Daily news roundups

Newsy news bits before the new year

Photo: Paul Rudderow

All of us at PSP wish you and yours a happy and safe New Year. If we miss each other on Broad Street during the parade, we can catch up later on Two Street.

Philadelphia Union

This:

Looks like possible Union target Jeff Larentowicz will end up with LA Galaxy.

An article at the New York Times on the sorry state of the Philadelphia pro sports scene notes, “The Union of Major League Soccer have also contracted ordinariness, as if it were contagious.” The Union missed a huge opportunity to make their place in the Philly sports scene bigger in 2015. Can they succeed in doing so in 2016?

The Union’s 3-3 road draw against Real Salt Lake back in March makes SBI’s list of the top ten MLS games of 2015.

Local

At the Ocean City Nor’easters website, a review of how alums of the team did with their college teams during the fall season.

The Nor’easters are holding an open tryout on Saturday, Jan. 2 at Rutgers-Camden. Click here for registration information.

MLS

Portland defender Liam Ridgewell is joining Brighton & Hove Albion, currently in fourth place in England’s Football League Championship, on a short-term loan that runs through Feb. 13. More on the loan here and here.

My favorite headline of the week: “Signing Ashley Cole would be L.A. Galaxy’s latest change for the worse”.

Portland Timbers are looking to expand the seating capacity of Providence Park.

Will 2016 see teams deploying the 3-5-2?

The name, head coach, and schedule of the new USL team owned by Spurs Sports and Entertainment that is taking the place of now defunct NASL side San Antonio Scorpions at Toyota Field will be announced in January.

US

The Guardian says 2015 was the best year ever for women’s soccer in the US. Fox Soccer has five predictions for the USWNT in 2016.

Goal.com concludes there were more lows than highs for the USMNT in 2015. Fox Soccer reviews the Top Ten Moments of 2015 for the USMNT (Warning: it’s a slideshow).

Pro Soccer Talk has a list of the top American soccer stories of 2015.

Elsewhere

From Reuters:

The frontrunner in the FIFA presidential election, Asian football chief Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, says he wants to divide the organization into two separate entities as part of a ‘turnaround’ plan for the crisis-hit organization.

Salman, who is president of the Asian Football Confederation, said in a statement on Wednesday that FIFA’s governance and business functions would be separated if he took over the helm following the Feb. 26 elections.

You can check out Salman’s new website by clicking here.

Also from Reuters: “A little-known criminal case in Uruguay is hindering U.S. efforts to prosecute a top official charged in the wide-reaching investigation into corruption at world soccer body FIFA.” Interesting stuff.

From The Guardian review of the corruption scandals at FIFA (and the IAAF) in 2015:

If the US investigations have mostly centred on the US, Central and South America for the simple reason that those were the payments channelled through American accounts, then it would be naive to assume similar cascading layers of payments and favours weren’t also at work throughout other parts of the world – the revelations are likely to tumble forth for months if not years to come.

At SI, Grant Wahl shares his top ten stories of 2015.

ESPN and Fox Soccer review some of 2015’s sillier moments.

17 Comments

  1. That’s a bit of a bummer about ‘Nando. Also strange. He didn’t exactly do so well here that Nantes would be convinced about his success in Ligue 1. I just wonder if Nantes drives too hard of a bargain. They seemed difficult to come to terms with for Alejandro Bedoya too.

  2. I really feel Nando had a bit more to offer if he had a legit season with us (i.e. not the last moments of pre-season, no Venezuela stint, and staying healthy). He only scored a few, but you could see the good fight in him. That said, I don’t think he’s really the answer for the Union’s striker position, so hopefully not having him opens the door for that answer.

  3. Looks like Nados team valued him too much to loan him out or give him away for free. The Union liked him but didn’t want to pay retail.
    Shrugs.
    we need to start filling up roster slots.

  4. I like how a game that was ruined by a referee’s poor PK call in the final minutes is in the top 10 of the MLS season. Could they not find 10 entertaining, well-officiated games in the whole year?

    • Just looked over the list of games. 7 games with high score lines…2 that went to PK’S…one that has 2 New York teams..’ Cuz its New York…so bogus list IMO!Also…I don’t think there was 10games league wide this season that had “good” officiating!

  5. Just Rob f/k/a Rob127 says:

    My feelings on Nando can be summed up in…meh. I appreciate his willingness to shoot and the rest of the team could do with more of his aggressiveness but the quality was lacking.

  6. It’s a shame about Nando, good guy and player. I wonder how he would have done under a more constructed team. On the lines of that, I hope the Unions 1st priority is getting two high quality, committed wingers. Like Roy Beerens.

  7. With all due respect… if you are not going to be a fleet striker – you need to be either wily in the air, a lethal finisher or able to find a foot of space at just the right moment.
    .
    ‘Nando ran and ran and worked his rear off but he was not a goal scorer. I asked for 12 gols which was not a lot and he didn’t even sniff that many.
    .
    Thank you for your patronage…good luck going forward….have a nice day.

    • james lockerbi2 says:

      +1

    • Yeah, I’m not broken up even a little bit about Nando not coming back. Sapong seems to be his superior in every way. I’m willing to bet Stewart is not at all willing to spend similar money to loan him back. Yeah, he did seem to be a really cool guy, but we need football players, not good company.

      Also not really excited by the idea of Larentowicz. I don’t see how we would have been more than expensive depth assuming Edu is one of our starting CBs next season.

      • That is to me the most intriguing aspect: Big Ern made this move. Does it mean more than he wouldn’t pay Nantes asking? He knows that market better than anyone else in the FO and I for one am anxious to see who he prefers. Also it reflects on the ex-CEO’s player evaluation.

  8. I’d like to have seen more of Nando too, but not at that cost. He was injured and rarely productive for what we were paying him. We can spend that money elsewhere for sure. Good luck to him.
    .
    Happy New Year to everyone! Hope 2016 is nothing like last year for our Union!

  9. Lucky Striker says:

    Thanks for PK-ing the Union past the Bulls in the USOC.

    Glad he’s gone, and Larentowicz is unavailable to overpay for.

    Move LeToux back to F behind Sapong and fill the glaring holes first please………..

  10. Old Soccer Coach says:

    Aristeguieta probably grades out as not worth the money. Nantes will want to recoup investment and costs. MLS’s rates of pay are not on the same level as those of the more prominent European leagues.for his money we want a star, he was not one. He was a younger more energetic less productive version of Casey, for twice Casey’s price. Nantes has not decided to write him off and unload him. No deal. Some valuation for youth and potential is legitimate, but not a doubling of the price. That would be an outrageous “watering of the stock” beyond the gall of Daniel Drew of the old Erie Lackawana railroad in the age of the Robber Barons.

    • ” He was a younger more energetic less productive version of Casey, for twice Casey’s price.” — You nailed it.

Leave a Reply to OneManWolfpack Cancel

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*