Columnist Nick Green has written 100 Percent Soccer
since 2005. 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.
Married to a long-suffering soccer widow, he has a cat
named Pele.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.