Monthly Archives: September 2008

Matadors Blogger: Chocolate chip pancakes, Chipotle & Missing Classes

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i-1bd1299aeb2dc40199db1b6970501970-Wright_Jake_08.jpg Goalkeeper Jake Wright, of Rancho Palos Verdes, will blog for 100 Percent Soccer this season, providing an inside look at the Cal State Northridge men’s soccer program. Wright was a two-year starter at Peninsula High and is entering his sophomore year at Cal State Northridge. This summer Wright played for Orange County Blue Star of the United Soccer Leagues Premier Development League.

This is his third post.

After a rough first week splitting two games, we pulled it together for last weekend’s tournament at Cal State Fullerton with games against Cal State Bakersfield and UNLV.

The Friday trip started out with class in the morning for some of the guys, followed by a great breakfast. I myself had some pretty awesome chocolate chip pancakes. After we finished lunch, we loaded up the vans and cruised down the freeway on a couple hour trip down to Orange County. We arrived a little bit early and hung out around the field for a while then went into the locker room for our pre game team talk.

The game started off well with pretty dominant play from our side. However, about eight minutes into the first half, CSUB were reduced to ten men for a rash challenge on Robert Pate. It was good to see our forwards put their first goals of the campaign on the score sheet as Camilo Rojas, Moy Gomez, and Cameron Sims found the back of the net in the 3-0 victory.

After the game, we headed to Chipotle for a quick bite to eat, and then headed home.

After a good nights sleep, we all got up ready for training on Saturday morning. After training, we headed home, but not before a quick stop to the training room for a cold whirlpool and foam roll to keep the legs from getting too sore; two games in three days does take its toll. Later, some of my roommates and I went back to the house to play some Madden on the Xbox and we all dozed off ready to do our best on Sunday against UNLV, who we slipped by last year in a tight game in Las Vegas.

Sunday morning, we all enjoyed another epic breakfast then headed out to the stadium. Fullerton is a great place to play; they have a nice big stadium and always a nice surface to play on. After a solid warm up, we headed out to try and claim the tournament title. We started both halves with a bang. Cameron Sims found the back of the net early on a great ball from Luis Smith in the first half, and Moy Gomez put the game out of reach for the Rebels just one minute into the second half with a tremendous header into the corner. It was great to come off of a so-so weekend and turn it around with two victories and a tournament win, a great team effort by everyone on the squad.

Looking ahead to this coming weekend, we will be headed to the Great Lakes region, Wisconsin specifically, to take on two home town teams in the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and Madison, both good talented sides. The weather looks to be a bit wet, but it might prove to be a good challenge for us. The tough part outside of the field will be trying to keep up with classes. Missing a few days of school is never good, but our team is trying to keep both our grades up and our game sharp.

Everyone on the squad is looking forward to a big weekend, and hoping to come away with two victories. We will be leaving early Thursday morning, but I will try and make a post from the road.

Go Matadors!

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Tuesday’s Column: MLS Needs a Lesson in Scheduling

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After spending the weekend watching as a fan (I was on vacation last week and skipped a home Galaxy game for the first time this season) rather than a journalist, it’s clear to me that if there are many more repeats of last weekend and I didn’t get paid to do this I would have to question my devotion to the league.

Pretty dismal games and few recognizable stars (and in the case of Toronto few recognizable players period) frankly led to the integrity of the competition being undermined. All because MLS insists upon playing on FIFA designated match days.

It’s not fair to teams, fans or players – and no one I’ve talked to believes what MLS is doing is helping the sport in this country.

So, I know it’s an old saw, but I took another swing at the issue in Tuesday’s column. If nothing else, it will continue to drive home to the MLS suits how important the issue is and how stupid they look and are making the sport look.

What do you think? Vent, discuss or comment below.

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MLS Commish to Speak at USC & College Awards Season Opens

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MLS Commissioner Don Garber will dispense his wisdom on “the state of Major League Soccer by highlighting key accomplishments and challenges to date, as well provide insight as to where he sees the league headed in the years to come” at the USC Marshall School of Business Thursday Nov. 20 in the run-up to MLS Cup in Carson.

Cost is $50. Details here.

