Photo: Paul Rudderow
UPDATE: The league’s disciplinary committee announced on Friday morning after the post below went live,
Following an appeal through the MLS Players Union, the Disciplinary Committee’s decision was reduced from an additional two-game suspension to an additional one-game suspension, two games total including the red card suspension, and an undisclosed fine.
Maidana will serve his two-game suspension, which includes the automatic one-game suspension for the red card and the supplementary one-game suspension levied by the Disciplinary Committee, during the next two Philadelphia Union league matches.
This means Maidana will miss Saturday’s game in San Jose, and next Saturday’s home game against Columbus.
Philadelphia Union
As of this writing, there has still been no official word from the league disciplinary committee on how many additional games Cristian Maidana will be suspended after he was shown a red card for last weekend’s gum spitting incident. One thing is certain, he won’t be available for Saturday’s road game against San Jose (10:30 pm: TCN, MLS Live, MLS Direct Kick).
So, the big question is how the Union will adjust without him. If Tranquillo Barnetta moves into a central role, as Jim Curtin suggested in his weekly press conference, who will take his place on the wing? Could we see a 4-4-2, as Curtin also acknowledged is a possibility? How might the absences on San Jose’s lineup due to international call ups and injury affect Curtin’s own lineup calls? We shall see.
Oh, and by the way, Vincent Nogueira, Sebastien Le Toux, and Warren Creavalle are all one game away from a one-game suspension due to yellow card accumulation.
Previews of Saturday’s game at PSP, Philadelphia Union (print, video), Inquirer, Metro, and Brotherly Game.
In an article at the Delco Times, John McCarthy says he isn’t looking at starting Saturday’s game as an opportunity to solidify getting the start in the US Open Cup final. ““I’m not even looking at it like that. It’s just another game. The Open Cup is a full month away, and we have three or four games before that. So this is another game, and when the Open Cup comes around, then my mind will be on the Open Cup.”
Andre Blake is with Jamaica over the international break. Jamaica plays Nicaragua in a two-game World Cup qualification series, as host tonight (9 pm, beIN Sports, beIN Sports Connect), and then on the road on Tuesday (9:30pm, no US broadcaster). By the way, Antigua and Barbuda, now coached by Peter Nowak, face Guatemala tonight at 8 pm (beIN Sports Connect).
Sporting Kansas City’s series of articles in the leadup to the US Open Cup final continues with a roundup of comments from local reporters and Jim Curtin that underscore how much the Union’s season depends on winning the final.
In an interview at Inverse.com, Keri Rackikas, owner of Philly’s Halcyon Floats, the flotation tank spa, says, “We have athletes who come in. For example, the Philadelphia Union, they’re our professional soccer team. They float once a week. Not the whole team, but the starters do. They do it for recovery, concentration, just overall relaxation. They absolutely love it.”
Local
Harrisburg City Islanders host Saint Louis FC on Sunday as they look to keep their playoff chances alive (6:30 pm, YouTube).
The Penn Men’s team opens its 2015 season at home tonight at 7 pm against No. 7 ranked Washington. The team is on the road to face American University on Sunday.
The Temple men’s team hosts No. 25 ranked Penn State today at 4:30 pm in their home opener.
The Penn women’s team hosts Temple today at 5 pm before hosting Mount St. Mary’s on Sunday at 1 pm.
At Philly.com, Kate Harman has 10 Southeastern PA boy’s high school players to keep an eye on.
MLS
The Guardian on the need for MLS to observe international breaks.
Finance & Commerce reports, “St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman confirmed Thursday that talks to bring a pro soccer stadium to his city are ongoing, and he expects a final decision on the proposal soon.” Nevertheless, supporters of the stadium being built in MInneapolis aren’t giving up. Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson said, “Until the shovel’s in the ground, I’m hopeful.”
