Daily news roundups

News roundup: Wagner on Team of the Week, Zlatan Player of the Week, 2 Rose Lavelles?

Photo: Rob Simmons 

Philadelphia Union 

He’s the machine! Kai Wagner makes the MLS Team of the Week. His first selection surprisingly.

Marco Fabian’s strike is up for MLS Goal of the Week.

Good at FIFA? Show your skills at Localhost Philly.

Was your camera out during Fabian’s goal?

What makes a team great? Let Jim Curtin tell you.

MLS

To no surprise, Zlatan Ibrahimović is the MLS Player of the Week.

Here’s the rest of the MLS Team of the Week.

If you missed an action from the week of MLS, its all recapped here. 

Brian Fernandez, jumping into the role as villain in Cascadia. 

The new Leagues Cup starts tonight.

Wondering why the Union’s goals were reviewed? Should Zlatan been sent off?

World 

Does Rose Lavelle have a clone? 

Cristiano Ronaldo will not face sexual assault charges. 

Brazil will have a new women’s national team coach. 

What does the future look like for soccer in the US? Ask Megan Rapinoe. 

Can Arsenal sign world class players this season?

18 Comments

  1. So Zlatan’s elbow to the face of El-Munir is going to cost El-Munir at least 2 months. How many games is Zlatan going to be suspended? It was a nasty challenge and any other player would get 4-5 games. Will Zlatan even face a suspension?

    • He’ll probably get 1-2 games so that MLS can save face. Any other player would have gotten the red card immediately though…

    • Andy Muenz says:

      Sort of like Kljestan only getting two games despite Monteiro having missed 3 so far?

      • Fouls like that should result in the player missing as many games as the player they injured.

  2. These instant replay reviews by Bobby Warshaw are excellent! Thanks for posting the link. Agree that Zlatan should be suspended at least 2 games.

  3. Zlatan also must have made Garber and the rest of the MLS gang pretty happy with his comments on league quality this past weekend. Said pretty much everything everyone labeled a “eurosnob” has said for the past decade (at least).
    Particularly this from that interview with Hercules Gomez:

    When I asked Zlatan what it will take for MLS to achieve parity with Europe and South America, he responds with a question.

    “Do they want to make it?”

    “Who is ‘they’?”

    “They that control it. The owners. Do they want it to be big?”

    “Yeah. Of course.”

    “You think?”

    “You don’t?”

    “I don’t.”

    “Why?”

    “Because you don’t make money in soccer,” he tells me. “In Europe, I can pick two clubs that make money. The rest don’t; they do it out of passion. Here, with the sports, you make money. That’s it. And I think with all the rules you have here, you are not boosting up the soccer.”

    What rules?

    “The budget things. The salary cap. You cannot bring in players you want. They have more rules here than I have in my home.”

    • This is another key quote:

      “Here, you can lose five games and it’s still, ‘Don’t worry, we are in the playoffs.’ So why even play first eight months of season? No, I don’t accept. To be best, you have to be best every day. You know, in Euro, if you come in last, you go down to Division 2. That is pressure. … So last year, we fight for six position to go to playoff, but came in seven. If we had made sixth position, people would have said we had a ‘good season.’ I say, ‘Fighting for the sixth position? That means we had s— season!” We need to fight for No. 1, not 6.”

      • man that dude is such an asshole. i know being an arrogant jerk is his shtick or whatever but he seems like he has a personality disorder

      • So we have mediocre teams fighting for 6th position instead of crappy teams fighting to stay up. Over half the league is fighting for something towards the end of the season instead of the top 2 and bottom 2 teams.

      • John P. O'Donnell Jr. says:

        Does anybody believe the Union had a good season last season? I surely don’t think we did but I do think we started to build towards a style of play and moving younger players into the first team. Adding a few more players to that core has produced some better results but that’s it so far.

    • I’ve got some swamp land in Florida to sell him if he thinks that only 2 owners of European soccer teams make money. I’m sure their balance sheets show losses, but that’s only for tax reasons.

      • Yeah, the Guardian had a good story of finances for all 20 clubs in the 17/18 Prem season. Of the 20 clubs, 7 lost money. I read recently, too, that about half of Seire A clubs posted a profit. I’m not sure how it is in the rest of Europe, but I think his point — which might have been better made without his typical tendency towards hyperbole — is that a lot of clubs do operate without profit as a motivation.

        I actually think his best point is in the second quote I posted about striving for excellence every match. I think a lot of the odd and unpredictable results in MLS have a lot to do with mentality. Much more so than parity. I’m not saying players don’t battle for wins, but their backs are really not against the wall the way they are in other leagues around the world. They just aren’t. I get the arguments that this makes MLS more interesting for a broader range of fans, but I can see how it also explains how title winning teams can go to sleep the next season (Toronto, Atlanta).

      • Since the first MLS season (kicking off in’ 96) 13 different teams have won MLS Cup. Over that same time period, only 5 different teams have won the Premier League, 5 different teams have won Serie A, 6 different teams have won Bundesliga, and 10 different teams have won Ligue 1 (though of note PSG have won 6 of the last 7 years).
        .
        Sure an MLS team can completely crap the bed for a season without the consequences as in other leagues but for most teams in those other leagues literally the only “fight” they participate in at the highest level is avoiding relegation.
        .
        To each their own, but I like coming into each season cheering for a team that has a shot to win something, not cheering to avoid losing everything.

  4. He is THE!!face of MLS

  5. In Tanner We Trust says:

    My personal opinion, I want relegation, and a different version of playoffs. Something that gives the higher seeds a ridiculous advantage. If a lower team has caught fire to the extent that they think they’re championship contenders, let them try to beat a top seed twice. What if we had 12 playoff teams leaguewide, regardless of conference. 5-12 play one game. The teams that win need to beat a top 4 team twice. Then the Semifinals are aggregate, Finals one game. Does that improve things?

    • John P. O'Donnell Jr. says:

      Statically the new format gives the home team in a one off game a 67% chance of moving on. What more do you want?

    • I’d like to see there just be 4 playoff teams. I could live with 8. Is it too much to ask that you make the top 4 to be in the cup?

  6. In Tanner We Trust says:

    Both of you bring up interesting points. I ask that the regular season matter. Think about the difference between 4th and 8th in the EPL. A 4 team cup would be a good way to determine the best team, but from an entertainment standpoint, I think a team’s games should be relevant if they’re in 7th place with 3 games to go, for instance

    Edit: tried to make this a reply to John O and Pete. Not letting me for some reason

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