#he's going to be my fc for michael until he appears in the show!

[corporalicent]

when he was wicked | chapter one

michael stirling, sinner.

[ms-rampage]

Eden’s Gate: The Mother Chapter 13 - Are There God? It’s Me A Winchester

Warnings: Witchcraft?? Some Angst

Word count: 1.9k

Where it all began. 

Summary: Mandy and Dawana cast the spell to shield her from Chuck and work against the Project to take them down. 

Guest OCs: Dawn Floyd (FC: Anna Diop), Camille Floyd (FC: Tati Gabrielle)

Guest Characters: Raphael [Supernatural; female vessel]

Note: Sorry for the delay on the chapters, I'm working on other writing projects and dealing with work and class.

_______

“I wish to know about your past” Joseph tells Mandy, standing in the middle of his church. Cupping her cheeks, looking down at her. 

She takes a deep breath, looking up at him. “I-I’ve. I’ve killed people” she starts off, trying to keep herself from crying. “I’ve killed people. Innocent people. I wish to forget about it. Forget about it all, like it never happened”. 

He runs one of his hands through her hair, showing her comfort. While his other hand cups her cheek. 

“I’ve done bad things to people, I lost my girls because of it” she mutters, looking away from him. She’s not even acting anymore, this shit is all fucking legit, she’s hurting her own feelings just by telling him all of this. 

Reliving the painful memories she had to go through. Whether it was from 13 years ago, 20 years ago, or 7 and a half months ago, she’s feeling and hearing everything single word, and it still hurts her. No matter how strong she tries to be. 

Knowing she has to wait all of this out until the New Moon. She must be patient. Remembering that Raphael left something for her under her pillow, she goes to the room, her and Joseph share, and checks underneath her pillow. 

She finds her deceased husband’s journal. She smiles at it, unwraps the string that keeps it closed and opens it. Reading through it, Joel’s handwriting was always easy to read, it was neat, clean and he also had a very steady hand. Other than the monsters he hunted, he wrote about his life. 

His kids Paige and Katella, Mandy, his younger brother Brent, his childhood and upbringing. Trying to hold back her tears, a part of her wishes she could have her husband back. She knows he watches over her, and their daughters. 

1 month later. 

The New Moon is here, only 12 hours to go until 3 am. With the help of Dawana and her 14 year old daughter Camille. Mandy has everything for the spell. 

She had to keep a low profile from the Voodoo Priestess until the New Moon. Giving her instructions on where to meet her and the correct time to, and angle of the moon. That sort of stuff. 

The spell must be done as it should be, no screws up, can’t waste any time with this spell. Every second counts. They have their location ready, and all the supplies they need. 

Standing next to Joseph for his Sunday sermon, the church filled with his loyal followers. His Children, what he calls them. 

Listening to every word he says, thinking about the utter betrayal she is about to bring to the Project. Turning her back on them, stabbing them in back. 

Helping out the Resistance and the Whitetail Militia. 

With only 10 hours left, she keeps her low profile by being with Joseph for the rest of the day. 

Raphael appeared to her a few times that day to check up on her. Knowing that he’s risking a lot for his human, and a chance that’ll be cast out of Heaven for his disloyalty. Withdrawn from his wings and grace. Being deprived of his angelic powers, and living as a human on Earth. 

Being on the same boat as his older brother Lucifer. 

“You know I’m taking a huge unforgivable risk for you” he tells Mandy. Standing next to her while Joseph does his sermon in the filled church with his brothers and sister behind him.  

“I know” she responds to him in her mind. Looking over at the 3rd Archangel for a split second before turning back to The Father. 

“There’s a risk of me being cast out of Heaven for this disloyalty” he tells her, “God is too busy creating multiple universes and worlds to see this betrayal you, Dawana and myself are planning”. 

She knows all the risks, all God has to do is check on her situation, and see what she’s plotting. Then the next thing she knows there’s a huge mushroom cloud in the sky, and bombs are going off. Killing and wiping out all life on Earth. 

“I know, but a part of me feels like we’ll pull this off” she tells him in her mind, “We’ll get away with this, so called heist”. 

He looks at her with slight fear in his eyes, Archangels are Heaven’s most powerful weapon, they’re loyal soldiers to God. They’re his eldest children. Slightly more powerful than the average Angels, like Castiel, Balthazar, Samandriel, Anael and Gadreel. 

Raphael was always the introverted one of the Archangels, he kept to himself. He did his duties as one of Chuck’s strongest and powerful warriors. He always tried to be one of the loyal ones, like his older brother Michael. He wanted to be on his Father’s good side, the one thing he feared and that includes all Angels. Arch nor not, the one thing they all feared was being cast out of Heaven. Losing their wings and their grace. 

Leaving Heaven for a short time, like visiting Earth, and leaving Heaven completely are two different things. 

Within milliseconds he could go from being Heaven’s most powerful weapon to being an average weak human. Just by taking away his powers and wings. 

*****

After Joseph’s sermon, him and Mandy have a private conversation away from the others. 

“Amanda, I wish to speak with you privately” he tells her. She nods her head, and they go to their shared home. 

Inside the kitchen, he tells her about The Voice, in which she knows that it's Chuck talking to him.

“The Voice, God, he’s telling me about the New World. How everything will be. How you and I will be. He told me that the world is on the brink. That the world is on fire. Something is coming. I can feel it, you can feel it, can’t you?”. 

She nods, “Yes, I feel it. I feel the overwhelming tension it brings. Almost like an explosion of hot, burning air. That is toxic, but will make the world clean and free of sin”. 

He nods his head, agreeing with every word she says, “That is how it ends, with time, we will march to the Gates of Eden to our New World. The world God created for us”. 

Seeing how convinced and determined he is about the New World. Seeing how Chuck has convinced him about the Collapse. The End. The Reckoning. 

Telling him to save as many souls as he can for the Collapse, building bunkers to keep his people safe from the cleansing explosions. Being a modern day Noah, or Hell if you want to hear something that is older than Noah and the Ark. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian mythology, and history. Which is also 800-2,000 years older than the story of Noah and the Ark, where the story is basically the exact same thing, just different time periods, while one is based on facts with evidence, and the other is a fictional story from a book of stories. 

*****

With only 5 in half hours until 3am. Mandy gets another visit from Raphael in her home with Joseph. 

“Less than 6 hours Mandeline” he reminds her. She sighs, “I know. I’m just waiting it out”. 

“You know where to go?” he asks. She nods, “Yes, I know where to go. The land that is in the southern part of the Henbane River. It’s isolated from everything”. 

“Prosperity” he tells her, “It’s quiet and no one ever goes there”. 

She nods, “Does Dawana know where it is?”. 

“Yes, she knows where to go” he tells her, “She knows what time to get there. Just before the New Moon passes”. 

Mandy waits it out until 3am. It’s gonna be a long wait, most of the Cult, including Joseph didn’t sleep that night, he was busy working and writing sermons in the church. 

At around 1am, she told Joseph she was gonna go to sleep. An hour and 30 minutes later, Raphael visits her again. Teleporting the both of them to the south end part of the Henbane River. 

Prosperity, a ghost town that was abandoned by its owner so that he could take over his dead rival’s town Falls End in Holland Valley all out of spite. 

20 minutes until 3am, Dawana arrives with her daughter Camille who is a Voodoo Priestess in training. 

“We still have time to set up” Dawana tells Mandy, “This is my daughter Camille”. 

Mandy smiles at her, she’s probably the same age as her eldest daughter Paige. 

They set up their altar, making a circle of candles and lighting all of them. 

“Okay so we all take each other's hands and we say the verse together, in sync or else the spell won’t work” Dawana informs Mandy and her daughter.  

They all join hands, and wait for the New Moon to appear. Raphael stands away from them, watching them from 10 feet away. Hoping this will turn out the way Mandy said it would. As soon as the New Moon appears, as a white ring like shape in the sky, they all, at the same time, cite the verse in Enochian. Looking up at the New Moon. 

“Uranun Caripe Baglen Olgemeganza de-Noan Chiis Gosaa Zamicmage Oleol Ag-Sapah arphe, Oresa ethamz taa”. 

The wind starts to pick up, the candles stay in tack, not blowing out or in the direction of the wind. Still looking up at the moon. 

“Tabegisoroch, Zodinu, Ar zurah paremu. Zodimibe papnorge maninua zonac. Dodsih hoxmarch trian amonons pare Das Niis kures”. 

They finished the ritual, the night standing in complete silence for a brief moment. Standing inside the circle of candles, they ring of the New Moon shining down on them, making a perfect circle of moon light around their circle of lit candles.

“Is that it?” Mandy whispers, breaking the silence. Right after she asks that, a loud rumble is heard off in the distance, sounding like thunder, or the Horn of Gabriel. A lightning strike lights up the sky for a brief moment. 

“It worked” Camille whispers. Out of seemingly nowhere, a strong wind flies by, blowing out all the candles, leaving them in complete darkness.

“Raphael did it work?” Mandy asks the Archangel. 

“Yes, you are invisible to God now” he replies, answering her question.

He takes her back to Joseph's compound, before anyone could notice she was gone. 

Before he leaves, he tells her, “I’ll be sure to keep an eye on you from Heaven. Now that you’re invisible from God, you can work against the Project. Also Chuck won’t be able to see you. He’ll see another you”. 

She nods, “Yeah I believe you told me that already. He’ll see me doing my duties as The Mother”. 

The silence between the two, the sound of peggies talking outside on the compound property. 

“Get some rest, and do your bidding against the Project” he tells her, “I’ll check back on you within the next couple of days”. 

The sound of his wings fluttering, making a small breeze within the house, and he disappears. Leaving Mandy in the small kitchen of her home. 

[dartmoorsfinest]

‘Back on Home Turf’ (Devon Life, November 2019)

Here’s a new interview from Josh for Devon Life Magazine (November 2019 issue) where he talks about his upcoming tour shows in Plymouth and Exeter and of course, growing up in Devon.  If you’d like to read the screenshots, you can view them here and be sure to zoom in! Or you can do the old fashioned thing and read it below (yours truly has been silly enough to type it up!)

One of Devon’s own hillarious award-winning comedians Josh Widdicombe is back with his much-anticipated stand up tour “Bit Much?” and he guarantees local audiences will enjoy a bespoke show. “What is different to my last tour is I now have a baby. But the whole ashow is me trying not to talk about having a baby as no one wants to hear about that. It is mainly me trying to avoid that subject, which has dominated my life,” Josh says. “Actually, I will be honest there is ten minutes about the baby as I needed to fill that part of the show,” he laughs.

The comedian and TV host adds how much the Devon audience are in for an exclusive treat: “There will be a lot more Devon-based material in these shows than anywhere else in the country.”

Perfoming at Plymouth Pavillions and Northcott Theatre in Exeter, Josh explains these are the dates he islooking forward to most. “I didn’t book this tour, but when I heard about some of the venues, I was like bloody hell! It is by far the biggest tour I have done and I really can’t wait. However, the two Devon venues are the ones that jump out most to me. Performing as big venues like this you realise, oh this career has gone quite well for me so far, how am I playing those?!”

As the star doesn’t get to visit his home county that often anymore, the tour is the perfect opportunity to visit old favourite haunts and reminisce about his favourite football team Plymouth Argyle FC. “Every time I go we lose! I went to the Newport game and that was the only game they lost in the league this season. I should stop going but I don’t get to go that much - maybe two or three times a season.”

The Devon comedian and television presenter is best known as co-host of the triple BAFTA nominated and multiple Broadcast and RTS award-winning show The Last Leg on Channel 4. With 16 critically acclaimed series under their belts Josh, alongside co-hosts Adam Hills and Alex Brooker have been praised for their reaction and topical coverage of the weeks most harrowing of news stories. “I just want to keep doing things that interest me and what I enjoy. If I can earn a living  from that, I think that is all you can ask for really.” 

He has also made a number of appearances including three series of his critically-acclaimed BBC sitcom JOSH which he created and starred in, team captain on BBC Two’s Insert Name Here as well as regular appearances on BBC Two’s QI, BBC One’s Have I Got News For You, Sky One’s A League of Their Own and on Dave’s Taskmaster. “Winning ‘Task of Champions’ against 25 comedians on Taskmaster was an amazing moment for me as I love that show,” he adds. 

He hosts his own hugely successful ‘90s football podcast Quickly Kevin, Will He Score? alongside Chris Scull and Michael Marden. In early 2019 Josh returned to Dave to host the brand-new series Hypothetical alongside James Acaster, which has recently been commissioned for a second series. “In fact, I don’t get to do anything that isn’t work or parenting. I would consider moving back to Devon, but I do most of my work in London so the commute would be hellish. But once my career crashes I might as well, yes.”

Josh was born in Hammersmith but lived in Haytor Vale growing up. “I grew up in such an idyllic place in Dartmoor; it was lovely. Problem is when growing up there you don’t realise how idyllic the area actually is until you move to Manchester or London. I have so many wonderful memories of the moors and it was amazing during the summer. In the winter, you could get a week off because of the show, it was insane! A bus couldn’t get through, it was like a Postman Pat scene or something. You don’t realise this is weird at that time, only when...” (DF NOTE: looks like part of the interview is missing!! But it does finish with his recommendations below!) ---

Josh’s Devon Recommendations:

Haytor Rocks was near the village where I grew up, it is absolutely stunning.

Dartmoor of course because it is beautiful and the tours are fantastic. If you want to see football in Devon, Home Park - home of Plymouth Argyle FC - is the place. There are no other options but I would implicitly back that one!

House of Marbles in Newton Abbot - it is a great tourist attaction. It was a little shop when I was growing up but now it is like a big brand. Now, you can go to shops in London and have things made by the House of Marbles.

[gadgetsrevv]

Man Utd news LIVE: Ed Woodward eyes £180m double transfer, scouts watch the ‘new Pirlo’ | Football | Sport

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford

Monday, September 16

James Maddison and Jadon Sancho are top of Manchester United’s wishlist

The young English pair are expected to cost upwards of £180million

David de Gea has signed a new four-year contract with Manchester United

Manchester United are monitoring Brescia midfielder Sandro Tonali

Europa League ambitions

Manchester United defender Diogo Dalot is desperate to get his hands on the Europa League trophy this season.

The Red Devils start their campaign at Old Trafford against Astana on Thursday – and Dalot wants a winning start.

“It’s a big competition, but not as big for this club,” Dalot told the United App. “This club needs to be in the Champions League every day, every year, winning the Champions League and in Portugal it’s a little but different.

“Of course it’s a big competition that if any team wins it’ll be a great achievement, but for this club when we are in it we just need to win it.”

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Maddison meltdown

Manchester United fans are pleading with James Maddison to move to the Red Devils after he posted on Instagram with Old Trafford set as the location.

The 22-year-old’s post had no caption attached to it and the picture showed the midfielder playing at the Theatre of Dreams on Saturday for Leicester.

All pretty harmless but his post has sent United fans wild, with most pleading for the former Norwich man to follow his ex-team-mate Harry Maguire to Manchester.

One said: “Please force the move fella.” Another wrote: “You’re welcome here whenever.” Someone else went with: “You’ll be posting plenty of photos at Old Trafford next season pal.”

DDG savings?!

Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea has put pen to paper on a new four-year contract in a deal which may have saved the Red Devils a huge chunk of cash.

The Spaniard will be earning around £375,000-a-week, making him the club’s highest earner following the loan departure of Alexis Sanchez.

The goalkeeper will now stay at Old Trafford until at least June 2023 on his current contract, which will be worth £97.5m if the option of a fifth year is taken up, including add-ons, according to the Mirror.

United boss Solskjaer may have saved the club £100m in securing De Gea’s future, as he’d need to break the bank to sign a replacement.

United have agreed to spend £97.5m on De Gea’s contract, assuming he stays for the four years of his current deal, and the added one-year extension.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

He’s a disgrace

Gary Neville has labelled Paul Pogba’s agent Mino Raiola a “disgrace” and believes the Frenchman is still ager to leave Manchester United.

“Pogba wants to leave. He has made it clear,” Neville told Norwegian TV. “His agent is a disgrace and has been a disgrace all over Europe – not just for Manchester United.

“They must stop working with him. He doesn’t have the values you want in your club. My opinion is that Manchester United need not negotiate with him.

“He will try to fix a transfer for his player, and will try to take part of the transfer sum himself. That’s how he operates.”

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Neymar wanted Barca

PSG star Neymar has admitted he wanted to join Barcelona during the transfer window for ‘personal reasons’.

“Everyone knows I wanted to leave,” he said. “I made it very clear. I won’t go into details though, because it affects others.

“But I’m still a PSG player and my intention is to be happy on the pitch. My mind is on PSG.

“I always made it clear that I don’t have anything against PSG or the fans. They were personal reasons. I had my reasons and I tried my best to make it happen, but unfortunately they didn’t let me.”

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Christian Eriksen snubs Spurs

Tottenham playmaker Christian Eriksen is prepared to snub any contract offers from the club.

Eriksen, 27, was tipped to leave north London this summer with the likes of Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona all linked at some stage.

The Dane admitted he would like a fresh challenge elsewhere – but the deadline came and went with Eriksen failing to secure a transfer.

Now, Spanish newspaper Marca claim he’ll refuse any late approach from Tottenham to enable him to leave for free in the summer of 2020.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic contract

Lazio are set to tie Sergej Milinkovic-Savic to a new contract.

The Serbia international has been on the radar of multiple European heavyweights including Manchester United and Real Madrid.

But it looks like the 24-year-old will be staying in Italy.

Calciomercato claim Milinkovic-Savic will sign a new five-year deal worth £51k per week.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Wanted: Logan Pye

Arsenal look set to beat Manchester United to the signing of Sunderland teenager Logan Pye.

That’s according to The Sun, who claim Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side had been tracking the 15-year-old for some time.

It’s said the Gunners will ‘pounce’ during the next transfer window when Pye turns 16 and is eligible to sign a professional contract.

Pye, who can play centre-half or full-back, has mad five appearances for Sunderland’s Under-18 squad – netting once.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Matic to Juve?

Juventus are keen on bringing Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic to Serie A.

Matic failed to make an appearance under manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer this season until Saturday’s win over Leicester.

But with Paul Pogba to return from injury, the Serbian will likely see his services reduced to bench duty once again.

And according to The Sun, Matic may not have to try his hand at cracking the first XI, as Juventus are in for his signature.

The report states that Matic’s lack of playing time for United has put Juve, who wanted to bring Pogba back to Turn, on alert for the Serb.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

James Maddison & Jadon Sancho

James Maddison and Jadon Sancho are top of Manchester United’s wishlist.

That’s according to ESPN FC, who claim Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants to bring the pair to Old Trafford next summer.

Maddison, 22, is thought to be valued at £80million by Leicester, while Borussia Dortmund’s Sancho could cost upwards of £100m.

Solskjaer’s side spent £150m on Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Daniel James last summer – and the Red Devils want to continue with the same transfer strategy.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

David de Gea pens contract

David de Gea has signed a new four-year contract with Manchester United that will keep him at the club until June 2023.

The deal also includes the option to extend the contract for a further season.

De Gea told United’s official website: “It has been a privilege to spend eight years at this great club and the opportunity to continue my career at Manchester United is a genuine honour.

“Since I arrived here, I could never have imagined I would play over 350 games for this club. Now my future is fixed, all I want is to help this team achieve what I believe we can and win trophies again, together.”

Sandro Tonali – the new Pirlo

Manchester United are monitoring Brescia midfielder Sandro Tonali.

Italian publication Calciomercato claim United representatives were in attendance to watch him in action during Brescia’s 4-3 defeat to Bologna on Sunday.

Tonali, who has been compared to Andrea Pirlo by the Italian media, is also being assessed by European heavyweights Ajax and Borussia Dortmund.

“I hope Tonali remains in my hand as long as possible. If he wants to stay in Brescia, I am willing to keep him forever,” said Brescia president Massimo Cellino.

“No one has called me yet for him, but it is logical that everyone likes him”.

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Dzeko wants Mkhi

Edin Dzeko wants Roma to sign Henrikh Mkhitaryan on a permanent basis.

The Armenia international arrived at Roma from Arsenal on a season-long loan and it didn’t take him long to settle in when scoring 22-minutes into his debut.

“I [expected the good performance] from him. I know him as a great player, and he is a very good addition to our attacking team who wants to play football,” Dzeko told reporters after the game.

“I am one 100% sure he is going to be a big help for us. I was definitely happy to see this transfer happen.”

Man Utd news LIVE updates: All the latest news, gossip and updates from Old Trafford (Image: GETTY)

Timo Werner pursuit

Bayern Munich will try to sign RB Leipzig striker Timo Werner next summer.

That’s the opinion of ex-Germany midfielder Michael Ballack.

Werner, 23, has been linked with Atletico Madrid, Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund.

“He has expressed his gratitude to Leipzig with his contract extension. But I think next year a switch to Bayern could be on again,” Ballack told TZ.

Wanted: Logan Pye

Arsenal look set to beat Manchester United to the signing of Sunderland teenager Logan Pye.

That’s according to The Sun, who claim Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side had been tracking the 15-year-old for some time.

It’s said the Gunners will ‘pounce’ during the next transfer window when Pye turns 16 and is eligible to sign a professional contract.

Pye, who can play centre-half or full-back, has mad five appearances for Sunderland’s Under-18 squad – netting once.

Source link . More news

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[louisfeatharry]

‘No Payne No Gain’ - Full Rollacoaster Magazine Transcript

Last year, LIAM PAYNE had a conversation with Justin Bieber. He doesn’t usually do this sort of thing. There’s a shop Liam frequents in Los Angeles. Whenever he sees one of Will Smith’s kids or a Kardashian, he feels too self-conscious to introduce himself. “There’s still that little boy inside of me,” he says. With Bieber, it was different.

Like each of the select bands who go through their boy-to-man rites of passage in full public glare, Liam at 23 is a disarming mix of confidence, knowledge and conviviality wrapped up in a frightened canary let out of its cage. Sometimes he’s the boy at the bus stop. Sometimes he drops in reflexive anecdotes about his dealings with Donald Trump. No one understands Bieber’s experiences with quite the same clarity or from quite the same timeframe as Liam and his four One Direction buddies.

“Obviously [Bieber]’s struggled a lot through the way the world looked upon him,” Liam says. “I don’t feel sorry for him,” he continues, “he’s a great guy, inside there’s a really good heart. I said, look, the difference between me and you is that I had four different boys going through the same thing to look to. He didn’t have that.” Quite out of character, Liam Payne reached out a hand to his peer. “I said to him, listen, take my number and any time you want to have a chat, let me know because I’m here and I understand exactly what you’re going through and I understand your world.”

It was a lovely thing to do. “He needs somebody like that and in that position,” he qualifies, placing himself deferentially into the third person. It’s sweet for other reasons, too. In Bieber there is something of the idiosyncratic otherworldliness of a Michael Jackson figure. Liam Payne, a pretty, straight talking lad from Wolverhampton appears at first not to be that thing at all. “There is that in all of us,” he avers, meaning not only Bieber but his fellow One Direction alumnus Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson. “We all have this chaotic side to us. You know, they say that anger breeds passion. I think that’s the same with a lot of us, that we let things get chaotic very quickly. We’re used to chaos.”

Liam is sitting in a quiet antechamber above the photo studio where today’s cover story has been shot. He says he likes interviews and honours the assurance in a quietly riveting half hour before he’s whisked magically away. It’s Friday evening. Liam has been working out with millennial precision to make sure he’s at top physical condition should he be required to lose his shirt during the shoot. He’s whippet slight in the flesh, definition counts.

Six years ago, One Direction came third on the national TV talent show, the X Factor. 1D was an assembly-line operation pieced together at the audition stages. Boys that barely knew one another, slotted seamlessly together in the kind of multi-demographic hit their boss Simon Cowell is so adept at plugging into the national grid each year. That year, Liam and his band-mates Niall and Louis looked like they’d been schooled at a premium boyband academy. Each sported variants of Bieber’s early slideover haircut. It was easy to imagine any of them taking a stool in Westlife or learning to breakdance for Take That, had they been born in another time and place. Within the trio there was a safe place in which teenage girls and boys could measure their sexuality, whilst tapping their toes. That wheel still turned. Flanked at either edge of the three were genuinely new angles for the British boyband model; Harry Styles, Cheshire’s own reality-age Mick Jagger and Zayn Malik, a practising Muslim from Bradford and nonpareil physical work of art to whom supermodels have since flocked. The five together hit enough familiarity and newness to open up a global fame haul not touched since the heady days of Duran Duran, Culture Club and Wham! back in the 80s. During the summer of their astronomical American takeover there was a plausible touch of Beatle-mania. They felt like an England football team winning the World Cup. Their records have sold in North Korea.

Liam and the boys were the first band to taste that fame level in the age of social media, making their story simultaneously that of the boys next door and the untouchable messiahs. There was something refreshingly undone about them. Their best songs, ‘What Makes Your Beautiful’, ‘Little Things’, ‘Steal My Girl’, even the precociously titled ‘Best Song Ever’ are undeniable additions to the Great British pop cannon. Liam says the 1D song he’d buy above all others is ‘Once In A Lifetime’, the little known track from their 2014 album, Four. “That’s my favourite song. Very Coldplay-esque. I wanted it to be a single but they just wouldn’t have it. It was very relaxed the way we chose our records and made things. It was really simple.” Someone else did it.

When 1D lost their X Factor trophy to semi-hot handyman Matt Cardle and were beaten to the silver medal podium by classy Scouse songbird Rebecca Ferguson, Liam was 16. He had auditioned for the show previously, at 14, as a kind of minipops Michael Bublé, Wolverhampton’s hitherto unseen swing angle. On his induction to the X Factor factory, he was instructed by producers to go home and rethink his shtick as the last 24 were whittled down on TV. He says it attuned him to the hard knocks of rejection. Such was the omnipotence of the show back then Liam’s audition storyline was enough to grant him a local working men’s club career where he honed his skill and paid his dues.

“I did pubs and clubs,” he says. “When I was a kid, I literally played old people’s homes.” His one taste of what was to come arrived when Wolverhampton Wanderers FC invited Liam to sing before kick-off at a Manchester United fixture to 34,000 fans in the terraces. In honour of his local team’s squad colours he san Sam Sparro’s ‘Black and Gold’. “It’s funny that that’s where we ended up, playing stadiums,” he says with a pleasing air of pride and bemusement. “It was funny being stood in the middle again and thinking back on that 16 year old boy stood in the middle of a football pitch. My dad said to me, this is going to be the toughest gig you’re ever going to play. Football fans do not want to hear little boys singing. They’re not interested. You heard jeering from the crowd. But I got applause at the end. And my dad said, that is the best thing you could’ve got out of today.”

