This weekend was sort of a fun one with Dempsey and Herc scoring goals, plus the USMNT roster announcement. Good times. Now or some links from the weekend.
Speaking of the USMNT January camp. Both Graham Zusi and Juan Agudelo are going to be a week late as they are headed to West Ham United this week for one of these MLS week-long-summer-camp-training sessions.
Doug McIntyre (ESPN Insider) gives us his surprises of the 25-man roster.
The other chatter from yesterday regarding the USMNT was locations of the various hexagonal qualifiers. We are nearing the home opener against Costa Rica in March and we still don’t know the location. Grant Wahl is hearing that the final three possibilities are Kansas City, Salt Lake and Denver. I am guessing it will be Salt Lake or Denver as the US plays Mexico at Azteca a few days later and those two sites give the US players some training/game action with altitude.
Steven Goff is hearing that the June qualifiers could finally be headed to the Pacific Northwest in Portland and Seattle. While that is all fun and games, Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson was tweeting a bunch about how there probably won’t be a qualifier in Portland since they don’t want to put sod on their turf for a couple different reasons. But he thinks there is a decent shot that Portland hosts a Gold Cup game. You can check out his feed for all his reasons/ranting.
I already linked above Clint Dempsey’s goals from the weekend, but here is a video interview from after the game.
Birmingham City’s website gives us a quick update on Will Packwood. It looks like he will be out “for at least nine months.” Teammate Jonathan Spector missed out on the FA Cup match with some kind of back injury.
I missed this story last week, but this should make Bob Bradley’s job a little easier.
ESPN FC gives us three young Bayern Munich players to keep an eye on including Tampa-born Julian Green.
Shawn Parker scored the game-winning goal this weekend for Mainz in a friendly against Club Brugge.
Andrew Wooten and Sandhausen made it to the finals of the Harder Cup before losing to Karlsruher SC. Wooten was one of Sandhausen’s top scorers of the tournament. And it looks like I was able to find video of the whole final. That looks like it would be fun to attend.
I haven’t heard Jann George’s name mentioned since he was kicked off Nurnberg in early November, but apparently I missed that he signed with 1860 Munich II late in November and has been training with the first team as they start their winter break training camp.
And finally, much to Howie’s chagrin, former US U-17er Fuad Ibrahim has been named to Ethiopia’s team for the 2013 African Cup of Nations.
Want to have a dance party? Want to have a dance party while watching highlights of Steve Clark? If so, click this link.
DaMarcus Beasley is sitting at 97 caps with the USMNT. Not a total surprise, he wants to hit 100.
Greg Seltzer talked to Will Packwood about his first season as a professional at Birmingham City.
Jann George is looking for a new home. He was kicked off Nurnberg for talking back to his coach. I have heard some rumblings over the last year that he is a head case.
Apparently Jurgen Klinsmann has talked to Shawn Parker about playing for the USMNT. Parker is a 19-year-old forward who has scored four goals in nine games with Mainz II this year and has even made one appearance with Mainz’s senior team.
Still can’t find any highlights of Matt Taylor’s brace, but here are some highlights from Joe Gyau’s debut at St. Pauli.
Jann George was one of four American goal scorers today. Can’t find highlights of his goal, but here is a photo of him celebrating the goal. Also, here is Fabian Johnson’s goal and Timothy Chandler’s goal. And I am also looking for something on Charles Kazlauskas’ goal.
A Johann Smith sighting! Smith played 90 minutes for KuPS earlier today.
Here is a video interview with Alejandro Bedoya and one of his teammates at Helsingborgs IF.
The US U-20 team will be playing three friendlies in Spain in October.
And finally, there are some rumblings that Arsenal might be looking at Icelandic-American forward Aron Johannsson. But his agent claims that there is nothing to see.
A few guys scored goals today, but I can’t find any highlights as of right now. Chad Barrett had a good game, getting involved in two of the goals. As for the goal scorers, Charles Kazlauskas scored a goal in Helmond Sport’s season-opening 2-1 victory over Telstar. And Jann George (Nurnberg II) and Andrew Wooten (Kaiserslautern II) each scored in their respective Regionalliga games.
Also while looking through the box scores from today, I noticed that Quentin Westberg is no longer with Evian TG. He got the start at goalkeeper for US Luzenac in their 1-0 loss to Boulogne in the French National (third division) today.
Geoff Cameron made his debut for Stoke City in a friendly against Gruether Furth. Cameron started the game in the midfield, but played the last 30 minutes or so at centerback. Here are some highlights of the game.
It looks like Cal FC’s Danny Barrera is on trial at the moment with Derby County. While Anton Peterlin is on trial at Oxford United.
Former Cal Golden Bear Jacob Wilson has signed with CD Feirense in the Portuguese Liga de Honra (second division).
Jurgen Klinsmann will announce his USMNT roster for the upcoming Mexico friendly via ussoccer.com on Sunday at 4 PM Eastern. Mexico announced its roster earlier today.
Brian McBride and Wembley FC will be playing in the FA Cup tomorrow against Langford FC.
UEFA held its draw for the playoff rounds of Champions League and Europa League earlier today. Here is a breakdown of all the teams with Americans on them.
