First, if you haven't yet done our Weekend Quiz, stop by this post to see if you can identify our players. So who were the international legends in my quiz? Every one of them was guessed by someone among our readership, but all of them were not guessed by any one person. [...] Click to continue reading...

Usually I would default to my magic eight ball. Today we will use statistics.

I won't ask you to perform a long mathematical equation. Sports Club Stats did all the work for you.

Twelve points available. Seven points guarantees a spot. Zero points eliminates the team.

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Some news to read as you die from eating hot chili sauce Top 14 finishes from the past seven days (101 Great Goals) The ten most hated people in football (Caught Offside) Time for history lessons for Italian footballers? (SoccerLens) A touching man-love player video that may bring a tear to the ladies' eyes (HABs Offside) Video technology: [. Click to continue reading...

Chivas USA took three points at the HDC against the Wizards Saturday.

The good.

Alecko Eskandarian. Four goals in seven games, only four of these seven games were starts.

Maykel Galindo played. Even injured and rusty, the guy is awesome. His attacking runs and style of agressive play is missed.

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Kansas City travel to the HDC to take on the Chivas USA.

First question (as always this season) is who is healthy for the match?

Zack Thornton, Lawson Vaughn, Raphael Wicky, and Eric Ebert are all out. Maykel Galindo may make it to the bench. Jonathan Bornstein, Carey Talley, and Paulo Nagamura all suffered individual light injuries, nothing to serious, but may have limited participation in this game.

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Something to read while Charlie bites you... What will happen in Florence this season? (Fiorentina Offside) Reflections on a very short World Cup qualifying campaign (Panama WCB) Angry with Arsene (Arsenole) The end of Fulhamerica? (Soccer by Ives) Guinness really is good for you (Gear Crave) Tad Christie - intenational homeless footballer (Knowledgeplex) Eredivisie predictions (Netherlands WCB) Click to continue reading...

The United States women's national team won the gold medal, defeating Brazil 1-0. Carli Lloyd scored the games only goal in the 96th minute to secure the gold for America. Lloyd said, "It was hard, and this win wasn't just down to my goal. It was only achievable with the team we have and that we played for each other. Click to continue reading...

Seeing Nicole Petignat on Monday reffing the USWNT-Japan game brought back some really, really bad memories. Having a moment or two, here, I thought I'd Google her and see what came of it. I found, as one might expect, that she's probably human, and probably interesting, and probably not the evil (or at least unnecessarily [. Click to continue reading...

Bruce Arena is a tired retread who ran out of ideas ages ago. Bruce Arena is just the tonic the LA Galaxy needs to salvage its disastrous two and a half year run, during which it has managed to miss the play-offs in each year. Or both, depending upon whom you ask. Tim Leiweke, the President and the [. Click to continue reading...

The USWNT and Brazil both won in convincing fashion and will face off on Thursday morning (9AM ET) in the gold medal match. Germany and Japan (maybe it's me ... but doesn't that sound awfully World War Twoish?) will square off in the Bronze medal match-up (6AM ET). Kudos to Japan for making [...]SHARETHIS. Click to continue reading...

Be sure to visit the whole network of our sites. Some of the interesting topics include: Kartik Krishnaiyer over at Major League Soccer Talk takes on a controversial topic that very few journalists are brave enough to write about and that's the cozy relationship between the Mexican Federation and Major League Soccer. Click to continue reading...

Be sure to visit the whole network of our sites. Some of the interesting topics include: Kartik Krishnaiyer over at Major League Soccer Talk takes on a controversial topic that very few journalists are brave enough to write about and that's the cozy relationship between the Mexican Federation and Major League Soccer. Click to continue reading...

Freddy Adu did not develop well in MLS We're constantly hammered with one side of the coin including Sunday at the conclusion of the US-Netherlands match on NBC by Marcelo Balboa: we hear constantly that Major League Soccer is responsible for the US being more competitive in major international tournaments. Click to continue reading...

Great recap of the USA-Netherlands match from my friend Bob Wagman. You can read it here. Click to continue reading...

The United States of America got off to a great start at the Beijing Olympics, getting a great opening result in a 1-0 win over Japan.Stuart Holden scored for the US, who needed this win badly before playing the other 2 teams in its group, Nigeria and the Netherlands. Lets take a look at some [...] Click to continue reading...

If you are surfing to this blog, you probably saw the USA squeak by Japan 1-0 to open up the Olympic tournament for the Stars and Stripes. A fair result could have been 2-1 for Japan, which created more dangerous chances than our boys and demonstrated more fluid passing and coherent defense.

I'll delve into this more later but here are a few quick bits:

Brian McBride - Battled hard as always but there was seldom anyone available for the second ball. Click to continue reading...

Today the USA and Japan men's soccer teams will open up their Olympic campaign in a tough group which includes Nigeria and the Netherlands. In contrast to the USA which features three top over-23 players led by striker Brian McBride, Japan is essentially bringing its U-23 team with no overage players. Click to continue reading...

Japan 0-1 USA (Holden 47′) Tianjin Olympic Centre Stadium, Tianjin, China Thursday August 7 2008 Kickoff: 17:00 China Standard Time (UTC + 8 ) The United States is taking on Japan in the opening round Olympic match in Group B. Both teams are probably in a must-win situation, especially since they'll have matches with group powers Nigeria and [. Click to continue reading...