Liam says he can’t remember much of his time in the X Factor house second time around bar the tears. He was recently delighted to see fellow housemate Paije Richardson, the contestant Louis Walsh immortalised as looking ‘like a little Lenny Henry’ on account of nothing but his colour, in a Harry Potter film (”the one where it’s Dumbledore’s army. He’s actually in the army, which is amazing. I’m absolutely obsessed with Harry Potter. Fucking love Harry Potter”). He nods as I mention some of the other names he shared his first home away from Wolverhampton with. Katie Waissel, Diva Fever, Wagner. “There were a lot of different strange characters and lovely people through that show. It was very rushed and strange.”

On account of a childhood kidney condition, he had not even been drunk by the time he left home, Dick Whittington style, to live in a shared London house with a bunch of strangers maniacally chasing their fame dream in real time. “The famous line my dad said was, don’t come home until Christmas, meaning don’t get thrown off it before the final. And after I said goodbye to him that day, I never really went home again.”

When 1D lost, Liam turned to his dad with a “we made it this far” face. His fellow band-mates, he says, were in pieces. He remembers first Harry, then Louis, Niall and Zayn bursting into tears. “A cameraman came over and said ‘can I get you boys for an interview?’ and I looked at all the boys crying, in their mum’s arms and I was like, ‘look, I’ll do the interview’ because I was the only one who was alright and so I went off to the side and did the after-camera interview for us. I just left them because I wanted them to have their moment and the cameras didn’t need to see them like that. There was a real atmosphere. This followed throughout our career a lot of the time.”

In Cowell’s dressing room later than same evening, 1D were told that they would be signed to his label, Syco regardless of their position on the show. “Simon took us up to his dressing room to tell us he was going to sign us and Harry literally burst into tears he was so happy.” Emotions run high in the boyband land. “He told us, I’m going to sign you. That was the moment. That’s where it all began.” The wheels of the juggernaut had begun to turn. “It was like a bomb went off,” he notes.

There was a pearl of wisdom shared by Cowell that stuck with Liam from that high-stakes evening. “The first thing he said to us after signing us from X Factor was ‘look, there are no angels here’. Which is so true.” What does Liam think Cowell meant by that? “That we’re all people. We’re all people here.” He doesn’t think it was invocation of mistrust in the music industry, the smoke and mirrors of real life fame? “No, no, no. It was a moment in a conversation. He said ‘look, there are no angels here and I know that you’re all going to make mistakes’. That’s what he was saying. Just get on with what the show is, do your bit, do your business, go to work and be real. That’s what that comment meant. Don’t stress about it, it’ll all turn out alright in the end.”

In that moment, it sounds like Liam Payne made a pact with himself, to go for it regardless, at the top tier, to claim his moment. “Everyone strives to be the person that they want to be,” he says. “I try too much sometimes, I think. I overstep the mark a little bit sometimes. That’s why I’m such a perfectionist. But sometimes I think you have to believe that there are no angels.” The first One Direction single, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ was released in 2011, on September 11th.

The second half of 2016 was an eventful time for Liam Payne, presaged by his signing a solo record deal with Sinatra’s old imprint Capitol Records on July 21st.

While in 1D, he says all five boys dabbled on their own material. Because boybands never break up anymore, 1D are officially on sabbatical. Whether that translates as a bit of genial respite or full scale hatred for one another is a matter that’s been carefully blended into their tale with just enough leaks of a hint to either. Zayn, who had already fled 1D’s nest a year earlier, missing their victory lap worldwide stadium tour released his solo album Mind of Mine last spring, reinventing himself as the Frank Ocean for Unilad readers. Niall played to his Irish card with a forgettable busker-ish ballad for the Christmas market very much carved from the mould of Ed Sheeran and the seasonal John Lewis adverts. From the snippet of it we heard, Liam’s song sounded like his ascent to manhood, touting him as a moody, roustabout lover-man in something of Drake’s lineage, complete with street lyrical touches (while writing, a picture appears on Liam’s Instagram feed of him with the Canadian don, though it’s not specified whether he’s working or partying with his Hero).

Whenever Liam talks about the 1D boys he has the exact same dad-ish air of concern, care, amazement and slight separation from the operation that Daddy Barlow has with Take That. Oh, that’s the other thing. Liam had kicked off the year with a new belle, The X Factor’s Queen of Our Hearts, Cheryl Tweedy.

Liam brings up Cheryl, of course he does. The two live in Surrey, out of the city. When I make a joke about him being Lord of the Manor, he says his sister bought him a plaque to denote his Lordship for his last birthday, a joke that doubled when it turned out Cheryl had been bought a similar gift by Simon Cowell during her tenure on X Factor. “So we’re Lord and Lady, which is hilarious.” To British suburbia, this is of course precisely what they represent, a self-selected aristocracy in which we’ve all played a part in the honours system.

He says things with Cheryl are working out well, becoming temporarily misty-eyed. “This is the thing. In a non-cliché way, it’s weird waking up every day and literally living out your dream. You wake up in the most beautiful places. Obviously I have the most beautiful girlfriend in the whole world and she’s absolutely amazing. She’s been my dream girl since I was younger. She’s so ace.” They are used to companionship. They have Liam’s dog, Watson, a Great Dane. “If I’m ever having a problem or I ever get a bit angsty about something that’s happening in life then I take the dog out for a walk and there’s just unconditional love from him. Anyway, I don’t want to go too much into that. I’m not like a weird dog person.”

“She is a wonderful, wonderful person and it’s amazing to have someone who can relate to so much of things, someone who’s taken greater steps than me. Her solo career was amazing. She’s been in the industry for fourteen years now. She fully supports me. We’re super happy. I appreciate you didn’t ask about it. It’s a very personal, precious time for us. I’m still learning. I’m only 23.”

Because he is the youngest of three, Liam inherited the bed that his big sister’s had slept in at home in Wolverhampton. He tried to pain a wall blue to put his own stamp on the room, still shaded by bunny rabbit curtains into his teenage years, and ran out of paint before finishing. “It was a total tip,” he says of the last bedroom he lived in before fame. “That bed was so old. The last time I went back and sat on it I couldn’t believe it was the bed I used to sleep on. I often think about how I used to sit on the windowsill and just look at the stars and wonder what this was all for. And I often used to think, there must be more to life than this.”

I ask if his parents kept the room the same as when he left. “Well,” he says interrupting the nostalgia with a little sharp reality, “I bought my parents a house so I haven’t actually been back to that room in a long time. I’d like to.” The experiences of 1D made five men very rich, very young. Liam knows exactly his financial worth. “I do,” he says, letting out a nervous laugh. I ask if I would blush if I saw his bank account. “Honestly, it is a very scary thought,” he says. “It is not something that we were given. It’s something we worked our asses off for. The way we went to work every day and the way we travelled the world and the way we conducted our business, with great management at the time and greater minds, it turned out great for everybody. But it was a long five years.”

On the last night of the last 1D tour, management presented the remaining members with a plaque festooned with little badges for every single gig they’d played since their first. “It was a sombre night,” says Payne who has started becoming more emotionally transparent in front of people this last year. “To see every show we’ve ever done on a plaque?” he says raising eyes to the sky, “Again, everybody was in tears. And I’m quite good at holding it together but I have got a lot worse of late. Adverts and things make me cry, I think I’m getting more emotional as time goes by, especially with everything that’s happening in my life at this moment, it’s a very emotional time and time to reflect on a lot of things and the person that I am to be. Do you know what I mean? If that makes sense?” It makes perfect sense.

Beneath the extraordinary life he has lived so far, outweighing every one of his personal, societal and geographic expectations, there is a deeply admirable humility and candour to Liam Payne. On the subject of his forthcoming record: “I’ll tell you the truth. The dream was to be able to get signed and release an album. That is every musician who’s on Youtube’s dream today. I’ve got the opportunity to work with a really great label, Capitol. The people I work with are absolutely amazing and to get a record deal and be able to release the album that I want to release is the most amazing thing ever.” He has no idea how it will fare. “Even if this went tits up, sideways, it’d still be step one that I got here.”

Liam Payne never voted in a general election. “I’ve never been able to vote,” he explains, “because we’ve always been in different countries and I’ve never really understood it. I still feel like a 16 year old boy when it comes down to things like that and I wouldn’t know which way to go.” He steered clear of the EU referendum (”I kind of knew that we were going to Brexit. It was just a gambler’s feeling”) and doesn’t know how his parents voted in it.

Do you want to know his Donald Trump tale? Of course you do. “Oh, here’s a story,” he says, rubbing his hands. “Trump actually kicked us out of his hotel once.” It gets better. “You wouldn’t believe it. It was about [meeting] his daughter. He phoned up our manager and we were asleep. He said ‘well, wake them up’ and I was like ‘no’ and then he wouldn’t let us use the underground garage. Obviously in New York we can’t really go outside. New York is ruthless for us. So he was like, ‘OK, then I don’t want you in my hotel’. So we had to leave.”

He’s seen a lot of life, has Liam. That he retains himself amid it is spectacular credit to those around him and the man himself. “Now he’s President,” he says, perhaps for a moment reflecting on the opportunities life affords the most unusual candidates. “I just hope he doesn’t kick me out the country.” He’s laughing now. “I hope he lets me stay.”

— Rollacoaster Magazine, text by Paul Flynn

[rickhorrow]

15 to watch 52217

Memorial Day Weekend is upon us, and crossover sponsors are revving their engines in Indianapolis. According to the Indianapolis Star, Pacers guard Jeff Teague is sponsoring driver Buddy Lazier's entry in the 101st Indianapolis 500, which will see Lazier's Chevrolet "sport number 44, a Team Teague sticker and the Factory at D1 Sports decal." D1 is the name of the 33,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art gym Teague is "opening in Indianapolis." Teague's business manager, Jamel Barnes, said "Not many athletes, let alone a hometown kid playing for the hometown team have their own logos and decals on an Indy 500 car." But Teague isn’t the only crossover athlete fronting an IndyCar decal this weekend – Zach Veach will drive the No. 40 Chevrolet IndyCar for AJ Foyt Racing, representing the inaugural LPGA Indy Women in Tech Presented by Guggenheim tournament taking place at the Brickyard Crossing course in September. While estimates vary wildly for what it costs to sponsor a car at the Indianapolis 500, the last study commissioned by Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2000 pegged the Indy 500 economic impact at $336 million. Just call it Motorsports Econ 101 at 230 mph.

As the French Open begins play at Paris’ Roland Garros this week, two things have dropped significantly since 2016: the number of household name players contending on the red clay, and the euro-dollar exchange rate. The currency drop left the French trailing other grand slams by a wide margin in terms of prize money, so French Open authorities announced another 14% hike in the total prize money pool to remain on par with the other grand slams. This year’s 14% increase sees the French right up there with Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, offering a total prize pool of $39.2 million, $2.29 million apiece to the respective men’s and women’s singles champion, and a respectable $39,145 to first round losers. The tournament, however, will be without marquee players Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams, meaning American ratings will likely decline as well. Grand Slam tennis is big business on both sides of the pond, and while the French is the smallest of the bigs, its impact, rich tradition, and place on the annual tennis calendar remains significant, regardless of on-court star power or exchange rate.

Head racquets owner and CEO Johan Eliasch believes that the French Tennis Federation "made the right call" not to hand Maria Sharapova a French Open wild card spot after she finished her doping-related suspension. But Eliasch, according to the London Times, "laid the blame for one of his most prominent clients missing the second grand-slam event of the year at the door" of WADA. Eliasch said, "This issue with Maria and the French Open, that is a consequence of Wada breaching their own rules for a delinquent way of operating." A WADA spokesperson said that the organization had "followed all the required procedures" before including meldonium -- which Sharapova tested positive for -- on their "list of banned substances." WTA CEO Steve Simon told the New York Times he "did not plan on pushing for re-examination of the wild-card rule, but would be open to it." Simon "maintains that the federation went too far." While WADA has no financial stake in a Sharapova-less French Open, the WTA certainly does – especially in a year when fan favorite Serena Williams is on maternity leave. No surprise that Simon is questioning the “letter of the law.”

  Kids, apparently, still like the long ball. According to a just-released Sports & Fitness Industry Association report, baseball and softball "combined to rank as the most participated team sport" in 2016. The report said that casual participation showed an average annual growth of 6.5% over five years, 10.7% over three years, and 18.1% from 2015 to 2016. SFIA President & CEO Tom Cove said that the sport "showed growth in both casual and core participation over one-, three- and five-year periods at a time when the trends in other team sports are less encouraging." MLB Senior VP/Youth Programs Tony Reagins said, "To see the numbers where they are, it’s really exciting…We’re going to keep pushing and try to get more kids playing." The participation increase, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, "almost certainly stems from MLB’s 'Play Ball' initiative," which launched in June, 2015 in conjunction with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, USA Baseball, and USA Softball. From finding funding to build fields to helping grow sports participation, the U.S. Conference of Mayors actively partners with communities nationwide to ensure our kids are healthy and engaged. I am proud to work with the Mayors Professional Sports Alliance to help see these important goals come to fruition.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Goodyear have announced a jersey patch partnership beginning next season. The agreement, according to SportsBusiness Journal, will also involve Turner Sports, which the Cavs hired to help “amplify the deal nationally.” Turner’s in-house agency Ignite Sports will create custom Goodyear-branded content to appear on TNT NBA coverage and provide media services for the Cavs. It is the first such deal for Ignite, which is angling to align itself with other NBA jersey patch deals. Sources have noted that the deal makes good sense because Goodyear is headquartered in nearby Akron, hometown of regional favorite son LeBron James. The deal is reportedly worth upwards of $10 million a year, making it the most lucrative of the six jersey patch deals signed to date. Goodyear’s other sports sponsorships include Ohio’s Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, and the College Football Playoff. While the Goodyear deal is reportedly eight figures, none of the jersey patch deals would have been made without the foresight of the 76ers and jersey patch partner StubHub, who pioneered the innovative revenue opportunity for the NBA.

    Maryland Governor Larry Hogan claims he "wants to keep the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore and is willing to talk about investing state money to do so." According to the Baltimore Sun, the governor's office issued a statement after Stronach Group, the owner of Pimlico Race Course, said that the 147-year-old track likely "would have to be rebuilt" at a cost of $300-$500 million to "keep the race there” rather than move it to newer Laurel Park. State House Speaker Michael Busch also "signaled he's open to a state role." Regardless of the top leaders' "willingness to consider a state investment, lawmakers warned that it would be difficult to win General Assembly approval of a sizable investment in a track that survives on the strength of one big day each year." State Senator Edward Kasemeyer "isn't ruling out what he calls a 'three-way partnership' of the state, the city and the company to rebuild Pimlico." Few sports are as tradition-steeped as horse racing, so expect Maryland lawmakers to pull out all the stops to keep the race at Pimlico – especially when this year’s Preakness drew record attendance and race card handle for the third straight year.

The race between Los Angeles and Paris is heating up as both cities are vying to “wow” IOC members before a final decision is made. According to Reuters, LA 2024 “threw down the gauntlet” to its rival Paris with IOC members visiting planned venues and sites. IOC Evaluation Commission Chair Patrick Baumann said that the bid has “no major risks and venues that he described as 'mind-blowing.'" The plan is for sustainability and cost-consciousness to be a center point of the bid, using existing facilities across L.A. and building as few permanent structures as possible. While most cities “shunned the Olympics as too expensive,” L.A. jumped at the opportunity to host the Games again, especially after experiencing a positive economic upswing these past few years. As it wrapped up the Los Angeles tour, the USOC revealed a $78.5 million surplus on $336 million in revenue during the 2016 Rio Games year, including $173 million in broadcast rights fees, benefitting from Games-time boosts in TV and sponsorship revenue, according to its annual IRS filing. The site visits are over, and now Los Angeles and Paris must wait out the IOC’s ultimate decision on who gets the 2024 Games, and likely, who gets the 2028 event. My thinking: look for Paris to prevail in 2024, and L.A. to renegotiate for 2028.

  Disney CEO Bob Iger has been rumored to potentially run for office sometime in the near future, leaving uncertainty how much longer he will “keep his grip on the company.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the 66-year-old Iger “simply doesn’t want to retire yet, despite stating repeatedly that he intents to.” Iger has lead Disney for the past 12 years with "such hands-on attention that he and Disney now seem inseparable to many employees and outside partners." Iger's "ever-extending leadership might be just what Disney needs to keep thriving where it is strong and solve problems looming on the horizon, such as declines in viewership at ESPN and the company’s other television networks." Iger has discussed the possibility of serving in a Democratic presidential administration somewhere down the line or even potentially spending time off on his sailboat. Don’t expect Iger to sail away into the sunset until ESPN’s decline is checked – whether that means installing new top management, an Iger-adjusted business model, or both.

  The fate of two potential future MLS teams will not be decided until December. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, an announcement of two expansion teams was expected by midyear, but MLS officials “indicated an announcement of which cities are chosen” will not come until the end of the year. The Sac Soccer group in Sacramento is confident it will be one of the two cities selected in seven months, especially after purchasing Sacramento Republic FC, “making the USL club part of a bid for inclusion in MLS.” On paper, Sacramento has "checked all three boxes" with an "ownership team, established soccer market and a build-ready stadium plan." The ownership group behind the bid for Northern California is strong, with San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York and HP Enterprise President & CEO Meg Whitman part of the core. Meanwhile, the David Beckham-Oak View Group- led Miami Beckham United franchise continues to search for a stadium site in Miami, a task that’s proved more difficult than originally anticipated. With a slew of boldface names backing each MLS franchise, it’s only a matter of time before we’ll see MLS matches played in shiny new stadiums in both Sacramento and Miami. Star power usually gets things done.

Vodafone has pulled out of a naming rights deal that would have put its name on London Stadium for the next six years. According to the London Times, the deal was set to be worth $26 million over six years. Sources close to the company note that Vodafone pulled out after reporting an annual loss of $6.7 billion worldwide, “with profits down 31% in the United Kingdom, a downturn blamed largely on the weakness of sterling” amidst Brexit. EPL club West Ham United just finished out its first season at the former Olympic stadium, which was downsized after the 2012 Games. The club is desperate to land a naming rights deal for its home stadium to help cover the costs of annual rent totaling $3.2 million per year. Vodafone has been "noticeably absent" from sports marketing after it ended its seven-year title sponsorship of McLaren’s Formula 1 team in 2013. Even with a solid transition plan, the long term fate of Olympic facilities is never 100% certain because most cities fail to properly estimate ongoing maintenance and other costs. Look for the IOC to reference London Stadium as it chooses between Los Angeles and Paris.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are waiting to receive official confirmation that they will host the 2018 NHL All-Star Game. According to Yahoo Sports, if the game is awarded to Tampa Bay, it would mark the first time it would be hosted by the Lightning since 1999. Owner Jeff Vinik has invested heavily in renovating Amalie Arena instead of building a new facility. Downtown Tampa Bay has also grown considerably, making it a more attractive destination for a mega event. There has been "speculation that the lack of an NHL All-Star Game host announcement meant the NHL was hedging on its vow not to send players" to the 2018 PyeongChang Games. However, holding the All-Star Game was "always part of the contingency plan in case a deal with the IOC couldn’t be struck." As determined as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s owners have been to keep their players away from the Olympics, a winter’s trip to Tampa Bay is looking all the more likely.

  Derek Jeter may be retired, but that has not stopped fans from buying his memorabilia. According to SportsBusiness Journal, Topps Now is selling a set of special Jeter baseball cards commemorating the short stop’s retirement ceremony at Yankee Stadium. The cards have become “the top-selling regular-season cards in history of the Topps Now daily on-demand card service.” The company said it sold more than “13,500 cards relating to the Jeter ceremony between two base cards and a limited number of autographed cards and relic cards containing pieces of a base used in the game” on ceremony day. That marker tops the 11,550 cards sold last year for a card commemorating Miami Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki gaining his 3,000th hit. The Jeter set generated more than $150,000 in revenue for Topps since its release. Trading card sales have declined as interest in baseball has waned among younger generations, and Topps and its peers welcome any opportunity to boost revenues tied to MLB special events like the Jeter ceremony.

  U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati could have an unexpected challenger next year in his quest to remain in his role. According to the Washington Post, Boston attorney Steven Gans has begun exploring the option of running for the top spot in U.S. domestic soccer, but has not officially decided on doing so yet. "It’s amazing to me that such a big position, no one has ever run against Sunil,” said Gans. “There needs to be a challenger. He hasn’t demonstrated such a great track record. I don’t think the direction at the pro and youth level is so great. There are a lot of disenchanted people out there.” Gulati is officially allowed to run for one more term under current USSF guidelines; he has not confirmed his intent on running for the spot again, though many close to the organization expect him to run again. Gans has openly critiqued moves by Gulati that has demonstrated “poor judgment and leadership.” With corruption-driven leadership shifts at the FIFA level, it’s only natural that the heads of national federations would receive additional scrutiny. Gulati has had a lock on U.S. Soccer for many years, and as in most organizations, an infusion of new blood is usually a positive thing.

  United Airlines is buying the naming rights to L.A. Memorial Coliseum for more than $70 million over 15 years, making it the richest naming-rights deal among college football stadiums. At $4.7 million per year, according to sources, United’s deal will surpass the 10-year, $41 million deal Alaska Airlines signed with the University of Washington for Husky Stadium rights in 2015. The naming-rights revenue is expected to help offset costs of a $270 million Coliseum renovation, slated to be completed in time for the 2019 USC football season. It is thought that “Memorial Coliseum” will be retained in the name. United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, is a USC grad, and nearby LAX is one of United’s biggest U.S. hubs. Down the road, the Rams' and Chargers' $2.6 billion stadium in Inglewood "will be delayed almost a year" from its originally planned opening in 2019 and is "now scheduled to be ready" for the 2020 NFL season, due to record rainfall during critical construction phases this past winter. The Rams will remain at the Coliseum for 2019, while the Chargers will play at StubHub Center. While the rain was a pain, the delay is definitely a silver lining for naming rights holders United and StubHub, which will both benefit from the additional exposure.

Jordan Spieth is the latest athlete to be featured on the Wheaties box. Spieth told media at the AT&T Byron Nelson that he will be on "about four million Wheaties boxes nationwide." Fittingly, Wheaties was "Byron Nelson’s first endorsement." Other golfers who have "had their own limited-edition boxes" include Ben Hogan, Babe Zaharias, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods. Wheaties joins a Spieth endorsement portfolio that already includes "deals with AT&T, Coca-Cola, Titleist, and Under Armour. CNBC estimated the Wheaties deal could increase Spieth's brand value by upwards of $3.1 million, while Under Armour, whose logo appears on the shirt Spieth wears on the cereal box, could garner $171,000 worth of brand exposure. Too bad Spieth started the first weekend of his new deal by skipping breakfast – after a quad bogie on Friday, he failed to make the cut.

[bloodbaptisedarchive-blog]

REALLY  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY. RULES. repost ,   don’t  reblog !    tag 10 ! good  luck !       TAGGED. @judgmentcast​, holy SHIT.       TAGGING. literally ANYONE who’s up for a bit of a challenge.

BASICS.  FULL  NAME :  Harmon Mallory James.  NICKNAME :  James, Mr. James, Senior Advisor Harmon James.  AGE : Forty-two.  BIRTHDAY :   October 17th, 1998.  ETHNIC  GROUP : Caucasian.  NATIONALITY :  American.  LANGUAGE / S : English.  SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :   Homosexual.            ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :  Homoromantic.  RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :  In a secret, long-term relationship with Minister Edwidge Owens.  CLASS : Upper class.  HOME  TOWN / AREA :   He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  CURRENT  HOME : Washington, DC.  PROFESSION : Senior Advisor to the Leader of the New Founding Fathers.

PHYSICAL.  HAIR : Red. Much lighter when he was younger. Wavy.  EYES : Bright blue, sunken.  NOSE : Long with a slight downward hook.  FACE :  Defined smile lines, and other various lines and freckles.  LIPS :   Thin, small, and chapped.  COMPLEXION :  Pale, sickly, with light freckles peppered along his face.  BLEMISHES :  Nothing noticeable.  SCARS : A few on his face, a couple from various other incidents. Burn scars on his hands.  TATTOOS : None.  HEIGHT : 6'6".  WEIGHT : 185 lbs.  BUILD :    Slender, defined muscles in his arms, chest and legs. Sharp shoulders.  FEATURES :  Wide, sunken eyes. Large, gentle hands, folded at his chest. Painted fingernails. Intimidating stature.  ALLERGIES :  N/A.  USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  Straightens his waves and slicks the whole thing back, parting it to the left.  USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  Expressionless. Ivory makeup still shows the freckles on his face. Though expressionless, he always tends to look alert, on his guard.   USUAL  CLOTHING : A suit, including a vest, ironed to crispness the day before. Suitable colours are grey, black, or beige. Ties, usually blue or red. A silver cross around his neck. Edwidge's promise ring on his middle left finger. Nails painted usually nude shades. Black or brown shoes shined until you can see your face in them.

PSYCHOLOGY.

 FEAR / S :  Fear of imperfection. A slight fear of disappointment. Fear of being outed.  ASPIRATION / S : To purge and purify: to rid the country of those that depend on them, them being the NFFA, the government, the healthcare system, housing, welfare. To make his superiors see that he can one day be as good as any of them. To lead the New Founding Fathers of America.  POSITIVE  TRAITS : Loyal, peaceful, spiritual, efficent, disciplined, aware, calm, intelligent, self-confident.  NEGATIVE  TRAITS :  Hypocritical, overzealous, judgemental, blindly obidient, sadistic, insensitive, remorseless, blunt, withdrawn.  MBTI : ISTJ, the Logistician.  ZODIAC :  Libra.  TEMPERAMENT :  Melancholic.  SOUL  TYPE / S :  Thinker.  ANIMALS :  A wide-eyed owl, constantly observing.  VICE  HABIT / S :   Vanity, a bit more concern about his appearance than most men his age. Overly critical of those in a lower position than him, even though he was once one of them.    FAITH : What the NFFA deems to be Christian.  GHOSTS ? : Yes.  AFTERLIFE ? : Absolutely. He needs to go home sometime.  REINCARNATION ? :  Possibly.  ALIENS ? : No.  POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :  Right-wing.  ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE :  He has more than he knows what to do with.  SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : One of the 1%.  EDUCATION  LEVEL : University.

