Photo: Earl Gardner
Philadelphia Union
Jim Curtin’s weekly press conference is scheduled for today at 12:30 pm (Facebook).
More power rankings! At MLSsoccer.com, the Union remain at No. 4: “The Union train has stalled over the past three games, and Jim Curtin’s boys have trips to Toronto and Harrison ahead of them. Can they hold on to the No. 4 seed and avoid a road trip in the Knockout Round?” At SBI, the Union fall two spots to No. 10: “A frantic beginning to the second half saw the Philadelphia Union end up on the wrong side of a 2-1 scoreline against the Portland Timbers on Saturday…and sent the visitors into their third straight winless result. It gets no easier for the Union, facing top of the East Toronto FC in Toronto on Saturday.”
Keegan Rosenberry drops two spots to No. 3 in MLSsoccer.com’s Rookie Rankings.
At the Union website, Matt Bodiford looks ahead to Saturday’s road game against Toronto. A post at MLSsoccer.com says stats show Toronto is better when all of its Designated Players do not start.
Also at the Union website, Maurice Edu talks about how challenging his recovery from the stress fracture has been.
Section 215 wonders if the Union should trade CJ Sapong. I’m going to go with no.
Soccer America looks at the Eastern Conference teams on the playoff bubble.
Philadelphia Sports Nation appreciates the efforts of Taylor Washington and John McCarthy in supporting two young children battling cancer, and the efforts of the club as a whole in support of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Bethlehem Steel
PSP, Philly Soccer News, Brotherly Game, New York Cosmos, Big Apple Soccer, and Empire of Soccer.
Irish website The 42 notes the goal James Chambers scored for Bethlehem in Sunday’s draw with Pittsburgh.
Local
Drexel was defeated 2–0 at home by Princeton on Tuesday night. Saint Joseph’s hosted Villanova to a 0–0 draw. A late goal saw Penn draw 1–1 on the road with Lehigh. La Salle gave up two second half goals to fall 2–1 on the road to Lafayette.
Several area colleges make the Top 25 of the NSCAA/USA Today Division III Men’s Soccer poll: Franklin & Marshall (No. 6), Rowan University (No. 8), Elizabethtown College (No. 16), and Haverford (No. 22). Messiah received votes but did not crack the Top 25.
Millersville comes in at No. 20 in the Division II poll, with West Chester University also receiving votes.
University of Delaware received votes but did not make the Top 25 of the Division I poll.
In the NSCAA/USA Today High School Boys Soccer poll, Salesianum School (Wilmington, Del.) comes in at No. 6, Delbarton School (Morristown, N.J.) at No. 9, Lewisburg (Lewisburg, Pa.) at No. 17, and Conestoga (Berwyn, Pa.) at No. 25. Lower Dauphin (Hummelstown, Pa.) also received votes.
MLS
Fox’s split-national MLS broadcast of two games adjacent to NFL regional broadcasts delivered 1,298,000 viewers on Sunday, making it the most-watched MLS telecast of any kind and on any network in 12 years.
The game drew 629,000 viewers in the 18-49 demographic, more than 48 percent higher than Fox’s MLB coverage on Saturday afternoon, which reached only 424,000 viewers in the same demo.
The previous high for an MLS game was 1,429,000 viewers for the D.C. United-San Jose game that marked 14-year-old Freddy Adu’s debut.
While MLSsoccer.com continues its “24 under 24” series, at Philly Voice, Kevin Kinkead begins a “34 over 34” series “Honoring Major League Soccer’s oldest players.”
PDL has announced a new expansion side for the 2017 season, Nashville SC U23. The team “will be owned and operated by Nashville SC, which formally joined the USL in July and is scheduled to begin play in 2018.” The new team brings the total number of PDL sides owned and operated by USL or MLS teams to 12.
US
Elsewhere
Bloomberg reports, “Michel Platini, the former head of European soccer governing body UEFA, may receive a payoff even though he’s been banned from the sport after being implicated in a scandal that led to the fall of former FIFA president Sepp Blatter.”
Reuters reports, “Six armed men hijacked a bus carrying Venezuela’s Trujillanos soccer team and stole most of the players’ and coaching staff’s belongings, the first division club said on Monday.”
So here is a question about the Richter deal. Who gets to use the transfer fee? Does only Bethlehem get to use it or do the Union get to use it themselves.
aren’t they one in the same? the murky waters of this relationship makes me wonder, what isn’t possible?
If Stewart finds the right price, CJ is gone. If not, he’ll be back to frustrate all around the goal again. That simple.
If Stewart finds the right price, anybody will be gone. That’s Earnieball in a nutshell.
B-I-N-G-O
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Buy low sell high. Play your youth. Complete path from academy to first team.
I remember there being a lengthy discussion about Sapong on these boards at the beginning of the season. My how the tide has changed.
I like Sapong. Respect the effort he shows and how professional he was coming back from the whole DUI thing. But he’s not scoring goals… or taking shots. He needs a break to see if he can get it going again before the end of the year. And if not, you have to move on.
Well my POV hasn’t changed.
