Ok, I'm Back....

I need to find a new job that doesn't get in the way of life, but pays better.

Anyways, alot has happened over the last week.

Kaka wins Ballon D'Or
Was there any doubt that Kaka wouldn't win this award? When he dropped his two goals on Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League, it wasn't that much of a shock. Ronoldo had a wonderful season and is still holding to that form, but Kaka was huge last season and Milan won the Champions League, so it had to go to him.

Arsenal win Copa Nissan Sudamericana
Arsenal won the Copa Nissan Sudamericana last night, defeating Club America on away goals, after losing 2-1 at home. Arsenal won the first match in Mexico City 3-2. This win caps a very, very strange year for Argentine football. Arsenal wins the Copa Nissan Sudamericana, Boca wins the Copa Libertadores, Estudiantes won the Clausura championship and Lanus just won the Apertura championship. Talk about spreading the wealth.

On a different note, Club America came a goal from keeping the title in Mexico. It is a positive sign for CONCACAF that for the third straight year, a Mexican club reached the final and has actually made a match of the final series. Pachuca heads into the FIFA World Club Cup knowing that they are still the only Mexican club to have won the Copa Nissan Sudamericana.

Mexican Playoffs finals set
Pumas are back in the Mexican League playoff finals since 2004 and will face Atlanate, who denied Chivas de Guadalajara a second straight championship. The first match is tonight. The winner will take part in the 2008 CONCACAF Champions Cup.

UEFA Euro 2008 Draw held
Still drunk from the previous day of drinking beer and watching way too much college football, I did wake up and watch the ESPN2 telecast of the Euro 2008 draw. I actually thought I was hallucinating when they announced that France, Italy and Holland were in the same group. I feel bad for Romania and they "appear" to be the lone whipping boy of that group. This is the very definition of group of death. I am looking forward to watching the matches this summer.

DC United announce first two league matches of 2008
DC United announced that they will be starting their 2008 defense of the Supporters Shield on March 29th against Kansas City...in a baseball stadium. They return home the following week to host Toronto FC at RFK stadium. Will we see Gomez, Moreno, Emillio, Fred & Veron all wearing the Black & Red at the start of the season? I doubt it.

News & Notes 11/14/2007

USMNT announce date with Mexico
The USSF officially announced the February 6th match with Mexico. It will be held in Houston at Reliant Stadium. The USMNT has faced Mexico there once before, playing them to a 0-0 draw in what was seen as Tim Howard's coming out party on his way to being signed by Manchester United.

I have said it before, I like that we seem to always play Mexico each year. It marks the best type of regional competition that we can get and it is always a heated match. I don't really like the fact that we always play them in the USA, with the one trip to Azteca every four years being the exception to the rule. I understand that even in the southern USA, when we play Mexico, it is a pro Mexico crowd, so home field advantage isn't "as" strong (when was the last time they beat us here???) but playing Mexico in Mexico is an entirely different beast. That is one beast that we should see more of. Hell, losing to Mexico might actually do our guys some good.

America advance to Copa Sudamericana Finals
America of Mexico (Blanco's former club) has advanced to the finals of the CONMEBOL Copa Nissan Sudamericana, winning their series with Millonarios of Colombia 5-2. They won the first leg 3-2 in Columbia only to return to Mexico and win 2-0. They will face either River Plate or Arsenal in the finals. That series is tied 0-0 going into tonight's match.

It is good to see another CONCACAF club is crashing the party down south. As the Mexican clubs continue to flex their muscles with the CONMEBOL clubs, MLS will sooner or later have to increase the club salary caps to allow for deeper rosters and the ability to sign the best young domestic talent.

Chris Armas Retired
Chris Armas of the Chicago Fire retired yesterday, after capping a 12 year MLS career with a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Armas player the last 10 years with Chicago, winning one MLS Cup and four US Open Cups.

I will give props to the guy, he had a great MLS career. Best of luck to him in the future.