FAMILY.  FATHER :   Richard Allen James, the chief communications officer of ARCON and the first press secretary of the New Founding Fathers. Deceased.  MOTHER :  Caroline Ann James, a talented pianist and violinist, with dreams of playing with a famous orchestra. Still living.  SIBLINGS : Seven. Sarah, Mary, Caleb, Lucas, Joanna, Michael & Hannah. Harmon is sixth.  EXTENDED  FAMILY : Aunts, uncles, several cousins, and a total of twenty-seven nieces & nephews.  NAME  MEANING / S : Harmon, "man of the army." Mallory, "ill fated."  HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :   Unknown. There is a place named Harmon mentioned in the Bible, but this place name is debatable. It's been thought of that Harmon James is a pun on "harming James," James being a leader of the early Church.

FAVOURITES.  BOOK :  Other than the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, he enjoys a good true crime novel now and again. Also, political biographies.  MOVIE : Dramas, documentaries and psychological thrillers.  5  SONGS :  (these remind me of him, not his own favourites.) The Sisters of Mercy - Driven Like The Snow. Frank Tovey - New Jerusalem. Cloudeater - Hollow. Fad Gadget - Under The Flag II. Nathan Whitehead - The Sacrifice.  DEITY :  A God who encourages a yearly slaughter of His creation.  HOLIDAY :    That blessed night, the one night the country does their bidding.  MONTH :  March.  SEASON :  Winter.  PLACE :  His home, Our Lady of Sorrows, or the NFFA's headquarters.  WEATHER :  Cloudy, foggy; a brisk morning that beckons snowfall.  SOUND : The echo of footsteps walking across a marble floor. A choir of unintelligeble words. Wind whistling through telephone wires. Silence. The scream of a man, strapped down, a knife plunging into his heart. A siren.  SCENT / S :  The smoke from an extinguished flame. Stale. Eau de cologne. Hair gel.  TASTE / S :  Blood. Luxurious foods. Tea. Ice.    FEEL / S :  A shiver running down your spine. The touch of a hand when no one's around. The feeling someone's watching you when you're alone. Blood on your lips. A cold wind. Emptiness.  ANIMAL / S : An owl seems to be the only thing I think of. Maybe an eagle. Harmon seems like a bird.  NUMBER : Six. He's the sixth in his family, he stands at six feet and six inches tall...  COLOUR : Blue, to show his loyalty to the NFFA. Red, the colour staining his hands. White, for the supposed purity of his soul.

EXTRA.  TALENTS :  His intelligence. His written communication skills. Most of his oral communication skills, his stutter stands in his way. Good with weapons. His knowledge of the human anatomy. He's fairly good at ice skating. Singing.  BAD  AT : Having a social life. Drawing. Being an enjoyable person. Smiling.  TURN  ONS :  Men in positions of power. Voices that draw you in. Strong hands. Blood. Twisting a knife inside of a martyr.  TURN  OFFS :   Anyone lower than his class.  HOBBIES :    Choir. Anything that involves assisting the NFFA.  TROPES :   Badass Long Robe. Dissonant Serenity. Giggling Villain.  AESTHETIC  TAGS :  Blurry images. Graveyards. Blood covering hands, covering the Cross. Knives. Pale, trembling hands. Waves of blue.  GPOY  QUOTES :  "You are never here. You are always almost there."

FC INFO.  MAIN  FC / S :  Christopher James Baker.  ALT  FC / S : Mark Strickson (possibly.)  OLDER  FC / S :   Not sure, but Robert Redford currently is a possibility.  YOUNGER  FC / S : Freddie Fox.  VOICE  CLAIM / S : CJB in "True Detective."  GENDERBENT  FC / S :  Lisa Pelikan.

MUN QUESTIONS.  Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?            A1 : He has a movie, but he's not the focal point. He has his big moments though! I'd like to see more of Harmon in The Purge 4, since that will be more focused around the NFFA. The story of how a man becomes the way he is today, desensitised to death, wanting destruction, yearning for violence. What made him be this way? What would it be called? No idea.  Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?            A2 :  Ambient. Echoes where none of the words can be understood. A soft organ playing in the background. Suddenly, the music becomes a bit more intense...  Q3 :   why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?            A3 :  I watched The Purge: Election Year, and immediately fell in love with him. I knew I had to do something, and this is what I chose to do.  Q4 :   what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?            A4: June 30th, 2016. Around 9:00pm. I'm sitting front and centre watching the newest Purge film, a sequel in a franchise I've loved for three years. Charlie Roan is delivered to Our Lady of Sorrows. All of a sudden, this tall, thin, creepy fucker in a long blue robe makes his debut. Just the kind of character I love. I walked home that night, wrote "Harmon James can own my ass, what the fuck" into my phone, and knew this was the beginning of something beautiful.  Q5 :   describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.            A5 : He's everything I hate in a person. He dislikes everyone who isn't like him. He's almost every -phobic or -ist in the damn book.  Q6 :   what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?            A6 : We have blue eyes, and we laugh similarly. That's it.  Q7 :   how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?            A7 : Harmon James would want me sacrificed.  Q8 :   what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ?    A8 :  Edwidge Owens. Thomas Roseland. Caleb Warrens. Harlan Coy. Claude Frollo. Richard Miller. Curtis Stafford. Leo Barnes. Charlie Roan. Ambrosia Reynolds. If I could ever actually get to plotting with other people, them as well.  Q9 :   what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?          A9 :  Watching Harmon's scenes! Listening to songs that remind me of him, like the Election Year soundtrack. Scrolling through the archive on his aesthetic blog. Being outside in the cold.  Q10 :   how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?            A10 : I forgot about this for a good month. So a long time. Thanks, Ocelot. xo

[365footballorg-blog]

Warshaw: Running the rule over Wednesday's MLS action

USA Today Sports

October 18, 20182:03AM EDT

There were three games Wednesday night, all with playoff implications. Here are a couple notes on all six teams to roundup the night:

For United, aside from Wayne Rooney making me write “omfg” to three different friends after his game-winning free kick…

A low-key thing D.C. should feel good about is their flexibility with lineup choices. They can play different types of players within the same formation for different needs. On Wednesday night, Chris Durkin, Zoltan Stieber, and Nick DeLeon started. Sunday, it might be Junior Moreno, Ulises Segura, and Paul Arriola in their spots. Alternate lineups, alternate skill sets, without a drop in overall quality. As a result, the team can maintain its general style and principles while also adjusting for specific opponents.

A small but important variable for DC: the more they give the seemingly meaningless two-yard passes to Acosta, the more dangerous they become with their possession. Keeps ball moving + builds their orchestrator’s confidence.

— Bobby Warshaw (@bwarshaw14) October 18, 2018

We don’t think about possession enough for how it makes players feel. Touching the ball feels good. Every time a player puts his foot on the soccer ball, he feels a spurt of happiness. Sometimes you should pass the ball just to make players feel good; it builds energy and confidence. Even though that individual pass doesn’t matter, the fact that the player feels happy and confident will matter when it’s time to make a more decisive play. One reason Luciano Acosta has been so good over the last couple months (aside from the Rooney fella) is that he’s been getting lots of extra, seemingly needless touches.

For Toronto FC, the biggest difference between the Michael Bradley of 2018 and the Michael Bradley of 2017 appears to be the ability to get his body to do the “hard” things. The hard things on a soccer field aren’t tekkers skills; they are the tasks you have to dig into your heart to complete. Imagine those last three pushups when your arms are shaking and it feels like you can’t possibly push anymore and you have to make a conscious decisions to push through the pain. In soccer, those are acts like defensive transitions, sticking a toe in for a second or third time on a challenge, and moving your feet when someone tries to beat you 1v1.

Watch this foul that Bradley concedes that leads to Rooney’s free kick. He doesn’t move his feet to get a better defensive angle to cut off the passing angle; he doesn’t seem interested to fight with Yamil Asad for the next two yards. He makes the easy decision.

I’ll die on the hill that Bradley has been under-appreciated by US national team fans for years. But he hasn’t been the same in 2018.

Lucas Janson has been a good addition for Toronto. He’s a different type of player for them. For as amazing as they were last year, they didn’t have someone with his change of pace and energy off the bench. He didn’t score on Wednesday, but he stressed out D.C.’s center backs. It’s unclear whether Janson is win-a-Cup-as-a-starter good, but he’s certainly a nice third option behind Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore.

Victor Rodriguez and Handwalla Bwana got the goals tonight for Seattle, so…

Rodriguez is finally showing why the Sounders made a TAM-level investment on him. He’s comfortable on the ball and uses his low center of gravity to glide past defenders. More importantly to this specific Sounders team, he’s makes smart, dangerous runs off the ball. I highlight the word dangerous. Cristian Roldan and Nico Lodeiro have excellent movement, but it’s usually not directly dangerous toward goal. Lodeiro and Roldan often move to find the ball to feet or to make room for teammates, and Rodriguez makes that action into a goal scoring position. Rodriguez offers counter movements to the other players in his line on the field that makes the Sounders more dangerous.

Like Rodriguez, Bwana offers something unique that the Sounders might need in the playoffs. Bwana can change a game; he’s fast, fearless, and unpredictable. He’s not clean enough to be a starter yet, but he has the ability to do game-changing moments. If Seattle need a goal late in a game, Bwana is a nice option to turn to.

Seattle are now three points back of Sporting KC and LAFC, and Seattle have Houston and San Jose left on the schedule. SKC play Dallas and LAFC, while LAFC have Sporting and Vancouver. Considering at least one of SKC or LAFC need to drop points when they play each other, Seattle has a real shot of getting *at least* home field advantage for the Knockout Round.

Orlando scored! It was their first goal in more than five games. And they actually carried the match in the second half and maybe deserved an equalizer.

Matt Doyle sent me a message after Seattle’s first goal, “Dude, Orlando’s defense…” He’s right. I don’t have much to say about Orlando at this point, so let’s break down how that conversation (shouting match) probably went down in the locker room at half time. Here’s the goal to refresh your memory:

It’s Scott Sutter at right back, Shane O’Neill at right center back, Lamine Sane at left center back, and Will Johnson at left back.

O’Neill: “Lamine, where were you going?! Why did you get dragged out so far!?”

Sane: “What do you want me to do?! The guy got beyond Will! If I didn’t slide over, that runner was in on goal! You should have seen that and moved central to cover the space!”

O’Neill: “I couldn’t slide over! I had an attacker to my right! If I had come closer to you, the guy to my right would have been in!”

At which point both center backs should have turned to Sutter to yell “And what were you doing?!!!”

To which Sutter wouldn’t have a good answer. He has no reason to be so far wide on the weak side. The basic rule says the weak-side defender should be inside an imaginary line to the far post on a play like this. If the ball goes to an attacker that far wide, the defense can deal with it. If Sutter is tighter to the middle, he’s closer to the Seattle player that’s pinning O’Neill to his spot, then O’Neill could move central and track Rodriguez’s run down the middle.

We are too critical on professional players for some things. This is something we should be more critical of players for. This is an elementary tactical mistake from Sutter and the Orlando City defense.

At the 60-minute mark, I was thinking to myself, “You know what’s going to doom SKC in the end? They don’t have a player with the little extra skill or quality to make something out of nothing when they don’t look like scoring.” Then Yohan Croizet banged home a one-time curler from 18 out to tie the game. It both negates and accentuates my initial concern. Croizet was brought into this team to be that guy. They have a bunch of very good players, but they don’t have a moment-of-magic guy (think: Carlos Vela, Zlatan, Nico Lodeiro, Diego Valeri, etc). SKC don’t have the artist who sees the things the others don’t. Croizet was supposed to be it. And his goal Wednesday night reminds us of that fact, but also how rarely he does it.

SKC are good at pretty much everything. But they don’t have someone they can reliably lean on when they need it. History says you usually need that guy at some point in the playoffs.

Just when we thought Diego Rubio had won the starting striker position, Khiry Shelton makes a huge play to get Sporting their go-ahead-goal. It was a prototypical Shelton play — not pretty, and more for his teammate than himself. Then he added another assist in garbage time. In just his second appearance in three months, Shelton has possibly reasserted himself into the starting XI conversation.

BONUS: 16-year-old Gianluca Busio got his first MLS goal. He owes Johnny Russell a milkshake.

16-year-old Gianluca Busio scores his first MLS goal to make it 3-1! #VANvSKC https://t.co/GmtKb8dYDC

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 18, 2018

On Vancouver’s side, oof. Talk about opportunity missed. Vancouver controlled their own destiny. Yeah, it was a difficult journey left, with three playoff teams left on the schedule. But a win on Wednesday could have tied them on points for the 6th spot in the West. and they went up 1-0, and they led until the 60th minute. It’s a tough one to stomach. The ‘Caps can still get in, but they need help now.

Series: 

Topics: 

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Warshaw: Running the rule over Wednesday's MLS action was originally published on 365 Football

[flauntpage]

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Super Bowl Runners-Up: What to Watch For

Nick Foles vs. Tom Brady.

Plus – Eagles football.

Do you really need any other reason to watch?

Brady is reportedly supposed to play most of the most half tonight, which is infinitely more interesting than six series of Brian Hoyer.

But beyond the Super Bowl rematch and Brady/Foles angle (I’m certain Brady will speak to Nick pregame and congratulate him on winning it all), here are a few more things to look for tonight:

Dallas Goedert and maybe Zach Ertz

By far the biggest positive from game one, Goedert I’d assume is good to go after coming back from a minor arm injury over the weekend.

Zach Ertz didn’t play against the Steelers, but if he goes tonight I’m really curious to see him and Goedert on the field together, especially in the red zone. I wouldn’t expect the Eagles to show any wrinkles and just keep the offense fairly vanilla, but the deployment of two tight-ends that know how to use their body, hit that seam route, and catch the ball in traffic is something I think fans should really look forward to this season.

At the very least, we’ll see Foles chucking the ball to Goedert for a bit before Nate Sudfeld enters the game. Eagles tight ends combined for 163 targets last season and functioned as a vital cog in Doug Pederson’s offense.

Oh yeah, one other thing – can he block?

Looks okay so far:

Shot 3 – Enough of the catches – how about Dallas Goedert as a blocker? Biggest question people had w/ him coming from FCS level. These are just three examples of him on the move, look at some of the shots coming up to see him at the point of attack and on the back side! #Eagles pic.twitter.com/U7WdgfuZS8

— Fran Duffy (@fduffy3) August 10, 2018

Running back

Donnel Pumphrey hasn’t been practicing.

Josh Adams hasn’t been practicing.

Matt Jones didn’t play last week (but apparently is fine now).

One of the more interesting preseason positional battles has fallen flat, if we’re being honest.

Adams looked decent enough against the Steelers, picking up 30 yards on 6 carries with a 15 yard burst in there. He caught two balls for 11 yards while Wendell Smallwood, who is also competing for a roster spot, went for 24 yards on 6 carries but fumbled in the second half.

Unless Pumphrey and Adams became healthy over the last 48 hours, I really don’t know how much we’re gonna see from those guys tonight, if we see them at all. Jay Ajayi, Corey Clement (probably won’t play tonight) and Darren Sproles are roster locks, so it’s not like the 4th spot is uber-important, but it’s at least something to keep an eye on.

Linebacker and slot corner

Nate Gerry and Kamu Grugier-Hill have a leg up on Corey Nelson right now. That’s not what I expected after the Eagles gave Nelson $2.25 million on a one-year deal.

Gerry started at the WILL spot last week and finished with four tackles. Grugier-Hill had 6 tackles, two for loss, and LaRoy Reynolds finished with four tackles and a sack.

If the Eagles keep Jordan Hicks, Nigel Bradham, Gerry, Grugier-Hill, and Joe Walker (the latter three are special teamers), that really leaves only one spot for Nelson, Reynolds, Kyle Wilson, and Asantay Brown. They’ll carry six linebackers.

As I’ve said before, WILL isn’t the most important position to fill on the defense, which I think goes to slot corner. Hicks and Bradham will play LB in nickel sets, and the Eagles can benefit from their significant corner depth when they come out of their base defense (which happens more often than not).

Avonte Maddox got the 1st team slot looks in camp on Monday and Tuesday. Sidney Jones seems like the leader in the clubhouse. I really do think Patrick Robinson was a big loss for this defense, but the Birds have plenty of talent ready to step up and fill his shoes.

The punter

Cameron Johnston hit that 81-yarder last week (net 76) which was called back for a penalty.

What did you think of him otherwise?

It just seems strange to me that they aren’t making him at least compete for the job. Donnie Jones is still out there. You could have at least brought in a second punter and put a bit of pressure on Johnston to show consistency throughout camp and into the Steelers game.

Defensive tackle

Interested to see how Destiny Vaeao does with first team reps against the Patriots’ starting unit. The Eagles couldn’t get much pressure on Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, not until Brandon Graham got to him in the fourth quarter.

Otherwise, keep an eye on how they use Michael Bennett. They stacked him at tackle on some third and long plays last week. And let’s see what they do with Haloti Ngata, too. I thought for sure he’d be starting alongside Fletcher Cox while Tim Jernigan is out, but nope:

Doug Pederson mentions that the first-team defensive line was “intact” on Thursday night. Destiny Vaeao started. Seems to me like he will start Week 1 over Ngata #Eagles

— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) August 11, 2018

Mike Wallace

Expected to play tonight.

No Alshon Jeffery or Nelson Agholor (I think), but at least one of the starting receivers is gonna be on the field.

Not gonna lie, I think it’s a bit worrisome that some of these guys have been out for a prolonged period of time. We’re three weeks away from the season opener.

Returning

Rashard Davis and Shelton Gibson handled kick return duties last week. Davis and Clement returned one punt each. I’d assume Darren Sproles takes over when he’s ready.

Jump balls

Couple of instances last week where Maddox and Rasul Douglas had great positioning but didn’t make the right play on the ball. Maybe Rasul took a slight hand in the back on the one touchdown, but there were a couple mistakes in the secondary on 50/50 toss-ups.

Helmet rule

Sidney Jones got popped last week. I don’t think there was another flag though, was there? My wife turned on “The Real Housewives” of whatever late in the fourth quarter.

I compiled some clips of helmet-first collisions from week one of the preseason games.

National anthem

Actually.. nah who cares.

That’s about it. Let’s see if anything else pops up tonight.

"I love Long Cox" pic.twitter.com/CaWP73QhP3

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) August 10, 2018

The post Philadelphia Eagles vs. Super Bowl Runners-Up: What to Watch For appeared first on Crossing Broad.

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Super Bowl Runners-Up: What to Watch For published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[euroman1945-blog]

The Daily Thistle

The Daily Thistle – News From Scotland

Saturday 19th May 2018

"Madainn Mhath” …Fellow Scot, I hope the day brings joy to you….  Heaven full of sparkling stars, even a Spielberg moment as a Shooting Star blazed its way across the night sky… The Seven Sister clearly visible along with many other of the galaxies.. but it’s funny to think that when we look up into the night sky we are in fact looking back in time, as the light from our nearest celestial body the moon for example takes 1.3 seconds and 8 minutes from the Sun our nearest star. Taking that a step further the next nearest star is Proxima Centauri which is 4.24 light years from the sun, so its light will take 4.24 years to reach us. One more step and I promise I will stop… The farthest star to be discovered yet (Progenitor of GRB 090423, GRB=Gamma Ray Burst) is 112,900,000,000 light years away, so that means when we look at Progenitor through a telescope we are in fact looking back 112,900,000,000 years…. Heavens the stuff we can talk about at 4:00 am over a good cup of Colombian Coffee is amazing, and all that information has impressed Bella as she is asleep on my feet…..

APACHE SQUADRON TRAINING IN THE HIGHLANDS….  A squadron of five Apaches are training out of Kinloss Barracks in Moray A squadron of British Army Apaches have been photographed on low-flying training over the Caithness coast. The five Army Air Corps helicopters from Wattisham in Suffolk are being flown out of Kinloss Barracks in Moray. The week-long squadron-level training has also brought the Apaches over Ullapool, Inverness, Loch Ness and the Cairngorms. Prince Harry served with the Army Air Corps at Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk between 2011 and 2014, including an operational tour of Afghanistan with 3 Regiment Army Air Corps. At the prince's wedding to Meghan Markle on Saturday, a contingent of 25 soldiers from 3 Regt AAC will line streets outside St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and present a Royal Salute to the newlyweds.

FIREFIGHTERS TACKLE HUGE BLAZE OVERNIGHT…. At least 40 firefighters are tackling a blaze at a unit on a Fife industrial estate. Crews were called to the scene in Faraday Road on the Southfield Industrial Estate in Glenrothes at about 23:15 on Monday. There were no reports of any injuries. Firefighters were still at the scene dealing with the incident at 07:00 on Tuesday.

MAN CONVICTED OF RAPING SCHOOLGIRLS 40 YEARS ON…. A man has been convicted of raping two schoolgirls more than 40 years ago. Michael Martin, 59, of Irvine, Ayrshire raped the girls, then aged seven and 14, at various addresses in Glasgow between 1976 and 1978. Martin was also convicted of sexually abusing a four-year-old girl in 1979. He denied the rapes and claimed his victims were "wicked and evil liars". The women - now aged 47, 55 and 42 - gave evidence at Martin's trial at the High Court in Glasgow. His victims told the court that when Martin abused them he told them to be quiet saying "Shh." The jury heard they told no-one about their ordeal, with one of the victims saying: "Who would have believed us in the 1970s?" The jury was told by the victim who was 14 when she was raped by Martin: "I told my mum, nothing came of it." The abuse took place when Martin was looking after the children. His crimes were finally exposed when his victims decided to go to the police after 40 years. Prosecutor Angela Gray said: "The sexual abuse of children is often committed in a secretive way and there are rarely eye-witnesses. "These are different children of different ages, in different houses, but there are striking similarities in their evidence. The accused found and took opportunities." Judge Lady Carmichael deferred sentence on Martin, who is behind bars, until next month at the High Court in Livingston. She placed him on the sex offenders register. The court heard that Martin has previous convictions, but the offences were of a different nature to his sex crimes. Responding to news of Martin's conviction, a spokeswoman for children's charity NSPCC Scotland said: "Abuse ruins childhoods and Martin's appalling actions blighted his victims' lives into adulthood. "It is entirely right that he has finally faced the consequences of his actions. "This case shows once again that it is never too late for survivors of abuse to come forward and seek justice for what they endured as well as to receive the help and support they need."

DUNDEE'S PAUL MCGOWAN ARRESTED OVER ALLEGED NIGHTCLUB BRAWL…. Dundee FC midfielder Paul McGowan has been arrested over an alleged brawl in the early hours of Monday morning. The footballer is suspected of having been involved in a fight at about 02:00 outside Dundee's Underground nightclub in South Tay Street. It is understood he and other players attended the club's Player of the Year dinner earlier on Sunday evening. He was later arrested and charged with assault. He will appear in court at a later date. A Police Scotland spokesman said: "Police Scotland can confirm that a 30-year-old man was arrested in South Tay Street, Dundee, shortly after 2am on Monday morning in connection with an alleged assault. McGowan signed for Dundee in 2014 and has played more than 120 games for the club, scoring six goals. He recently signed a one year contract extension at Dens Park.

MAN, 78, ASSAULTED BY WOMAN AT MOFFAT BUS STOP…. A 78-year-old man has been attacked by a woman trying to rob him at a bus stop in Moffat. The incident happened at about 18:30 on Monday opposite the Balmoral Hotel on the town's High Street. The victim was approached by a woman described as white, 5ft 7in tall with fair hair and wearing a grey V-neck top and darker trousers. She then assaulted him and attempted to rob him before then getting onto the X74 bus and leaving the town. Det Con Michael Scott said: "This was a very frightening ordeal for the victim who was waiting for a bus in the High Street when he was targeted. "I would like to appeal to anyone who was in the area at the time and may have seen or heard a disturbance to get in touch with police. "Thankfully the man was not seriously injured, however, he has been left distressed and upset as a result." He appealed to the public to help find the woman responsible. "Whilst I understand people in the area will be concerned, I'd like to take this opportunity that we are working hard to identify the person responsible and would like to remind local residents that incidents such as this are rare," he added.

On that note I will say that I hope you have enjoyed the news from Scotland today,

Our look at Scotland today is of Stars over Scotland...I must say I am feeling a little star struck...

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Saturday 19th May 2018 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus #robertmcangus

[ms-rampage]

Eden’s Gate: The Mother Chapter 10 - The Lost Girls

Warnings: slight violence, slight language. 

Word count: 2.2k

Where it all began. 

Summary: Timeline of the Winchester family lives and deaths. Flashback chapter. 

Guest OCs: Joel Winchester (FC: Josh Brolin), Marie Campbell (FC: Fairuza Balk), Mandy Winchester (FC: Cristina Scabbia).

Guest Characters: Jacob Seed and Miller in war flashback. Archangel Michael, Raphael and Gabriel in flashback. 

Note: The italic red indicates different time periods so bare with me on this chapter. They’re all short mini chapters within one big chapter. 

********

June 1988

Joel Victor Winchester has enlisted into the U.S Army, and his father Alfred isn’t happy about it.

“Really? That’s what you’re gonna do?” he asks his son, “You’re gonna throw your life away?”.

“Dad, I don't want to hunt anymore. I want to travel. See the world” he explains to his father.

“Yeah sure, getting yourself killed will definitely help out with that” he sarcastically tells him. 

Joel grew tired of hunting monsters for a living. He wanted to change his life for the better, he enlisted into the U.S Army. His girlfriend Mandy was against it, but at the same time she didn’t want to hold him back. Within a few months he went off to training in Georgia. He felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders once he stepped off in that training base. 

Aside from the Sergeants getting into his face, and yelling at him. Making him do 100 push ups in 1 minute. Joel actually liked it there. Better than stabbing a demon in the face, or cutting off a vampire’s head. It’s better than getting chased by Hellhounds. 

________

November 1990

Iraq, the Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm. Joel along with his unit of 10 other men are passing through a desert town somewhere near the Persian Gulf. When an ambush causes Joel and his fellow soldiers to get separated from each other in the middle of the desert.

“This is Winchester to base do you copy?” he says into his radio, “Base this is Winchester do you copy?”. 

Nothing but static on the other end of the radio. 

“Now what?” Miller asks him. 

“We keep moving forward” he answers.

“Are you sure?!” another soldier asks. 

“Yeah, I’m sure” he replies. They all push forward through the hot desert as the sun shines bright on them. 

“I don’t think I can push forward” a young Jacob Seed tells Joel. Panting and stumbling through the hot sand. 

“C’mon Seed we have to keep moving” he tells him.

After several minutes of walking through the sand an explosion sends Joel, Miller, Jacob and a few others flying several feet away from each other. They all manage to find each other after god who knows how long. Almost dying of dehydration.  