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Asked him to score 20 goals otherwise you ain’t it.
Vermes played him at flank mid. We are finding out why.
B.I.N.G.O
Difference between a forward and a striker.
I think there is a typo on the Union’s power ranking on the MLS website. I believe it is 8, not 4.
“Is Major League Soccer giving enough young players a chance to shine?”
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So this is a front page story AGAIN on espnfc… below the story of Lynden Gooch, California 20 year old starting for Sunderland.
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I’m.Lovin’.It…. wait isn’t that a McDonald’s franchise tag?
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Or better… putting Puslisic on the Allocation list… yeah uhhhh Christian… If you want to play in MLS we’d love you… except you have to play with Chicago Fire because PARITY is what we aim for here in this league and well… when your franchise SUCKs we like to REWARD it…. So you know if you were thinking about it… please look us up… cause really what will happen is we’ll grease the wheels and make sure you wind up in LA or NY… so none of the rules actually pertain in this exceptional case…. We here at MLS looking to protect The Shield… wait isn’t that an NFL tag?
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go ahead Fanboys…. make your counter argument… or just ignore.
I am not a Fanboy (not saying you labeled me as one, just putting that out there) … but to be clear, there is no counter argument to be made. This league will always be below par until (among other things) the 400 different “drafts”, “orders” and “lists” are all done away with. Until then, we are just riding a bike with permanent training wheels.
The news of Pulisic going on an “Allocation List” was very embarrassing. Why?
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From that ESPNFC piece:
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Kljestan pointed to his time at Anderlecht when a young midfielder named Dennis Praet was coming through the club’s youth system. Anderlecht started doling out playing time to Praet when he was 17, gradually increased his minutes and ultimately saw the payoff. Anderlecht recently sold Praet to Serie A side Sampdoria for €10 million.
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That’s what I expect to see more of with the Union. Play the young guys — Rosenberry, Yaro, Herbers this year, Trusty next year — and then sell them. Only issue is that The union have to pay a ransom to the league for every player they sell. Ugh. It’s a disincentive not only to see talent to better the club but also to developing young players.
Yes regarding the ransom….
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Was the embarrassing comment a question to me Pete? or a statement by you?
Oh, a comment by me. “Why?” was aimed at MLS for even having the damned thing to begin with. Your observation that these players are forced to deal with the worst teams in the league is spot on.
Gotcha.
I think that we all know that if for some reason, Pulisic! wanted to play in MLS, the league would make sure that he would end up playing for the team that he had wanted to. We all know that given the league’s history.
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Would love to see more younger players getting a chance in MLS, but it takes a strong manager who has the backing of his sporting director to be willing to do it. Or perhaps players like Thompson just aren’t good or consistent enough to play regularly. It’s not like he was a vital cog on the U-20 team, he was a sub option there as well.
Believe me, I agree with MLS/Fox’s decision to piggyback their MLS games to the NFL games this past weekend. It was a smart decision. They were both great games too. And I knew we would get an article saying it got unbelievable ratings. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking they would ever come close to that had it not been for the NFL. Comparing it to MLB on a Saturday seems kind of silly when you’re getting support from the NFL too.
Spot on. This is the model they’ve built and now they link and tie it in even more to NFL… as if NFL wasn’t already its daddy in so many ways, it is all a disheartening fucking mess. I’m supposed to jump up and down cause MLS got good ratings because they ponied it to American Football? Yeah…. whimper. whimper. whimper.
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Those people ‘in the know’ will argue this is the way it has to be…. WELL NO SHIT BECAUSE THIS IS THE WAY YOU DESIGNED IT.
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#I’mnotstupid.
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The Chief thinks I’m angry…well Chief, I am. I’m angry because in 50 years this sport could and would be KING… rightly stationed where it belongs.
…at the top of the mountain… a total and complete demographic cross-section of this great nation.
One thing, though. The NFL enjoys an unprecedented amount of exposure on regular television channels that everyone in America has. Games are on CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC. Where are MLS games on Friday night? Univision (which I sometimes can’t even find). No Saturday games get broadcast and two or three make it to cable sports channels. A great deal of NFL’s popularity is because it is so easy to watch. I’m not saying MLS would take off it it were on network television, but I bet you it would do a lot better. This is a game a lot of younger people prefer to baseball and hockey, especially, and basketball in some places. A big game once a week on Network TV is a good idea.
“A great deal of NFL’s popularity is because people love violence and gambling.”
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Fixed it for you, Pete. 😉
Ha! Yes you did.
Here’s a fun thought experiment raise your hand if you think it is merely coincidence Sepp Blatter’s ouster was the US DoJ not long after lobbying for MLS to be a pro/rel league and that Sunil and Gianni were all buddy buddy before and during the election and that topic has not nor will be broached again by the World’s governing body.
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If you think it coincidence…I will then tell you the total solar eclipse August 2017 is a strange twist of happenstance as well.
I remember that Loretta Lynch did her thesis at Harvard about the merits of the single-entity system.
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Man, these tin foil hats can get pretty hot.