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Union at White House. Is it Saturday yet? More news

Photo: Earl Gardner

Philadelphia Union

Danny Califf, Brian Carroll and Zac MacMath are participating in the Easter Egg Roll at the White House this morning.

The Union will play their PDL-affiliate Reading United on Saturday, June 9 at at Albright College’s Shirk Stadium. The game comes during the two week break for World Cup qualifiers.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Amy Fadool’s Union Talk column notes that fans are scratching their heads in puzzlement that Sebastien Le Toux and Faryd Mondragon are no longer with the Union. So I guess that young guy, Seitz-something has taken over for Mondragon? What, the Union have only scored two goals? Is Ruiz injured or something? What’s going on here? Why is my head itchy? (Sorry Amy, you’re the unwitting victim of my bye week withdraw agonies. Is it Saturday yet?)

Are you too suffering from bye week withdraw? This from Philly Union Talk may cure what ails you. It turned my frown upside down.

The magnificently named Cumberland Valley High School, and former Philadelphia Union Academy midfielder, Colton Storm has verbally committed to North Carolina.

The Philly Soccer Page asks if it is Saturday yet.

Local

Injuries are hitting the Harrisburg City Islanders hard with Sainey Touray out after surgery on a wrist fracture and Phil Tuttle, Chase Harrison’s backup last season and thought to be in line to succeed him, out for the season with a torn ACL.

MLS

In the weekend’s Eastern Conference action, Kansas City continued their winning ways by beating LA (last place in the West with three points) 1–0 on the road to remain the only undefeated team in the league. New York moved into second with a 4–1 road thumping of fourth place Columbus with both Thierry Henry and Kenny Cooper adding two more tallies to their account. DC is at sixth after a 0–0 draw with Seattle at home. And Montreal is in eighth after their first home win in a 2–1 victory over last place Toronto.

SI has five thoughts on the weekend’s action.

ESPN LA says very different moods prevail in the camps of that city’s two MLS teams.

The New York Times looks at some of the rather significant hurdles that are in the way of the league putting a stadium at Pier 40 on Manhattan’s West Side.

Univision’s new Deportes channel launched on Saturday with the Columbus v New York game. The channel is currently available on Dish Network.

Raliegh, NC’s News-Observer says, “The only question MLS should be asking with regard to the Triangle is not ‘if?’ or ‘how?’ but merely ‘when?’ The logistics can be worked out later.” While it is true that I did not go to business school…

The NASL’s Minnesota Stars wanna move up.

Soccer America’s Paul Gardner accomplishes the neat trick of commenting on the weekend’s poor officiating in the Premiership and connecting it to a warning about the prospects of the league’s efforts to improve the work of its own referees since those efforts will be led by a former English ref. Weak, Paul, weak.

Women’s Soccer

The list of women’s team’s that have partnered with MLS teams continues to grow as Salt Lake United join forces with Real Salt lake.

US

Clint “The Truth” Dempsey scored twice for Fulham to set a new single season club record and is now the fifth highest scorer in the Premiership this season (15 goals in the Premiership—none from the penalty spot—21 in all competitions. He is awesome. Fulham plays Chelsea today at 2:55pm, which you can watch on ESPN2.). Michael Bradley scored for Chievo to become the first American to score in Serie A in five years.

The Free Beer Movement asks of American soccer fans, when it comes to the soccer haters, why give the trolls any credence by responding?

Elsewhere

The Wall Street Journal notes that, when it comes to top goal scorers, penalty kick goals can lead to some deceptive inflation of the numbers.

Roberto Mancini suggests that Mario Balotelli, sent off in stoppage time against Arsenal on Sunday, will not play again for Manchester City this season and, perhaps, never again. Didn’t he say that about that Tevez guy?

Want to know something of the absurd lengths to which sectarian support can go? Read this about how the color green is a no-no in Larkhall, a Rangers supporting town outside of Glasgow.

14 Comments

  1. I sure hope we don’t lose to Reading!

    There are only a small(er) number of Union fans that keep up with the team on a day to day basis, for the more casual fan they must be scratching their heads…we have lost our GK and our two best goal scorers ever in less then one calendar year. This is the exact reason Nowak’s job is on the line. They need to keep those casual fans coming out to the park, and uncertainty coupled with poor play on the feild will gradually shrink the numbers of casual fans that want to schlep all the way to gross ass Chester to catch a match.

    The honeymoon is over, now the management needs to keep a good product on the pitch to make those casual’s keep coming out. Also the fact that almost ever other team has at least one star player at this point….where is ours? That goes right in the face of all our other sports teams in town that are all considered big money teams. The sports fans of this town already see soccer as an afterthought, but if it turns into a bad afterthought the River End will be the only place that is full in that dreadful city and stadium (which aside of the pitch is awful).

    Snugsmac
    SoB
    Reject
    Founding member
    Season ticket holder in the 138

  2. The author of the Raleigh article is Luke Decock. That’s a shame.

  3. Does anyone think the Union would ever open a women’s team? Bring in the guy who was coaching the Independence, have games on the opposite days of the U (i.e. saturday vs. sunday) and they start to make enough money to help support both teams.

  4. Since it is the bye week and I’m going crazy too, Any chance you all have an opinion on what the best option is for Dempsey this summer. I read the link up there and heard the noise about upgrades to the top six in EPl or top four in Bundes League but I’d love to hear from those that follow those leagues closer what realistically is the best place for him. Somewhere where he can continue to contribute and get majority minutes but have a chance to get major trophies (Europa, Champions League, EPL…). Just throwing out there if someone thinks they have an idea.

    • If he wants to get playing time then he should play for a team like New Castle that’s on a roll. However, not sure New Castle will pay top dollars since they seem to specialize in finding players dirt cheap in Europe that have fallen out of flavor.

      Maybe he is happy sitting on a bench and playing only part-time for a fancier club as long as he gets top dollars…

    • Dempsey is a perfect fit for Arsenal. Nobody on Arsenal scores goals besides Van Persie and Gervinho has been a huge disappointment. They also expressed interest last summer (confirmed) and will likely be at it again. That would be my bet.

  5. “Danny Califf, Brian Carroll and Zac MacMath are participating in the Easter Egg Roll at the White House this morning.”

    Why do I picture that as proud Papas Danny & Brian, there with little Zac rolling an egg?

  6. Amy Fadool obviously didn’t go to Temple for journalism. Her column is terrible.

    Anywho, the season is still young. I think Pajoy can give us the same goal production we got from Le Toux…after all, it took Le Toux half the season to find the back of the net last year and we still made the playoffs.

  7. Hi! Quick question that’s enitlery off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My weblog looks weird when viewing from my iphone4. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to correct this problem. If you have any recommendations, please share. Thank you!

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