Saturday, October 07, 2006

Honda Player Of The Year

The New England Revolution's Clint Dempsey was recently named the 1996 Honda Player of the Year. Rumors have it that the MLS turned down one or more transfer offers before the August 31 closing of the transfer window. Will we be seeing Clint leave for Europe this winter? Here's a list of players that have one the award in the past : HONDA PLAYERS OF THE YEAR 1991 Hugo Perez 1992 Eric Wynalda 1993 Thomas Dooley 1994 Marcelo Balboa 1995 Alexi Lalas 1996 Eric Wynalda 1997 Eddie Pope 1998 Cobi Jones 1999 Kasey Keller 2000 Claudio Reyna 2001 Earnie Stewart 2002 Landon Donovan 2003 Landon Donovan 2004 Landon Donovan 2005 Kasey Keller 2006 Clint Dempsey

Thursday, October 05, 2006

McBride To Chicago Fire?

Fire's Striking Talent Sky Sports is reporting that the Chicago Fire are keen to sign 34 year old Brian McBride. McBride's contract with Fulham runs out at the end of the season. Chicago's coach Dave Sarachan thinks that Chicago can offer McBride and his wife some of the intangibles that England can not. The question is, who would the Fire have to move to make the deal happen? They're already playing Jaqua out of position on the right of the midfield. Chad Barrett, Chris Rolfe, Andy Herron and rookie Calen Carr are all competing for spots up top. If McBride's taking serious the idea of moving back to the US and looking to move to Chicago, Chicago's going to be seroius about making some trades to move one or two of those guys out the door.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

As The Bung Turns

Looks like the plot is getting thicker when it comes to the bung scandal in England with some managers like Luton's Mike Newell saying that what we've heard of so far is just the tip of the ice berg. You can read more about it at Sky Sports.

The Infamous Stan Collymore

What Is Stan Collymore Smoking? In case you haven't heard already, Stan Collymore has announced that he's going to take another stab at playing in England's premeirship. If you're not familar with Collymore, read his write-up at wiki. In short, the guy has been quite the character known for off-field antics and unfulfilled expactations. It's doubtful that any 35 year old no matter how talented they are can make it in the premiership, let alone someone who hasn't played the game for years.

Monday, October 02, 2006

English Bung

BBC Bung A week or two ago their was a huge buzz about a BBC show that was coming out. The show was going to expose dirty managers and agents in England that were taking payments to get a player transfer to happen. I mentioned it in passing right before it came out. I never followed up on it because the show really didn't seem to show anything that was clearly criminal. There was some shady things but that there are shady dealings out there didn't suprise me. They didn't bring anything new to the table. There's a bit more to it than just that, but not much more. FA Gets Tough What Panorama may have done was get under the clubs' collective skin. The Premeirship has stepped up and announced they're investigating 39 transfers involving 8 clubs. We don't know which clubs are involved. It could be Newcastle United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Blackburn or Portsmouth. It could be some others. What we do know is that the English FA have rules in place that they can use to force agents to make their banking records available to the league. Now this could get interesting!

Chelsea Is A Nasty Little Club?

CT, a Villa fan, has a fun time laying into Jose Mourinho and Chelsea after Aston Villa's recent 1-1 tie at Stamford Bridge. Is Mourinho really just a new version of Sir Alex all over again?

Sunday, October 01, 2006

MLS Players Of The Week

Best Major League Soccer Players The All-American XI has put out their best players for week 27 of Major League Soccer (MLS). One of the things that I like about this list is that they don't feel compelled to list a full line-up of 11 each week. They just worry about giving the best players of the week their props. Their list this week is as follows : Matt Pickens - GK Greg Vanney - DEF Richard Mulrooney - MID Jonathan Bornstein - MID / DEF Ben Olsen – MID Kyle Beckerman – MID Kenny Cooper – FWD Josmer Altidore – FWD