The big news from yesterday, which Howie already posted, is that Stuart Holden is back in the USMNT picture. Holden also did an interview with Lion of Vienna Suite this week where he states that he feels 100%.
Steven Goff gives us the latest USMNT ticket sales update. I really need to stop playing around and pull the trigger on a trip up to Seattle in June.
Jurgen Klinsmann doesn’t appear to be happy about Brek Shea’s lack of playing time at Stoke City.
Sky Sports is reporting that Maurice Edu might make a permanent move from Stoke City to Bursaspor, but the article really only has quotes from Edu about being happy in Turkey.
Here is a video of Geoff Cameron talking about Stoke City’s summer tour to play against Houston Dynamo.
Greg Seltzer updates us on AZ Alkmaar’s all-time single-season goals list (plus gives us some other numbers and stats). Jozy Altidore is fourth with 30 goals and has three games left to add to that tally. Kees Kist holds the top three spots with 39 goals (1981-82), 36 (1978-79) and 35 (1977-78).
Steve Cherundolo talked to US Soccer about soon becoming the fourth player in Bundesliga history to play 300 games and playing the most games in club history after his next appearance. Cherundolo is also close on a new contract with Hannover 96.
This is from last week, but this story has some quotes from Tab Ramos on the US U-20 team, including why DeAndre Yedlin didn’t make the CONCACAF U-20 Championship roster.
A player that was on the CONCACAF U-20 Championship roster, Mario Rodriguez, scored a goal for Kaiserslautern in the semifinals of the U-19 German Cup the other day.
US U-17 forward Junior Flores is headed to Germany to train with Borussia Dortmund up through their Champions League final appearance. Flores signed a pre-contract deal with Borussia Dortmund back in October and can’t sign a professional deal until he turns 18 in March of 2014.
We have another American at Club Tijuana as former LA Galaxy youth academy player Paul Arriola has signed with the Liga MX club.
Conor O’Brien went the full 90 minutes in FC Nordsjælland’s 1-0 victory over Aalborg today. O’Brien has started all five games since the team came back from winter break and they are 4-0-1 over that stretch. Here is the lone goal of the game.
This game was from Monday, but Nordsjælland’s youtube page posted 10 minutes worth of highlights today. Conor O’Brien got the start and went the full 90 minutes in this 1-1 draw. He has a couple nice long passes, including one off a free kick around the 2:15 mark.
Jurgen Klinsmann took over US Soccer’s twitter account yesterday and while he didn’t answer any of Howie’squestions, he did give us some good news on Clint Dempsey, Fabian Johnson and Steve Cherundolo.
Spoke with Clint. Back in training & hopes to play v Inter. All good for WCQs RT: @mrhoffman02 When will we know if Dempsey is able to play
And while it has been mentioned before, Bruce Arena gave an update on Landon Donovan and he should return to the Galaxy the last week in March.
Costa Rica released their roster for the qualifiers. Good news for USMNT fans, and most Red Bulls fans can confirm this, Roy Miller made their roster. Also, I just noticed tonight that the US is winless in its last five games (3L, 2D) against Costa Rica and haven’t won a game since a qualifier in 2005.
The US U-20 team will be playing in the Toulon Tournament in late May/early June.
One of those players, Juan Ocegueda, is still going to play for Chivas Guadalajara despite playing for the US. Chivas have a policy of “Mexican only” players, but they are apparently going to look the other way with Ocegueda.
Conor O’Brien got the start and went he full 90 minutes in Nordsjaelland’s 1-1 draw to FC Midtjylland yesterday.
I haven’t heard Charles Renken’s name since he returned to the US last year, but he and fellow American Aubrey Perry are in Sweden on trial at Umeå FC at the moment.
And finally, Etchu Tabe has returned to Finland with KuPS again.
Still have the U-20s on the mind and Brian Sciaretta gives us his 21 tickets for Turkey.
Sciaretta also talked to Daniel Cuevas this week about qualifying for the U-20 World Cup.
Another U-20er, Juan Ocegueda, took to twitter to tell fans why he picked the US over Mexico. Just scroll down his timeline to his tweets from March 6.
Carlos Bocanegra is struggling to see the field at Racing Santander and apparently has lost his starting spot.
And if you want to be semi-depressed, John Godfrey breaks down the struggles along the back line for the USMNT.
Roma midfielder Miralem Pjanic will be out a month with an ankle injury, which probably means Michael Bradley will return to the starting lineup. Bradley has come off the bench in two of his last three games.
I forget whether I posted this last week or not (and I am currently too lazy to look and see), but here is a NY Times story/interview with Brad Guzan. Can’t hurt to post to it twice.
Tijuana continues their hot streak in Copa Libertadores with a 1-0 win over defending champions and 2012 FIFA Club World Cup champions Corinthians. Joe Corona got the start while Greg Garza came off the bench.
We posted about Daniel Antunez playing with Chivas USA during training camp. Well, he officially signed with the club this week. Antunez last played for Inter Turku in Finland in 2012. Also, we might pass around a hat to take up a collection so OT can sponsor at tarp at a Chivas USA game at the Home Depot Center. Just joking (or am I?).
Sticking with the Chivas USA theme, Franco Panizo talked to Juan Agudelo about playing for Chivas and his training stints in Europe this offseason.
Here is a post-game interview with Conor O’Brien after FC Nordsjælland’s win from the weekend.
