Daily news roundups / Featured

Williams, Valdes honored, Independence in first place

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Union

Sheanon Williams is named to MLSsoccer.com’s Best XI for Week 16. This is the second time he’s gotten Best XI honors from the league’s website.

The Union score big in Goal.com’s midseason awards with Carlos Valdes named Newcomer of the Year and getting an honorable mention nod for Defender of the Year. Sheanon Williams was named to the Best XI. In other honorable mentions, Faryd Mondragon is named for for Newcomer and Peter Nowak is named for Coach of the Year.

Want to know what Peter Nowak’s thinking heading into Saturday’s game in San Jose? “We are not looking particularly at the standings. The more you look at the standings, the more you shift your focus to things that are not really important. What is important is that we bring the mentality that we brought the last couple of games. [The last two games] showed that if we play to our abilities, to our level, that we can score goals and play good defense.”

Kerith Gabriel tweeted this from yesterday’s Union press conference: “Danny Mwanga on DC start: ‘It felt great. It makes you feel important. Everytime I’m in the starting lineup it does alot for my confidence.'”

Curious about what Michael Orozco Fiscal is up to? There’s this.

The Union is sponsoring the Blue & Gold Cup adult 7 v 7 indoor tournament at YSC Sports on Saturday, July 30. The winners will be recognized at halftime during the FC Dallas game on August 13. Registration is only, gasp, $625, although that includes two tickets for each player for the Dallas game.

San Jose Watch

San Jose lost 2–0 to Chivas USA on Wednesday night. The Union beat Chivas so, ipso facto, the Union will again beat San Jose.

Nice to see this early morning tweet from San Jose: “With that last yellow card, Steven Lenhart will be forced to miss Saturday’s match vs. @PhilaUnion”.

Check out this podcast from Center Line Soccer for an idea of what San Jose is thinking about the Union.

Independence

The Independence move into first place with a 4–3 win over Sky Blue FC. Tasha Kai scored three unassisted goals for the hat trick. Look for the PSP match report and player ratings later today.

Local

The Ocean City Nor’easters fell 4–1 to the New York Cosmos in Wednesday night’s friendly.

MLS

With their 5–0 walloping of Toronto, the Energy Drinks are now in first place in the Eastern Conference with 28 points, one point ahead of the Union’s 27 points with two games in hand. Columbus, also with 27 points, is in third after to their 1–0 win over Vancouver thanks to goal difference. Kansas City is in fourth with 21 points.

The overall league attendance average for 2011 continues to be above 17,000, the best since 1996.

Fred, on his way to Australia, says he’s sad to leave DC and hopes to retire there. Whatever.

US

So it appears that it was the case that Colombia was just that bad, not that the USWNT was just that good. The USWNT lost 2–1 to Sweden in the final group game on Wednesday, which means they next face Brazil in the quarterfinals (Friday, July 10 at 11am on ESPN). Soccer America says the loss exposes the frailty in the US’s central midfield. Player ratings are here.

What’s the status of Bob Bradley? Sunil Gulati isn’t saying.

Elsewhere

This just in from the Department of Are They Out of Their Freaking Minds: At the Qatar Infrastructure Conference in London, Michael Beavon, a director at the company that is designing the stadium air conditioning systems for the 2022 World Cup, told delegates, “The one thing FIFA do say, although it is for guidance, is if it’s 32C [89.6F] they will stop a match and play three 30-minute thirds rather than two 45-minute halves. The reason would be to re-hydrate the players before they could carry on playing. That of course would play havoc with TV schedules and those kind of things.” It would also play havoc with the rules of the game. A FIFA spokesperson said, “This possibility has not been discussed.”

Evidence to substantiate the bribery allegations against former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam continues to grow, according to a leaked preliminary report. The source says further evidence of corruption on the part of Jack Warner has also been found.

The match fixing scandal in Korea continues to grow. So far, 37 players have been indicted.

6 Comments

  1. fortunately, we actually have 2 games in hand on NY

  2. Union actually have two games in hand in comparison to NYRB. Staying ahead of them would be huge if we can make the conference final and have it at PPL.

    • Ed Farnsworth says:

      Yep, tis true. Midweek game equals + 1 to the already existing game in hand. Thanks for the pick up.

  3. I still miss MOF.

    • Ryan Pine says:

      Me too. Now we can miss Jordan Harvey. Off to Vancouver for allocation money. Can’t say I like this move. Defense is stingy and Harvey is a big part of that. Doesn’t scare too many people going forward but has been solid all year and an integral part of a back four that’s beginning to look like the best in MLS, save LA. Don’t really see the logic. Will a Farfan go to LB? Keon Daniel? Different shape altogether? 3-5-2? Strange…

      • Can we get MOF back? Liked him better than Harvey. Not sure I understand the trade unless someone else is coming. I prefer the farfans to harvey as players, but I prefer them in the midfield. Guess we will see what is next.

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