But Garber is an NFL guy; the jury is out on whether he truly understands the other football at the global level and is capable of getting American soccer in tune with the rest of the world. That’s essentially my column Tuesday (not-so-coincidentally) after last weekend’s World Cup qualifying debacle.

The college season has begun; so have the awards;
*Cal State Dominguez Hills senior midfielder Kyle Holland of Anchorage, Alaska was named the California Collegiate Athletic Association Player of the Week Monday after three goals and an assist in three games.
*LMU junior goalkeeper Patrick Sampson has been named the West Coast Conference
Player of the Week after shutting out 24th-ranked Cal Poly in a 1-0 Lions victory.

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Homeless World Cup Movie on ESPN2 Tonight & Sunday’s College Scores

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Sports media columnist Tom Hoffarth took a closer look at the documentary on the 2006 Homeless World Cup that premieres on ESPN2 tonight and talks to some locals who aspire to take part in this year’s version.

For a peek at the movie trailer and a review, click here.

Sunday’s college scores:
*USC 7 Alabama 1 (The Trojans scored the most goals since 1995 in Coach Ali Khosroshahin’s 100th college game. USC moved to 4-1-0 with the win).

*UCLA men 1 North Carolina 1 (UCLA senior defender Brad Rusin scored in the 86th minute to tie the score, and the 19th-ranked Bruins salvaged a 1-1 tie against 15th-ranked North Carolina in Winston-Salem, NC.).

*Cal State Northridge 2 UNLV 0 (Matadors goalkeeper Kevin Guppy didn’t have to make a save as Cal State Northridge moved to 3-1-0 on the season with a dominating victory over the Running Rebels in the championship game of the Cal State Fullerton Tournament.

*LMU men 1 UCSB 3 (Loyola Marymount’s unbeaten streak to start the season ended at the hands of seventh-ranked UC Santa Barbara, which scored twice in the final seven minutes to hand the Lions (1-1-2) a 3-1 loss at Sullivan Field.

*LMU women 1 Harvard 0 (The 2-2-1 Lady Lions have now won two straight games).

*Pepperdine 3 Northwestern 2 (The Pepperdine women squandered a 2-0 lead and lost 3-2 in overtime to Northwestern to run their record to 1-3-1).

*Long Beach State 0 UNLV 1 (The 3-1-1 49ers lost on a 76th minute penalty kick despite out-shooting the Rebels 17-to-6).

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Sunday Football Funnies: Barack Obama 10,000-1 to Coach West Ham United & More

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My vacation is ending. I’m not laughing

Maybe these will help.

This one is weird, – but true.

The main character of the Get Fuzzy comic strip is a rugby fan – it shows.

And the following were e-mailed to me a couple of months back and I’ve been looking for an excuse to blog them ever since:

After a visit to the doctor, the local team’s striker dropped in to his local pub for a quick one. “What’s up mate?” asked his friend Brian, “you look worried.”
“I am,” Alan replied. “I’ve just been to the doctor and he told me I can’t play football.”
“Oh, really?” said Brian. “He’s seen you play too then, has he?”

An American visitor to England watched his very first football match in the middle of winter and was struck by the differences between English and American football.
After the match he struck up a conversation with one of the English players and said, “You know, over in the States, our players wear thick protective clothing. You guys must be frozen stiff in those light clothes.”
“It’s not so bad,” said the Englishman. “Sometimes the ground is covered in snow.”
“Wow!’ exclaimed the American. “What do you do about the balls? Paint them red?”
“Oh, no,” said the player. “We just wear an extra pair of underwear.”

The top scorer of a Premier League team was tragically killed in a car accident. Seeing an opportunity for glory, the reserve striker went to see the manager.
“How about me taking his place?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not sure about that,” said the manager, “we’ll have to speak to the undertaker first.”

The Devil was constantly challenging St. Peter to a game of soccer, but St. Peter refused, until one day while walking around heaven he discovered that quite a number of international footballers had entered the “pearly gates”.
“I think I’ll arrange to play that soccer game,” said St. Peter to the Devil. “We have a great number of international soccer stars in heaven at the moment from which to select a winning team.”
“You’ll lose, you’ll lose!” taunted the Devil.
“What makes you so sure we’ll lose?” enquired St Peter.
“Because,” laughed the Devil, we have all the referees down here.”

