Final Four Football Friday & Galaxy Gameday
Yes, the Galaxy officially play their last game of the season tonight at 10:30 from New Zealand on Fox Soccer Channel.
They're having trouble drawing a crowd though and tickets are being given away in a two for one deal. Defender Julian Valentin sounds considerably more enthusiastic here.
BTW, former Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid is apparently one of two finalists for the coaching job with the Seattle Sounders, who showed off their new green uniforms on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the UCLA women are in today's Final Four again with one Bruin drawing inspiration from the death of her mother.
Incidentally, South Bay soccer nut Greg Delgado points out that the Palos Verdes Peninsula remarkably has players on three of the four teams participating in the NCAA Tournament.
UCLA has Rolling Hills Estates' Jen Belcher on its roster, while semifinal opponents North Carolina boast Whitney Engen, who is from the same city.
Even more amazingly, according to Delgado who knows both families, the two grew up on the same street; it's a long shot the pair will meet on the field though - Belcher has played just 71 minutes in three games for UCLA this season.
Kickoff is at 4 p.m. on ESPNU.
In the earlier semifinal, Stanford has representation from Palos Verdes Estates' Christen Press, a striker who has started every game this season for the Cardinal. The former Chadwick School star is the team's top scorer this season with 16 goals and 11 assists.
The semifinal against Notre Dame begins at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
Finally, the Cal State Domiguez Hills men play their Division II semifinal in Florida this afternoon with Coach Joe Flanagan motivated a "tiny bit" by revenge.
Hear more from Flanagan here and goalkeeper Miguel Benitez here.
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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.
The article about "discount" tickets for the Beckham game puts dirt on the Galaxy's ambitions to be a "world brand." Now, if Leiweke and Payne recognize that (and, in Leiweke's case, that's a very open question), they can dispense w/all the nonsense and get back to running a soccer team.