League Soccer stadium at PortMiami, marking the first coordinated resistance to David Beckham’s waterfront dream.”

Business Insider compares how the top ten highest paid MLS players compare to the top ten athletes in MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and the NHL.

ESPN reports, “Major League Soccer teams Toronto and Seattle are among the top three global sports teams with the biggest pay increase year-on-year in percentage terms.”

US

The White House has announced that Joe Biden will be attending the World Cup.

Biden said,

I have to start with an admission: I didn’t play soccer. I played that other football. But my children and my grandchildren have changed all of that. … At Christmas time, I asked them where do you want to go this year? They want to go to the World Cup. … It was an honor to be at the last World Cup, watching Spain win. You have to attend a World Cup, if you ever wonder what it means to people. It’s the most unusual sporting event I’ve ever attended, and I’ve attended thousands. … It’s a feel, and you can feel it even before you get to the stadium, you can feel it even before you land. It’s in the air, it’s a palpable sense of energy that I’ve never quite experienced before. It’s the most consequential sporting event in the world. It’s amazing how deeply, deeply, deeply passionate every country is about the World Cup. We have our Super Bowl, we have our World Series, we have the NBA Finals, we have March Madness, but my Lord, it is nothing quite like the World Cup.

My Lord, indeed!

This is what a poll looks like when the poll is a troll. Shame on you, Reuters.

Megan Rapinoe said of the search for a USWNT coach to replace Tom Sermanni, “For this group, because we have so many big personalities, I think the manager also has to have a big personality but in a way that sort of knows how to deal with everything. Maybe that was an area that U.S. Soccer felt that Tom’s style isn’t so dominant and direct and in-your-face; it’s much more laid back. Maybe we need a mix.”

The USWNT’s game against Canada in Winnipeg on May 8 will be streamed live on ESPN3 and ESPNW.com.

Elsewhere

The Guardian reports, “Twenty-six thousand people are expected to fill three sides of Liverpool football club’s Anfield ground for an emotional service to remember the 96 people who died at Hillsborough on April 15 1989, 25 years ago on Tuesday.”

19 Comments

  1. I feel sad for people that go to Reuters for their US National team news and polls.

    • If 1/3 of the US does pay attention that’s still like 100+ million watching. I think ESPN and US Soccer would take those viewing numbers.

      • The poll is garbage due to demographics and sample size ect ect ect but assuming it was legit the numbers following the world cup would be more or less equal to the people who watch the Super Bowl. Thems good numbers.

  2. Also don’t forget that tonight on ESPN at 8:00pm is the 30 for 30 on the Hillsborough Disaster. It is going to be a good one.

  3. OOOooof…Phillies have three of the top ten highest players in the league…

  4. When he returned from his Hoffenheim loan, I was really looking forward to seeing more opportunities this season for Pfeffer to make the matchday 18. It sounded like he had shown well in preseason and would be a good attacking option off the bench. Maybe the Open Cup will be an opportunity for him? Either way, hopefully something opens up for him this season because he continues to be a bright young talent and his development has seemed to bring him along quite well.

  5. From the Reuters troll… er, poll…
    .
    “The results were taken from an ongoing Reuters/Ipsos online poll and include the responses of 1,416 adult Americans from April 7-11. The credibility interval, a measure of precision, is plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
    .
    It has been a long time since I took statistics. But I’m pretty sure it’s near impossible to have a standard deviation of +/-3% with only 1400 respondents. Anybody remember their stats math?

  6. And…
    .
    “The New York Times reports that, “according to two people familiar with the team’s plans,” NYC FC, which will take the field in 2015, will play its first three seasons at Yankee Stadium. Well, that ought to suck.”
    .
    Yep, it’ll suck for soccer. It’ll suck for baseball, too. They’re going to have to lay grass over the infield for soccer games; there’s going to be soccer lines on the baseball field; the outfield is going to get beat up from overuse. And that doesn’t even take into thought how the hell to squeeze in 17+ soccer games into the middle of baseball season, and the logistical nightmares that’s going to present.
    .
    More generally, I’m really not impressed with this round of expansion. Between NYCFC, Miami, Atlanta, and Orlando, the only one I think is a good decision is Orlando. The other three strike me as disasters waiting to happen, and MLS was lured in by the big payday rather than the longview.

    • Well that is obvious. Remember when Garber said they league would slow down once the teams reached 20? Well that is long gone now we have 3 teams with no real existing fanbases and no stadiums… Completely going against the things that have lead to the leagues current success. this will come back and haunt them.

      • OneManWolfpack says:

        Yeah I agree. It is going to be a real challenge to force these fans to take to a team that doesn’t exist and has no history.
        .
        Look at us. We had amazing attendance numbers the first few years, but now it has take a slight hit. In year 10, I hope we are still drawing 16-17K + a game. I feel like we are in good shape, given our history soccer, etc… but who knows?
        .
        My point is that I agree that putting the money and the market before the “want” and the fan base is a really risky proposition. And given the league and it’s history, we (as a league) don’t really have the ability to fail.

      • I mean NYFC is a virtual slam dunk, In theory at least. A professional soccer club funded by Man City in the middle of New York City should draw 18,000+ a game in a metropolitan area of 19.9 million people. So that is a logical exception to the rule. But Miami and Atlanta are madness. especially when you consider dilution of the product, scheduling the fact that the league already owns Chivas.

      • The Chopper says:

        Orlando has don everything right and has an excellent chance to succeed.

        NYFC is a victim on New York politics. Several good stadium options that received several layers of pre approval were shot down by various local interests. They will eventually find their spot and make it work.

        Miami is far from a done deal. Beckham’s and company may not be able to get a stadium done. Without that and without an operation like Man City to fund it, the team has not shot without their own park.

        Atlanta is a very fickle sports market. They lost the NHL twice. Not holding out hope thiat MLS will thrive there.

      • Various local interests aren’t always a bad thing. Those various levels of preapproval were pretty much rubber stamps before the communities could have their say. NY will get their stadium but hopefully Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan will have to open his own checkbook.

  7. Biden better not delay people getting into the stadium the way he did at the Linc for the Union’s first game. I know people who missed a good part of the first half due to the security and they are still pissed.

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