Daily news roundups

News roundup: Union and Steel on the road for Sunday matches, a crazy Champions League week and Messi’s back

Photo Credit: 215Pix

Union

Coach Curtin’s condensed midweek presser from yesterday.

Sporting Kansas City vs. Union match preview courtesy of the MLS. Kickoff is on Sunday at 3pm.

In their first road match of the 2019 season, the Union are hoping to keep their strong road form from last season.

Union in the news, it’s a news roundup inception.

Steel

The Steel have been getting ready for their opening weekend against Birmingham Legion FC on Sunday at 5pm.

The USL Championship pushed the Steel’s match back to Sunday due to the expected heavy thunderstorms (and possible tornadoes) in that area of Alabama on Saturday.

Brendan Burke is relying on experience and organization leading up to the Steel’s season opener in Alabama.

Fun fact, Kacper Przybylko is listed on the Steel’s roster. He’s also listed as 16th on the senior roster and an international, but also as on loan for the Union.

MLS

The Concacaf Champions League (CCL) is looking bleak for MLS as Sporting KC lost to CAI, 2-1 and Atlanta lost to Monterrey, 3-0. All four MLS teams lost the first legs of their CCL quarterfinal matches this week.

Four matches to pay attention to this weekend, other than the Union, obviously.

MLS is North America’s most diverse professional sports league with a record of 73 countries of birth and an average age that continues to drop.

A fourth sub and broadcasting upgrades are the biggest two changes coming to the US Open Cup in 2019.

World

The winners and losers of a crazy week in the Champions League.

Manchester United’s VAR-awarded penalty against Paris Saint-Germain highlighted too many gray areas with the technology, creating more arguments than settling them.

Marouane Fellaini announced his retirement from international play with the Belgian national team.

Messi has returned to the Argentinian national team for the first time since last year’s World Cup in Russia.

UEFA has opened a formal investigation into whether Manchester City has violated “Financial Fair Play” rules.

Deportivo Carcha’s Luis Acuna celebrated his goal by climbing a ladder and changing the score to 1-0 against Deportivo Jocotan in Guatemala. He was booked by the referee.

6 Comments

  1. UEFA Champion’s League has been the most entertaining competition these last few years. A shame half the matches have been put behind paywalls.

    Wish we could say the same for CONCACAF. It’s really remarkable how futile the efforts of MLS clubs have been in that competition. How ironic that Atlanta United Fans have been arguing that their team would whoop Scottish Premier League Competition like Celtic and Rangers or be a mid table in the PL, but they can’t beat the champs of the Costa Rican League. How we overestimate ourselves….

    • watched long pieces of both the ‘AtlUtd & SKC games with the sound off since they are Union opponents next and next-to-next.
      .
      Independiente simply jumped KC’s passing lanes and the KC center backs could not cope with the speed of their attackers. Reminded me of the way Tanner Curtin and Burke say their teams are supposed to play.
      .
      Monterrey was better than Atlanta in two ways. Team speed and team organization. Frank de Boer is not off to a strong start.

      • SilverRey says:

        They are still learning to play under FdB, but Atlanta has looked seriously disorganized so far. I’m sure they will find a solution sooner than the Union do, but it will be interesting to see who’s further ahead by the time Union play them.
        .
        For SKC I’m going to assume the Union will be playing SKC’s B squad after Vermes has been running out the same guys over and over so far. Hopefully we can get an edge in this one.

    • MLS is also at a direct disadvantage to most other teams based on the league schedule.

      • HopkinsMD says:

        True.

      • I’ve come to find this an unsatisfactory excuse. Herediano’s squad is worth one tenth of Atlanta’s. I know, Atlanta has a new look, but they got handled by a club with far less in resources. Herediano should be pretty happy with their accomplishment.

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