Yesterday was a slightly crazy one with stuff happening all day long. We had the US U-20 team qualifying for the U-20 World Cup, Stuart Holden made his first league appearance since March 19, 2011 and Joe Corona/Edgar Castillo scored for Tijuana in Copa Libertadores action.
As for some links.
The US U-20 team is headed to Turkey this summer for the U-20 World Cup after beating Canada 4-2 yesterday. The U-20 World Cup starts up on June 21, while the draw will be held on March 25. While they did qualify yesterday, there are still potentially two more games left in the CONCACAF U-20 Championship. The US will play Cuba in the semifinals on Friday and will be without the services of Cody Cropper, Jerome Kiesewetter, Luis Gil and Caleb Stanko the rest of the way as they return to their club teams.
One player who could potentially be on that U-20 team come June is Anthony Brooks. And Every Touch Footy decided to do a video of Brooks’ performance against Kaiserslautern from this past weekend.
As I stated above, Stuart Holden made his first league appearance in 711 days yesterday. It sounds like he did alright and was “neat and tidy”.
Edgar Castillo and Joe Corona scored in Copa Libertadores action last night, becoming the first Americans to score in that competition since Nicky Torres in 2011. And here is a photo of them celebrating after Castillo’s goal.
Sebastian Lletget scored a goal yesterday in U-21 action as West Ham lost to Wolverhampton 2-1.
Kenneth Di Vita Jensen also scored a goal, but in a friendly for Hønefoss.
Stoke City’s Robert Huth could be missing some time in the future. Does this mean some playing time at centerback for Geoff Cameron?
The US U-17 team is down in Panama and tied them 1-1 yesterday with Junior Flores scoring the lone goal for the US.
Greg Seltzer recently talked to Conor O’Brien about his move to FC Nordsjælland.
And finally, Jamel Johnson (not to be confused with Arlesey Town’s Jemal Johnson) is now in Austria at SV Gersthof. Gersthof play in the Austrian Landesliga (fourth tier).
A leftover from yesterday’s Valentine’s Day fun, but here is a flow chart to pick your USMNT sweetheart. Looks like I ended up with Clint Dempsey. The US also dropped four spots to #32 in the latest FIFA world rankings.
Looks like Stuart Holden will make Bolton’s squad this weekend in their match against Nottingham Forest.
I posted yesterday about Justin Moose scoring a goal for SJK in their latest friendly and here it is in highlight form (1:25 mark).
Sticking with the goals in friendlies theme, Brian Span scored a goal for Djurgårdens IF in their 3-2 win over FC Lahti.
As expected, Alejandro Bedoya re-signed a short-term deal with Helsingborgs IF and joined up with the team in Portugal.
We posted about Jonathan Borrajo signing with Mjøndalen in Norway last month and here is a little video feature on him on Mjøndalen’s site. If anything else, jam out to the Black Keys in the background.
Conor O’Brien was in the starting lineup for Nordsjælland in a 2-1 loss to Norwegian side IK Start in a friendly.
We knew that goalkeeper Samir Badr was coming back to the US to head to training camp with an unnamed MLS team after his training stint with Manchester United. It looks like that team is the Columbus Crew.
And finally, teenager Nick Ledesma has signed a six-month deal with Alemannia Aachen’s U-19 team.
Jason Davis wonders if Jurgen Klinsmann should give two old names, DaMarcus Beasley and Jay DeMerit, a look.
And US Soccer has a video up on Alexi Lalas and his move to Italy back in the 90s.
Turning to Germany, Bobby Wood and Andrew Wooten both made Kicker’s 2. Bundesliga Team of the Week.
Jeff Carlisle has an interview with Jermaine Jones as Schalke resumes their Champions League campaign next week.
Shawn Parker received a two-game suspension for his foot to Michael Parkhurst’s head.
Terrence Boyd scored a goal yesterday in Rapid Vienna’s 2-0 win over Slovak club MFK Ružomberok in a friendly.
Some more stories in Sweden about Alejandro Bedoya likely to re-sign with Helsingborg.
The always good Brian Sciaretta talked to Conor O’Brien recently about his new contract and other things.
Sacir Hot has a blog entry up over at Big Apple Soccer about his move to Germany.
It was first reported that Columbus Crew forward Aaron Horton was being loaned out to Bosnia’s FK Sarajevo, but now it looks like he just went there for some training and is now headed to Hammarby in Sweden for a week before returning to the US.
And finally, I was sad when Aaron Wheeler left Finland as I wasn’t going to be able to post about FC KooTeePee (Greatest. Name. Ever.). But we don’t have to worry anymore as American Kevin Sawchak has signed a one-year deal with an option for a second year with the team.
After reports yesterday suggested that free agent midfielder Conor O’Brien would be signing wih Odense BK, Brian Sciaretta has confirmed with O’Brien’s agent that O’Brien will in fact join reiging SuperLiga champions FC Nordsjælland.
“Conor has signed a two year contract with Nordsjaelland,” agent Allan Bak Janssen told YA. “It was his first choice all along but there was a lot of interest.”
Nordsjælland won the SuperLiga last year (with recently-departed American Michael Parkhurst as a regular in the back line) and are currently 2nd place. They’re unlikely to catch perennial powers Copenhagen (trailing by 12 points) but are a good bet to make Champions League qualifying next year after having been in the group stage this year. If Odense was a move up, Nordsjælland is probably a half-step further up right now.
Interestingly, it’s apparently a two-year deal which would mean that O’Brien could potentially be a free agent mid-season again in early 2015.