USL expansion side FC Cincinnati president Jeff Berding says the team’s goal is to join MLS: “We want to be in the MLS in the short term. I didn’t leave the Bengals (where he was director of sales and public relations) because I wanted to run a USL team for the next 10 years. I want to run an MLS team. Carl Lindner wants to own an MLS team. If we can build a successful franchise here, we’ll have every opportunity to get in.” The team has taken around 500 deposits, the equivalent of 1,500 to 1,600 season tickets out of a target figure of 10,000, since the team was announced on Aug. 12.
US
Jurgen Klinsmann makes clear that, after his team’s woeful showing at the Gold Cup, he is not viewing the games against Peru tonight (7:30pm: Fox Sports 1, UniMás, Univision Deportes, Fox Soccer 2Go) and Brazil (Tuesday, Sept. 8: ESPN2, UniMás, Univision Deportes, SiriusXM FC) as friendlies: “We’re not looking at it as two friendlies on the way to whatever. It became a different dynamic after what happened in the Gold Cup. We can’t fix it afterwards; we have to win” against Mexico. The Klinsmann quotes come from a Steven Goff article at Washington Post, which Goff follows up with another post containing more extensive quotes from Klinsmann. It’s fascinating reading. However, Soccer America, Yahoo Sports, and ProSoccerTalk pick up on Klinsmann’s continuing penchant for deflecting criticism or blame.
More on what’s at stake from John Smallwood at PSP, US Soccer, MLSsoccer.com, SI, Fox Sports, Soccer America, ASN, Stars and Stripes FC, ProSoccerTalk,
The US U-23s lost 1-0 to England U-21s on Thursday in a pre-Olympic qualification tournament warm up game. ASN describes the match as lethargic and lackluster. The US concludes its camp in England on Tuesday with a game against Qatar.
In a ‘three things learned” post at ProSoccerTalk, Joe Prince-Wright says of Zack Steffen’s performance in the U-23 loss, “[H]is impressive form at the U-20 World Cup saw the Freiburg youngster elevated to the U-23 side and although he conceded a goal in the second half he didn’t put a foot wrong during his 45 minutes on the pitch with solid distribution and made three decent stops. In the years to come it will be one heck of a battle between Cropper, Steffen and William Yarbrough for the starting spot for the full national team.”
The US U-20s lost 3-1 to host country Serbia in their opening game at the Stevan Vilotic Tournament on Thursday.
At SI, Liviu Bird reports,
Multiple American youth soccer clubs filed official complaints with the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber this week, seeking unpaid training compensation and solidarity, according to documents obtained by SI.com. Crossfire Premier, Dallas Texans SC and Sockers FC Chicago are opening proceedings to claim a combined $480,500, emanating from transfers involving U.S. men’s national team regulars DeAndre Yedlin, Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley.
You will recall the Washington Post report that Frisco is the leading contender for a new National Soccer Hall of Fame, one that would be paid for by the local government and Hunt Sports Group, owners of FC Dallas. Noting the report said the proposed hall would only be open for special events, a post on the Dallas Morning News soccer blog says, “I’m not sure I trust HSG to do the Hall justice.”
At SI, Grant Wahl has an entertaining read on Charlie Stillitano, “the best-connected American in European soccer.”
Elsewhere
Reuters reports, “FIFA’s latest reform committee produced plenty of platitudes and precious little concrete detail after completing its first meeting in the Swiss capital on Thursday…The meeting added to the sense that the whole process to clean up soccer’s governing body has become bogged down in a plethora of committees and task forces and that reform fatigue is starting to creep in.” Reform committee chairman Francois Carrard said, “The specific proposals will be on the table at the next meeting which will be in October.”
The AP put it this way: “A FIFA-appointed panel driving reforms of the crisis-hit governing body appeared to stall Thursday after its first outing.”