Match Recap: DC United 2 - 1 CD Guadalajara

This is turning out to be one very long season for DC United. They started it off a month before the most of MLS started play with the CONCACAF Champions Cup in late February. They would ultimately be knocked out of the tournament in the Semi-Finals by CD Guadalajara. They then marched right into the MLS regular season along with the rest of the league. In July, DC United ventured into the USOC, getting knocked out by the Harrisburg City Islanders (all be it while using a second string team). United followed that performance up with the inaugural North American SuperLiga, in which they advanced all the way to the Semi-Finals, losing to FC David Beckham.

Now as the MLS regular season is winding down and the playoffs are looming overhead, DC United once again makes an other trip outside of the league for more competition, the Copa Nissan Sudamericana. Not only is this tournament a chance to face off against outside opponents, but as United were matched up against the very club that knocked them out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup, CD Guadalajara, revenge was definitely an item on the agenda.

Last night United hosted CD Guadalajara in the first match of the two match, home/away series, picking up a 2-1 victory in a very difficult situation. United was vastly outplayed for the first 25 minutes of the match, but was able to steal a 23rd minute goal. Both sides settled down after the Ben Olsen goal and the match looked pretty even handed until the 44th minute when defender Marc Burch picked up his second yellow card of the half and was sent packing to the showers. Considering the situation: playing an in season CD Guadalajara and just going down a man, being up 1-0 at halftime was pretty good.

The second half I expected to see Bobby Boswell come on to fill in for Bursch (as well as Boswell can do on the side) and either have Moreno or Fred be taken off for the extra defender. The way that Boswell was warming up during the break made me think he was infact coming in. Instead, Tom Soehn sent out the same 10 guys who finished the first half and ten minutes into the second half, United was able to pounce on a defensive lapse in the Chivas defense. Gomez sent a free kick right into the Chivas wall, but none of the Goats were able to clear it. Clyde Simms jumped on it and sent the ball into the bottom far corner through traffic. United, down a man, was now up 2-0.

United then weathered one helluva storm for the next 35 minutes. Chivas had about 4 shots in the first half, but they finished the match with 21, you do the math. Yes, Troy Perkins was beat on the 61st minute goal, but I honestly think it was more of total defensive lapse that allowed the cross to come through the box, rather than Troy getting caught on the wrong side of the goal mouth.

Troy looked like he was having a bad game. He was making some really great saves and came off his line when he needed to, but his goal kicks were awful. When I say he looked like he was having a bad game, his facial expressions made me think that he wasn't there last night. Ironically, he actually looked stronger after Chivas scored, hopefully he doesn't require that type of motivation next week in Mexico.

All in all, this is a great result. DC United only requires a draw in Mexico to advance and take on Arsenal of Argentina. If United were to advance, they would play their Quarter Final home/away series over mid to late October, which is right in the middle of the MLS Cup playoffs. Not trying to get ahead of ourselves, but even though advancing through this international tournament would be a huge thing for the club; is this the point where we start making the hard choices and decide which competition to put all of our eggs into? What's more important; MLS Supporters Shield....the MLS Cup....or the Copa Nissan Sudamericana? I for one think that the level of importance is in the exact order I put them in, as the Supporters Shield is the one title that United has the most control over, as in, they currently control their own destiny with that title.

Next up for United is the Saturday home match against Toronto FC, who recently broke out of their 15 year goal drought. See you all at RFK Saturday night.

Match Recap: USA 0 - 1 Columbia

Well, thank god that this is over. An entire group of guys who are green as Dollars play the worst game I have ever seen played by guys in the Red, White & Blue. I hope that they learned something.

I learned the following:

- Kyle Beckerman must never, ever be allowed to wear the Red, White & Blue, again! He was so ineffective in the midfield that the USA might have been better off playing with 10 men.

- Eddie Johnson is dead to me. I have said it before and I am hopefully going to say it for the last time. Eddie Johnson doesn't know how to play forward on the international stage. He is slow, cannot think of what to do next and doesn't understand what his position is supposed to do. Ray Hudson himself said that Johnson was frustrated because he couldn't find anyone to pass to. He shouldn't be passing at all. He should be getting the ball and running at the goal. Hell, he even had an empty net and he refused to take a shot when he had the ball. Eddie Johnson no longer deserves to wear the Red, White & Blue.

