SuperLiga Groups Announced... sort a.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the 2008 North American SuperLiga participants have been decided and groups have been drawn.

Group A
- PUMAS
- New England Revolution
- Chivas USA
- Atlante

Group B
- Houston Dynamo
- Chivas de Guadularara
- Pachuca
- DC United

DC United will host all of their matches at RFK Stadium.

It does appear that the actual schedule for this tournament has yet to be determined, as DC United's schedule only has the All Star game listed for July. Now unless MLS has finally realized that a month break in the summer would actually help the quality of play in the league (which I doubt that they would ever do) the lack of schedule matches for July leads me to believe that SuperLiga will take place in July, but they aren't sure as to when exactly. Houston only has one match listed on their schedule, as does New England. Chivas USA have two on their schedule.

All in all, the group looks very tough, so the guys who do take part in the group stage matches should have good matches. I assume that Tom Soehn's priority list for 2008 might look a little like this:

1a. CONCACAF Champions Cup (as it comes first)
1b. MLS Cup
2. Supporters Shield
3. CONCAF Champions League
4. SuperLiga Championship
5. US Open Cup

I haven't heard or seen anything either for or against this, but as the CONCACAF Champions League will be taking place during the same time frame as the CONMEBOL Copa Nissan Sudamericana, I would assume that CONCACAF clubs will not be taking part in that tournament any longer. I will keep an eye out for this one.

I am one of those people who actually likes the SuperLiga. Yes, it is a made up tournament, but most tournaments have to start somewhere. Yes, the matches don't truly test the MLS clubs as they do not have the travel "quirks" of heading to Mexico for group matches. All in all, as I said last year, the tournament is a very good idea and has to begin somewhere.

I would ultimately like to see the group stages involve 6 games, 3 home and 3 away. unfortunately, this type of thing will not be done until MLS rosters get larger and the salary caps get bigger. MLS clubs would pass out if they had the mid week travel matches in Mexico, then the MLS matches, then right afterwards the CONCACAF Champions League matches, which will require more travel matches.

Until MLS increases the roster sizes and the salary caps, the SuperLiga, in its current format, is a good stepping stone to giving more MLS clubs exposure to matches outside of MLS. This is a good start.

MLS Cup XII: Dynamo retain title.

Ok, where do I really start this? Do I start this with how I was torn to going to RFK Stadium to watch two MLS clubs play in my clubs stadium? I commented to Sara as we walked up to the stadium this morning, "I feel like I am going to cheat on my girlfriend." Sara suggested that DC United, by failing to advance to the final, sort of gave me the permission to "cheat."

So we went to the MLS Cup final today at RFK Stadium and watched, well, where the Houston Dynamo retained their MLS Cup with a 2-1 victory of the New England Revolution. I really didn't get to watch that much of the match as we were in our season ticket seats, but the entire section that we sit in was assigned to the Texan Army and they all came for the match. I have to say, maybe it is because it was the Cup final, or because this was a different group that the ones we were used to, but the Texan Army knows how to bring it and they were awesome! They never really stopped their singing and flag waving and such. They also have higher powered smoke bombs than Barra do at our matches, strong enough to make the entire section feel like the Police were trying to gas us out of our seats.

Of what I saw of the match, it was actually pretty boring. I saw Twellman's goal which was more of a result of a great cross from Ralston and the two Houston Defenders never really closing in on Twellman. I have seen that guy score that goal so many times in RFK that it was a joke. Other than his goal, Twellman looked like he was a little slow and weaker than the tough guy we have come to expect from him.

I missed the two Dynamo goals, but I caught De Ro's on the bigscreen and it looked pretty good.

The best thing of the entire match, from my point of view, was the Adrian Fenty banner that Bara Brava held up for most of halftime and at the end of the match. I was in the stadium when he said the quote and I guess he forgot that he said it. Great job by Bara, you guys rock.

So the MLS season is over for the winter. The 2008 regular season kicks off on March 29th and as United won the Supporters Shield, we get pre-season CONCACAF matches to look forward to in February (most likely) so the off season won't be as short as we think. The activity during the off season will be the interesting thing to look for. Does Gomez stay or does he go? What about Moreno? Will we see Veron come into the club?

I look forward to seeing these questions answered; hopefully the answers will benefit the club.

MLS Cup Final & LA Galaxy Guillit

The New England Revolution knocked off the Windy City Hunchback and the rest of the Chicago Fire to advance to their third straight MLS Cup Final. Will they finally get the 1000 pound monkey off their back? Will the Revolution pull of the domestic double?