“We gotta keep moving” Joel’s second in command tells him.

Joel looks around and notices they’re missing a few of their men.

“Where’s Seed and Miller?!?” he asks them. They look around for them, and accept that they were either killed, or they got lost in the explosion. 

“We have to look for them” Joel tells them. 

“Sir, we have to keep moving forward to base” his second in command tells him. They move forward through the desert and make it to their base. Not wanting to leave two of their men behind, knowing they could still be alive. 

__________

December 1991

It’s been over almost a year since Joel came back from Iraq. He wasn’t the same after all that shit. He suffered from PTSD, night terrors and insomnia. He has burn scars on his right shoulder, bicep and 30% of the right side of his body. 

Thinking that Mandy would leave him because of his trauma and disfigurement of his skin. She stood by side through all of it. She didn’t see him any differently, she still loved him regardless. With the help of her sister Marie, he planned on proposing to her. On December 22 1991 just before Christmas. He proposed to her at a Christmas party in front of all their friends and family.

Taking a knee, the usual way of proposing. 

“Mandeline Lucille Campell will you marry me?!” he asks, ring in hand. The crowd of their friends and family “awe” in response. 

Her hands covering her mouth, she nods her head and softly mutters “Yes” to his proposal. 

Tears filling her eyes as he places the ring on her left ring finger.

________

September 7 1992

The wedding of Joel Victor Winchester & Mandeline Lucille Campell. 

"Are you ready?" Marie asks her older sister. As she dusts off her white wedding dress. 

Mandy nods her head, taking a deep breath, "Yeah, yeah I'm ready!". 

Preparing to walk down the aisle, and marrying the love of her life. Her long-time boyfriend, then fiancée and soon to be husband. 

“Do you Mandeline Lucille Campell take Joel Victor Winchester to be your lawfully wedded husband. In sickness and in health. For good, or for worse. Till death do you part?” the priest asks.

Looking up at her soon to be husband, “I do” she answers. 

He asks Joel the same exact thing, and he gives the same exact response.

“I do” he says, looking down at his now beautiful wife. 

"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride" the priest tells Joel, and he kisses his new wife. 

_______

May 1994

Mandy announces her pregnancy with her first child. Waiting patiently for the results, sitting on the bathroom floor as Joel sat on the opposite side of the bathroom door. She got the results, and she is indeed pregnant. She opens the door, and immediately runs into Joel’s arms, tears streaming down her face. 

“What is it?!, what is it?!” he asks, excitedly. 

She shows him the stick, and he lifts her up. Kisses her.

“We’re gonna be parents!!” he mutters, excitedly. Lifitng her up off the floor.

____________

July 1994

Joel and Mandy get the results on the sex of their first child. The ultrasound technician puts the gel on her stomach and uses the sonographer to scan her belly.

Joel holds onto Mandy’s hand in anticipation. Squeezing it.

“So let's see what we got here” she tells them, as she scans her stomach. 

“It looks like you’re having a girl!” she tells the soon to be parents.

They look at each other excitedly, in shock and in tears. 

“We’re having a girl!!” Mandy mutters to Joel, kissing him. 

___________

January 19 1995

Mandy goes into labor a few months early, and gives birth to a healthy baby girl at the Phoenix Regional Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. After being in labor for 7 hours.

Weighing 7 pounds 6 ounces. Born at 2:15pm. 

“She’s so beautiful” Mandy says, cradling her daughter. A nurse walks into the room, with a clipboard in hand and asks “So what are we naming her?”.

“Paige Hannah” Joel tells her. She writes down the name and takes it to file it for records. 

“And you wanted to name her Dawn Mercedes” Mandy mocks him, looking down at her new infant daughter. 

He chuckles, “Yeah, I’m glad you changed my mind about it”. 

A few moments past and a man walks into the room.

“Joel and Mandeline Winchester?'' he asks, walking into the hospital room. They both look up at the man. 

“Yes?” Joel questions him, “Who are you?”. 

“I’m Michael” he tells them, “Archangel Michael”. 

They look at him in confusion, Joel stands up from the hospital bed and becomes defensive. 

“What do you want?” he asks in a threatening tone. 

He puts his hands up showing that he means no harm. “I mean no harm to you, your wife and the new addition to your family”.

He goes on to tell them that he is baby Paige’s Guardian Archangel. That he will protect and watch over her until the day she dies. 

"So what? Babies are assigned Archangels when they're born?" he asks. 

"Yes, I believe Raphael is Mandeline's guardian Archangel, and I'm yours" Michael tells them. 

__________

August 5 1998

Mandy gave birth to another girl at the same hospital where she had Paige. 

Almost having her at their home which is 15 minutes away from the hospital.

Weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces born at 7:42am, now with baby number two in the family. 

Mandy’s sister Marie watched over Paige while they went to the hospital. 

After 3 in half hours of labor pain and contractions, she finally had baby Katella. 

“I can’t believe it” Joel mutters, looking down at his new infant daughter “We now have 2 beautiful girls. She’s so beautiful”. 

They both stare down at their new addition to the family. 

“I’m so glad Paige stopped me from naming her Sasha Georgia” he says to Mandy. 

She chuckles, “Yeah me too. Katella Evyanna is a better name for her”. 

“Gabrielle would’ve been better” a man tells them, who appeared out of the blue in front of them. 

They both look up at the man, Joel scoffs at him, rolling his eyes and looking up at the ceiling “Let me guess. Gabriel? Archangel?”. 

He smiles at them, and says with his hands up “Guilty!!”. 

“What do you want?” Mandy asks him, Already knowing what this is all about. 

He sighs, sitting at the foot of the bed “The same route my big bro Michael did with little Paige. I’m this little one's Guardian Angel. I will protect, watch over her and blah blah blah until she dies. All that jazz”. 

They both look at him in confusion, and also in a way underestimating the youngest Archangel.  

"It's not too late to name her Gabrielle Tricksterina" he tells them. 

"We'll stick with Katella Evyanna. Thanks Gabe". Mandy says to him. 

________

November 14 1998

Baby Katella is 3 months old, Paige is 3 years old. 

“What time are you gonna be off?!” Mandy asks Joel, from the kitchen table. 

“Same time as usual” he tells her from their bedroom “5:30pm”. 

He continues to get ready for work while Mandy feeds Kate her bottle, and Paige is sitting in her high chair eating cut up fruit.

He walks into the kitchen, and kisses her, and his daughters goodbye.

“I’m leaving for work now” he tells her. Kissing her head, as well as the two little girls. 

Going to his job at the auto shop where he works as head mechanic. 

Mandy is taking maternity leave from her job as a receptionist at a dental office.  

________

April 19 1999

The night where it all happened, the night where Azazel took Joel’s life by causing a house fire.

Killing him when he went to check on baby Katella. 

Confronting the demon that took his life. Killing him and pushing him up to the ceiling. 

Mandy woke up to the smell of smoke, thinking Joel was cooking something. 

She went to check on both Paige and Kate. Upon checking on her youngest daughter, a droplet of blood lands on Mandy’s hand, she looks up and sees her husband laying against the ceiling. 

Within seconds the whole ceiling was engulfed into flames. Killing Joel instantly. 

Paige runs to the room, and sees everything. Mandy grabs Kate from her crib and hands her to her eldest daughter.

Telling her to take her sister and run as fast as she can.

Running out to the front lawn as the house is engulfed in flames. 

_______

September 2011

“Mom what’s going on?” 16 year old Paige asks her mother.

Des Moines, Iowa. A teacher from Paige and Kate’s high school had reported to Child Protective Services about some cuts, bruises and other wounds on Kate’s arms and hands. 

A cut on Paige’s left cheek, and bruised, bloody knuckles. 

Reporting that the 2 girls are being abused by their mother. 

Mandy would never lay a finger on her kids. Wasn’t able to convince the police and CPS that she would never hit her kids. 

Even with Paige and Kate coming to her defense. They still took them away from her.

“Everything is fine girls” she tells them. 

“Girls you’re gonna have to come with us” an officer tells them. 

They both look at him, and everyone else in confusion. 

“What’s happening?!” 13 year old Kate asks. Hiding behind her elder sister. 

“Girls I’m Nancy from Child Protective Services. You’re both gonna have to come with us” she tells them. 

“Why?!” Paige asks. 

“You both attend Des Moines Junior high?” the officer asks.

“Yeah” Paige answers. 

“A teacher reported some wounds, and other physical injuries on you” he tells them. 

They take the girls away from Mandy after they both resisted. Taking them away in separate vehicles. 

Mandy later would have child abuse charges against her, and she would flee Iowa shortly after. Paige and Kate were sent to live with their uncle Brent and aunt Laura. 

Mandy was charged, and had a restraining order against her. Forbidding her from seeing, or contacting her daughters until they turned 18. Once Paige turned 18 she took off and searched for her mother. 

__________

January 2012

"There's a man in Hope County, Montana that needs protection" Raphael tells Mandy. 

"Okay, what's his name?" she asks. 

"God hasn't given me his name, but you are the one that must protect him" he tells her. 

Not understanding what the job is actually about, she reluctantly agrees to protect this man whom she has no idea who he is or what his name is. Not knowing what he looks like either. 

"Okay, I'll go to Montana and protect this man who I never met, nor seen" she tells the Archangel. 

[ultrasfcb-blog]

Gareth Bale at Actual Madrid: Does Wales star have a future with Spanish giants?

Gareth Bale at Actual Madrid: Does Wales star have a future with Spanish giants?

Gareth Bale at Actual Madrid: Does Wales star have a future with Spanish giants?

Gareth Bale grew to become Wales’ report scorer on the China Cup in March – however has had a irritating membership season

Actual Madrid v Bayern Munich – Champions League semi-final second leg

Kick-off time:

Tuesday, 1 Could – 19:45 BST

Protection:

Dwell commentary on BBC Radio 5 stay and BBC Sport web site/app

After 5 years, a world report switch payment and three Champions League winners’ medals, Gareth Bale’s Actual Madrid profession could possibly be coming to an finish this summer season.

Now not a daily starter, hampered by accidents and nonetheless within the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo, Bale’s future on the Santiago Bernabeu has by no means been beneath larger scrutiny, regardless of the official phrase being that participant and membership are nonetheless joyful.

“There are nonetheless extra video games to return and I will be counting on him. It is not true that I do not play him,” boss Zinedine Zidane stated after the 2-1 Champions League semi-final first-leg win over Bayern Munich.

Going into Tuesday’s second leg, and with time working out on this marketing campaign, it’s changing into tougher to see Bale returning to favour, as he’s that includes lower than ever for Los Blancos.

Nevertheless, the 28-year-old Wales star has a profitable contract that runs till 2022, is settled in Spain and says he loves enjoying for Actual, who he grew up dreaming of representing.

The noises coming from the Bale camp are that he want to keep. If he leaves, it’s more likely to be the membership ushering him out of the door.

Is he really having a nasty season?

Whereas kind is subjective and the statistics present Bale is nearly as a lot of a objective risk as he has ever been (a objective in simply over 70% of his league begins this time period), there will be no denying his place within the Madrid hierarchy seems to be slipping.

Bale has been fitter for a bigger proportion of this season than final, his most injury-hit within the Spanish capital, but he has began simply 17 league video games and has featured in solely 5 Champions League matches.

He has performed the total 90 minutes lower than ever and now not appears to even be the primary selection off the bench.

He was an unused substitute in opposition to Bayern within the first leg, whereas within the final 16 in opposition to Paris St-Germain he featured for a complete of 36 minutes. He was additionally hauled off at half-time of their quarter-final second leg in opposition to Juventus.

Bale made solely his eighth 90-minute look of the season on Saturday – and scored the opener against Leganes – however that was in a weakened facet as they ready for the second leg with Bayern.

Gareth Bale’s Actual Madrid profession by 12 months Yr La Liga begins (objectives) La Liga sub appearances Variety of occasions subbed in La Liga Whole minutes performed in La Liga Different appearances(objectives) Different substitute appearances 2013-14 24 (15) 3 7 2,070 9 (7) 4 2014-15 30 (13) 1 7 2,582 9 (1) 4 2015-16 21 (19) 2 9 1,741 8 (0) 0 2016-17 17 (7) 2 7 1,425 7 (2) 1 2017-18 17 (12) 6 9 1,461 6 (3) 5

Why is his reputation waning?

Former Actual Madrid nice Michael Laudrup, at present managing Qatari facet Al-Rayyan SC, believes Bale’s inventory has fallen as a result of harm issues have hampered his kind for a lot of his time in Spain.

Meaning Bale – who joined Actual from Tottenham for £85.3m in 2013 – has struggled to match his first season, which culminated in him scoring in the final of the Champions League.

“I believed that Gareth Bale wanted a sure interval, possibly one season, to adapt to Spanish soccer, the place there may be much less area than within the Premier League,” Laudrup advised BBC Sport Wales.

“I used to be impressed together with his efficiency throughout his first season. He scored 22 objectives which was way more than anybody anticipated in his first season.

“If you ship such a primary season, it’s regular that the expectations will probably be excessive for the approaching one.

“However his second season was not even near his first, which I personally discovered unusual as a result of now Bale knew the Spanish league. However sadly accidents performed their half. The third season was good, however inferior to the primary.”

Denmark legend Laudrup believes the final two seasons have seen Bale grow to be a peripheral determine on the Bernabeu.

“Final season, his affect within the staff grew to become much less and fewer. Once more his accidents have been guilty for that. He couldn’t get match match after which it is vitally troublesome to achieve your greatest stage,” he stated.

“This season has up to now been a mixture of accidents and the truth that Actual Madrid have had a nasty season [domestically].

“And naturally this has additionally affected Bale, who has been criticised by the Spanish media.

Actual Madrid’s success in profitable the Champions League in opposition to Juventus in Cardiff final season noticed Bale acquire his third winner’s medal

“As soon as extra Actual Madrid are doing very properly within the Champions League however right here plainly Zidane prefers different gamers.

“So that’s the reason, if I ought to guess about Bale’s future, I’d say he’ll go away Actual Madrid after this season.”

Is staying in Madrid now unlikely?

The goodwill in the direction of Bale, each at board stage and virtually as crucially inside the media and on the terraces, seems to be waning.

Former Actual Madrid and Wales supervisor John Toshack, who gave Bale his worldwide debut, says he’s now affected by “a worrying stage of negativity”.

“I’m right here [in Spain] and I can see and listen to that there’s a lot of negativity about Gareth and it saddens me just a little bit,” he advised BBC Sport Wales.

“Typically the media, they need to stir issues up by way of him shifting on subsequent 12 months.

“Zidane is politically appropriate in every thing he says, however on the similar time you may see Gareth is just a little bit out of favour with him.”

Toshack feels Bale now appears sad until he’s enjoying for his nation and that the Madrid hierarchy could have already determined his future.

“Gareth’s physique language is just a little bit underwhelming. You may see that he’s clearly very a lot happier when he’s with Wales than when he’s with Actual Madrid,” he stated.

“Gareth is ready that actually does not look fairly proper.

John Toshack gave Gareth Bale his Wales debut in 2006 when he was simply 16

“To supply your greatest on the sector it’s important to be feeling joyful and assured and I get the impression there may be simply one thing holding Gareth again.

“I believe his accidents have annoyed just a few folks at Actual Madrid and there may be completely nothing Gareth can do about that.”

Is a Premier League return on?

If Bale is to go away Spain, a return to the Premier League would on paper appear Bale’s almost certainly and logical vacation spot.

Manchester United are regarded as long-time admirers, whereas Manchester Metropolis’s winter pursuit of Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez – an analogous attacking expertise – imply the Premier League champions may show an choice as properly.

Apparently a boyhood Arsenal fan, Bale may entice admiring glances from the Emirates as Arsenal plan for all times with out Arsene Wenger, whereas Chelsea is also a logical resolution, particularly with Madrid reportedly excited about Eden Hazard.

A return to Tottenham Hotspur would definitely be welcomed by Spurs followers as they transfer to their new stadium, however his wage may show problematic.

BBC pundit Pat Nevin believes a return to the Premier League is the best resolution for Bale.

“I’d like to see him again within the UK and I simply get the sensation that that is the time that will be proper for him,” he stated.

Gareth Bale emerged on the world stage with a superb hat-trick for Tottenham within the Champions League in 2010 on the San Siro. His former membership Spurs and Inter Milan are each regarded as excited about signing Bale

“It appears like shifting again to the UK would swimsuit him.

“He is been unfortunate with harm. Had he been absolutely match with out fairly an extended checklist of accidents throughout his time there, issues may have gone very in a different way for him.

“Perhaps he would really feel much less stress within the UK, be that at Manchester United, Manchester Metropolis, Chelsea or whoever.”

Laudrup additionally feels Bale can be extra welcome within the Premier League than he’s in Spain.

“I believe that he’ll return to the Premier League the place many of the high golf equipment would obtain him with open arms,” the previous Swansea boss defined.

“Manchester Metropolis, Manchester United, Chelsea or a return to Tottenham can be my greatest guess.”

Bale can solely be a part of a ‘big membership’

In line with the bookmakers, a return to England is way from sure with each Bayern Munich and Serie A giants Inter Milan that includes prominently as potential future locations.

One other of Bale’s former Wales managers, Chris Coleman, believes there’s a very small shortlist in the case of his subsequent membership.

“He is performed a great stint there, however the final time I spoke to him, he was very joyful in Madrid, his household is settled there,” Coleman stated.

“The place does he go from there that is greater? There’s nowhere greater, so if he does go away Madrid, the place’s he going to go? It may must be one other big membership.”

BBC Sport – Football ultras_FC_Barcelona

ultras FC Barcelona - https://ultrasfcb.com/football/3129/

#Barcelona

[asecretsummer-rpgpromo]

WANTED! FC can be changed!

Name: Andrea “Andie” Baker Age: 24 Sexuality: UTP Gender: Female Portrayed By: Sarah Bolger (not negotiable) Availability: Open

“I didn’t know things were this bad… almost makes me want to go home.”

→ Background

Andie Baker was born in Baberton but she doesn’t remember living here at all. Her parents, Michael and Sherry, whisked her and her sister off to a little town in Wales when she was two years old. Whenever she would ask why they moved, considering all their family were still in Baberton, her dad would mutter something about needing a fresh start away from all the ‘baggage’, something she soon learned to really mean 'away from my stupid brother’. Andie’s uncle Charlie didn’t exactly strike her as 'stupid’, from the few times she’d visited him but she never questioned her dad. It was better that way because Michael Baker didn’t really like being questioned. It frustrated him when he was proved wrong and Andie learned to tread lightly around him. He seemed to have a lot of pent up anger, ‘probably from his upbringing’, her mother always told her but she never really knew what that meant.

Andie has always been a bit of a quiet girl, almost the opposite of her sister. Soft-spoken and little, always in the background, though she wasn’t exactly shy. People just perceived her that way because she was so quiet a lot of the time. She just learned to hold her tongue most of the time around her parents, who liked everything to be a certain way, who liked everything to seem perfect.

→ Back to Baberton

Despite not always getting to see the other people in her family (Wales was too far away for regular weekend visits, and there seems to be a lot of bad blood between everyone) Andie has always wanted to be closer with them. She used to write her cousin Sophie lots of letters and send pictures and stuff. Sophie’s life always seemed so exciting. She was one of the popular girls and her friendship with Annie and the rest always fascinated Andie. Sophie was confident and beautiful and so clever! Andie was jealous of her cousin, wished she could be like her, even her parents seemed perfect. Until all their secrets came out, of course, but it still seemed like a better life than her own for some reason. Maybe that was stupid… Sophie’s murder was shocking. When Charlie called to tell Michael, and the news was passed on to her, Andie was heartbroken. What a horrible thing to happen to her wonderful cousin! She felt so bad for Charlie and Jenna but didn’t know what to say when Charlie came to Wales for Christmas. He had nowhere else to go, it was all so horrible. It felt like Andie never knew what to say and it was the most frustrating thing.

The decision to come to Baberton was her own and she sort of skipped out on her family, leaving only a scribbled note telling them that she was going to stay with uncle Charlie… who was really surprised when she turned up at the door of his apartment asking if she could stay. Turns out there was no room so he put her up in the house he used to share with his family until she got herself a job at the supermarket and ended up rooming at Imogen Ford’s new apartment with her. Every time Charlie asks why she’s here, she skirts the subject or just tells him it’s because of Sophie. Andie really doesn’t know what else to say but she really wants to get to know him, as well as Jenna if she wants to… and even her mother’s parents, though they’re as frustrating with appearances as her own are. She’s really settling into life in Baberton and, despite all the drama, it’s quite possibly the happiest she’s been. Though she and her newer boyfriend, Riley Miller, who was much older than her, broke up quite suddenly recently, quite out of nowhere after a random fight. Things were going so well and Andie really misses him but she doesn’t seem to know quite what went wrong.

→ What’s Her Secret?

Her poor cousin Sophie’s murder wasn’t the only reason that she hopped on a train to Baberton. The night before she packed a bag and ran off, she’d gotten in a huge fight with her father. The two often fought, they were like chalk and cheese, total opposites and had totally different opinions on most things. Andie loved her parents but they annoyed her sometimes. This fight seemed worse than usual, however, and in a fit of rage, Michael actually hit her. Slapped her right across the face and made her cry. He’d tried to apologise but she’d locked her bedroom door and then slipped away in the early hours of the morning, heading for the only family she really knew she had left. She didn’t think about how this would impact on Charlie’s life, her just showing up here, and she does miss Wales but… she’s so upset by what her dad did that she just doesn’t know if she can handle going back. Maybe he was stressed about his promotion at work and the fact there’s a new baby on the way but that’s no excuse to put your hands on your daughter.

Was blackmailed into stealing a folder of information from her uncle’s house by -A in return for not telling anybody about what her dad did. Andie has no idea what was in the folder, doesn’t have a clue that Charlie was trying to hunt down -A with his friend Brooke, but she feels guilty about it… she’s just too scared of anybody finding out what happened.

She told her sister about their father hitting her recently and Andie feels that Evie blames her for it ever since. Their relationship is strained and Evie acted in a way that made Andie feel she was trying to justify and she just doesn’t want to talk to her anymore.

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Michael Owen shows he’s not just Mr. Nice Guy, ranting about Liverpool, Man United, fan hate and his regrets

MALPAS, England — Michael Owen laughs a lot. It’s one of the first things you notice when you are in the company of the former Liverpool, Real Madrid and Manchester United forward. The common perception of Owen is that he is, and always has been, an extreme version of the modern-day sportsman who has been managed and polished to within an inch of his life, but the reality is very different.

We are chatting in the Owners Lounge at Manor House Stables, a thoroughbred horse racing training complex deep in the Cheshire countryside, which was nothing more than a cattle barn when Owen bought the land in 2007 as a post-football investment. While the camera is being set up in the stables to film Owen’s first interview since the publication of extracts of his autobiography, “Reboot,” we discuss the fallout from the book, including headlines about his broken relationship with Alan Shearer, controversy surrounding his comments about former club Newcastle United and criticism of David Beckham. (And, of course, two of his former clubs square off this weekend when Liverpool host Newcastle at Anfield.)

There has been widespread surprise at Owen’s candour and readiness to be blunt; it’s a side of his character he’s kept well-hidden since bursting onto the scene as a teenage sensation with Liverpool in 1997. But he laughs again when reminded of the time he scored his first goal for Manchester United. It came at Wigan in August 2009 and after the match, Owen walked past reporters asking for a post-match quote before turning on his heels to tell them to “F— off, because you’re always caning me…”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t have been a first,” he said, laughing. “I was probably right as well!”

– ESPN’s Ultimate XI: This team would win everything – Lukaku’s mission: Win at Inter, prove Man United wrong – Harding: The real reason Bundesliga is king

Owen is surprised that people have been surprised about his true personality, but he hasn’t lost any sleep over it.

“I’ve taken my tin hat off to chat about this!” Owen tells ESPN FC, following the initial reaction to the revelations in his book. “I’ve written a book that’s open and honest, talking about my career. It’s been interesting, quite a therapeutic process in the beginning, but now that it’s in the mainstream, it’s causing quite a lot of opinion.

“But look, to get to the top of any profession, you need unbelievable drive, confidence and the ability to filter out anything that is going to have negative impact on your mind.”

Owen is known for his safe public persona but in retirement and with his memoir released, he isn’t afraid to speak out.

Behind the laughter and the smile, it is fairly obvious that Owen is a tough, hard character to the point of appearing cold to outsiders. Perhaps it’s a result of being a child prodigy, the son of a former professional footballer (Terry Owen played over 300 games, including a spell at Everton) who spent his young life being groomed for the stardom which came at such an early stage of his career.

By the time he was 18, Owen had become a first-team regular at Liverpool and emerged from the 1998 World Cup as the most-talked about teenager on the planet after scoring his stunning individual goal during the second round defeat against Argentina. He was the Kylian Mbappe of his day, his scorching pace combined with an ability to score goal after goal after goal, but there was always an element of the “brand” being the most precious commodity, with Owen’s persona carefully managed to the extent that he never quite connected with supporters at any of his clubs.

Opinions back then were simply not on the agenda.

“A lot of the time when you are playing, you are slightly gagged,” Owen says. “You can’t be talking about Liverpool if you play for Man United.”

He scored 158 goals in 297 games for Liverpool but even at Anfield the affection for Owen is lukewarm, at best, largely because he signed for bitter rivals United after leaving Newcastle in 2009.

“When I left Newcastle, the two real options were Everton — David Moyes wanted to sign me — and Manchester United,” said Owen. “You could say that I was doomed to be criticised by Liverpool fans at that time, no matter what I did, because their two biggest rivals were the two biggest moves for me. But that’s fine. I’m certainly not sitting here apologising for anything.

“If I had the time again, in that situation, I would do the same again. In no other walk of life would you be criticised for having ambition: people would applaud it. But because I chose to sign for a club at the top, to play in the Champions League, you get castigated for the colour of your shirt. I’m never going to change that ‘you wore red, he wore blue, so I hate you,’ mentality.”

There it is again: that cold, hard honesty. Owen just does not do sentiment or play the game of telling supporters what they want to hear.

In his book, Owen admits that by the time he left Liverpool for Real in 2004, he was earning more from commercial deals than from club wages at Anfield, an admission that underlines not only his global status at the time, but also that sense of Owen the brand being bigger than Owen the footballer. As Sir Alex Ferguson says in the foreword to the book, “another factor in Michael’s career was the way he led his life; no arrogance, no partying, a good family life, respect for his parents, his manager and team-mates: all in all, a completely rounded young man.”

