Daily news roundups / Featured

Reaction to Union win, more morning news

Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Union and Donald Montague

Union

Speaking about Thursday’s 2–0 win over USF, Brian Carroll said, “I thought our possession, our reaction once the ball turned over, and the amount of chances we created were better today.”

Danny Mwanga agreed, but added, “At the same time we had a few more chances that we could have finished. That’s probably the one part we still need to work on a little bit. The game went well, but I think we could’ve scored three or four more goals pretty easily.”

As of this writing, the Union has not released any lineups from the game. In the photos from the match on the club’s Facebook page you can see Danny Mwanga, Sebastien Le Toux, Faryd Mondragon, Stefani Miglioranzi, Brian Carroll, Michael Farfan, Sheanon Williams, Michael Orozco-Fiscal, Justin Mapp, Carlos Valdes, Jose Torres, Zach Pfeffer, Nick Zimmerman,

The Brotherly Game identifies the player wearing the number 26 shirt (formerly the number of Cristian Arrieta) in picture 53 and 54 as Gabriel Farfan.

Yesterday, we said in our piece on the schedule announcement that we had been told by the club that, while they couldn’t provide any specific numbers, season ticket sales are ahead of last year’s pace. We now have a sense of the numbers after Nick Sakiewicz says in an article published on the MLS site today, “We’re about 1,000 season tickets ahead of where we were this time last year. We’re expanding the season ticket cap by 1,000 tickets to 13,000. We think with the normalized schedule and a lot of time to plan, we’ll have more sellouts than we had last year.” Which is totally awesome.

Along with the announcement of the 2011 schedule, Union season ticket holders were also informed that this year the club will be moving from season ticket books to season ticket cards. The card is much like a credit card. The announcement to season ticket holders said, “One of the major benefits of this technology is that it enables us to unveil a new loyalty rewards program that will provide benefits and opportunities to season ticket holders. The reward system will be based on the number of points each individual seat on your account accrues over the course of the year.” The announcement from the club also said, “In order to make the transition to a season ticket card more convenient, we have waived the ticket transfer fee and the print at home fee for season ticket holders.”

MLS

One innovation, if that’s the right word, with the just released 2011 schedule is that the league will go on break for three FIFA International Fixture Dates. Which begs the question, why isn’t the league taking a break—or, at least, slowing down—during the Gold Cup?

Maybe you noticed that three teams—LA Galaxy, New York Red Bulls and Seattle Sounders—feature in 19 of the 25 games that will be shown on ESPN2? This guy did, noting that, when ESPN2 did the same thing last year, ratings declined by 12.3 percent.

More on the scheduling quirks and decline in national television options from Goal.com.

Steve Davis wonders what good a so-called “strategic alliance” with a foreign club ever did for an MLS team.

Independence

The club released their preseason schedule on Thursday. Training camp will open on March 1 and will include three scrimmages, a doubleheader featuring Duke and UConn on March 19 as well as UNC on April 2.

Lori Lindsey, Megan Rapinoe and Amy Rodriguez have been selected to represent the US in the upcoming Algarve Cup in Portugal.

Top Independence draft pick and local product Sinead Farrelly was training with the USWNT but was not selected. Here’s a Q & A with her.

Elsewhere

Is a group of Qatari investors about to buy Manchester United for £1.6 billion? Ahead of Saturday’s Manchester derby, one source says, “The deal is pretty much done and they are only haggling over details.”

Roy Hodgson, formerly of Liverpool and Fulham, is the new manager of West Brom.

Footy on the Telly™

SATURDAY
Manchester United v Manchester City 7:30am FSC
Bayern Munich v Hoffenheim 9:30am GolTV
Arsenal v Wolves 10am ESPN2
Liverpool v Wigan 10am FSC
Blackburn v Newcastle 10am FSP
Atletico Madrid v Valencia 12pm GolTV
Derby County v Leicester City 12pm FSP
Sunderland v Spurs 12:30pm FSC
Birmingham v Stoke City 2:30pm FSP
Roma v Napoli 2:30pm FSC
Racing Santander v Sevilla 4pm GolTV
Blackpool v Aston Villa 4:30pm FSP
AC Milan v Parma 5pm FSC
Once Caldas v Deportivo de Cali 6:15pm GolTV
Bristol City v Leeds 6:30pm FSP
SUNDAY
Central Coast v Newcastle 1am FSC
Palermo v Fiorentina 6:30am FSP
QPR v Nottingham Forest 8:30am FSP
Brescia v Lazio 9am FSC
Cologne v Mainz 10:30am GolTV
Bolton v Everton 11am FSC
Juventus v Inter Milan 2:30pm FSC
Espanyol v Real Madrid 3pm GolTV
Lille v Toulouse 3pm FSP
Paulista v Corinthians 5pm. GolTV
MONDAY
Fulham v Chelsea 3pm ESPN2

2 Comments

  1. Jose Torres? Is that a joke or a mistake? I definitely noticed the Gals and Cows-heavy ESPN schedule, including three straight matches featuring NY away. I almost, sort of, kind of feel bad for FCD, TFC, Columbus, and Vancouver – no national TV…”yet” (says MLS).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*