Photo: David Silverman, Courtesy of New England Revolution

Philadelphia Union

Another Sebastien Le Toux brace, a Danny Cruz missile (yes, I know) — that was a very satisfying Union win over New England on Saturday.

How satisfying was the win? Well, a post on Reddit noted that René Meulensteen was in a suite at the game along with someone who was later group sourced as Nick Sakiewicz. Meulensteen reportedly “was openly supporting the Philadelphia Union, emphatically celebrating when they scored.” The post notes, “His suite jumped in celebration for every goal they scored, and when the final whistle sounded, all four men exchanged high fives.” Could the managerial hunt be getting close to a conclusion?

Jim Curtin, who is now 3-0-0 as interim head coach, said of the win, ” It has zero to do with the coach. It has nothing to do with the coach; it has to do with players. I have good players. I would say that the first half of the year, we had a lot of very good players that had a poor first half of the season. This is the second half of the season; it’s a new start for them. And, again, like I said, it has nothing to with me, it has everything to do with our players.”

Long may it last.

Le Toux is happy to be healthy and playing again more as a forward.

Recaps from PSP, Philadelphia Union, Philadelphia Daily News, Philly Soccer News, The 700 Level, Brotherly Game, Montgomeryville-Lansdale Patch, New England Revolution, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New England Soccer Today, New England Soccer News, Bent Musket, MLSsoccer.com, Soccerly, SBI, Goal.com, The Sports Network, and the AP.

Postgame quote sheet here at PSP.

USA Today hand New England Revolution have photo galleries from the game.

Brotherly Game on Saturday’s game-changing moments.

Philly.com has a brief Q&A with Conor Casey.

The Inquirer notes, “$4 million remains from the $10 million the DRPA — at the behest of Gov. Ed Rendell — provided for infrastructure improvements to support the construction of a major league soccer stadium in Chester.”

Local

Mark Geiger will become the first American ever to referee a World Cup knockout round match when he carries the whistle during today’s France-Nigeria game.

Harrisburg City Islanders came from behind to draw 1-1 with the visiting Charlotte Eagles on Friday. Match recaps from Penn Live and Charlotte Eagles.

Penn Live talks to Coady Andrews, who scored the equalizer for Harrisburg in second half stoppage time, about his return to the starting lineup after an ankle injury suffered playing indoor soccer before the start of the USL PRO season.

Ocean City Nor’easters fell 4-1 to Jersey Express on Saturday, but bounced back with a 3-1 win over FA Euro on Sunday. Also on Sunday, Reading defeated Jersey Express, 2-1. The weekend’s results see Reading in third place, and Ocean City in fourth place, in the Mid Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference

The Inquirer’s Frank Fitzpatrick has a interesting read on the threat soccer’s rise poses to baseball.

At CBS Philly, the top seven greatest things about playing youth soccer.

MLS

In the Eastern Conference, first place Kansas City (25 points) defeated Portland 1-0 on the road, three days after they lost 3-1 to Portland at home in US Open Cup play. Second place DC (25 points) lost 1-0 at home to Seattle. Third place New England (23 points) lost 3-1 to seventh place Philadelphia (18 points). Fifth place New York (19 points) drew 2-2 on the road with fourth place Toronto (20 points) with a 93rd minute equalizer. Sixth place Columbus (19 points) drew 0-0 with Dallas in a game that was postponed for one day after a fan was struck by lightning outside of Crew Stadium. Ninth place Montreal (14 points) defeated eighth place Houston (17 points), 3-0. Jack McInerney scored a brace in the win, including an utterly ridiculous back-to-goal volley. Last place Chicago had the weekend off.

In the Western Conference, first place Seattle (35 points) defeated DC, 1-0. Second place Colorado (25 points) defeated fifth place place Vancouver (22 points), 2-0. Third place Salt Lake (25 points) lost 1-0 on the road to last place Chivas USA (14 points) after going down to ten men in the ninth minute. Fourth place Dallas (23 points) drew 0-0 with Columbus. Sixth place LA (20 points) defeated eighth place San Jose (16 points) 1-0 on the road in a game attended by 50,006 spectators at Stanford Stadium. Seventh place Portland (20 points) lost 1-0 to Kansas City.

Marco Di Vaio said of McInerney, “[McInerney] is hot right now, everything he touches goes in. I’m happy for him, because he’s a good guy who worked well. We need a striker like him, who scored good goals and helped the team.”

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Kaka has officially signed with Orlando City as the team’s first designated player and will arrive in Orlando today. The report says, “The Brazilian star finalized the contract in the last few days, opting out of his deal with AC Milan and agreeing to a six-month loan with his home club, São Paulo. He will join Orlando City for preseason training in January.”

On Friday, Kaka was quoted as saying, “Every year, at this time, there is great speculation about my future. The only thing that is certain and official is that on July 9, I have to present myself at Milan.” On Monday morning, AC Milan confirmed that Kaka was leaving the club.

Two groups looking to bring an MLS franchise to Minneapolis are looking at  Sporting Kansas City as their model.

Speaking of Kansas City, the team is adding six fields to its training facility, which opened in 2007, as part of a $13.44 million expansion project. Remember when the Union were going to break ground on their training facility by May?

The Street on five MLS teams that are outdrawing Major League Baseball teams in 2014.