I haven’t done new jerseys/kits in a while, so here are a bunch more.
I’m not going to lie, this weekend got me a little excited for most of the seasons to start up again next month. A few more leagues started up this weekend, plus we had more than a few Americans find the back of the net on Saturday. To get a recap on what happened on Saturday, including links to some highlights, check that out right here.
Then we had a few more interesting things happen on Sunday. Daniel Antunez scored a goal in Inter Turku’s 6-0 thrashing of KuPS.
Conor O’Brien did not score this weekend, but he had an assist in SønderjyskE’s 1-1 draw with Copenhagen. You can check out highlights of that right here.
Staying in Denmark, Clarence Goodson picked up a yellow card for an elbow to the face. You can see that right here.
While most thought Jann George would be playing with FK Senica in Slovakia, he ended up playing with Nurnberg II in the Regionalliga on Sunday. Upon tweeting this news, the always good Brian Sciaretta informed me that his loan deal had been canceled.
Michael Bradley and Roma whooped up on Polish club Zaglebie Lubin at Wrigley Field on Sunday. Here is a team photo of Roma before the game.
I talked about this briefly in the recap from Saturday post, but Josh Gatt had to leave the game early after scoring on Saturday. According to this article, with the somewhat help of Google Translate, it looks like he strained his thigh and could miss Tuesday’s Champions League game. Then again, Google Translate could have mixed up thigh strain with losing a limb and we will never know (he didn’t lose a limb).
Sacha Kljestan came off the bench at the end of Anderlecht’s 3-2 win over Lokeren in the Belgian Super Cup on Sunday. Also, here is what their home shirts for this season will look like.
Charlie Davies made his Randers debut this weekend as well, coming off the bench for 21 minutes in Randers’ 1-0 win over OB.
And finally, I know a lot of people have been wondering about Zak Whitbread’s fate, myself included. Finally some word is coming out that he could be headed to Leicester City in the near future. Leicester City finished ninth, nine points away from a promotion playoff spot, in last year’s English League Championship.
Nurnberg forward Jann George has been loaned out to Slovakian Super Liga club FK Senica for the upcoming 2012-13 season. FK Senica finished fourth in last year’s Super Liga and will be in next season’s Europa League, entering in the first qualifying round.
Frank Simek has verbally agreed to sign a new contract with Carlisle United.
I haven’t been fully paying attention to the messy situation at Rangers, but it looks like the clubs is getting pushed towards liquidation. The new possible owner Charles Green might just end up buying the team’s assets and form a new company (Rangers v2.0?). If that were to happen then there is a whole mess about whether the club should be allowed to be in the Scottish Premier League or start all over in the a lower division. Doesn’t look so hot for the “Lone Rangers” (a.k.a. Bedoya/Bocanegra/Edu).
Mike Grella apparently met up with Scunthrope United manager Alan Knill in New York recently to talk. Grella turned down a deal with Bury last week.
Here are few things, mostly transfer news/gossip from the last week.
It is starting to look more and more like Terrence Boyd is going to end up at Rapid Vienna.
Maurice Edu and other players at Rangers now have an out clause in their contracts due to them taking a pay cut back in March. One of the bigger rumors of the week has Edu linked to Turkish side Trabzonspor. Then again, it is the silly season, which means most rumors reported online are usually false. Good times.
One report out of France has Charlie Davies linked to AZ, although Greg Seltzer is hearing that they are not the Dutch side looking at Davies. But it sounds like Sochaux do not have Davies in mind with their new manager.
Nurnberg forward Jann George is likely going to be loaned out to a second or third division side next season according to this report out of Germany.
We have posted about theserumors in the past, but Jurgen Klinsmann talked some more about the potential friendlies against Mexico and Russia for later this year after Wednesday’s game. That said, nothing has been officially confirmed by US Soccer.
And finally, with the US set to play Guatemala in a World Cup qualifier on June 12, Guatemala could be without three potential starters as they undergo a match-fixing investigation.
The big news of the day was Landon Donovan’s loan deal to Everton. Howie gives his take on the deal here and here is some more stuff from Everton’s website.
US U-20 goalkeeper Cody Cropper has started to appear on Ipswich Town’s bench a couple times over the last month. It looked like he was going to see some more time on the gameday roster with David Stockdale being recalled to Fulham due to Mark Schwarzer’s injury and another goalkeeper, Richard Wright, still injured, but it looks like Cropper has picked up a knee injury in training and will miss out on this weekend’s game.
A report out of Germany has FC Ingolstadt manager Tomas Oral dismissing Edson Buddle from the team until after the winter break. Oral did not give any reason for his decision, so let the speculation begin.
I know there has been some internet chatter about Maurice Edu being looked at by some French clubs, but this AP story reports that his agent and Rangers are working on an extension.
And two quick links from Yanks Abroad. They have an interview up with new Hammarby manager Gregg Berhalter. And Brian Sciaretta caught up with Jann George before he makes his trek to Florida for the U-23 camp.
A hat tip to Brian Sciaretta for tweeting this earlier today, but German Regionalliga highlights are hard to find. With that said, here is footage of Nurnberg II’s 1-1 draw to Waldhof Mannheim from this past weekend, including Jann George’s goal (2:22 mark).
