Post-1994 World Cup: Breaking Into First Division Soccer

After the 1994 World Cup in which the US team showed great progress from 1990, the European soccer establishment started to notice two things; that the Americans do indeed play soccer and that a few more of their players are worth signing. Click to continue reading...

Another weekend, and the football never ends. I ought to just quit complaining about the amount of football on offer on any given weekend for us in the United States. If you have ESPN360, you have the Russian Premier League (someday soon on Comcast...someday soon). Major League Soccer is on a reduced schedule, but still up and running with three games this weekend.

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In the last week speculation has increased that FC Dallas Attacking Midfielder Brek Shea, a standout of recent US Youth National teams and the 2008 MLS Combine has drawn the interest from Alex Ferguson of Manchester United. While this sounds glamorous, Shea would be just the latest youngster plucked from American shores by United in the last several years.

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Talk about a trade that was hardly mentioned. While digging around for another story today I came across this article on MLSnet. Apparently we all missed this trade on Wednesday as San Jose sent veteran back-up keeper Preston Burpo and a 2009 fourth round SuperDraft pick to Colorado for Jovan Kirovski and Kelly Gray. Click to continue reading...

The big problem down the road for the Rapids: their keeper is too darn good. Bouna is going to Senegal to help his country qualify for the World Cup. This was bound to happen, as Bouna got his first cap last summer in the African Cup of Nations and Senegal's manager was impressed with his performance (and it's hard not to be, for whomever he plays).

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The Cone is Gone! Not quite as uplifting news as learning that I've magically inherited a billion dollars and can save the Colorado Rapids from Enos "Uncle Scrooge" Kroenke but it's good enough to brighten my day.

For those who thought Glinton (out with injury now, IIRC) and Kamara were going to be able to consistently pose an attacking threat in the MLS, this is Yallop's way of saying his doesn't agree.

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One of the more surprising things about the Colorado Rapids fielding an unchanged line-up for Saturday's game against New England was the apparent absence of some of the more high profile players even from the bench. Unless I failed to see these players on the bench or the Rapids website is missing them on the team sheet, Pablo Mastroeni and Jovan Kirovski were not even substitutes. Click to continue reading...

So, Christian Gomez...was it DC United pulling another one over on a desperate Western Conference club or a big fat win-win for all concerned? I have no idea.� That's why we play the games, right? That said, I think there's some truth to Ives' point (who authored the "pulling one over" item) that Colorado was more than [. Click to continue reading...

I got to listen to the Saints game yesterday morning. Unfortunately I didn't listen closely since I was dealing with work stuff (I was on-call) and then dozed off at some point in the 2nd half. I was happy that they had won 2-0. But they were at home and Leicester had only won 1 of their previous 10 games. Click to continue reading...

Thanks to Class VI (NoFanAlone.com) for catching this one. Did Jovan Kirovski retire from playing in the MLS and for the Colorado Rapids? The way this article is worded one has to wonder.

For the past 15 years, Jovan Kirovski has traveled the world playing soccer. And while the former San Pasqual High star, now with Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids, has traveled all over the world to play soccer, he never forgot where he came from.

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Colorado Rapids Record (W-L-T): 9-13-8; 29 GF; 34 GA Source Material: Schedule/match reports Overview It seems fitting somehow that I should approach a review of the Colorado Rapids 2007 in the same almost aggressively feckless manner in which that team's front office runs the team - e.g. not reading the match reports, but operating from memory. Click to continue reading...

I couldn't have been more wrong on my Thursday Prediction just hours ago.

First of all as Mr. Fish pointed out, tonite's game was actually not on ESPN2 for some reason, so I didn't see the game.� Thanks for the correction Mr. Fish.

Secondly, the Rapids put a whooping on the Revolution.� Who (besides Rapids fans) would have ever guessed that?

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My apologies on that last post. I had a 3 month old keeping me occupied while I tried to put together a couple quick posts. I should have the formatting fixed now to better show the link to the original post.

Everton Dupes United

Speaking of apologies, Everton is going to owe one to Sheffield United. Everton just sold the ex-Saint James Beattie to Sheffield United for £4 million.

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Apparently the Colorado Rapids have released Chris Wingert. This on it's one isn't the craziest of moves especially from a team that traded Hunter Freeman for a bag of balls and mysteriously cast off others like Ritchie Kotschau and Eric Denton. But it comes at a time when the team, facing missing their veteran Mike Petke for most if not all of the remainder of the season, decided to trade what natural width they have had on the left side of the pitch (remember, their new field is as legally wide as possible) Greg Vanney to DC United for a player DCU was likely to cut in the off-season due to his inconsistency in the back, Facundu Erpen.

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