The problem for Owen, though, is that all of the above conspired to create the image of a footballer who was hard to love. “Over the years, I’ve inevitably run into a fair amount of criticism about various aspects of my career,” he said. “In my case, people complained that I wasn’t loyal enough to this or that club, was ‘always injured,’ boring.”

But does it bother him? Does he care?

“A throwaway line from Alex Inglethorpe, the Academy Director at Liverpool, summed up everything for me,” Owen writes in his book. “He told me that I had the best s— filter of anyone he’d ever met. To many, all I’ve ever been is a voice — a not very interesting one at that, some would say — or a face on a television screen.

“This ‘s— filter’ is at the core of it all and I hope everyone enjoys getting a brief glimpse into my head.”

April 12, 1999. It was certainly the end of the beginning for Michael Owen but the subsequent years also proved it to be the beginning of the end and, in many ways, the root cause of those accusations that he was injury prone.

Liverpool played Leeds United at Elland Road. Steve McManaman split the Leeds defence with a pinpoint pass to Owen, who collected the ball and raced towards goal until he pulled up sharply and collapsed to the ground on the edge of the penalty area. The Leeds crowd cheered, mocking Owen as he rolls around on the turf, clutching his right hamstring, which is torn from the tendon. The YouTube footage is difficult to watch considering the implications of the injury.

Owen was still only 19 at the time. He would go on to win the Ballon d’Or two years later and move to Real in 2004, but he tells ESPN FC that the injury at Leeds changed everything to the point that he could have quit in his mid-20s.

“Yeah, 100 percent,” he said. “Back in the day, when I did the injury, they didn’t do surgery on muscle [injuries]. If they did, it was extremely rare, so it was an injury that was going to catch up with me later in life, mainly in terms of speed, and this is one of the most frustrating things about what people have accused me of when I have said that, in the last few years of my career, I didn’t enjoy it as much as in my early years.

“I think that’s a perfectly fine and honest thing to say. I was right at the top of my game and I have countless recollections to prove how high my standing was during the first half of my career, but just think of the mental toll it takes when you’ve done that but then have to accept that players who are, with all due respect, half as talented as you, almost taking the ball off you.

“At 26, I couldn’t even run past them anymore. I was having to tell myself to link the play because I couldn’t sprint into channels anymore. It was alien to me, of course I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did when I was at my best.”

Owen, left, was prolific for Liverpool but a serious injury at 19 set the tone for several tough fitness issues in the later half of his career.

Losing his trademark pace was like a master craftsman being unable to use his tools and Owen could sense his decline. In his book, he admits that the root of his rift with Shearer stemmed from the then-Newcastle manager believing that Owen was refusing to risk his fitness to help save the club from relegation.

Knee, hamstring and foot injuries marred Owen’s career at Newcastle, restricting him to just 71 Premier League games in four seasons at St James’ Park. He had a similarly injury-affected three seasons at Manchester United, making just 31 league appearances (he only started six league games for the club), but having been one of the biggest stars in world football as a teenager, he claims it was “torture” to have to endure such a painful decline.

“I enjoyed the game throughout,” he said. “I’d have stopped playing at 25 if I hated it that much. I love the game now, I loved it at 33, but the mental torture of not being able to do what you could once do — the brain is still telling you to do it — you think, come and get it to feet because you can’t expose yourself to sprinting.

“The older I got, the slower and slower I got, but how do you get used to being ‘just a player?’ My brain, my heart, my everything is about being the best and when I couldn’t be, it was just torture in my mind to feel like that. I can’t understand how people don’t understand that.

“I was almost dying a slow death when I was playing. The last year at Stoke, I hardly played, and it made my mind up. I vividly remember playing away at Crystal Palace. I hadn’t played for six months, I was on the bench, hardly getting on, and I played [at Palace] and I just thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I’m just not as fast or as strong as anyone anymore. Yes, I could still finish as well as anyone in the six-yard box, but I just vividly remember that I wasn’t capable anymore.”

For a player who achieved so much, Owen has a surprisingly long list of regrets. He smiles about them, and does not project the image of a man weighed down by questions of what might have been, but they are there nonetheless.

Owen left Liverpool a year before Rafael Benitez’s team won the Champions League in 2005, spent just one year in Spain with Real Madrid, signed for Manchester United a month after the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez and was part of the so-called “Golden Generation” of Beckham, Ferdinand, Scholes, Terry et al, which failed to win a major tournament with England.

But such is Owen’s character, and his pursuit of absolute excellence, that it appears he relishes setting his personal bar so impossibly high.

“I’m wired in a certain way,” he said. “I’ll regret anything if I can. If I win the league, I regret not winning it twice. If I win the Ballon d’Or, I want to win it two or three times. That’s the way you have to think if you are at the top of your profession. But if I had one regret, with all the players we had, nobody will ever convince me that we didn’t have an amazing team with England. It was so frustrating that we never won anything.

“Yet my trophy collection is my pride and joy, my memories. Sometimes, you have a little five minutes looking at them, remembering how you did it, because the evidence is there. You just go into a room and see it all shining.”

One of those trophies is the Ballon d’Or, which Owen won after helping Liverpool to a Treble of FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup in 2001. No Englishman has won it since and, although he believes the Premier League now possesses the players to produce a winner again, Owen does not expect an English player to emulate him anytime soon.

“I can’t see it being in the next few years,” he said. “We have some great players, but you’d to think Messi and Ronaldo will be around for a bit yet. There’s obviously Virgil van Dijk and other top-class players in the Premier League but yes, it’s going to be a while before Englishman does it.”

Michael Owen opened his Twitter account in November, 2010 and it is fair to say he has endured a bumpy ride on social media ever since. For a player who generates more negative opinion than positive, it can be a daily grind of abuse and hatred for Owen, especially since going public on his rift with Shearer. He bites back more than most but also believes there is a difference between what happens in daily life and being at a computer screen.

“I think everybody gets [abuse] in my line of work,” he said. “I’ve been used to that since social media started. It was my decision to go on it and interact with fans and, by and large, you do get amazing interaction on it and a lot of support through social media.

“In the street, no-one says anything, so you’ve got to take social media with a pinch of salt. I was having lunch in Manchester city centre with my wife and kids last week, and this is when I’m in all the headlines, and not one person has a go at you. Not one person says anything. I’ve never encountered anyone saying anything [face to face] like they do social media.

“But if you’re not thick-skinned, there’s no point going on it.”

And with a shrug and a smile, Owen sums himself up. His skin is thicker than most.

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Armchair Analyst: USMNT depth chart - Midfielders

August 16, 20186:00PM EDT

Editor’s Note: this is the second part of Matt Doyle’s U.S. Men’s National Team depth chart.

Matt Doyle note: It’s less than a month from the first set of friendlies of the 2022 cycle – friendlies that are almost certain to be coached by interim manager Dave Sarachan, as there’s as yet no official or announced progress on the hiring of a permanent head coach. This is as good a time as any to see how things have changed since last November, and try to figure out what the depth chart looks like for these upcoming friendlies, for the rest of 2018, and into the early stages of 2019. Bear in mind that this is not a prediction of who’s going to be on the 2022 World Cup team (we’ll make it this time, I swear!), nor even who’s going to be on the 2019 Gold Cup team or even who’s going to be in Sarachan’s roster next month. Rather, this is just me surveying the field and trying to figure out who’s legitimately in the pool over the next six-ish months.

Defensive Midfield

Weston McKennie (Schalke 04)

Tyler Adams (RBNY)

Wil Trapp (Columbus Crew SC)

Danny Williams (Huddersfield Town)

Michael Bradley (Toronto FC)

Russell Canouse (D.C. United)

McKennie might be my favorite player in the whole pool, and he might not yet be a No. 6. Reports in the German press and folks I’ve spoken with both suggest that will be his eventual position, but it’s not yet clear whether eventual means “mid-October” or “mid-2021.”

He does so, so many things well, including those late, surging runs that are the hallmark of good box-to-box play:

Here is Weston McKennie’s goal vs Fiorentina today #USMNT pic.twitter.com/dVScQi2dbN

— Brian Sciaretta (@BrianSciaretta) August 11, 2018

Still, I have him listed here as a 6 instead of an 8 because I’m more interested in seeing him as a 6 at the moment. And even though I prefer Adams as a RB, I’m very interested in seeing a ton of those two guys together in central midfield making life miserable for every team they come up against.

Tyler Adams might be best at RB, but he’s solid in midfield | USA Today Sports Images

Trapp is a very different player, a pure field-spreading back point who has, throughout his career, struggled against particularly athletic foes. Williams is a range-everywhere destroyer more than a backline shield, while Bradley is a game-organizing field general (who’s definitely lost a step in 2018).

Canouse is the wild card. He was a starter, the captain, and supposed to be the star of the 2015 US U-20 national team – the one with Steffen, Miazga, CCV and a bunch of other names you’ll see soon – but had the bad luck of getting injured just before the tournament. And while he played well for VfL Bochum in Germany, he decided he wanted to come back to MLS and try his luck here.

He was very, very good in brief minutes last season, and was penciled in as a starter this season. But again … injuries.

Since coming back last month, he’s once again looked very, very good for D.C. If he stays healthy for the rest of the year, you at the very least see him in January camp.

More to keep an eye on:

Chris Durkin (D.C. United)

Alfredo Morales (Fortuna Dusseldorf)

He’s gotten a bunch of minutes and done pretty well this year for D.C., though it’s too soon to talk about him in a full USMNT context. Chances are he’ll be integral to the US U-20s this autumn as they attempt to qualify for the U-20 World Cup next spring.

For those who haven’t watched a ton of United this year: Durkin is an elongated Trapp. He does a borderline amazing job of moving the game around with his passing, and is superb at getting his teammates into a rhythm. But he’s not a great ball-winner, and lacks the kind of straight-line speed that can make up for mistakes, so he needs to continue to improve his reading of the game.

Morales has never featured much for the US, and is likely to be a bit player in Dusseldorf this season. It’s hard to see a scenario in which he’d be earning minutes ahead of younger, better options.

Central Midfield

Kellyn Acosta (Colorado Rapids)

Darlington Nagbe (Atlanta United)

Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders)

Marky Delgado (Toronto FC)

Joe Corona (Club America)

Acosta looks positively reborn after three games with the Rapids, and is giving everyone a reminder of both the how and the why he pushed into the USMNT starting XI early in 2017. He’s not playing as a true central midfielder – he’s mostly been a shuttler in the diamond – but functionally he fills largely the same role.

Are we witnessing a Kellyn Acosta revival in Colorado? | USA Today Sports Images

Nagbe had a smooth adjustment to Tata Martino’s system in Atlanta, and will be situationally useful. Roldan’s been consistently good in 2018, which nudges him ahead of Delgado (who’s struggled) and Corona (who’s older and has seen his role reduced).

More to keep an eye on:

Keaton Parks (Benfica)

I love his feet and game-spreading vision, but right now he’s very much a ‘tweener: Doesn’t defend enough to be a No. 6, doesn’t attack enough to be a No. 10, and hasn’t commanded the game enough to break into Benfica’s plans as a No. 8.

If he was 18, you’d say, “Well, okay, let’s just give it some more time and see how he develops,” but he’s not 18. He’s 21, and needs first-team minutes ASAP. Hopefully he gets a loan and makes the most of it.

There are a ton of potential-laden No. 8s coming through the ranks, though it’s too early to consider any of them here.

Attacking Midfield

Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund)

Sebastian Lletget (LA Galaxy)

Kelyn Rowe (New England Revolution)

Long-term I’m hoping that Pulisic ends up being moved to the wing – which is where he plays primarily for his club – but given the state of the player pool at the moment he has to be the No. 10 for the time-being (I’m obviously assuming a 4-2-3-1, which is pretty much the default formation in world soccer these days).

The pickings are relatively slim in terms of ready-to-go No. 10s after him, though it was nice to see Lletget get on the board for the Galaxy on Saturday.

Sebastian Lletget, recovered from injury, could be an option at the 10 | USA Today Sports Images

As for Rowe, the one time he got a chance to wear the Red, White & Blue, he was awesome:

Just look at this absolutely filthy assist: an impeccable flick, followed by a great change of direction, leading to a perfect cross into the box. Yes please. pic.twitter.com/gt7irutohs

— Joseph Lowery (@joeInCleats) January 22, 2018

I have no idea why he’s been buried in Foxborough, and why the Revs didn’t at least try to flip him for real assets. It makes zero sense.

More to keep an eye on:

Emerson Hyndman (Hibernian)

Hyndman got what I’m hoping will be a useful loan to Hibs after a year of rotting away outside the gameday squad for Bournemouth. With some luck he’ll play as well as he did on his previous loan to a SPL club, when he spent half a season with Rangers playing generally pretty well (save for when he came up against Celtic, who ran him off the field).

Hyndman’s a nice and tidy and sometimes inventive little player. Put him in the right situation, and he could maybe be what Mix Diskerud was for the 2014 cycle, but I don’t think his ceiling is much higher than that.

Guys like Andrew Carleton (Atlanta United), Paxton Pomykal (FC Dallas) and Gianluca Busio (Sporting KC) will hopefully work their way into this discussion inside of 12 months, but the first two are destined for the U-20s and the last one is for the U-17s.

Winger

Emmanuel Sabbi (Hobro IK)

Paul Arriola (D.C. United)

Jonathan Amon (FC Nordsjælland)

Kenny Saief (Anderlecht)

Miguel Ibarra (Minnesota United)

Let’s introduce you all to Sabbi:

Great great great great goal from Emmanuel Sabbi for Hobro IK in the Danish Superliga. He’s been tearing it up – 4g/1a in five games this year. Nice to see young American attackers getting a chance to play.

I suspect he’ll be on the #USMNT roster for next month’s friendlies. pic.twitter.com/lXDStFFKmZ

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) August 11, 2018

He’s been awesome so far in this young season, and while your response may be, “Oh yeah, fine, but give it time, you can’t just throw him in there!”, my response to that is, “Well, who else is there? And also, why not? This is the perfect part of the cycle to throw in a young player who’s out there doing work every single day!”

Sabbi’s just 20, and while he had a bad time at Las Palmas, he’s very clearly landed on his feet. He’s also eligible for Ghana (nation of his parents) and Italy (nation of his birth), but was a regular for the US U-18s and U-20s, and JUST LOOK AT THAT GOAL AGAINNNNNNN!!!!!! Forget about being on the roster – if he’s not starting in these upcoming friendlies, I will flip a damn table.

Paul Arriola’s versatility makes him an asset | USA Today Sports Images

I almost listed Arriola at central midfield since he’s been playing (very well) there lately, but for now he’s still a winger with this player pool. The fact that he has enough versatility to play as a winger, or as a CM, or as a wingback means we’ll see a ton of him over the next two cycles, which is a good thing.

Amon is a year younger than Sabbi and is arguably better, though an early-season injury means he hasn’t gotten a chance to show out. Injuries have also plagued Saief since he filed a one-time switch to the US. He’s much more a playmaker than Sabbi, Arriola or Amon and could even arguably play as a 10.

Ibarra’s a productive, relentless, two-way workhorse.

More to keep an eye on:

Mueller is energetic and fairly productive, but still raw. Lewis has been wildly productive on a per-90 basis in the Bronx, and I think he has as much upside as anybody in the winger pool, but he’s 21 and can’t lock down a regular spot, so…

Gall has moved to a good team in the Swedish top flight, and he appears to be a classic late-bloomer, but it should escape no one that he was inferior in MLS and USL to everyone else on this list. Treat whatever he does until he moves to a better league with skepticism.

Same goes for Gooch, who was a bit player for a disastrously bad Championship team last year, and who’s looked out of his depth when he’s gotten USMNT calls.

There are a bunch of promising wingers coming through the ranks as well. Finding clubs where they’ll actually get on the field should be of paramount concern for each of them.

Up next: Part III – Forwards

Series: 

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Armchair Analyst: USMNT depth chart – Midfielders was originally published on 365 Football

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MLS Newsstand - June 25, 2018

June 25, 20181:15PM EDT

SELECT CLIPS

MLS ARTICLES

Philadelphia Union 4, Vancouver Whitecaps 0

New York Red Bulls 3, FC Dallas 0

Orlando City SC 0, Montreal Impact 2

Sporting Kansas City 3, Houston Dynamo 2

Colorado Rapids 3, Minnesota United FC 2

Real Salt Lake 1, San Jose Earthquakes 1

Seattle Sounders FC 1, Chicago Fire 1

Los Angeles Football Club 2, Columbus Crew SC 0

Atlanta United 1, Portland Timbers 1

New York City FC 2, Toronto FC 1

Exclusive: Atlanta United dominates final MLS All-Star fan voting

Atlanta Journal-Constitution – June 25, 2018

Dominating the standings and attendance, Atlanta United also dominated the voting for the MLS All-Star game, which will be played against Juventus Aug. 1 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Six Atlanta United players — goalkeeper Brad Guzan, striker Josef Martinez, midfielders Miguel Almiron, Ezequiel Barco and Darlington Nagbe, and defender Michael Parkhurst — were voted into the MLS All-Star Fan XI. This will be Almiron’s and Parkhurst’s second consecutive All-Star appearance.

“They are incredible,” Parkhurst said of Atlanta United  fans. “From day one, until now it’s been amazing. Everyone sees it on a game day, and the passion they bring and the excitement and the atmosphere they create. But it’s everywhere. It’s when you are out about in the city and people recognize and the support they give you. It’s when you go to do a player appearance and go to sign autographs for an hour and there’s a line the whole time.”

The rest of the Fan XI is composed of talent that, combined with Commissioner Don Garber’s two selections and manager Gerardo Martino’s remaining 11 selections, which will be made later this summer, should make for a competitive game against the Italian powerhouse.

Joining the Atlanta United players are L.A. Galaxy striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who scored 23 goals in 70 appearances for Juventus from 2004-06, and LAFC’s Carlos Vela, who was voted in through the EA Sports More than a Vote Challenge. Ibrahimovic has seven goals and three assists in 11 appearances, and Vela has seven goals and five assists in 12 appearances.

Last year’s league MVP, Diego Valeri of Portland, is the remaining midfielder. He has six goals and three assists in 14 appearances.

The other two defenders are LAFC’s Laurent Ciman and Sporting KC’s Graham Zusi.

The Fan XI may not be selected by Martino as the starting 11, but the group has a bevy of World Cup experience, which may help. Ibrahimovic is a two-time World Cup participant with Sweden. Ciman (Belgium) and Zusi played in 2014. Guzan played in 2010 and ’14.

Martino knows what he will get from Atlanta United, which leads MLS with 34 points, and its fans in terms of support.

“It’s an honor,” Guzan told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s a compliment to our fan base and how much they value our team, how much they value the city in terms of how welcome we are and what it means to be a host city for such a prestigious event. It’s an honor. It’s exciting. It should be a good week.”

Martinez leads MLS with 14 goals this season. Almiron is among the favorites to challenge Valeri for MVP with six goals and seven assists. Barco, 19, has three goals and one assist. Nagbe, acquired from Portland in the offseason, has three assists.

Atlanta United holds several MLS attendance records, including single-game (72,035), set this season, and season average (48,200), set last year. It leads the league in average attendance again this season with more than 48,000. Tickets for the All-Star game can be purchased from ticketmaster.com.

“They love the team,” Parkhurst said. “And we try to show them the love right back. It’s awesome that they got out there and voted for us. I speak for all six of us when I say that we are fortunate and thankful for their support.”

The MLS All-Star Fan XI:

Goalkeeper Brad Guzan, Atlanta United. His first All-Star selection.

Defender Michael Parkhurst, Atlanta United. His second consecutive selection and sixth overall.

Defender Laurent Ciman, LAFC. Has three goals in 13 matches for the expansion team.

Defender Graham Zusi, Sporting KC. Has two goals and an assist for the Western Conference’s top team.

Midfielder Miguel Almiron, Atlanta United. His second consecutive selection, has six goals and seven assists in 17 appearances.

Midfielder Ezequiel Barco, Atlanta United. Has three goals and one assist in 12 appearances.

Midfielder Darlington Nagbe, Atlanta United. Has three assists in 17 appearances.

Midfielder Carlos Vela, LAFC. Has seven goals and five assists in 12 appearances.

Midfielder Diego Valeri, Portland. Has six goals and three assists in 14 appearances.

Striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, L.A. Galaxy. Has seven goals and three assists in 11 appearances.

Striker Josef Martinez, Atlanta United. Leads MLS with 14 goals.

Red Bulls, Special Olympics New Jersey #UnifiedTogether

Asbury Park Press – June 23, 2018

HARRISON – Christian Muniz held up the Red Bull New York jersey, looking at his name and No. 78 printed on the back. Mai Vy Nguyen proudly pointed at her nameplate, hanging on the locker just like the professionals.

They were both part of the Special Olympics Unified team, taking the field against their counterparts from FC Dallas on Saturday afternoon.

Both goals were scored by Unified partners, Cullen Colfi of FC Dallas early in the second half and Adithya Sridhar to tie it up shortly afterward.

Most of the same Special Olympics Texas players had hosted the Red Bulls last summer.

“It was pretty cool, new team, new feeling,” said Sridhar, a mechanical engineering graduate student at Rutgers University. “Everyone comes from different parts of the state. Everyone’s different ages. But everyone’s got to come together. Playing for the Red Bulls Unified team is a huge incentive. Everybody wants to come together to play.”

Muniz, a 20-year-old from Linden, was particularly excited to get out on the field at Red Bull Arena.

“I’m excited,” said Muniz, who swam at the Special Olympics Summer Games, and was part of Kean University Unified basketball.

“I’ve never played on a field like this before. We played really well, and tried hard.”

Decked out in a grey Nike logo headband, Nicholas Vales from Oceanport started at left back for Red Bulls Unified.  Nguyen and Sridhar started the second half.

“I’m so happy to be here. It’s fun,” said Nguyen, 25, who has played soccer since age 12 and also works at Goodwill in Old Bridge.

It is the fifth year of the Unified Exchange program, which promotes social inclusion through sports.

The Special Olympics players “signed contracts” with sporting director Denis Hamlett at the Red Bulls’ training facility in Hanover Twp. on May 15. They practiced a couple of times before Saturday’s match, though many have played together in Union City for years.

Special Olympics New Jersey will host D.C. United on Aug. 26.

Special Olympics has offered Unified sports, which blend athletes with intellectual disabilities and neurotypical partners, for more than 20 years, with 1.4 million participants worldwide. There are 12 colleges and universities in New Jersey which host Unified sports programs, including Drew and Rowan, where assistant coach Jack Boncales was first exposed.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Boncales, a Ridgefield Park native and physical education teacher and basketball coach at Shepard Preparatory High School in Morristown.

“I love it. They played hard. They had a good time.”

How Park City’s Sebastian Saucedo went from RSL ball boy to budding star

Salt Lake Tribune – June 23, 2018

Sebastian Saucedo was on the sideline when Kyle Beckerman, Nick Rimando and the rest of Real Salt Lake played at Rice Eccles Stadium, just another starry-eyed elementary schooler serving as a ball boy and dreaming of a professional soccer career.

“Growing up in Utah, who would have known a young kid [from Park City] would have been able to just play in general?” Saucedo said after he scored his first MLS goal for RSL at Seattle on May 26.

Saucedo is on track to have a breakout year, not only scoring his first MLS goal but logging more assists (three) in 11 appearances than in the rest of his career combined. He got his opportunity when injuries kept Joao Plata out of the lineup, and while he has yet to displace Plata permanently from his starting role, Saucedo has solidified himself as a prominent figure in RSL’s attack.

“The last month, he’s defending better,” said assistant coach Freddy Juarez, who has coached Saucedo since he played for the RSL Academy. “He’s playing for the team, he’s keeping possession, he’s giving assists, he’s scoring. He’s not a [finished] product by any means, but he’s starting to take advice from other people, applying it and becoming a little bit more of a complete player.”

Saucedo’s parents were watching from home when Saucedo sent a scorcher from outside the box into the back of the net at Seattle last month. His mom later told him that his father was so overwhelmed with pride, he had to leave the room.

“I’ve had a couple goals in Mexico,” Saucedo said of one season he was on loan to Liga MX team Veracruz, “and he was there for one of them, so I couldn’t believe hearing my mom tell me that, that he would be so emotional.”

Saucedo had expected a gruff, “Good job, on to the next one,” from his dad, Martin Saucedo. Sebastian, or Bofo as most call him, grew up training with his dad at the North 40 fields in Park City from a young age. Martin always wanted to set his son up in the best environment to advance his career, and Saucedo quickly rose from the Basin Rec (where he said he’d get access to the field house after school and stay there until it closed) to the Park City Soccer Club. It was his stint with South Weber club La Roca that put him on the RSL Academy’s radar.

“He had a knack to get by guys and then create either a pass for someone else, a shot for someone else, or he scored himself,” Juarez said. “So that’s the first thing. That’s the type of player you think have a high ceiling, and we can now put in a more competitive environment we can work on all the other things, the psychological and all that.”

So Saucedo left his family to join the academy in Casa Grande, Ariz. The lifestyle change was the biggest adjustment for Saucedo — on the field, he scored 50 goals in 60 appearances with the Academy’s U15/16 U.S. Soccer Development Academy matches, then another five goals in four matches with the U-17/18 squad.

Because of his success at the Academy, Saucedo was highly touted heading into the professional ranks as the first homegrown signing from Utah in July 2014, but at the time he didn’t have the benefit of being able to get minutes with the Real Monarchs, RSL’s USL affiliate that played its first season in 2015.

Though there have been some exceptions, “academy guys … aren’t really ready to go from academy to first-team soccer,” Juarez said. “And so we all see a guy that can score in the academy and think he’s going to come [and do the same thing on the first team]. It’s not true.”

So Saucedo asked for a loan and played in Liga MX. When he returned to RSL last year, he was an occasional reserve. This season he came out swinging and hasn’t looked back, now not just a ballboy for Beckerman and Rimando, but playing and wearing claret and cobalt alongside them.

Zlatan on overcoming injuries — and winning over the haters

ESPNFC.com – June 25, 2018

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not a modest man, so perhaps it’s not surprising that LA’s newest celebrity decided to pose for the 10th anniversary of the Body Issue. But there’s still plenty for the global soccer icon to open up about. Ibrahimovic sat down with ESPN’s Chris Connelly recently and revealed the details of his brutal knee injury, how he’s adjusting to his new team and that oh-so-memorable debut.

ESPN: You’re here to pose for the Body Issue. So what’s different about you physically from every other footballer?

Zlatan Ibrahimovic: When I do something, I do it powerful. Is not about the beauty because everybody can look good. But not everybody is powerful. And I bring that.