A woman in Van Nuys was reading the Daily News one morning and said to her husband – “Look at this, dear. There’s an article here about a man who traded his wife for a Galaxy season ticket. You wouldn’t do a thing like that, – would you?”
“Of course I wouldn’t!’ replied her husband. “The season’s almost over!”

Quotable:

“Soccer is a game in which a handful of fit people run around for one and a half hours watched by millions of others who could really use the exercise.” – Anonymous.

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Final Result: Real Salt Lake at Galaxy

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The power of two. The Galaxy scored two, conceded two and were without star players Landon Donovan and David Beckham for Saturday’s game against Real Salt Lake. Here Head Coach Bruce Arena directs operations as Associate Head Coach Dave Sarachan looks on.
i-663c5972b539d381811959b54d8e645b-TS07-Galaxy-SaltLake-sh-245.JPG
Photo by Sean Hiller

Full disclosure: I did not attend the game, opting to stay at home and watch on TV since I was technically on vacation.

Notable:
*The final score was 2-2.
*Bryan Jordan, recalled earlier this week from the USL Portland Timbers, scored in his first MLS start.
*The Galaxy winless streak hit 11 games, a team record.
*The Galaxy slumped to dead last in MLS.
*Salt Lake City striker Fabian Espinola scored a goal that was disallowed and broke a bone in his leg while spectacularly flipping during his celebration.

Galaxy beat writer Phil Collin kindly sent along some quotes that did not make it into the print edition.

Here’s Real Salt Lake Coach Jason Kreis on the disallowed goal:

It was a little bit mind-boggling there. I’m not exactly sure how it went down. We all kind of thought he may have been in an offside position and we were all looking at the linesman and everybody on the field was as well. The linesman was running back indicating a goal and there was some discussion there between (Galaxy Coach) Bruce (Arena), the linesman and the fourth official and the referee. They came to a collective agreement that it was offside.

My initial indication from upstairs was that it was offside so I can’t complain too much about the call. I wish it had been a little quicker because then my player wouldn’t have celebrated the goal and broken his leg.

Here’s Kreis on whether he has seen injuries from overly-exuberant goal celebrations before:

“Yeah I have. I used to do the same thing and came very close to injuring myself one time and I know there was another player in Dallas who did a flip after a goal one time and hurt his back and had to miss the next match,” yet he added he won’t curtail them. “No, absolutely not. That’s what the fans come to see. They come to see the goals, they come to see the passion and the emotion the players have after they score a goal. It’s a fluke accident and he could just as well could have broken his leg walking down the stairs this morning.”

Actually, Jason fans come to see healthy players playing to their potential for their team so they get to see the best possible game of soccer they paid good money for. They don’t come to see some flashy foreigner stupidly injure themselves.

At least Espinola was embarrassed by his dumb move even if Kreis wasn’t: as far as I could tell he spent the rest of the game hiding behind his towel no doubt hoping the ground would open up and swallow him.

By the way, Kreis sounded like a coach who knew this result was a missed opportunity:

“I think in our locker room we’re a bit disappointed with that result. We came into this game knowing they’re missing a lot of key players, a lot of important players. We were confident enough to come in here and think we could take away the full three points. Having said that, we haven’t been very good on the road this season so I think we do have to take some positive stuff out of tonight.”

Here’s Arena on the ever-lengthening 0-5-6 run:

“Am I worried about the streak or the length of it? No. I can’t worry about that. I guess if they wouldn’t have that streak, I probably wouldn’t be here either.”

Fair enough.

Here’s Arena on Jordan:

Certainly he had a great effort tonight. I don’t want to single out any one two or three particular players – it sticks out in my mind right now that the performance of Bryan Jordan was excellent.

“In terms of Bryan getting continued minutes we’ll have to wait and see, but that performance tonight certainly doesn’t hurt his cause at all,” Arena added. “We were thin at a bunch of positions tonight and Bryan was having a good year at Portland and I’m aware of him from our coaching staff from preseason and he had a good week of training. We had not a whole lot of choices. Bryan certainly showed that he’s a player that belongs on the field.”

Arena sounded considerably less convinced about the latest contribution from Eduardo Dominguez:

“He did OK. He hasn’t done much here and we knew the position would be challenging. By trade he’s more of a center back. We put him in a new position and we knew fitness would be a problem as well. He gave us 55 minutes we needed because Brandon McDonald just came back from injury.”