- US depth isn't that great. Well, it isn't much deeper than the second level. The First team is set and we saw what would be considered the second team in the match against Trinidad & Tobago. After the second team, we really have got a bunch of guys who don't really have an understanding of how the international game is played.

Overall, I have to say that the expected results from this tournament came about. We seemed to wilt and collapse alot easier than I expected us to do. The match tonight was ok for the second half, but if Bradley had started our "Copa First team" then I think we would have picked up the 3 points.

Honestly, I think that the biggest problem with our squad wasn't who we left off for summer break, it was who we sent to the U20 World Cup. Had Bradley been able to get Adu, Altidore, Szetela & Bradley into the squad and see how they could work with the likes of Clark, Feilhaber, DeMerit & Conrad I think we would have a better learning environment and a better over all squad.

Ok, so now that the Copa America is over, I hope that the players go back to their clubs and apply what they have learned. I hope that Boswell uses his experience to help solidify the DC United back line. I hope that Jay DeMerit goes back to England and either with Watford or with whomever he is sold to, gets to apply all of the experiences towards having a stronger season.

I also hope that the coaching staff is done tinkering. Something is always good to be said of trying out several different formations to see works the best together. I think that Bradley should have a much better understanding of what that formation is and should use the last few matches of 2007 to get those same group of guys together and have them train together and play as many minutes as possible.

If it were me, this would be my starting 11:

Howard

Spector ---- Conrad ----- Onyweu ---- Bocanegra

Clark

Donovan ---- Feilhaber ---- Beasely

Twellman ---- Ching

Not sure how the coaching staff will approach the Sweden, Catalonia & Switzerland matches. Hopefully the rumored matches against South Africa and Mexico are going to be secured, as they would both be great chances for road matches which should challenge the players. I would also like to see Adu, Altidore, Bradley, Cooper (once healthy) and Szetela called into those squads. If these guys are going to be a part of the 2010 World Cup, might as well get them involved now. They have got to be better than Beckerman, Gaven, Bornstein & Johnson.

CONMEBOL: Stacking the Deck?

I might be wrong about this, but I just read something regarding the Copa Libertadores that is either confusing or in my opinion, plain wrong.

CONMEBOL Executive Secretary Francisco Figueiredo stated that as in the recent past, Mexican clubs will be invited to the Copa Libertadores but will not represent the region in the FIFA World Club Cup if they win the Copa Libertadores.

I understand this as it makes sense. The Mexican clubs are not a part of CONMEBOL so if they do win, they shouldn't be the CONMEBOL representatives at the FIFA World Club Cup. CONCACAF used the same rules with it's invited guests to the Gold Cup in relation to the Confederations Cup. This I have no problem with.

The next thing that Figueiredo said I had a problem with.

Figueiredo said that the Copa Libertadore's final match cannot be played outside of South America, even if a Mexican club reaches the final. As the Copa Libertadores final is a two legged series which is played home/away, this strikes me as wrong and borderline criminal.

So if next season Pachuca reaches the finals and faces Sao Paulo, one leg would be played in Sao Paulo, but the other leg which should be a Pachuca home game will be played somewhere else? I thought the entire idea of having two legged, home/away series was to give each club a home match that would be at their advantage. How would Pachuca get any type of advantage?

Unless CONMEBOL is switching the Copa Libertadores final to a single match similar to the UEFA Champions League final that will rotate from different CONMEBOL member cities each year, I suspect that this decision is the direct result of Pachuca winning the Copa Sudamericana last season. CONMEBOL is looking at outside ways to ensure that CONMEBOL clubs always win their pre-eminent club tournament.

Something about this doesn't sit well with me. This looks like another reaction to Pachuca's victory last season. I feel that their first step was grouping the CONCACAF clubs that are taking part in the Copa Sudamericana against each other this upcoming tournament, rather than allowing them to face off against CONMEBOL clubs. Instead after the second round, half of the CONCACAF clubs invited will be out of the tournament, reducing the number of non-CONMEBOL clubs that could challenge for the title.

I don't know, but if CONMEBOL wants to have its clubs win it's tournament's championships, then maybe stop inviting outside guests?