Archive: March, 2013
Jonathan Tannenwald
CONCACAF, North American soccer's governing body, has released the schedule of games for this summer's Gold Cup.
The United States will be in a group with Belize, Costa Rica and Cuba. That should be an easy enough group to advance from, but having the final group stage game against the Ticos wil be tricky.
Should the United States advance, its quarterfinal matchup will likely be in Baltimore. That's the closest the team will come th Philadelphia.
Jonathan Tannenwald
Delran, N.J., native Carli Lloyd suffered a broken bone in her left shoulder while playing for the U.S. women's national team's at the Algarve Cup in Portugal.
Confirmation of the injury came Tuesday afternoon from the U.S. Soccer Federation. Lloyd suffered the injury in the U.S.' Algarve Cup opening game last Wednesday, a 3-0 win over Iceland.
"Although it's an unfortunate circumstance, I've been through injuries before and have come back even stronger,” Lloyd said in a press release. “I'm disappointed that I'll be missing some National Team events and some league games, but as soon as my shoulder allows, I'll be back and ready to compete.”
Jonathan Tannenwald
Club América at Monarcas Morelia
8:25 p.m. Friday (ESPN News in English, WZPA-33 and ESPN3.com in Spanish)
ESPN recently struck a deal with Spanish-language network Azteca America for English-language rights to select games from the Mexican league. If you haven’t watched Liga MX before, you’ll quickly find out why it’s North America’s best league.
Jonathan Tannenwald
Philadelphia Union manager John Hackworth held his weekly press conference on Wednesday, and had a few interesting things to say. Here are some highlights.
On whether he'll make changes to his lineup after Saturday's loss:
I would expect some different players in the lineup – maybe not a lot. But I said it last week: I feel like we have good depth, and there's guys that have been competing in training for the last several weeks now that deserve an opportunity.
Jonathan Tannenwald
In the centennial year of the U.S. Soccer Federation, the U.S. Open Cup has undergone a few changes that should improve the quality of the competition.
The most significant news is that hosting rights for the semifinal and final will be determined by a straight coin flip. Previously, there was a sealed bidding process to host those games.
Last year marked the first Open Cup in a long time with any coin flip-based hosting. Home teams in rounds before the semifinals were determined by a coin flip if both participating teams bid to host.
Jonathan Tannenwald
UPDATE: The Washington Post's Steven Goff reported Monday afternoon that the Union asked Freddy Adu to take a 75 percent pay cut if he wanted to continue to play with the team. Had Adu agreed, his resulting guaranteed annual salary would have been $129,750.
That is well below the Designated Player threshhold, as I wrote Sunday night. In the context of his teammates, if you go by the salary figures published last October, Adu would theoretically have the eighth-highest salary in the Union's locker room.
Admittedly, there are a lot of assumptions in that salary ranking - with the most significant one being that no one got a raise over last year's figures. But even if some of the players in the neighborhood of Adu's salary did get raises (and I think it's fair to believe that happened), a salary of $129,750 would likely still be in the top 10 on the team.
Jonathan Tannenwald
Time: 4:00 p.m. EST
Venue: PPL Park, Chester, Pa.
TV: WPVI-6 (J.P. Dellacamera and Alejandro Moreno, with Tony Limarzi and Peter Pappa hosting the pregame show at 3:30 p.m.)
A fast and frenetic offseason for the Union was capped off Friday night by the team's final roster moves. Now it's time for everyone to turn their attention to PPL Park, as the 2013 Major League Soccer season finally begins.
The Union have the honor of playing the first game of the league's calendar. Sporting Kansas City comes in to town as one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference, and with good reason. For as much as the team lost in Kei Kamara and Roger Espinoza, Peter Vermes signed some serious firepower in Benny Feilhaber and Claudio Bieler.
Jonathan Tannenwald
Since the day the Union first kicked off in 2010, I've been asked one question about the team more than any other.
It's not whether they're any good, or when their next home game is, or how to get tickets.
It's how to get to PPL Park.
Jonathan Tannenwald
If you haven't read this morning's print coverage yet, I wrote the Daily News' Union season preview. There's also the Inquirer's season preview from Tim McManus, and a Daily News column from John Smallwood on his expectations for the Union this year.
The North American Soccer Reporters’ preseason Major League Soccer poll was published Friday morning, and the voters predicted that the Union will finish eighth in the Eastern Conference.
You don't have to do much math to figure out that it means the Union aren't expected to make the playoffs.
Jonathan Tannenwald
Barcelona at Real Madrid
9:55 a.m. Saturday (beIN Sport)
After knocking Barcelona out of the Copa del Rey on Tuesday, Madrid hosts its fierce rival in a league game this weekend. Real's Cristiano Ronaldo has finally emerged from the shadow of Barça's Lionel Messi, whose place as the world's best player came at Ronaldo's expense.
Reach Jonathan at jtannenwald@phillynews.com or 215-854-2330.
