As the Senate gets ready to vote on a new bill to stave off economic disaster, and Sarah prepares (feverishly) to debate, and George Will joins the ranks of those who see her as unqualified to serve ... and some (unfortunately) find themselves feeling sorry for the lipsticked pitbull ... my thoughts turn (feverishly) to [. Click to continue reading...

UCLA men 2 (2-3-1) Santa Clara 0
No. 2 UCLA women 3 (7-0-1) New Mexico 0
No.4 USC 4 (7-1-0) SMU 0
Long Beach State 3 (5-2-2) Utah State 0
Pepperdine 0 (3-4-2) Marquette 0
Arizona State 2 Cal State Northridge women 1 (5-3)
Sacramento 1 Cal State Northridge men 2
Loyola Marymount women 4 (4-3-2)Oral Roberts 1
Loyola Marymount men 0 (1-2-3) No.

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Given a choice between watching soccer and blogging about it, I'd much rather do the former, but the scant rewards Wednesday for doing so included a tepid Manchester United 0-0 draw with Spain's Villareal in the UEFA Champions League and a surprising 2-0 win by Marathon of Honduras over Cruz Azul in the CONCACAF version

I will likely impose radio silence again today with two UEFA Cup games on Fox Soccer Channel (Spurs-Wisla Krakow at noon followed by Tim Howard's Everton against Oguchi Onyewu's Standard Liege) and New York meeting Sigi Schmid's Columbus Crew over on ESPN2 at 4 p.

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The Women's Professional Soccer League announced its allocation of members of the U.S. women's national team on Tuesday, establishing a foundation for the seven-team league set to kick off next spring.

U.S. Olympic team star Hope Solo and U.S. national team striker Abby Wambach were among the 21 players assigned to the seven teams.

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WPS Player Allocations – U.S. Women's National Team



WPS Team


Players Listed in Alphabetical Order

Bay Area: Nicole Barnhart, Rachel Buehler, Leslie Osborne

Boston Breakers: Angela Hucles, Kristine Lilly, Heather Mitts

Chicago Red Stars: Carli Lloyd,Kate Markgraf,Lindsay Tarpley

Los Angeles: Shannon Boxx, Stephanie Cox, Aly Wagner

Sky Blue FC: Natasha Kai, Heather O'Reilly, Christie Rampone

St. Click to continue reading...

Former South (Torrance) High star Shannon Boxx, Olympian Stephanie Cox and midfielder Aly Wagner were allocated to Los Angeles' Women's Professional Soccer franchise today.

"This is a big day for Women's Professional Soccer, as teams now have Olympic gold medalists from Beijing allocated to their home cities along with other talented national team players," said WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci.

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Heather O'Reilly scored just 40 seconds into the game, USC striker Amy Rodriguez also scored and Torrance's Shannon Boxx was named player of the game as the U.S. crushed New Zealand (much much) earlier today 4-0 to win its group.

The U.S. needed a big win and a large Norway loss against Japan to take the group.

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USA Women Olympic Match Report from du Nord reader Adam.


Group Stage Match 2
Sat Aug 9
USA 1-0 Japan

When four minutes had ticked by in the match between the United States and Japan, US players and fans had to be relieved: the US wasn't two goals down. In contrast to the mess of a team that came out against Norway, the Americans looked more aggressive and confident. Click to continue reading...

An important match versus Japan looms. Predictions?

USA: 18-Hope Solo; 2-Heather Mitts, 15-Kate Markgraf, 3-Christie Rampone - Capt., 14-Stephanie Cox, 15; 9-Heather O'Reilly, 7-Shannon Boxx, 11-Carli Lloyd, 5-Lindsay Tarpley; 16-Angela Hucles, 8-Amy Rodriguez.

JPN: 1-Miho Fukumoto; 2-Yukari Kinga, 3-Hiromi Ikeda, 4-Azusa Iwashimizu, 7-Kozue Ando; 5-Miyuki Yanagita, 8-Aya Miyama, 10-Homare Sawa, 15-Mizuho Sakaguchi; 17-Yuki Nagasato, 11-Shinobu Ohno. Click to continue reading...

The USWNT kicks off against Japan tomorrow morning at 5AM ET and will (hopefully) field a team with its heads screwed on more securely than on Wednesday! I like to think that Wednesday's game was a collective test, to see whether "Boom Ball" really doesn't work. Lesson learned, guys? Gayle Bryan has written about [. Click to continue reading...

First, it's pronounced Soond-HAGH-eh. (You still have 'til 8/6 to practice and get it right! Let's all give it our best shot, okay?) And for hardcore Pia fans, here are her career tournament stats (from the FIFA site). Second - don't forget to vote in the USWNT poll over there in the right-hand [. Click to continue reading...

What I've perused this morning. . .
New Zealand goes high-tech to combat the heat and pollution at the Olympics.

Mark Zeigler takes a hard look at the record of the U.S. women.

It's ironic to think that if Landon Donovan played for Brazil and stayed in the country because he loved it there instead of in Europe, he'd apparently be a huge hero. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday the USWNT beat Sweden 1-0 at Norrvalla Stadium in Skelleftea, Sweden. Carli Lloyd scored what turned out to be the game-winner off a corner that she took, giving a short kick to Lindsay Tarplay. Lindsay returned the ball to Carli, who took it into the box past at least three defenders before [. Click to continue reading...