U.S. Rematch With Sweden Set
The U.S. Men's National Team's first game of 2008 will be a Jan. 19 rematch against Sweden at Carson's Home Depot Center, Coach Bob Bradley announced - or perhaps let slip - today at the annual Honda Symposium in Los Angeles.
The symposium at the Biltmore Hotel downtown precedes Friday's Honda Player of the Year announcement.
The game will coincide with what's becoming a traditional January camp for the U.S. men at the National Training Center.
The U.S. lost to Sweden 1-0 in August.
"In the second half of that game we didn't seem to believe in what we were doing," Bradley said. "We lost our focus a bit."
That game, played in Sweden, featured mainly European-based players. The return game will see Bradley use mainly MLS players, since the European season will still be going on.
Bradley described the U.S. team, which begins World Cup qualifying next year, as "a work in progress."
I'll have more on the symposium, which also featured Galaxy GM and President Alexi Lalas, a little later this afternoon, but that nugget was the only real news to come out of the event.
About 100 Percent Soccer
Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005 for the Daily News, Daily Breeze and other Los Angeles area newspapers. The blog of the same name began in 2007. A native of England, he began writing about soccer in the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat in the stands for one in the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook and follow him on Twitter.
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