With the memory of the Euro 08 tournament behind us, soccer fans have another tournament to look forward to this summer, the 2008 Olympic games in China! First off let me say this: Soccer is in a different position then other sports in the Olympics. For many sports such as swimming or track and field, the Olympics is the ultimate tournament and test for the athletes to see who is the best. Click to continue reading...

Jamie Farrier, the Beelzebub Blogger himself, is back for a second installment of wickedly good debate. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then just imagine how she feels when she's called offside. Everyone, regardless of gender, has an opinion on the Beautiful Sex's Game, but it's still a man's world in football. Click to continue reading...

Remember those heady days of June when Euro 2008 was seemingly the main focus of everyone's attention? Well over in North and Central America, Euro 2008 couldn't have been lower on the list of priorities for that was when the CONCACAF nations continued their fight for a place in the 2010 World Cup Finals. Click to continue reading...

The Olympics are less than a week away, but the football tournament will kick off with the start of the preliminary round on the 6th, two days before the big show starts. So, similar to the Euro 2008 Best XI that I did several months ago, I'm doing my part to give you a [...] Click to continue reading...

Chicago Fire midfielder Cuauhtemoc Blanco has been suspended from U.S. Open Cup play for at least 2 years by the U.S. Soccer Federation. This comes after Blanco punched D.C. United player Clyde Simms in the stomach.  Blanco also supposedly head butted an employee that was trying to lead him off the field. Click to continue reading...

You've probably all seen this by now, but check out this blunder in the South Korea-Ivory Coast match yesterday.



The U.S. Olympic team takes on Ivory Coast tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. CT in a pre-olympic mini tournament called the ING Cup. Check out the Olympic team's blog for more inside info here. Click to continue reading...

The Women's Professional Soccer league kicks off its inaugural season in April 2009. WPS teams will be based in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. The league will expand to eight teams by 2010 with the inclusion of Philadelphia. Currently, the WPS teams are working on building [. Click to continue reading...

U.S. Soccer put out a press release a couple of minutes ago naming Dax McCarty (FC Dallas) as an injury replacement for Nathan Sturgis (Real Salt Lake) on the U.S. Olympic team roster. With McCarty moving to the full roster, our starting left back Michael Harrington has been added to the three-person alternate list. Click to continue reading...

The United States Men's Olympic Football squad for Beijing 2008: Coach: Piotr Nowak (43) Goalkeepers: Brad Guzan (23) (Chivas USA) Chris Seitz (21) (Real Salt Lake) Defenders: Patrick Ianni (23) (Houston Dynamo) Michael Orozco (22) (San Luis, Mexico) Michael Parkhurst (24) (New England Revolution) Nathan Sturgis (21) (Real Salt Lake) Marvell Wynne (22) (Toronto FC, Canada) Midfielders: Freddy Adu (19) (Monaco, France) Michael Bradley (20) (SC Heerenveen, Holland) Maurice [. Click to continue reading...

Is it coming back home? Joseph S Blatter said last week that 3 other countries have been contacted over the possibility of staging the next World Cup in 2010 if South Africa is suddenly hit by some nasty natural disaster or if they encounter problems which will make it necessary for them to have it moved. Click to continue reading...

Usually, when one of our sporting legends retires, we Americans spend weeks praising him (or her, usually him, though) and reflect on his career while wondering if anyone will ever meet or surpass his standard. ESPN devotes a considerable amount of time to run retrospective videos on "SportsCenter" and brings in numerous experts to [. Click to continue reading...

L.E. Eisenmenger at American Soccer News has written an incisive review of MLS and its academy system. Find the article here.

For the first nine parts of our series on player development in the USA, go here. Click to continue reading...

If you're a US soccer fan, I'm going to ask that you take yourself back to a dark time in our nation's soccer history. Don't worry, I feel your pain. On June 22nd, 2006, Ghana ended any US hope of advancing to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. While many US fans point to a [...] Click to continue reading...

Tom Dunmore at Pitch Invasion has written an interesting post on the developing academy system in the USA. Find the post, which I highly recommend, here.

You can find the previous posts on our series on player development in the USA here. Click to continue reading...

Last week, Ahmed wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece on why Americans suck at soccer. I believe he enlisted seven points to back his claim some based on truth whilst others said in jest. Of course, a lot of people thought he actually believed most of what he wrote and hence received a less than complimentary [. Click to continue reading...

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games kick off in a month, with the 2008 Olympic football tournament from 6th to 24th August. For these games, the men will compete in a 16-team tournament (7th to 24th August) (the women will compete in a 12-team tournament - 6th to 21st August) with four groups of four [. Click to continue reading...

Olympic Football squads for the 16 teams participating at the 2008 Olympics: Squads for the 2008 Olympic Football Tournament can be submitted till 23rd July. As the remaining squad lists are published, they will be added to the site and linked to from the list below. Group A Argentina Australia Ivory Coast Serbia Group B Japan Netherlands Nigeria USA Group C Belgium Brazil China New Zealand Group D Cameroon Honduras Italy Korea Republic Also See: Beijing 2008 [. Click to continue reading...