You also bring creativity and style. What is the moment like on the pitch when you know you can be creative? What has to happen?

I need to be angry. I need to be very angry. Then I bring out my [moves] that you will not expect … in a good way. And I see things that is difficult to describe. I can see holes in the game that I can use. And then I can see the vision, the second and the third step, what will happen, and I predict those things.

What motivates you?

I find the haters. I make that to give me energy. That is what I had all my career — I had people that didn’t believe in me. I had people who said that I will never make it. They judged me even before I even got a chance. But all that I turn around and I made it a driven power for myself. I was driven to do everything better, never be satisfied. That’s how I kept on, and I still find those holes where I get that energy. But the problem is, I make my haters become fans. So I need to have more haters.

It’s going to be hard to find those haters if you keep going like you have been. [Laughs]

Yeah, but I’ll find them. I’ll make them upset in some way.

Your accuracy is phenomenal on the pitch. In your book [I Am Zlatan, 2001] you talk about a coach [former Real Madrid manager Fabio Capello] who put you right in the penalty box and just fired balls at you over and over again.

Every day. He put me in front of the goal and I made, like, 50 to 100 shots every day. When I say every day, it was every day. And he continued to push me, push me, push me, and at the end he didn’t need to call me. I went there by myself, and I did it because it became my medicine. I needed to repeat it, and I needed to train on it. You train hard, and hard work pays off. And that’s why I hit the target maybe more than normal.

What part of your body do you feel the most confident in, as far as your strength? The whole package. There is no weakness.

Even at 36? That changes things a little bit, right?

No, is perfect. I am like the wine: the older, the better. Age is just a number, it’s all in your head, how strong you are, how young you are and how you prepare yourself. I do a lot of training. I prepare very well and I like it because it drives me. It never makes me satisfied because when I feel good, I want to feel better. I’m a workaholic.

You suffered a catastrophic knee injury [in April 2017], though. What was that like? It was very strange because I never had a major injury. When it happened, I even said to myself, “I’m not injured.” And I tried to walk straight after. There is another player who got injured in the first half — he was carried out. I was walking out because I said I’m not injured. And when I came in, I still said to myself, “I’m not injured, it’s just a small bruise or something.” But something felt different. Then the next day it was swollen, and we did MRI and it showed that everything was off. Then you hear all the comments: It’s all over. He will never come back. He will never be the one he is. So now the haters come out. And all this gives me energy, all those people that are speaking. So I said, “I decide when I stop football. I decide how I will finish this story. I will not end this story by injury. I will walk out the way I want to walk out.” When I walk out, I will feel just like when I began to play, powerful and feeling perfect.

How did you take the mindset that you bring to every match to your rehab?

I trained every day, boring training. But I needed to do it. And I had people around me that believed in me and gave me that extra push. I had my family. I had my agent. I had my physio. We worked every day. And when I signed the extra year with Manchester United [in August 2017], I asked [coach Jose] Mourinho, “Can I do [rehab] from distance? Because if I see the teammates every day, I will go crazy.”

Because I want to be with them. I am that kind of person. When the coach needs me, I’m there even if my knee is not there or I have a broken leg or something. I will be there for them because that’s how I work. When they need me, I will stand up for them. And I will defend them in every moment. So I asked to keep distance, to do my training isolated. I give a big thanks to United [for letting me do that], to my teammates that was in United, to Coach Mourinho — that gave me that confidence. And I’m here now, and I’m enjoying my football here now.

Will it be hard for you to watch the Swedish national team play without you in the World Cup?

No. In the beginning, the first games was different because I felt I can do it much better than them, obviously. And still I feel that. But there is a time when you say let them do it and let them enjoy because where I came from, I was not welcome. I was different. I came from a different background. And I went through all those things and I became the captain on my national team. I mean, bigger than that it cannot be.

You heard the cheers here in LA with your phenomenal debut. You’re smiling just remembering it. What did it feel like there on the pitch?

It felt amazing because the buildup was amazing. The only wish from Galaxy was please be ready for March 31, and that’s the game against LAFC. Just prepare for that game and be ready and be here. And I say, “Don’t worry, this is my job. Just make my visa so I have it so I can come over.” [Laughs] So everything was ready. I came here. I trained for 20 minutes. I didn’t know anybody. The next day I’m selected for the game. The coach asked me, “Are you sure you can play?” I said, “Just give me some minutes. I’ll show you.” And they were all asking, “How’s your knee?” I say, “We just have to find out how it is.” And we were losing 1-0, so I’m sitting on the bench and was, like, no problem, we can still do this. After 2-0 I look at my left, I said to him, “I don’t know if Zlatan is enough for this.” After 3-0, I say, “Listen, this will be a long season.” And then I heard the crowd shouting, “We want Zlatan.” OK, would they put me in or not? Or they will rest me? I didn’t know anything. So I started to warm up. We did 3-1. OK, now it’s your turn. You go in and then magic happens. So I gave them Zlatan, like I said. They wanted Zlatan, I gave them that.

You’ve heard cheers in every great football cathedral in the world. What was it like to hear those cheers in LA?

It was amazing because when I changed clubs I had a special connection with the supporters. I feel the welcome. I feel the energy. I feel the adrenaline. And I just want to give back. I want to give back as much as possible, and especially to the kids out there because they are the future. And I know they don’t get to see me every day. Like, “You have the luck now to see me here.” So I just want to give back to them as much as possible and by doing what I’m good at, playing football. And that is where the creativity comes in. You want to do something extra. I want to be the example they take after.

For more from the 2018 Body Issue, pick up a copy on newsstands starting June 29.

Mexico’s Carlos Vela finds World Cup redemption as El Tri on the brink of knockouts

ESPNFC.com – June 23, 2018

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Three thoughts from Rostov Arena as Mexico defeated South Korea 2-1 to take control of Group F at the 2018 World Cup with goals from Carlos Vela and Javier Hernandez.

1. Vela pulls the strings for rampant Mexico

Vela had a long wait to step up and strike Mexico’s 26th minute opener past Jo Hyeon-Woo from the penalty spot. Who knows what was going through his mind? Perhaps a more emotional character mind would’ve thought about four years ago and the abuse he took when he failed to show up for the World Cup in Brazil, or what missing would do to his confidence. And then there was the sad passing of the LAFC player’s grandfather last Sunday back in Mexico after El Tri’s 1-0 victory over Germany.

“I hope you left proud of me,” read Vela’s message to his grandfather after what was surely a difficult time away from home.

But Vela put it away and put Mexico on track for another victory in Russia with authority.

This may have only been a penalty goal for Vela, but it felt like redemption; a reconnection with Mexico fans who had shunned him after he rejected a chance to play for the team in Brazil in 2014, when his career was absolutely on a high. The fans shouted his name as he trotted up to take the spot kick; and after he converted it, Vela kissed the crest on his shirt, crossed himself and lapped up the celebration with his teammates.

But it wasn’t just the goal. Vela has now put in two performances of the highest quality in Russia, playing off Hernandez and roaming with intent to link play, especially with Mexico’s wingers. The arrogance — not in any way a bad thing when it comes to Vela — is back in his play, with his close control inviting the opposition in before moving the ball away from them. It gives rhythm to Mexico’s attacking.

In Russia, it finally looks like the former Arsenal player belongs and is an important, if not indispensable cog in the Mexican national team.

2. El Tri on the brink of knockout round

This was another promising performance from Mexico and one that will keep the momentum generated from that victory over Germany flowing, even if South Korea’s mainly defensive style made it more difficult for El Tri to shine.

The biggest surprise about Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio’s starting XI was that there was only one change, with Hugo Ayala exiting for right-back Edson Alvarez and Carlos Salcedo slotting in at center-back. Osorio has still never repeated a starting lineup in two consecutive games since taking over as Mexico coach in the fall of 2015.

In the first half, Mexico had 69 percent possession and largely controlled the game, although South Korea had chances on the break, with Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heung-min unable to finish when through on goal in the 39th minute.

Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa was forced into action in the 56th from a sharp Ki Sung-yueng shot from the left side of the box, but El Tri had the better of the chances and managed to get the vital second.

Hector Herrera won the ball in the Korean half in the 66th. Then Andres Guardado delivered the ball to Hirving Lozano, who passed it to Hernandez. The West Ham United striker cut inside and put Mexico ahead at a time when there was growing frustration about missed opportunity. This was a big goal for a striker who hadn’t netted for El Tri since last October. And it would have been all the more meaningful given his 87-year-old grandfather Tomas Balcazar was in attendance. Balcazar netted for Mexico back at the 1954 World Cup.

El Tri may not have been completely clinical, but in terms of sheer grit and hard work in hot and humid temperatures — it was 33 degrees Celsius at kick-off (91 F) — against a South Korea side unafraid to break up play with tactical fouls.

Mexico’s defenders blocked Korea’s shots, and by the 13th minute, left-winger Lozano had made two vital defensive challenges, one of which was in the right-back position and the other close to the 6-yard box.

While some of the more favored teams stumble in Russia, Mexico is doing just fine and has been boosted by the huge traveling support — around half of the 43,472 — in Rostov Arena.

By the end, the Mexican fans were singing the name of Osorio, and even the goalkeeper chant that caused the Mexican federation to be fined after opener wasn’t heard.

Things are going very well for El Tri, who recorded consecutive wins at a World Cup for the first time since 2002, and are now a virtual lock to reach the round of 16.

3. South Korea over-reliant on Son

This World Cup hasn’t been a great advert for football in South Korea. As if anyone didn’t know it, Son is the team’s best player by a distance. And when you take out Swansea’s Ki Sung-Yun, there isn’t all that much quality.

The South Korea team was happy to foul at will — 24 compared to Mexico’s seven — and the main tactic seemed to be to defend deep and try set Son free to run behind Mexico’s high defensive line. It looked like it could possibly work in moments, but this South Korea side needed to provide more against a Mexican collective that is really clicking and not reliant on any one individual.

Son eventually got his goal – – a screamer — in second-half injury time, but it wasn’t enough, and South Korea didn’t really deserve much from this match, just like it didn’t against Sweden in the opening game.

The fact only four of South Korea’s 23-players play in Europe tells its own story. The Asian team hasn’t covered itself in glory in Russia.

Coming (back) to America: How Zack Steffen rediscovered his love for soccer and emerged as a top U.S. keeper

The Athletic – June 25, 2018

The​ moment he returned to the​ picturesque German​ city on the western edge of the Black Forest, anxiety​ was there​​ to greet him. It’s a feeling Zack Steffen couldn’t shake in late June of 2016.

The budding goalkeeper was in the company of his two sisters, Katy and Lexy, for a week as he prepared for his second season with the Bundesliga side SC Freiburg. The familiar gnaw of loneliness, however, was starting to envelop him even before his siblings boarded a plane for home.

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Union ‘put on a show’ with historically dominant win on same night they honor club icon

The Athletic – June 25, 2018

CHESTER, Pa. — The​ “Doop” song​ is loud and upbeat and pretty much designed to get​ you off​​ your feet. And when it blares over Talen Energy Stadium’s loudspeakers, as it does after every Union goal, the good vibes are palpable.

On Saturday against the Vancouver Whitecaps, it was played five times — four for the season-high-matching number of goals the Union scored in their most dominant win of the year. The other? That came right after a giant black curtain was lifted up to reveal the words: “Ring of Honor Sebastien Le Toux” under the TruMark Financial Suites, as fireworks and loud roars from the crowd accompanied the team’s signature tune.

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New coach Domènec Torrent praises quality of NYCFC players

Pro Soccer USA – June 24, 2018

BRONX, N.Y. — New NYCFC coach Domènec Torrent arrived in the United States a day before his team’s Sunday evening match against Toronto FC. He sat down with Pro Soccer USA contributor Glenn Crooks before the game.

Welcome. You come right in to a tough task taking on the reigning MLS champion in Toronto.

Torrent: “Thank you so much. I am happy to be here. I think we are ready to play against a good team against Toronto.  For us, it’s not easy to play in this stadium after this week. I just here arrived. Yesterday was my first training session.”

Was it frustrating having to wait so long after being hired to meet your new team?

Torrent: “Yea, but I cannot change anything. The problem was a Visa; it is not easy to go to USA right now, because it’s very complicated with all the bureaucratic papers. But I am happy, because in the end I’m here. And I arrived before the game, that’s the most important for me for the club. It’s not easy when Patrick is gone and they are one week or two weeks without a head coach. But we have an amazing staff. I watched the whole training session. It’s good.”

Have you been speaking with assistant coached Javier and Rob?

Torrent: “Yea. Javier and Rob are amazing, amazing staff for me. And every day, especially Javier, called me and explained to me what happened in the field, in the training session. But I say to Javier, ‘Don’t worry, I watched the training sessions.’ They work hard, they work very well. I’m very happy to have this staff.”

Did Pep Guardiola help you make the decision to come here?

Torrent: “Ah, of course. Was amazing experience with Pep, 11 years. I learned a lot with Pep. We’re good together. He’s amazing not just like a coach, and amazing person. In fact, two hours before he called and and he asked me are you all ready Domenec? I said, “I am ready Pep.” Pep is like a close friend for me. He is like family. He’s like a brother.”

What did you learn from him that you will bring to NYCFC?

Torrent: “Pep and me think about football the same. We like to make high pressing if it’s possible, to recover the ball quickly. Many people think about Pep, pep like to keep the ball all the time. It’s not. That’s a problem, because Pep likes to attack as soon as possible when recovering the ball. Attack quickly, and after that if it’ not possible, of course keep the ball.

“We like to play all the time with intensity. It’s better for us to play one touch, not two touches or three touches, if possible. But, always it matters the quality of the players. We have a talented team, and I need maybe two weeks more to introduce a little bit of a difference between Patrick and me, but we’re very, very similar. Patrick was in fact a good coach. He has done an amazing, amazing job here, and I respect a lot like a player and like a manager.”

Have you been watching NYCFC’s games?

Torrent: “I’ve seen the last nine games. I think right now, I know absolutely our players, the quality and this is one of the reasons why I’m here because I like this team. When I watch the games, I think this team is a talented team. When I watch the games, I think, ‘Ah, maybe this team is for you.’”

Three things: New York Red Bulls captain Luis Robles is his brother’s keeper

Pro Soccer USA – June 24, 2018

HARRISON, N.J. — Here are three things we learned from the New York Red Bulls 3-0 win over FC Dallas Saturday night at Red Bull Arena

Robles is his brother’s keeper

Luis Robles is a detail freak. He likes to have everything planned out, from his daily routine on the training ground to pre-game and in his everyday life.

So the Red Bulls goalkeeper was thrown for a loop Saturday night when his brother, Angel, a U.S. Army Major, made a surprise appearance post-game upon his return from Afghanistan. He just completed a nine-month deployment, the third tour in his 13 years with the Army.

“I had no idea. When I saw my brother I was in shock more than anything, maybe a little confused,” Robles said. “The way that I saw it playing out was I was going to the airport and picking him up at 3:47 pm and to see him at the stadium and the way the organization did it was truly amazing.

“I was absolutely floored. I’m still floored and I’m just glad I get to spend the rest of the weekend with my brother.”

Kaku can you hear me?

It’s a sequence that has played out a lot for Kemar Lawrence. He motors down the left flank as the Red Bulls attack with numbers, but then Kaku looks elsewhere to make a play.

“Me and him have been at it for a couple of days in a more friendly way because he sees so many thing sometimes, he’s so good at seeing Brad [Wright-Phillips], he’s so good at seeing the midfielder peeling off a defender’s shoulder, so sometimes I’m running from so far that he sees me, but he’s like ‘Kemar is running from so far, I don’t want to play him,’” Lawrence said.

On Saturday night, Lawrence made sure he didn’t just see him, but that he would hear the Jamaican international as well. Kaku didn’t have Wright-Phillips to play to, because the Red Bulls forward was fouled with referee Robert Sibiga playing the advantage. Florian Valot was an option to his right, but he faked a pass there and looked to his left to Lawrence instead.

“To be honest, he was screaming at me from half field,” Kaku said. “I saw him, I gave him the ball and to be honest he’s very quick.”

Approaching the century mark

Wright-Phillips’ goal in the 23rd minute was his 11th of the season, moving him to within three of Golden Boot leader Josef Martinez of Atlanta United.

It was his 25th game-winning goal, which moved him into 12th all-time in league history with Clint Dempsey and Carlos Ruiz and it was also the 97th league goal of his storied career.

“It wasn’t the plan. I didn’t think I would get to 100,” Wright-Phillips said. “I haven’t yet. We don’t know what could happen, but if I did it would be amazing. For this club, how they’ve treated me, how they’ve accepted me, the fans have taken to me, it would be nice, I can’t lie.”

Orlando City goalkeeper Mason Stajduhar: ‘I can take on anything’ following cancer diagnosis

Pro Soccer USA – June 25, 2018

In the months that followed a bone cancer diagnosis, Orlando City goalkeeper Mason Stajduhar – more or less – went about the business of being a professional soccer player.

There simply wasn’t time to be slowed down after her received a call that a pain in his leg was Ewing Sarcoma. He treated it like any injury and listened to his options. He found out his recovery time.

The 2015 Homegrown player signee wanted to make sure he could still be a goalkeeper.

“My first thought when I got that phone call from the doctor was, he said it was going to be about a seven-to-eight month process,” Stajduhar said during a May interview with Pro Soccer USA. “The first thought that crossed my mind was, ‘Seven to eight months without being able to play.’ That’s what really brought me down.

“I was absolutely gutted.”

For a while, the pitch was an escape. It was a place he thought about while undergoing treatment.

Toweling off after training, he said playing soccer in Orlando – even with the sun and stifling heat – was what he cared about.

“That’s the only thing I think about,” he said with a smile.

“I feel that my whole life, when I step across the line, everything else goes away. It’s like the whole world falls away and the only thing that matters is the ball, you know?”

He’ll have the time now. There will be less time in the hospital and more on the pitch. There’s time to enjoy his place on Orlando City’s roster.

Stajduhar, 20, was diagnosed in November 2017 and placed on the season-ending injury list. In May, he was cleared to participate in diving drills during training.

On June 19, clad in a suit – he loves fashion and owns five complete suits – Stajduhar rang the bell at the Pediatric Cancer Unit at Orlando Health’s UF Health Cancer Center, signaling the end of six months of treatment.

Stajduhar always knew he’d reach this point.

There were still some low points.

Sitting in a hospital bed, Stajduhar’s thoughts typically wandered to soccer.

For him, it was awful.

“I have two different types of treatment for the chemo,” he said. “One’s a day to a day and a half. One’s five to seven days. During those five to seven days, towards day three or four, those are probably my lowest points, towards the end of those treatments.

“I just want to get out of the hospital and get back here and be able to train and play.”

He would play video games or listen to music – Call of Duty: WWI or the rap trio “Migos,” respectively – but inevitably, he’d think about Sylvan Lake Park and his teammates.

“A lot of times it’s just sitting and thinking about getting back out here on the field,” he said. “It’s almost like torturing yourself. You want to be back on the field so much, but the more you think about it, the worse you feel being stuck in the hospital.”

Plus, when he was first diagnosed, he was told the safest option for him would be surgery that included a knee reconstruction.

“I was like, ‘Crap. That’s probably a whole year gone,’” Stajduhar said.

He didn’t want to halt his development as a player, so he said no to surgery.

“For me, it was never a choice,” he said. “It was always radiation. It was easy, for me.

“My parents were … not skeptical, but cautious, I would say, about doing radiation over surgery. The surgeon, the oncology surgeon, he OK’d it. He said, ‘It’s not ideal, but I think with your situation, it’ll be OK.’ Once he said that, my parents were on board with me as well.”

He had the support of his parents and his girlfriend, but his mother was worried.

“My mom … she just wants me to stay safe and stay healthy through the treatment process so I can finish it,” he said. “They have a more long-term, bigger picture, I would say, than myself. They try to pull me back in from me going too far.”

Club support

Every step of the way, Orlando City has been there for Stajduhar.

Without OCB, Stajduhar’s been training 100 percent with the first team. In particular, he’s spent time with goalkeeper Joe Bendik.

Bendik is a mentor and player-coach for Stajduhar. He’s also a friend – someone who provided an Xbox for Stajduhar to play during treatments and a steadfast teammate in the online shooter game “Fortnite.”

Bendik arrived in Orlando in 2016 and started working with Stajduhar soon after that. Bendik, an MLS veteran at that point, said Stajduhar needed some coaching. It was clear Stajduhar had the work ethic, he just needed a guiding hand.

“For us, he never really slowed down,” Bendik said. “He was just kind of held out of things. For every time I talked to him, I’d be like, ‘How are you feeling?’ And he’d say, ‘I’m good. I’m good.’

“You wouldn’t even know it. He’s just a strong individual character. His work ethic is incredible.”

Bendik was dealing with a concussion toward the end of the 2017 season, which meant he got a chance to chat with Stajduhar during Orlando City’s Nov. 4 charity match to benefit Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

“I just remember being really confident,” Bendik said. “I had heard that he was diagnosed with cancer and he wasn’t going to be back until July and all of these things and he’s sitting up in the stands telling me how he needs to go about getting games so he can get some minutes.

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Dude, you’ve got to go through chemo, you’ve got to go through radiation. Don’t even think about that.’”

By the time Bendik finished talking to Stajduhar after that charity match, he knew Stajduhar would be just fine.

“It wasn’t even a question for me,” Bendik said.

Orlando City goalkeeper coach Tim Mulqueen said he’s never worked with a player recovering from a cancer diagnosis. He immediately jumped into research to make sure the cancer was survivable. 

“My first concern was Mason and his long-term health,” Mulqueen said. “Soccer became secondary. I’ve known Mason for a long time, since he was a kid, so my first concern was for him.  Speaking to him, his positive outlook just permeated through everything and it brought me back to life, so to speak.

“It gave me a positive outlook toward how he was going to defeat this.”

Back at it

Now, with chemo in the past, Stajduhar can look toward his next steps with Orlando City.

If he ever wants to start for Orlando City (he hasn’t appeared in an MLS match yet), he’ll have to get past three other goalkeepers. He’s still out for the season and has a ways to go before he’s mimicking German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, his favorite player.

“It’s a difficult task, but I feel like once you conquer all of the adversity and stuff leading up to it, that makes you better,” he said. “One day, I’ll be sitting at the top.”

He’s had his naysayers – nowhere near enough to outweigh the support he’s received.

“It doesn’t matter what other people think or what they say,” he said. “The only opinion that I think matters for everyone is their own opinion. If you think you’re the best, that’s what eventually will happen. You’ll be the best.

“I feel that I can do anything. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Just extreme self-confidence and self-belief. With that, I can take on anything.”

Borek Dockal scores twice as Philadelphia Union rout Whitecaps

ESPNFC.com – June 23, 2018

Borek Dockal scored two goals, Ilsinho and Fafa Picault each added penalties and the Philadelphia Union defeated the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps 4-0 on Saturday at Talen Energy Stadium.

The Union snapped their two-game losing streak while Vancouver, which saw two players sent off late, had its six-game unbeaten streak broken.

In the 11th minute, Dockal got loose on the right side of the box and fired a shot. But Vancouver goalkeeper Brian Rowe was in good position to make the point-blank save.

Dockal stayed aggressive and broke through with the first goal of the game and a 1-0 Union lead in the 24th minute.

Cristian Techera made a late push for the Whitecaps in the 45th minute as he dribbled in tight and was able to force a corner kick. Techera also took the corner, which was cleared by the Union.

The Whitecaps were fortunate to be trailing 1-0 as they were outshot by the Union 15-0 in the first half. Midfielder Alphonso Davies, who had one goal and three assists in their last game, was taken out at halftime. It was unclear if the 17-year-old Davies had suffered an injury.

Union defender Keegan Rosenberry took a rare shot on goal in the 48th minute and had it saved by Rowe.

Nicolas Mezquida registered Vancouver’s first shot of the game in the 54th minute and was stymied by Union goalkeeper Andre Blake.

Union captain Alejandro Bedoya ripped a right-footed shot in the 63rd minute which was deflected over the goal by Rowe.

Dockal gave the Union a 2-0 advantage in the 71st minute with his team-leading fifth goal of the season.

The Union received a penalty kick in the 72nd minute when Cory Burke was fouled in the box by Jose Aja, who was shown a red card. Ilsinho converted the penalty in the 74th minute for a 3-0 lead.

The Whitecaps finished the game with nine players when Yordy Reyna was issued a red card in the fourth minute of stoppage time. Picault netted his penalty kick five minutes into the extra time.

Philadelphia was playing without midfielder Haris Medunjanin, who on Friday was suspended an additional two games for his actions towards the referee in a wild incident against Atlanta on June 2.

The Whitecaps were without defender Kendall Waston, who is with Costa Rica at the World Cup.

Borek Dockal, Ilsinho star in Union’s 4-0 win over Vancouver Whitecaps

Philadelphia Inquirer – June 23, 2018

The Union spent Saturday evening commemorating a lot of milestones. Sébastien Le Toux became the first member of the team’s ring of honor, Walter Bahr’s death was observed with a moment of silence, and Jim Curtin celebrated his 39th birthday.

The most important milestone, though, came during the game. With a dominant win over the Vancouver Whitecaps, the Union (6-7-3, 21 points) finally jumped into sixth place in the Eastern Conference — and into one of the playoff spots.

It might be only a temporary achievement. Next weekend, Chicago, Orlando or Montreal — seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively, and all within one win in the standings — might jump over them. But this will be true no matter the other results: Faced with a chance to make a statement, the Union did.

“We’re at a stage where I know we’re going to play good soccer now,” Curtin said. “I know that we’re going to keep the ball, I know that we’re going to attack and create chances. The only question is how will the group respond to adversity.”

They didn’t have to on Saturday. The first 20 minutes of the game were arguably the Union’s most impressive spell of the season. They recorded a 6-0 advantage in shots, a 179-45 advantage in attempted passes, and 79 percent of the possession.

Four minutes later, they got a well-deserved reward as Borek Dockal fired in the game’s opening goal. Ilsinho jumped on a poor clearance by Vancouver’s Brek Shea — a former U.S. national team phenom who is now a backup left back — and set up Dockal for a rip from 15 yards.

That dominance only grew over the course of the first half. When the whistle blew, the advantage in shots was 14-0. But the score remained 1-0, and Vancouver (6-6-5, 23 points) showed pace and purpose in its rare forays upfield.

Dockal doubled the lead in the 71st minute with another fine goal, on the team’s 20th shot of the game. He took a pass from Alejandro at the edge of the 18-yard box, cut past two defenders and lashed a shot past Whitecaps goalkeeper Brian Rowe.