Carrard also tried to clarify his recent remarks to a Swiss newspaper, when he questioned why the US was investigating FIFA corruption because “football, soccer, does not have the same weight as baseball, basketball and American football. There, it’s just an ethnic sport for girls in schools”:
When you give a long interview, what you talk about is squeezed for printing…I expressed surprise at the harshness of the action taken in Zurich, it was a surprise blitz so to speak. I have the greatest respect for the American justice and I have no frustration at all with them…This was a long conversation…..I meant that originally, soccer in the States, 50 or 60 years ago, was practiced more by ethnic groups…And then, what I was trying to point out was the development of sports went through a major development in high schools, in particular with practices by the girls…We see now how important soccer is in the States. I should speak less.
More from Carrard here.
Supporters groups in England are joining their European counterparts in making public displays of support for refugees. Reuters reports, “Bayern Munich will donate €1m to help refugees and will set up a training camp for those arriving in Munich, as the numbers of people coming to the city rises.”
Check out the latest Footy on the Telly for listings of live soccer on TV, online, and on satellite radio for the upcoming week.
Halcyon Floats would be a good name for the new USL team, no? “NINETY MINUTES IN THE TANK!”
Like the movie Altered States.
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Turn out the lights, drop a tab of lysergic acid and awaaaaayyyy wee goooo : Visualizing positive outcomes, bending balls into the upper 90 and winged feet.
I smoked weed and watched that movie in college once and my mind proceeded to collapse in on itself. I’m OK now, though.
“I should speak less.”
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Yes, that would be a very good plan, Mr. Carrard.
HA! Yeah that quote was great. That could really work for A LOT of folks…
Yep. But especially in this instance. The more Mr. Carrard talks, the more likely he is to reveal potential biases and such. Even if those biases are the result of a writer taking something out of context – as he claims here – it really doesn’t do him any good.
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Schedule regular press conferences. In that way, whatever you say is being recorded and reported by a large number of media outlets and bias by a specific journalistic outlet is easily seen by comparing how the story is spun at different places. That’s the benefit of a press conference, and that’s the downfall to running your mouth in a one-on-one interview.
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He could even go as far as having a journalistic observer at the proceedings. Much like referees and umpires will often grant interviews to a “pool” reporter after a controversial decision, the committee could push a message of openness and transparency by allowing (top of my head) 3 reporters from various news agencies (AP, etc) to observe and report on the actual committee hearings. After the meeting, hold a press conference with the wider media. Record the entire press conference and make it available, so there’s no question about context or misquotes or whatever.
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I mean, really FIFA. This shit ain’t hard.
Someone should tell Carrard about former U.S. president Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge. Don’t know if it’s true, but heard a story about him at a dinner party where the lady sitting next to him told him she made a bet that she could get 3 words out of Cal. He allegedly replied, “You lose.” He was trolling people before it was “in”.
i am so sick of klinsmann, dude needs to be gone. he is so arrogant and never takes any blame for the national team’s recent failures
Pretty crazy LeToux is on the verge of yellow card suspension. Think I remember just last year a few stories on him picking up his first MLS yellow card in his career.
And that’s why the shirt removal – and the card that automatically goes with it – was so dumb on his part.
And that goal didn’t even stand up as the game-winner, so it was doubly pointless.
Didn’t he get a Fair Play award or two in his first go-round with the Union. I think he’s getting cranky in his old age.
Yep.
“Crossfire Premier, Dallas Texans SC, and Sockers FC are opening proceedings to claim a combined $480,500, emanating from transfers of US National Team regulars DeAndre Yedlin, Clint Dempsey, and Michael Bradley”…….BAM, and it begins! Brave new world we are entering into! Club coaches won’t be able to be parents anymore, unless they have pedigree, badges, and a soccer IQ. Too much money on the table……….from the littlest club to the academies! If they win the suit…..it should change the landscape further.
Absolutely. I’m glad my kids aged out of youth soccer a while ago, and I haven’t had a part of coaching for years. I can see it now — coaches and clubs held liable if little Johnny doesn’t get enough playing time in U9 Elite to earn that transfer to Arsenal.
Per MLS – Maidana suspended one additional game after the players union appealed. So he gets two games total. I’ll take that!