Finally, here’s Jordan on the likelihood of getting back on the field once the likes of David Beckham and Landon Donovan return:

“I’ve been waiting for the opportunity and now that I got it I feel I did very well. I know we do have key players missing who might take over my role again but I’ll still be fighting hard and trying to get out there.”

Game story.

Highlights:

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World Cup Qualifying Roundup: U.S., Mexico, England, Croatia Win

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A Clint Dempsey goal was enough for the U.S. to beat Cuba 1-0 Saturday, while Mexico beat Jamaica, 3-0.

David Beckham started on the bench for England in the win over Andorra and Croatia downed Kazakhstan, 3-0.

Up next for Mexico Wednesday: a likely dispirited Canada.

The U.S. takes on Trinidad & Tobago, which moved into second place in the group with a 1-1 draw with Guatemala.

All the scores are here.

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Final Result: Chivas USA at Toronto FC

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Chivas USA beat a severely depleted Toronto FC 3-1 Saturday afternoon.

Daniel Paladini, briefly a Galaxy player, scored his first-ever MLS goal for Chivas USA just before half time and Los Alamitos’ Jonathan Bornstein added the second half winner. Ante Razov got the third in stoppage time. Goalkeeper Zach Thornton was carted off injured.

Notable:
*The win was Chivas USA’s second victory in two weeks over Toronto; it was the club’s first-ever come-from-behind victory on the road.

*The win improves the team’s record to 8-9-6 and ties Chivas USA for second place in the Western Conference with Real Salt Lake, which plays the Galaxy later tonight.

* Next for Chivas USA – A game against the New England Revolution Thursday on ESPN2; the team will stay on the East Coast between games. Sacha Kljestan is suspended for the game.

Quotable:

*”[The result] is incredibly important,” Coach Preki said. “I think right now we put ourselves in a really good spot to push in last seven games for a playoff spot.”

*Dan Paladini on his first goal as a pro:

“Unbelievable feeling. … I didn’t even see it go in. I turned, shot, it went in and my teammates crowded around me, it was fun.”

Game story.

Highlights:

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Saturday Stupid Scheduling Gameday: Galaxy, Chivas USA, U.S. World Cup Qualifying & More

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Before we get started, it’s worth noting that Deputy MLS Commissioner Ivan Gazidis announced on the commissioner’s blog on the league Web site Friday that the issue of scheduling will belatedly be reviewed.

About time. And why couldn’t Garber blog about that himself? He’s in Cuba for the U.S. World Cup qualifier. Let’s hope that irony hasn’t escaped Garber et al.

Still, that doesn’t help Chivas USA or Toronto FC. Both teams spent the week scrounging for warm bodies to put on the field for today’s 1 p.m. game in Canada that’s live on Prime.

The U.S.-Cuba game is live at 5 p.m. on ESPN Classic and Galavision.

The political implications of the game have overshadowed the sporting ones, but on paper Cuba have little chance against the U.S. Cuba hasn’t beaten the U.S. on a soccer field since 1976.

Notable:
*Defender Steve Cherundolo is suspended for the game.
*Michael Bradley leads the U.S. in 2008 in minutes played (647).
*Leagues from eight different countries are represented on the U.S. roster: Belgium, Denmark, England (4), France, Germany (3), Mexico, Scotland (2), and the United States (7).

Standings so far:
GROUP 1 W D L GF GA Pts.
Trinidad & Tobago 1 0 0 3 1 3
United States 1 0 0 1 0 3
Guatemala 0 0 1 0 1 0
Cuba 0 0 1 1 3 0

BTW, Hurricane Ike isn’t expected to hit Cuba until later in the week, but the weather sounds brutal to play soccer in.

Finally, the Galaxy plays at 7:30 p.m. against Real Salt Lake live on Prime.

Here’s what former RSL midfielder Chris Klein had to say about the transformation in Utah:

“It’s a completely different team. (Coach) Jason (Kreis) has completely over-hauled them and done a good job of getting them to play better as a team. They’ve got good players at every position and they’re very organized when they come out to play.