“For the first time maybe this season, I felt like we had full control over 90 minutes,” Dockal said. “Usually, we make it difficult in the second half for ourselves with a stupid goal that we concede.”

The third goal came on the Union’s next trip down the field. Vancouver’s Jose Aja held back Cory Burke in the 18-yard box, and was sent off for it. Ilsinho converted the penalty kick in the 74th minute with an old-fashioned smash. There was no need for any fancy stutter steps or overthinking the placement, as we’ve seen in the World Cup this summer (and at times in MLS).

Picault finished the game off with a penalty kick in second-half stoppage time. He won the penalty, too, after stealing the ball at midfield and sprinting down the left wing.

At the final whistle, the Union had an impressive haul of stats to show off, with 25 shots and 545 completed passes. The latter figure was the second-highest in a game in team history.

Most important, they had a win that will likely make the rest of MLS take notice.

Red Bulls survive a red card and whip FC Dallas

New York Post – June 23, 2018

A man down for much of the night? No problem for the Red Bulls.

FC Dallas strolled into Red Bull Arena on Saturday night with a seven-game unbeaten streak and a stranglehold on second place in the MLS’ Western Conference. It also played most of the game with one more player than the home club.

None of that seemed to matter much.

The Red Bulls survived the first-half dismissal of midfielder Daniel Royer and calmly dispatched Dallas, 3-0, as two first-half strikes put the game beyond reach of the visitors.

“We knew we were in for a big challenge, and if you would’ve told me we were gonna go down a man in the [27th] minute, I would’ve said it was gonna be a long, long night for us,” Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch said. “But we showed again what we’re about.”

After a cagey first quarter of the match, New York found a breakthrough via its youngest star, Tyler Adams. In the 23rd minute, the 19-year-old mopped up a lose ball and crossed it to Bradley Wright-Phillips for an easy tap-in.

Four minutes later, the stadium’s good mood was halted temporarily when Royer was sent off for an ugly studs-showing tackle on Dallas’ Jacori Hayes. He initially was given a yellow before a video assistant referee ruling changed the decision to a straight red, and his teammates were forced to adjust.

They did so admirably.

The Red Bulls maintained relative control of the match, even with the disadvantage, as Adams put in an intelligent midfield performance organizing his teammates.

“Tyler’s grown so much over the past two years, three years. … His tendency is to, if he sees something to just do the job himself,” Marsch said. “And he can do that, he’s that gifted. But what’ll be important for him in his overall development is to make sure he’s always controlling what the team’s doing and aware of what’s happening around him.”

Adams’ midfield partner, Sean Davis, also helped to clog up the middle throughout the match, and served a tidy assist to defender Aaron Long just before the break.

Dallas peppered the opposing goal a bit after Long’s strike, but ultimately were not urgent enough throughout the night to threaten the Red Bulls. The visitors were surprisingly lackadaisical and struggled as the home team grew more comfortable in the second half. Dallas also got its own red card in the 90th minute when Reto Ziegler was sent off for kicking at Kemar Lawrence after a tangle-up.

“[To focus on details] was my reminder to them at halftime,” Marsch said. “Because there were a few moments where one guy would tune out and all of a sudden there was a gap in our team and they were able to maybe find a half chance or hit the crossbar, or whatever. But I felt like in the second half we had almost total alertness and commitment from everyone and it helped us really manage the game.”

Marsch’s team talk quickly came to fruition with a Lawrence goal, as the fullback latched onto a through ball in the 48th minute and beat goalkeeper Jesse Gonzalez at the near post with a low strike.

Lawrence’s goal effectively ended the game, and marked a patient, resilient performance for a team that has now lost just once in the past eight games.

“It [the red card] wasn’t really on our terms, we had to wait until the opportunity presented itself,” Wright-Phillips said. “And when it did, we had to try and play clean and take our chances. I think we did for the most part.”

The Breakdown: FC Dallas at New York Red Bull

Dallas Morning News – June 24, 2018

FC Dallas traveled to New York on Saturday to take on the Red Bulls and things didn’t quite go as planned for Dallas. After going down a goal, and then up a man, things went into meltdown mode with FCD giving up two more goals to a 10 man side.

FC Dallas has never won at Red Bull Arena, they are now 0-4-1 there, so a loss isn’t a shock. This kind of meltdown game happens from time to time in soccer. Sometimes it’s best to just move on.

Let’s remember that Dallas is still in 2nd place in the West with 29 points, had their 2nd best 14-game start in team history, still has a game in hand on Sporting KC, and just came off a four-game win streak in league play. Granted this is two losses in a row if you include the US Open Cup, but that Cup game was a solid performance even though it was a loss.  Hopefully, this wasn’t the start of a summer swoon.  The Toros won’t dwell on this one too much, but I don’t want to talk about it to some extent.

Let’s break it down.

Formation and Tactics

FC Dallas started in a 3-5-2, that didn’t go so well. FCD had worked on the shape during the week, hoping it would help against the New York high press.  The graphic below is a touch off I believe, Hayes was more of the midfield anchor based on what I saw.

After Daniel Royer of New York got ejected for a tackle on Jacori Hayes, FC Dallas subbed in Michael Barrios for Kellyn Acosta and shifted to a 4-2-3-1 to try and take advantage of being up a man. This was basically pulling an 8 for a winger and keeping two 6s on.

Down 2-0 at halftime, in an offensive move, FC Dallas Head Coach Oscar Pareja brought on Tesho Akindele for Maynor Figueroa, shifting Ryan Hollingshead to left back.

Then once the game was 3-0, and basically out of hand, Pareja brought on Paxton Pomykal for Jacori Hayes making the shape a 4-1-4-1.

New York started in a 4-2-3-1.

Red Bull Coach Jesse Marsch made three subs Alex Muyl for Alejandro Romero Gamarra, Derrick Etienne for Bradley Wright-Phillips, and Aurélien Collin for Florian Valot. All three were straight swaps and none of them seemed to change the shape dramatically.

Due to the red card, Tyler Adams and Alejandro Romero Gamarra shifted left and up a bit in their average position to cover up for the hole in their formation and kinda ended up with a 4-3-2.

0-1 New York Red Bull Goal. 23rd minute. Bradley Wright-Phillips unmarked in the box after Maynor Figueroa losses track of him. A sharp cross from Tyler Adams, who had cleaned up a poor Ryan Hollingshead header, finds BWP for the point-blank goal.

0-2 New York Red Bull Goal. 39th minute. Ryan Hollingshead has a body on Aaron Long but doesn’t attack the ball off the corner. A really nice one time volley from Long goes into the Dallas net.

0-3 New York Red Bull Goal. 48th minute. Kemar Lawrence on the break is being tracked by Michael Barrios, Barrios sees Reggie Cannon coming to cover and gives up tracking. Lawrence at full trot gets an edge on Cannon and shoots near post for the goal.

There wasn’t a whole lot of good in this one.

Man of the Match I had to think about. I had a gut feeling I wanted to go with but it seemed incongruent with the scoreline. Eventually, I went to some stats and it backed up my gut. Matt Hedges. 85 touches, 85% passing, 9 tackles, 4 aerials won, 3 intercepts, 3 clears, and only 1 foul. That’s a damn good effort and he was playing hard all night, even when it was out of hand. This was a captain’s performance.

Maxi Urruti brought his usual effort and got off 5 shots, 3 on goal. This one below was pretty good.

I’d like to see Urruti combine better going forward, but there’s not exactly another striker for him to work off of.  Oh, also be in the box more.

Reggie Cannon was terrific. Ok, maybe he could have done better with Lawrence (NYRB’s left back) after Barrios gave up, but on the night Cannon was really good. 88 touches, 92% passing (which led FC Dallas), 3 tackles, 3 intercepts, and 0 fouls. And he’s taking guys one with 4 successful dribbles all in the offensive end, only 3 unsuccessful (only 1 in a bad defensive position).

Any minutes for Paxton Pomykal are good minutes. I liked how active he was and he showed good range (see chart). A little ambitious with some of the long balls maybe, but 3 tackles, a successful dribble, 26 touches, and 77% passing. He even took 2 corners.

This just in, Tyler Adams is fantastic. That is all.

Of Two Minds

Kellyn Acosta’s performance was fine. His sub was 100% tactical, getting off a linking mid for a winger to try and take advantage of the 10 man… er… advantage. Acosta was clearly pissed and for good reason, no one wants to come off that early. But I don’t think in hindsight we should be too worried. I think Acosta is maybe in a rut, he’s working his tail off in training though so I’m confident he will find his game.

“We had the advantage of one man and we wanted to move forward. We decided to go with three midfielders in the middle [to start the game]. When we went one man up, we wanted to add another forward and we wanted to sacrifice one of those midfielders, and in this case, it was Kellyn. Kellyn has been getting back into his rhythm [since his injury]. We are trying to add minutes and to give him a chance to recover and be himself. Today was more tactical, just to add another forward instead of having the three midfielders,” Pareja said. “Kellyn gives his heart for this team. I know the pain that he has and his frustration not being able to help in the moment, but Kellyn is fine.”

17 shots is fairly good off 23 crosses, so is 53.8% possession and 80% passing on the road on paper… BUT keep in mind the man advantage. Only 6 of FCD’s shots were on target and 47% came from outside the box. That’s not good enough, that’s back to the “hit it and hope” long-range shooting from the collapse of last season.

All three Red Bull goals had a defensive mistake involved. Granted NYRB has some nice attackers, but as I pointed out above with the clips, each play had an FCD mistake.

“I’ll say that it was noticeable in the game, they had a lot of energy, and for some reason, we couldn’t match that,” Pareja said after. “We have many parts of the game where we could’ve done a better job on that part, but we couldn’t. As I said, it was a night to forget and just learn and review and see what happened. Today we didn’t look good.”

The Daniel Royer tackle on Jacori Hayes was a legit straight red card. As you can see for yourself. Hayes was lucky his leg wasn’t broken.

Reto Ziegler’s red was just as bad, kicking out after he had been fouled. I’m sure it was a long frustrating night and Ziegler just lashed out. But the card was deserved. (This clip doesn’t show the kick out.)

Without Anton Nedyalkov, the left back position has become a problem. Hollingshead is playing against his own nature there, he’s not a great defender, and Figueroa is 35 and isn’t a good attacker. Nedyalkov was a good balance between the two and a compliment to Cannon on the right. Ziegler as a consequence has taken to hitting long balls rather than building out, 17 long ball passes in this one.

With Nedyalkov being sold I think FCD may be in a bit of trouble at left back. They are going to have to go out and get someone who can start via trade, signing, or transfer.  Hollingshead and Figueroa weren’t meant to be the starting left back this season.  The lack of a two-way player is hurting the back line and unbalancing the team.

FC Dallas returns to action on Friday, June 29th, against Minnesota United FC at TCF Bank Arena.  Kickoff is scheduled for 7 PM CT on TXA 21.

Orlando City falls to Montreal Impact, extends seven-game MLS losing streak

Pro Soccer USA – June 23, 2018

Orlando City is still searching for answers.

During the Lions’ first home match in nearly a month, the story remained the same for the club. Orlando City conceded first and never recovered.

The club fired coach Jason Kreis after loss No. 6 during the current losing streak, but on a stormy Saturday in front of an announced crowd of 23,498, not much changed with interim coach Bobby Murphy at the helm.

The Lions (6-9-1, 19 points) lost 2-0 to the Montreal Impact, dropping their seventh consecutive match in league play and extending a club-record losing streak. It was Orlando City’s second match this week after playing D.C. United on Wednesday in a U.S. Open Cup game that went into extra time and was decided in the Lions’ favor on penalty kicks.

Orlando City came out flat after playing 120 minutes in the middle of the week.

“I want to apologize to the fans who came out tonight,” Murphy said. “The team selection falls on me and I chose a group that went out there and we weren’t good enough tonight.

“The energy was not there in the first half. For the first 45 minutes, the energy wasn’t there. It was the same group of players that came out to start the second half who were much livelier. You can call it whatever you want to, energy, effort. Bottom line, whatever it was, it wasn’t good enough.”

Since Philadelphia got a 4-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday, the Lions are now out of the playoff picture and sit in seventh place in the MLS Eastern Conference table.

Centerback Lamine Sané put Orlando City behind early when he headed a cross from Montreal forward Matteo Mancosu into his own net in the 13th minute. The ball skipped by the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Joe Bendik and for the 14th time this season, the Lions were down 1-0 early.

“It’s a fluke and a really bad way to start the game,” Lions team captain Jonathan Spector said. “Too many times we’ve given up early goals in games because of poor defending or whatever it might be and then tonight it was just a bit of a fluke and I guess when it rains, it pours.”

After the first goal, the Impact were content to stay compact and force Orlando City to try to break them down. The Lions never could and finished the match with just one shot on target (eight shots total), despite 54.2 percent of the possession.

Montreal’s Ignacio Piatti put another goal on the scoresheet for the Impact in the 84th minute. The goal was waved off at first, but then was upheld after video review.

“They’re down, for sure,” Murphy said of the team. “They’re disappointed. The challenge is, you know, all the feel-good stuff we talked about in the last three days, coming off the victory and stuff, now you can’t abandon that stuff. Now my having to hold them accountable is even more important.

“There’s nowhere to hide in this. It’s not good right now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. That’s a choice. We’ve just got to keep going and go back to work. For as long as they’ll employ me, I’ll keep pushing them and holding them accountable and try to get the best out of them.”

After a mostly-uninspired first half, Orlando City played with a sense of urgency after rookie attacker Chris Mueller was subbed on in the 64th minute. Centerback Amro Tarek came off and Orlando City abandoned its new three-man back line in favor of the 4-2-3-1 it had gone with for weeks.

The change in shape meant central attacking midfielder Sacha Kljestan dropped next to holding midfielder Uri Rosell.

It wasn’t enough for Orlando City to overcome a dismal first half that included no shots on goal despite controlling 55.6 percent of the possession.

Orlando City returns to action next Saturday with a match against rival Atlanta United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Piatti, own goal help Impact beat Orlando City

TSN – June 23, 2018

ORLANDO, Fla. — Same opponent, same result.

Montreal notched its second win against Orlando City in 10 days as the Impact topped the Lions 2-0 on Saturday night.

Orlando (6-8-1) fired its head coach Jason Kreis and last week, but interim manager Bobby Murphy was unable to produce a different outcome as the team lost a franchise-record seven consecutive game. The Lions have conceded 19 goals during that span.

Montreal (5-11-0) has won two in a row — both against Orlando City, which the Impact beat 3-0 on June 13 — and three of its last four.

“I think it was a tough game because we knew that the new manager in charge probably gave more than the team had before, because it’s always the case when you change the manager,” said Impact head coach Remi Garde.

“We had a solid game, we played very compact in a deep block. And then when we gained the ball, we had many opportunities. We didn’t score more goals, but I think at the end we deserved the win.”

Ignacio Piatti scored his third goal in the last two games to lead the Impact.

Montreal jumped ahead on Orlando City’s own goal in the 13th minute. Defender Lamine Sane’s header redirected a cross by Montreal’s Matteo Mancuso past goalkeeper to open the scoring.

Orlando City captain Jonathan Spector said the mistake sapped any of the club’s early momentum.

“It’s a fluke and it’s a really bad way to start the game,” he said.

“Too many times we’ve given up early goals in games because of poor defending or whatever it might be, and tonight it was just a bit of a fluke and when it rains it pours.”

Piatti made it 2-0 in the 84th when, at the top-left corner of the 6-yard box, he took a feed from Alejandro Silva and evaded sliding goalkeeper Joe Bendik before finishing into an empty net from point-blank range. Montreal was flagged offside on the field, but was awarded the goal after replay review.

Evan Bush had one save in his second consecutive shutout for the Impact.

Impact defender Chris Duvall said the team showed well against an Orlando City club that was aiming to turn its fortunes around.

“It feels great because this is a team that I think has been struggling and a team that we played so recently,” he said.

“And I know that this game was little bit more chippy because they had something to prove to, not just us, but around the league, to their new coach, to their fans, to everyone. And I think to still manage to get a shutout against a very good attacking team is a huge win for us.”

Kickoff was delay nearly 30 minutes due to inclement weather.

Sporting KC scores twice in last five minutes for dramatic comeback win over Houston

Kansas City Star – June 23, 2018

The offseason wish list was topped by a high-dollar striker, but that search ultimately fell flat, and so Sporting Kansas City turned to Khiry Shelton and Diego Rubio as its solutions. But four months into the season, they opened Saturday’s match absent from the lineup, relegated to substitute options off the bench.

As it turned out, they were the solutions after all.

Rubio and Shelton each scored in the final five minutes, lifting Sporting Kansas City to a 3-2 exhilarating comeback victory over Houston inside Children’s Mercy Park.

On a night in which Sporting KC trailed for 82-plus minutes, Rubio tied the game in the 85th minute, and Shelton scored the game-winner three minutes later.

“It’s hard to describe the emotions that go through my body when something like that happens,” Shelton said, adding, “It’s one of the best feelings.”

Sporting KC (9-2-5) reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the West, moving a full three points in front of FC Dallas, which lost earlier Saturday.

It was a dud early, with Houston grabbing a 2-0 halftime lead. Sporting KC awoke a sold-out crowd of 20,081 late.

The comeback found the substitutes. Rubio entered in the 85th minute, after a lengthy conversation with a pair of coaches. Only 23 seconds later, he secured a game-tying goal, sticking a shot under the crossbar.

Shelton robbed him of the moment.

Three minutes later, after Houston midfielder Eric Alexander was ejected for a second yellow card, Shelton blasted a ball in the back of the net, one-timing a low cross from Daniel Salloi. The goal — prompting perhaps the loudest reaction from the Children’s Mercy Park crowd this season — was his second of the season and kept Sporting KC unbeaten over the past eight weeks. The club has not lost since April 28.

“That’s going to be one of those games we look back on,” Sporting KC defender Graham Zusi said. “Those are the kind of games you need to win to stay at the top of the table.

“You get that first one, and you feel like the second one is coming. The second one comes, and you just get that feeling the third one is coming.”

The wave began to turn in the early moments of the second half. Sporting’s Daniel Salloi halved the lead in the 59th minute, a sequence in which Gerso Fernandes and Johnny Russell also placed shots on goal. Salloi has five goals this year. After receiving most of his early-season starts on the wing, he was plugged into the striker’s role.

He touched the ball only six times in the opening half, indicative of a lackluster 45 minutes from the home side.

“When I was done talking to the team at halftime, I knew we were gonna go,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said.

“The coaching staff wouldn’t have needed to say anything when we came in (at halftime),” Zusi said. “We knew — that wasn’t us.”

Sporting KC put nine shots on goal in the second half after failing to test Houston keeper Joe Willis even once in the first. The substitutes beat him late, a crowd willing them to push forward. The intensity of the second half was such a contrast to the first 45 minutes that Vermes complimented the referee for calling the match differently after having to adjust to a different speed.

Rubio has scored three times this season, all of them off the bench. It’s been a theme for Sporting KC, which broke a club-record with its eighth goal from a sub in a single season.

Shelton, who started 12 of the team’s first 13 matches, recorded his first MLS game-winning goal.

“People get their opportunities and take advantage of them,” Shelton said. “I can’t be mad about (not starting). We’re a team. I’ve had my opportunity to showcase myself. Other guys have stepped up as well. I mentally know that and just (stay) mature about the situation.”

Sporting Kansas City rallies to defeat Dynamo

Houston Chronicle – June 23, 2018

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Daniel Salloi had a goal and two assists and Khiry Shelton scored a late goal in Sporting Kansas City’s 3-2 comeback victory over the Houston Dynamo on Friday night.

Shelton, who came on in the 76th minute, gave Sporting KC its first lead in the 88th. Salloi, on the left side, played a cross to a charging Shelton, who finished from just outside of the 6-yard box to make it 3-2.

Mauro Manotas scored in the opening and closing minutes of the first half to give Houston (6-6-3) a 2-0 lead at the break.

Salloi, a 21-year-old homegrown, slipped the rebound of a shot by Gerso Fernandes inside the near post in the 59th minute and Tim Melia, who finished with four saves, made a diving one-on-one stop of a shot by Mauro Manotas in the 78th. Diego Rubio came on in the 85th minute and scored seconds later to make it 2-2.

Houston’s Eric Alexander received his second yellow card and was ejected in the 87th.

Smith’s stoppage-time goal helps Rapids snap skid

FOX Sports – June 23, 2018

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (AP) Tommy Smith scored in the seventh minute of stoppage time to give the Colorado Rapids a 3-2 victory over Minnesota United on Saturday night.

The 28-year-old defender has two career MLS goals, both in the last two games.

Minnesota’s Miguel Ibarra tapped in the rebound of Darwin Quintero’s to open the scoring in the 20th minute. Edgar Castillo tied it in the 50th with a rising blast into the far corner from the edge of the box.

Ibarra ran onto a through ball from Quintero on the right side and tapped a cross to a charging Christian Ramirez for an empty-net finish that put Minnesota (5-9-1) back on top in the 65th minute. But Joe Mason answered in the 74th, slipping behind the defense and chipping a first-timer over the head of goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth to make it 2-all.

Ibarra was given a straight red card in the 77th minute for violent conduct.

Colorado (3-9-3), which snapped an eight-game losing streak with a 2-2 tie with Chicago on June 13, won for the first time since April 14.

Extra time unkind to Minnesota United as the Loons lose 3-2 to Colorado Rapids

Minneapolis Star Tribune – June 24, 2018

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – Minnesota United lost the lead, then a player — and finally the game to the struggling Colorado Rapids on Saturday night.

The Loons failed to hold their second-half lead, giving up the tying goal in the 74th minute and the winning goal in extra time in a 3-2 loss to a team that hadn’t won in more than two months.

Colorado got the winner on Tommy Smith’s header off a corner during six minutes of injury time. It came after United midfielder Miguel Ibarra was given a red card in the 77th minute. Ibarra had a goal and an assist and Christian Ramirez the second goal for the Loons (5-9-1).

It was a frustrating end to Minnesota’s first MLS match since June 3. Loons coach Adrian Heath said he thought the extra time already had elapsed before the Rapids scored.

“It’s a tough one to take tonight because at no stage did I think we were going to lose the game,” he said. “I never try to make excuses, but there’s no stoppages after the six minutes. Why we carry on play I don’t know. It’s a perfect opportunity — six minutes were up on the board and the ball was in the middle of the field.”

The Loons took a 2-1 lead in the 65th minute on Ramirez’s goal. Colorado protested there was offsides on the play, but the goal held up under review.

Minnesota lost the lead again when Joe Mason tied it in the 74th minute. Ibarra went to get the ball near midfield and got into a scuffle with Colorado defender Danny Wilson as he kicked the ball. Rapids’ Jack Price shoved Ibarra down from behind but things stopped before it escalated further.

Moments later, he was ejected.

“I think they told me that I tried to punch him,” Ibarra said. “I had no intention of punching him. I was just trying to get the ball. I pushed him, shoving back and forth. That was that.

“I was actually expecting a yellow for both players but once I saw the red I couldn’t believe it. I looked at the replay 10 times. On the replay I don’t see me throw a punch.”

Ibarra gave the Loons a 1-0 lead when Darwin Quintero came down the left side and took a close shot on keeper Tim Howard that trickled through and rolled toward the goal. Ibarra came racing in and scored in the 20th minute.

The Rapids (3-9-3) got the equalizer early in the second half when Edgar Castillo scored with a shot from the top of the box just under the crossbar in the 51st minute.

Colorado kept the momentum, and forced goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth to make a leaping deflection on a direct kick in the 61st minute.

San Jose Earthquakes end Real Salt Lake’s home win streak

ESPNFC.com – June 24, 2018

Real Salt Lake’s Damir Kreilach and San Jose’s Danny Hoesen scored second-half goals as the Earthquakes and RSL battled to a 1-1 draw on Saturday night in Sandy, Utah.

The draw snapped Salt Lake’s six-game home winning streak. It was the most consecutive games that the club had won in Utah since 2014.

RSL needed one more win to break the club record. They could not get it despite dominating offensively for much of the game. Salt Lake finished with a 27-15 advantage in shots and an 8-4 edge in shots on goal.

Last-place San Jose earned a draw for the second straight match. The Earthquakes have gone seven matches without getting in the win column.

Salt Lake controlled possession and tempo during the first half but could not produce any goals. RSL had a 12-4 advantage in total shots. The hosts also possessed the ball 72 percent of the time, though it resulted in only two shots on frame.

In the second half, Salt Lake turned up the pressure, and it finally paid off.

Kreilach put RSL on the board in the 54th minute. Corey Baird redirected the ball into an unmarked Kreilach in the heart of the 6-yard box. From there, the Croatian midfielder headed it home to put Salt Lake on the board.

Hoesen leveled the score in the 64th minute. Magnus Eriksson blasted a shot to the center of the goal, where Nick Rimando made a save. The ball trickled out to Hoesen, and he chipped the rebound over Rimando and into the net before the Salt Lake goalkeeper could cover the ball up.

Hoesen now has 10 goals for the season, one of four MLS players to tally double-digit goals thus far.

Rimando was credited with three saves while Quakes goalkeeper Andrew Tarbell stopped seven shots.

Real Salt Lake squanders opportunities, settles for draw with San Jose Earthquakes

Deseret News – June 23, 2018

SANDY — Real Salt Lake’s franchise record six-game home winning streak came to a frustrating end on Saturday night at Rio Tinto Stadium.

Despite dominating possession and creating the bulk of the chances all night against a poor San Jose squad, RSL was forced to settle for a discouraging 1-1 draw against the 11th place team in the Western Conference.

“It felt like Colorado last year when we absolute killed them and couldn’t score a goal. It feels like a loss to me,” said RSL midfielder Albert Rusnak.

RSL finished the game with a 64 percent-36 percent edge in possession and outshot San Jose 27-15. Its lone goal came early in the second half by Damir Kreilach, but San Jose equalized 10 minutes later as the teams ultimately shared the points.

“We did more than enough to get three points, and, like a handful of games this year already we just couldn’t find the back of the net,” said RSL coach Mike Petke.

Despite the discouraging draw, the point helped Real Salt Lake remain in a tie for fifth place in the Western Conference with 23 points, just one point behind fourth-place Houston.

RSL could easily be sitting in sole possession of fourth place, though, with better finishing against a San Jose team that sat back and tried to transition. Even then, RSL found plenty of space to play through the Earthquakes, and it started early.