On a different note, one of the Western Conference clubs that failed to make the almost all encompassing MLS Cup playoffs, the LA Galaxy, hired former AC Milan and Dutch National Team maestro Ruud Gullit as their head coach. Will Gullit, who has coached before for Chelsea, Newcastle and Feyenoord, do anything better than Yallop or Sampson before him? Will the Galaxy really see changes in their fortunes once the talking mouth of Alexi "I'm an ass" Lalas is no longer steering the ship?

Match Recap: DC United 4 - 2 New England Revolution

Well, that was a fun game.

Back from a very warm and humid RFK Stadium, digesting the 4-2 victory over the New England Revolution is a difficult one. So many things stand out from this match. Where does one begin?

As a whole, the team looked better than they did against Chivas on Thursday night. Our players didn't look like they only had 20 minutes of soccer in them and kept the pressure going, culminating with Fred's goal in the 30th minute. Twellman's goal to finish the first half was unfortunate and really was a cause for concern.

The second Revolution goal came from sloppy defensive play in front of the United goal. However, as we have seen several times before, the entire tempo of the match changed once Ben Olsen stepped on the field. His play on the right side on place of Fred gave United the swift kick in the ass to get the go ahead goal.

However, (and I cannot believe that I am typing this) the final nail was hammered in when Brian Carroll was brought on for Clyde Simms. Carroll is no favorite of mine and infact, before today, I would have been happy to see him be shipped off to San Jose. Today however, the guy stepped up and showed signs of his former self. Yes, the first play he was involved in after coming onto the field resulted in a Revolution free kick, but starting with that amazing run right up the left side of the field and the cross to Emillio's forehead, Carroll played completely different than he had over the last few months. He was making the great defensive stops in the midfield and tracking back to assist the back line. He was hustling to the ball and making better passes. The Brian Carroll that played today needs to stay; the Brian Carroll that had been riding the pine for the last few matches needs to stay away.

It was good to finally see Jamie get a non-PK goal, but I really think he could have had one more goal today. Jamie seems more interested, even when standing in front of the goal on the 6 yard line, with passing to someone else. It wasn't until he was right in front of the goal mouth, with Reis laying on the ground in front of him, that he took the shot, even then, he took a small amount of time with it.

Emilligoal keeps rolling along, picking up MLS leading goals #17 & #18 today. Pretty much after every goal he scores, I ask myself if Alecko Eskandarian would have scored that goal, or if he would have even been in that position to score. I honestly think that on about only 3 or 4 of them, Alecko would have buried the goal. The other 14 or so would have either been right at the goalkeeper or been flubbed in one fashion or another. The rate that Emillio is going with his goal scoring, picking up 23 or even 25 this season isn't that much of a fantasy now. That guy is money.

So after two matches in four days, United now sit alone on top of the Eastern Conference, with a four point lead over the New England Revolution. United also have a four point lead in the Supporters Shield standings over both New England and Houston, with United having a game in hand over the Dynamo and the tie breaker over New England.

United now wait three days and host the Freddy Adu-less Real Salt Lake Wednesday night. Really, who in MLS HQ scheduled the Real visit to DC for this late in the season? How much press could Garber & Co. picked up with the return of Freddy to United? Oh well, who cares now. Alecko is returning with his second club of the season. Real played a barn burner last night in a 4-3 loss to Houston, and they are coming in having won two of their last three matches. Hopefully we all will see United add to their league and Supporters Shield lead Wednesday night.

Quick Match Recap: DC United 3 - 0 New England Revolution

That was awfully odd to type, DC United 3....

Due to family commitments, I only caught the last 10 minutes of the first half and the entire second half. I was a little confused when I saw the score line and I though we were wearing our black jersey's. This was a different game from United, one I would like to see more of.

Thomas Rongen mentioned at halftime that United was winning their challenges on the ball first time, which was a different feel for the club from recent matches. Rongen was correct, United looked much better today than they have looked in a while.

Getting Namoff back into the side is a good sign of things to come, but I am still worried about Moreno. He came right now at half time only to have Jay Heaps of Shit drop him like a sack of potato's. He ended up coming off after about 30 minutes play, but I hope that was more for a precautionary move than due to his leg, or his back.

Troy looked much better in the 18 yard box than I have seen in a few matches. He did have that miscommunication with Benny when Smith went flying, but excluding that, his command of the goal mouth was great. He was strong in the air, I hope he keeps that up.

Marc Burch once again showed that he will be one of the four guys in the backline this season. He not only handled himself well on the left side, but he has the ability to move forward and provide pretty good left footed crosses. With Bursch in the back, I feel a little better about our backline.

Overall, it was a good game and a great outcome. Three points that the club needed and great momentum going into Beckhampalooza that hits RFK on Thursday. If we have the same defensive sharpness that I saw today, coupled with the return of Fred, Moreno, Gomez and Gros into the midfield, I think we should see Landy, Soccer Spice and the rest of the Galaxians from LA going down.