NWSL

First place Seattle (36 points) remain undefeated after drawing 0-0 with seventh place Sky Blue (16 points). Second place Kansas City (30 points) defeated sixth place Portland (20 points), 1-0. Third place Washington (22 points) defeated eighth place Houston (13 points), 1-0. Fourth place Western New York (20 points) topped last place Boston (10 points), 2-1.

The Kansas City Star has a profile on Amy Rodriguez, the former Philadelphia Independence forward who is now with FC Kansas City after giving birth to her first child.

US

Jurgen Klinsmann said of Tuesday’s game against Belgium, “We have absolutely no fear at all. We feel like we are in a position now to challenge [them]. We believe we have built a foundation in our team that we are able to beat them.”

Will Jozy Altidore be available for Tuesday’s game against Belgium?

There are plenty of injury concerns on Belgium’s side, with Vincent Kompany, Thomas Vermaelen, and Laurent Ciman all doubtful. Anthony Vanden Borre is out with a broken fibula, and Steven Defour is suspended after receiving a red card in the 1-0 win over South Korea. Marouane Fellaini left training early on Sunday, but Belgium head coach Marc Wilmots didn’t seem to think the issue was serious, saying he suffered a knock to the calf, a similar to what Moussa Dembele is also dealing with.

Dries Mertens said, “‘I think they (USA) did really well. I was a little bit surprised but I watched the games and I think they are a really good team. They have a good striker in front and the team behind is like a team. They are really good together so for us it’s going to be difficult to score a goal but we are confident so we want to win this game.”

At the New York Daily News, Filip Bondy writes, “Belgium is not Portugal — an overrated, aging team of overpaid, marquee names. The Red Devils are hungry, cocky and on the sort of streak that should scare a lot of people.”

At SI, Brian Straus has more on the mindset of the US team ahead of Tuesday’s game. Klinsmann says in the article,

Now going into knockout games, everyone has to call up his 100 percent for the team, and I believe that in our team so far, nobody can claim that he reached his 100 percent yet. So this is a very important message to the players, is that now prove it. This is what you worked for so long and so hard for it, and now take it one game at a time with total focus just to this one game. And after that game is done, to the next game and make it happen. Is it doable? Absolutely. You got out of this group. Now anything is doable. But you need now to understand that you have to raise the bar — personal and as a whole team – in order to make things happen. This is what we want to achieve.

Klinsmann said of Michael Bradley,

I know that he has another gear in him. We came through this group because of his influence on the field. Then, if he steps it up another notch, with other players as well, this gives us a big hope now getting ready for the knockout stage, because we know that players have not reached their highest spot yet. He is one of them, but overall I am very, very happy with him.

He has covered so much ground, he is all over the place. The defensive work that Michael puts in is absolutely outstanding. It is one of the reasons why we barely gave away any chances for Germany in that game, Portugal the same way.

We know that he can add something extra to it going forward. He also needs to help with the team by shifting higher up. If we can get Michael more into that role behind Clint [Dempsey], I think we are even more dangerous then. So there is more to come, but so far I am very happy with his performance.

The Guardian on how Bradley, Jermaine Jones, and Kyle Beckerman will be key to US success against Belgium.

Algerian referee Djamel Haimoudi will be in charge of Tuesday’s game.

At USA Today, “How Jurgen Klinsmann built the greatest team in US soccer history.”

Landon Donovan tells the LA Times,

I’ll be completely honest, watching them play Azerbaijan, inside, part of me was thinking, I hope the game doesn’t go very well today,” Donovan said Friday in a phone interview. “In my heart of hearts, I thought, if we get a 1-0 win and the team doesn’t perform well, that would feel good.

Then the next day I woke up and said to myself, that’s a really crappy way to feel,” Donovan said. “That’s a bad way to live your life, it doesn’t help me, it doesn’t help the team, it doesn’t help the energy that the team needs.

I love playing for that team, I love playing for this country, I’m not going to turn my back on them all of a sudden

I feel like I owe it to the sport to keep growing it. I can’t let what happened to me ruin three or four weeks of what could be an incredible experience for everyone.

ESPN on DaMarcus Beasley’s resurrection under Klinsmann.

FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said on Friday, “TV ratings in different countries are far higher than in 2010, not just in the normal football countries but also the USA where we reached a level which is just unique. The fever of the World Cup in the U.S. is just amazing.”

USA Today traces soccer’s growing success in the US to the 1994 World Cup.

iSports Times on Bart McGhee, the Scottish immigrant who settled in Philadelphia and scored the first ever US goal at the World Cup in the 3-0 win over Belgium in the team’s opening game in the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay in 1930. More on the 1930 game at New York Daily News.

Elsewhere

Another fine weekend of World Cup games. On Saturday, Brazil knocked out Chile on penalty kicks, while Colombia eliminated Uruguay. On Sunday, Netherlands squeaked by Mexico, and Costa Rica outlasted Greece to win on penalty kicks.

Today’s games:

12:00pm – France vs Nigeria – ESPN, Univision, Univision Deportes, ESPN3, Watch ESPN, Univision Deportes En Vivo, ESPN Radio, Sirius XM FC
4:00pm – Germany vs Algeria – ESPN, Univision, ESPN Deportes, Univision Deportes, ESPN3, Watch ESPN, Univision Deportes En Vivo, ESPN Radio, Sirius XM FC

With hotel prices through the rook, many World Cup visitors are choosing to stay in favelas.

How will the World Cup stadiums benefit Brazil after the World Cup?