They’ve struggled on the road a little bit, but I don’t think that’s any indication of the team we’re going to see Saturday night.

The real engine of their team is (Javier) Morales in the middle. He’s a guy who provides their service and creativity. Obviously they’re very sound defensively, but offensively they have Morales and (Fabian) Espindola scored their two goals last week (in the 2-0 RSL victory over the Rapids) so those are two of the guys we can key on Saturday night.”

Since I am in vacation, a barbecue beckons and there is plenty of soccer on TV, I’ll skip the Galaxy game tonight.

For those of you going, there’s a T-shirt and towel giveaway, while L.A. band Under the Influence of Giants plays a pre-game concert.

Check them out:

Almost forgot:
Here is a brief college soccer roundup of Friday scores.

In other games it was:
Long Beach State 3 Harvard 0
Pepperdine 1 Iowa 0
Cal State Northridge men 1 UNLV 0
Cal State Northridge women 2 UC Irvine 1
LMU men 1 Cal Poly 0
LMU women 3 UC Irvine 1

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Galaxy Midfielder Chris Klein (And Others) Slam MLS Schedule

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With MLS blithely carrying on with a regular schedule this weekend despite the heavy World Cup qualifying fixture list around the world, criticism is mounting about the harm the domestic league is doing to its credibility at home and internationally.

Coaches hate it, players hate it, fans hate it, but the MLS suits don’t appear to understand the harm they are doing to the league. Soccer is a global game. MLS needs to get with the rest of the world and at least – the very least – honor FIFA international dates.

By this point it’s a bit of an old saw, but it’s worth talking about just to keep it in the public eye and keep the pressure on MLS.

Toronto FC Coach John Carver fired the first salvo last weekend after the game against Chivas USA, observing he will be without nine or 10 players who are on World Cup qualifying duty this coming weekend:

“We asked the MLS, because we thought it’s an extreme circumstance, if we could postpone the (return) game (this weekend against Chivas USA). They turned us down. … On this occasion I don’t think common sense has prevailed.

“I’m going to have to get kids and put kids in. It’s that embarrassing. I may even have to go get kids who play in amateur teams.

If I’m a fan of Toronto FC, I don’t think I’m getting value for money because I’ve paid good money for my season ticket – we’ve got fantastic support up there – yet we’re not putting the product on the pitch.

“It’s something they have to look at. I don’t think there’s another league in the world that would ask a team to play in these circumstances.”

He’s right and Galaxy midfielder Chris Klein piled it on:

“It’s a disgrace. … (MLS) Commissioner (Don) Garber came out and said a few things about scheduling problems and all I can say is we have to figure those out. You play a game on Thursday night when you’re missing David Beckham and Landon Donovan and Cuauhtemoc Blanco and (Gonzalo) Segares and the list keeps going. And these are games that are at the most important time of the season. For us, come Saturday night, we’re missing four guys – four very important guys and that doesn’t help the league. We need to make this league about the product on the field first.”

(The Galaxy are without Donovan, Eddie Lewis, Beckham and Canadian Ante Jazic, who are all on international duty).

Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena is similarly unimpressed with MLS scheduling:

“That needs to be again reexamined by the people who make the decisions in MLS. I’ve spoken about that for years. I don’t think it’s the way to go, but I’m a non-voting member, so-to-speak. You look at our team this weekend and we lose four players in our first XI. That’s a factor and it is for other teams. Obviously there needs to be a reexamination of the schedule. You look at (Tuesday) night – you have two MLS teams eliminated from the (CONCACAF) Champions League by clubs from Panama and Trinidad (& Tobago) and that tells me the schedule is catching up with everybody. … Of course I believe you honor (FIFA) fixture dates.”

Boston-based soccer writer Frank Dell’Apa agrees with Bruce about the CONCACAF Champions League.

And it’s humiliating for the U.S.

Meanwhile, Galaxy striker Edson Buddle has the last word (and best quote) on the issue in regard to Saturday’s game against second-place Western Conference team Real Salt Lake:

“Hopefully we’ll put them to sleep not having four good players here. So hopefully they’ll go to sleep and they won’t think it will be a tough game and we’ll steal some points.”

Not a bad hope.

I’ll be back in the morning with previews of the Galaxy, Chivas USA and U.S. games.

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