RSL dominated the opening half with a 72-28 edge in possession, but it had nothing to show for it. Corey Baird had the best chance of the opening half in the 11th minute, but he chipped a breakaway shot wide of the post after Rusnak played the ball into space behind San Jose’s defense.

Only two of RSL’s 12 shots in the opening first half forced San Jose keeper Andrew Tarbell to make a save.

The home side continued to push the pace early in the second half, and after near misses by Baird and Sebastian Saucedo in the 46th and 52nd minutes respectively, RSL eventually broke through in the 54th minute on the rare double header off a corner kick.

Baird got the initial header on Rusnak’s corner, redirecting it in front of goal where Kreilach was in perfect position to easily head it home for the 1-0 lead. It was the third goal of the season for Kreilach.

“We’ve been trying to do a little more set pieces over the last couple of weeks … it’s a free opportunity at goal, and it was executed very nicely. Corey with a great flick and Damir continuing his run,” said Petke.

It was a short-lived advantage.

In the 65th minute, San Jose’s Valeri Qazaishvili crushed a shot toward straight at Nick Rimando, who couldn’t hold on to the ball. The rebound trickled straight to Danny Hoesen, who calmly slipped it past Rimando for his 10th goal of the season tying the game at 1-1.

Hoesen’s goal felt like a double whammy for RSL because it came just a couple of minutes after Rusnak hammered a long-range shot off the crossbar.

“I was seeing the shot go in, and suddenly at the last second it rose above and hit the crossbar. I had a couple of chances myself, none of them went in, 28 shots on target and one goal is probably a lack of quality,” said Rusnak.

Both teams had great chances to win it late. With RSL pressing forward for the winner, Hoesen outdueled RSL defender Marcelo Silva to a San Jose clearance, but he sailed his wide-open shot against Nick Rimando well over the crossbar.

In the final sequence of the game, Silva headed a corner kick from Rusnak off the top of the crossbar.

“It’s tough … right now in the moment to take too many positives because it eventually feels like a loss,” said Petke.

Petke was forced to go to his bench early on Saturday when Justen Glad was subbed off in the 31st minute because of a potential concussion. He originally collided with San Jose’s Florian Jungwirth in the 17th minute going for a 50-50 ball, but returned a couple minutes later after being looked at by the trainers.

Roughly 10 minutes later, he signaled to medical personnel that he needed to come off for precautionary reasons, with Nick Besler replacing him.

Missed chances cost Chicago Fire in their visit to Seattle

Chicago Tribune – June 23, 2018

The Chicago Fire missed an opportunity to take three points on the road, settling for a 1-1 draw in their visit Western Conference champions Seattle Sounders, Saturday at CenturyLink Field.

Aleksandar Katai continued his excellent run of form with his fourth goal in the last six games, but the Fire once again suffered from lack of finishing and missed a chance at three points against a Seattle team that sits towards the bottom of the Western Conference standings.

One of the primary objectives for head coach Veljko Paunovic was for his side to get off to a strong start, an aspect the team had been lacking most of the season.

The Fire accomplished just that, thanks to an in-form Katai, who made a diagonal run through the Seattle defense off Brandt Bronico’s pass and converted from distance to put Chicago ahead only nine minutes in.

.”I know in the past I was a little bit harsh with Katai, but he had a fantastic game and I knew that he could do that,” said Paunovic.

“He has to work and figure out a way to work for the team in both directions. Together with the others, he had a fantastic game.”

But as the half progressed, the Sounders gradually took control of the ball after a rough start, spreading out the Fire defense and creating spaces for the likes of Clint Dempsey and Nicolas Lodeiro to threaten Chicago’s goal.

In the 23rd minute, Cristian Roldan and Will Bruin combined on the right flank to set up Dempsey, who beat out Dax McCarty to the box and scored the equalizer, his first goal of this 2018 season.

The teams hit the halfway with the tables turned, as Seattle closed out the half in control of the game and maintained it for the better part of a second half that featured more plenty of opportunities for both teams to take the lead.

The Fire missed two clear chances to take the game after regaining control halfway through the second 45 minutes.

Nemanja Nikolic received a perfectly placed through ball from Bronico but failed to finish past Stefan Frei. Similarly, Alan Gordon, who entered the game in place of Nikolic with a minute left, received a cross from Rafael Ramos and missed an easy tap-in by sending his shot wide.

“I was surprised we didn’t score. I think we created a lot of chances and we gave our best efforts towards the goal. That’s sometimes just how the game is,” said Bronico.

The 1-1 result is Chicago’s third consecutive draw in MLS action after defeating Atlanta United in the U.S. Open Cup Round of 16 midweek, keeping them out of the top six places in the Eastern Conference by one point.

The Fire return home next Saturday, June 30 to host New York City FC and new coach Domenec Torrent.

After a long wait, Clint Dempsey gets back on track with a goal as Sounders tie Chicago 1-1

Seattle Times – June 23, 2018

Clint Dempsey was his usual stoic, composed self in discussing the time it took him to register the one goal needed to tie a franchise record.

Many babies have been conceived and born in the gap between Dempsey’s equalizer for the Sounders in the 1-1 draw Saturday night with the Chicago Fire and his previous regular-season strike back in September against Vancouver. In the interim, the Sounders team he and Fredy Montero now lead with 47 career regular-season goals apiece has gone from a defending champion to a dethroned finalist, to a squad trying to avoid the Major League Soccer basement.

And even Dempsey, who can rattle off exact moments of his prior scoring slumps with expert recall and nerveless poise, had to admit the math is becoming a challenge for his team if it wants a playoff shot.

“We’re not looking that far (ahead), we’re looking at the next game,’’ Dempsey said after his team failed to secure a much-needed home victory in front of 39,513 spectators at CenturyLink Field. “It’s a must-win. We’ve got to get three points. That’s how we’re approaching every game.’’

That message had been delivered moments before in a postgame address to the squad by Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer, who wasn’t thrilled with a run-and-gun second half in which both teams abandoned serious defending and took turns missing a blizzard of chances that nearly won it for their respective sides.

Besides Dempsey’s goal in the 22nd minute, erasing a ninth-minute opening score by Chicago midfielder Aleksandar Katai, the only thing that kept the Sounders from coming away with zero points was the acrobatic effort of goalkeeper Stefan Frei. Chicago poured it on the final five minutes of regulation and into extra time, forcing Frei into key stops.

His biggest came off a blast to the near post by Jorge Corrales in the 89th minute that Frei had alertly anticipated before diving back across his goal mouth to knock the ball out of bounds. Frei then got somewhat lucky in extra time when a turnover led to a through ball and near-certain scoring chance for Alan Gordon, who somehow failed to put his shot on net.

Gordon and Frei would collide moments later, both leaping for a ball in the air. The goalkeeper took an elbow and forearm to the head and was clearly groggy in being helped off the field as the final whistle blew.

Frei still was being evaluated after the game, and no immediate update on his condition was given.

For the Sounders, now 3-8-3 and with 12 points in 14 matches, the Dempsey goal was a welcome development for a team needing to get on a roll. At least four matches remain before any reinforcements likely will arrive during the summer transfer window, and the Sounders likely will need to win at least two and steal some points in the others.

Otherwise, they’d need to average more than two points a game the final 16 matches to have a realistic playoff shot, and that’s something they couldn’t manage during their stellar second-half runs the past two years.

“We’ve started to look at the standings and do the math,’’ Schmetzer said. “Today was two points dropped.’’

Schmetzer was optimistic about his veteran players, including Nicolas Lodeiro, Victor Rodriguez, Will Bruin and Dempsey providing a stronger attacking look in recent games. He talked about Dempsey being a streaky goal-scorer and hoped his first-half conversion of a Bruin pass will be the start of something good for a Sounders team that outshot Chicago 19-15.

But those good things have to come soon.

“Guys need to start getting hot, getting switched on,’’ Schmetzer said.

Bruin was physically abused throughout the game, but caught a break when a defender draped on top of him as he took a Harry Shipp pass suddenly backed off at the last instant.

“I thought he’d be all over me, but he gave me just enough room,’’ Bruin said.

Bruin tapped a quick pass from the right side across the goal mouth to a sliding Dempsey, who redirected it home.

After a “frustrating” season of near-misses and non-chances alike, Dempsey admitted “it felt good” to see the ball enter the net.

“Anytime you get good service to the box it’s always great as an attacking player because it gives you more opportunities to score,’’ Dempsey said. “I had some good looks tonight, and we created some good chances.’’

Dempsey alluded to a lack of chances during his drought, something he says had improved with Lodeiro and Rodriguez returning. He says the game has become more “fun” of late.

“I’m just trying to help the team with this run they’ve had of making the playoffs every year,’’ he said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. The goal is to try to put ourselves in a position to make the playoffs again, and hopefully we can do that.’’

Laurent Ciman, Adama Diomande on target as LAFC shuts out Columbus Crew

ESPNFC.com – June 24, 2018

Laurent Ciman and Adama Diomande scored in the opening eight minutes and LAFC cruised to 2-0 victory over the Columbus Crew at Banc of California Stadium on Saturday.

LAFC has won two straight after four games without a victory. The first-year club is 3-0-3 at home.

Columbus has followed three consecutive ties with a pair of losses.

Ciman scored in the fourth minute in his return to Los Angeles. The Belgian defender was in Russia for the 2018 FIFA World Cup as a standby player, but Belgium coach Roberto Martinez released him last weekend.

He ripped a 35-yard free kick that skipped once in front of Crew backup goalkeeper Jon Kempin, who started because Zack Steffen injured his knee in training on Thursday.

Columbus has allowed a set-piece goal in four straight games. Ciman’s three goals in 2018 have come on free kicks.

Diomande made it 2-0 four minutes later, moving back from on offside position to take a pass from Lee Nguyen to score in a third straight game. He has four goals for the season.

LAFC won despite forwards Carlos Vela (Mexico) and Marco Ureña (Costa Rica) and defender Omar Gaber (Egypt) being at the World Cup. Vela scored Saturday in a 2-1 win vs. South Korea.

Columbus settled down after the early deficit and found its possession game. In the 69th minute Crew midfielder Federico Higuain’s goal off a header was ruled offside.

LAFC’s Tyler Miller was otherwise not tested. He made just one save for his fifth shutout of the season and his career. Kempin finished with three saves.

The Crew has scored three goals in compiling a 2-3-3 road record.

On June 30, the Crew hosts Real Salt Lake and LAFC is home to the Philadelphia Union.

LAFC takes down Columbus Crew on franchise’s milestone day

LA Daily News  – June 23, 2018

LOS ANGELES — LAFC’s 2-0 victory over Columbus Crew SC marked the culmination of a big day for the team on Saturday.

On Saturday morning the nascent Major League Soccer franchise celebrated the first World Cup goal from one of its players when the face of the team, Carlos Vela, scored on a penalty kick to help Mexico defeat South Korea 2-1.

Later in the day, 21-year-old Portuguese midfielder Andre Horta was officially introduced at a news conference as LAFC’s third designated player signing.

And on Saturday night, Laurent Ciman and Adama Diomande scored to give LAFC the victory in the “Black & Gold” battle at the Banc of California Stadium.

“I think today is testament to what we’ve been doing for a number of years in terms of implementing this vision of ownership, of being a top team as quickly as possible,” said LAFC’s executive vice president of soccer operations John Thorrington. “Carlos is testament to that. Andre is testament to that. The success of the team so far. We didn’t set out to be in a good position a third of the way through the season. Certainly we are content with how we have started but know that there is a lot to do.”

Ciman returned to LAFC after a stint with the Belgian national team and stepped up to a free kick directly in front of the Columbus net. As he did on the road at Montreal and the during Banc of California Stadium’s opener, the 32-year-old LAFC captain hammered a line drive that found the net from 35 yards away for his third goal of the season.

“We knew we were getting a leader, a guy at the back who could helps us play at the back but the part of his free kicks has been a great surprise,” Bradley said. “By now, in certain situations, he’s been capable of coming up with something different. It’s been a great plus.”

LAFC doubled their lead in the eighth minute with a quick series of passes that left striker Adama Diomande alone in the box. The Norwegian turned, faced Kempin and slotted home his fourth goal in MLS play, and his third in three games.

Playing at full force along the defensive line, LAFC bottled up Columbus striker Gyasi Zardes, who stepped onto the pitch tied for second in the MLS with 10 goals. LAFC allowed Zardes just four touches in the opening half, and limited him to one shot during the 90 minute contest. They similarly stifled the usually productive midfielder Frederico Higuain.

“The understanding between Walker and Laurent was very good,” Bradley said. “We understand the things that Gyasi has done at Columbus that made him successful. We had an idea of some of his movements. Higuain is very active but I thought Eduard Atuesta handled the role very well.”

Wearing colors that are more black and yellow than black and gold (they claim the latter), Columbus came into the game leading the league in passing stats and were off to its best start under head coach Gregg Berhalter.

Missing American international goalkeeper Zack Steffen, who injured a knee in training on Thursday, the Crew called on backup Jon Kempin to maintain their stellar goalkeeping and goals-against record. Steffen established the eighth-longest regular-season shutout streak (525 minutes) until Columbus’s last match, a 2-0 defeat to Atlanta on June 13.

Kempin didn’t last more than four minutes before conceding Los Angeles’s first goal of the game.

Columbus put just one of 10 shots on target against LAFC goalkeeper Tyler Miller, and their frustration was apparent as the game progressed. LAFC did not back off its attacking style despite the early lead, collecting 16 total shots, five of which were on frame.

Referee Kevin Stott issued four yellow cards against the Crew (Milton Valenzuela, Frederico Higuain, Pedro Santos and Lalas Abubakar) compared to one against LAFC (Eduard Atuesta). Higuain’s transgression came when he protested an offsides call in the 69th minute that nullified a headed goal.

Defenders Steven Beitashour and Walker Zimmeran experienced their own professional milestones, playing in their 200th and 100th MLS games respectively.

LAFC improved to 8-4-3 (27 points) while Columbus dropped to 7-5-6 (27 points).

“We haven’t had a start like that at home so it was a good feeling,” said Bradley, noting that June 23 has been kind to him before: It marked eight years since he coached the U.S. men’s national team to a stunning World Cup victory over Algeria.

Portland Timbers keep unbeaten streak alive, hold on for 1-1 draw with Atlanta United

The Oregonian – June 24, 2018

Larrys Mabiala noticed something about the opposing defense on the Portland Timbers first free kick of the game. He took a mental note.

“I judged that they were defending way too high,” Mabiala said. “I just told myself that I was about to stop my run a little behind the defense.”

Just minutes later, that recognition paid major dividends. On a free kick from a similar spot, Mabiala ended his run on the back post, where a rebound fell to him. He headed it past goalkeeper Brad Guzan in the 32nd minute, giving the Timbers (6-3-5, 23 points) an early 1-0 lead over league-leading Atlanta United (10-3-4, 34 points).

And coincidentally it was Darlington Nagbe, who played his first game against Portland since being traded from the Timbers last December, who initially helped Mabiala become comfortable with the team.

“We were very close,” Mabiala said. “It was very funny to see him [on the other side].” The Timbers got Mabiala’s goal early and held on late, grabbing a 1-1 draw with Atlanta by the skin of their teeth Sunday afternoon.

The draw keeps the Timbers’ 11-game unbeaten streak across all competitions chugging along, grabbing a valuable road point for a team whose form is as good as any in Major League Soccer.

The Timbers’ plan was evident from the outset. Absorb pressure from the potent Atlanta attack, remain disciplined and to pick their spots in the counter-attack.

“I thought for the majority of the game, we did a very good job with that,” Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese said. “We handled really well the crosses, the movements behind. Then when we had the ball we created chances. We had very clear and open chances, as much as they did. I thought a tie was a fair result.”

The Five Stripes maintained a staggering 72 percent possession in the first half but increasingly found themselves on the back-foot as the half progressed. Midfielder Sebastian Blanco spearheaded that counter-attack in the first half, consistently finding large pockets of space in the overzealous Atlanta midfield.

“He was very dangerous going forward,” Savarese said. “Fantastic game for him.”

In the 23rd minute, a Timbers counter led to a shot from Blanco from outside the box that rattled the top-right corner of the crossbar. Mere minutes later, the Timbers got their breakthrough on the Mabiala header.

But down 1-0, Atlanta opened the second half with renewed attacking vigor, poking and prodding in search of an equalizer.

And after 55 minutes of frustration, the top-scoring team in Major League Soccer finally found a goal. A deflection off the foot of Mabiala landed at the feet of midfielder Julian Gressel. With the goalkeeper off his line, Gressel made no mistake, slotting home the coveted goal and giving the sold-out crowd hopes for all three points.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

“When they were throwing numbers forward like that, we did a good job like we did the whole half of just defending and sitting in our block really well,” said goalkeeper Jeff Attinella. “Credit to the defense, they did a really good job of bunkering in and holding on for that point.”

It’s a point for Portland that feels a whole lot like a win on the road against the team atop the Eastern Conference standings. The Timbers continue to charge ahead, now moving into a tie for fourth place in the Western Conference with multiple games in hand. Their run of play has put the conference on notice for what’s to come.

When asked where they envision taking it from here, Mabiala chuckled.

“I see this going all the way until the end of the season.”

Atlanta United draws with Portland

Atlanta Journal-Constitution – June 24, 2018

Perhaps needing a super hero in front of goal, Atlanta United used a goal from Julian Gressel to salvage a 1-1 draw with Portland on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Atlanta United dominated possession (approximately 68 percent), but couldn’t finish scoring chances. Josef Martinez, wearing a black mask to protect his broken nose, missed so many chances, including two inexplicable misses at the end of either half, that he eventually ripped off the gear in the second half. What was supposed to last six weeks lasted about 60 minutes.

The draw, with an announced attendance of 45,116, moves Atlanta United to 34 points, most in MLS. The team will host Orlando, losers of seven consecutive, on June 30. The Timbers stretched their unbeaten run to nine games.

Atlanta United had 21 shots, 10 on target, and 18 chances (second most this season) created to get just the one goal. It’s a trend that has continued in the past few home games. Lots of offense, but not a lot of goals. The team has scored more than one goal at home  just once once its past five games.

“The most important thing is that we are creating chances,” manager Gerardo Martino said. “At some point you have to think those will start go in.

“It seems like weird things are happening on some of the plays. It’s one thing to miss shots or for the goalkeeper to make a great save, but on Josef’s last chance tonight it’s difficult to explain exactly what happened.”

That last chance came with Martinez, sans the mask, diving almost into the goal, but his header from just a few feet went sideways, instead of into the goal. He was whistled for a handball, which may explain the bizarre bounce. Something similar happened near the end of the first half. He said on Friday that he worried the mask would affect his vision when looking for the ball. He declined to answer a question after the game.

Martino said he suspects the mask interfered with Martinez’s vision, but hadn’t had a chance to ask him.

After dominating possession in the first 20 minutes, Portland began finding seams within the defense and created several good scoring chances on counter-attacks. A shot by Sebastian Blanco hit the post. Goalkeeper Brad Guzan saved another on a free kick.

The Timbers broke through in the 33rd minute on a diving header by Larrys Mabiala. A free kick from the left was touched by Samuel Armenteros. Guzan saved that, but, as Atlanta United defenders stood with their arms raised looking for an offside call, the rebound floated to Mabiala to nod home at the far post. The free kick was the result of a poor tackle and subsequent yellow card to Franco Escobar. It was the Timbers’ seventh goal from a set piece, tied for sixth most in the league.

The team tried to play with three guys in the back to break up counters, or man-mark Diego Valeri or Blanco.

A Martinez attempt was blocked by several Portland defenders just before the half. Frustrated, Martinez kicked the advertising boards behind the goal before grabbing them and shaking them back and forth.

Martinez missed again in the 52nd minute, putting a spinning effort over the crossbar.

“We know he has a special personality,” Leandro Gonzalez Pirez said. “We know when he’s missing chances we don’t need to say anything to him. We just know that he thinks about the chances that he misses. He’s a goal-scorer who has scored however many goals. Tonight he missed some. That’s just how it goes. We aren’t worried about it.”

The Timbers, playing banked lines of four or five at the back, with four or five in the midfield, proved hard to break apart or through.

“They defended well,” Martino said, pointing out that attacks in the second half came from all sides, whereas attacks in the first half typically started on whatever side the ball was won.

Atlanta United continued to dominate possession and the work paid off with an equalizer from Gressel in the 56th minute. His first career goal came at Providence Park in Portland last year. Sunday’s was his seventh in his MLS career. He actually tweeted earlier this week that maybe his seventh would come against the same team in which he opened his account.

Gressel said that Atlanta United had a better balance in the second half of offense versus defense. That may have helped him score.

“When a team has a lot of numbers in the box, and defends with everybody, it’s tough,” he said. “We have enough creativity and enough players to unlock a defense like that a bunch of times.”

Darlington Nagbe, one of those creative players and who was facing his former team for the first time after being traded during the offseason, was forced off with an injury that happened just before the goal. Martino said it’s a muscle injury, possibly an abductor, but he wasn’t sure.

Villalba came on in Nagbe’s place. He ripped a shot from 19 yards that skimmed off the crossbar. He came close a minute later when he tried to poke a left-footed shot into the right corner. But he couldn’t get anything on it and Jeff Attinella scooped it up.

Villalba kept firing, hitting a dipping shot that Attinella got low to smother in the 84th minute.

Miguel Almiron charged again second later, but Attinella made the tough save.

“It was a crazy game,” Gonzalez Pirez said. “We kept attacking wave after wave. For us, the ball just wouldn’t go in tonight.”

Torrent wins in NYCFC debut, 2-1 over Toronto FC

FOX Sports – June 24, 2018

NEW YORK (AP) Jo Inge Berget scored twice and coach Domenec Torrent celebrated his New York City FC debut with a 2-1 victory over Toronto FC on Sunday.

Berget made it 2-1 in the 68th minute, following Maximiliano Moralez’s direct pass up the right channel and slotting it home.

NYCFC (9-3-4) tied it at 1 in the 51st minute on Berget’s back heel from the top of the 6-yard box.

Victor Vazquez opened the scoring for Toronto (4-8-3) in the 37th minute. Vasquez outran his defender on Auro’s long ball up the right side and sent a chip shot over the onrushing goalkeeper.

NYCFC’s David Villa left the game in the 28th minute with a non-contact injury.

Torrent replaced Patrick Vieira in New York shortly after Vieira’s departure for OGC Nice was officially confirmed. Torrent had been the right-hand man to Pep Guardiola for the last 11 years, most recently at Manchester City.

Toronto FC looked far from great in loss to New York City FC

Toronto Sun – June 25, 2018

BRONX, N.Y. — Halfway toward picking up a huge road victory, bad old Toronto FC re-emerged. And against a dominant home side like New York City FC a visiting opponent needs to be strong, smart and committed for a full 90 minutes.

TFC, battling energy-sapping heat, certainly wasn’t that in a 2-1 defeat on Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

Toronto dropped to 4-8-3 — three more defeats already compared to last season’s spectacular campaign — and while there are still a lot of games to be played, it will take far better efforts from the Reds to get back into the mix.

“Still just struggling to get back to who we are, what we’re best at,” was captain Michael Bradley’s assessment afterward in a Toronto locker room filled with sun-scorched, tired players.

“It’s been a trying stretch in every way, but we’re going to continue to play and continue to try to find the right ways to get things going but there’s no doubt that it’s been a real challenge.”

Both teams were coming off long, World Cup layoffs, but New York City looked sharper and dealt with the elements better in what Bradley said was the first match of the season where you could really feel the heat.

Beset by mistakes all season long, the Reds played nearly error-free in taking a 1-0 lead into the break, but the combination of a lack of concentration and poor technical play led to a pair of NYC counters, resulting in a brace from Jo Inge Berget.

Outside of Victor Vazquez’s clever 37th-minute chip past Sean Johnson which opened the scoring, Toronto FC looked punchless until a final surge in stoppage time which resulted in the team’s only two shots on goal of the final half.

“Over the course of the game, especially on the defensive (side) we weren’t really efficient, which cost us a lot of energy. And then you could see between the energy, humidness, we started to fade a little bit on the physical side,” said head coach Greg Vanney. “We’ve got a lot of different people in a lot of different places in terms of their match sharpness, in terms of their fitness levels and we’re still missing some guys. We’ve got to work through it as a group. There’s no excuses. We’ve just got to work through that as a group.”

NYC was playing for the first time under new head coach Domenec Torrent, who replaced Patrick Vieira. Vieira had never beaten TFC. Toronto came in with just one road win and one draw in six away matches, while NYC FC had earned 19 of a possible 21 points at its fortress in the Bronx. New York is now unbeaten here in 10 games dating back to last season, surrendering more than one goal only once in that span.

“We were just not super efficient, and we burned a lot of energy trying to make plays with our legs instead of just communicating with each other in a way to move people in the right positions to be efficient,” Vanney said. “With that comes fatigue, the way you want to move. They’re a good team and when you play good teams like that you’ve got to be more efficient on the defensive end so you have the energy on the attacking end.”

Berget’s tying goal, six minutes into the second half, was particularly back-breaking for Toronto.

“We didn’t start the half good, came out a little bit flat,” said midfielder Jonathan Osorio, one of the best TFC players on this day. “The conditions might have helped that, it was really humid, it was hard playing conditions, but it’s not an excuse. (We) let in that first goal, (it) really hurt us and we really couldn’t recover from it.”

Both sides were missing players due to injuries or international duty and it got worse for New York, when captain and star striker David Villa had to leave early in the first half due to a groin issue. Villa had averaged nearly two goals a game against Toronto in his career. Thanks to Berget, though, Villa’s absence became merely a footnote, while Toronto had to sub out the goal scorer Vazquez and the man who had set it up, Auro, due to nagging minor injuries.

Toronto will have a week to stew on its first loss in four games before hosting the New York Red Bulls next Sunday.

BONO STRONG AGAIN

In what has been a trying season for Toronto FC, at least Alex Bono continues to flash fine form.

The goalkeeper, who signed a contract extension with the club during the week heading into Sunday’s game with New York City FC, made a number of acrobatic stops that helped the Reds stick around against an excellent home side.

TFC was outshot 18-10 and 8-2 in terms of shots on target, but Bono was the best Toronto player.

Ideally, though, Bono wouldn’t have to be quite so busy.

“Well, I’m glad Alex is playing well, (but) I don’t want to rely on Alex in terms of working our way back into the playoff picture,” head coach Greg Vanney said after the game.

“As a collective group, we’ve got to get co-ordinated again. It’s me continuing to work with the guys and then we need to find a foundation that we can get on a run with.”

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MLS Newsstand – June 25, 2018 was originally published on 365 Football