One half of the 2019 CONCACAF Champions League semifinal bracket is filled, and it’s an all Liga MX affair pitting Tigres against Santos Laguna. Tigres took care of the Houston Dynamo 3-0 on aggregate despite the absence of injured star Andre-Pierre Gignac. Santos defeated the New York Red Bulls 6-2 on aggregate, but not without receiving something of a scare at Estadio Corona on Tuesday night.
According to Portuguese media outlet Record, Wolverhampton has agreed to a deal with Benfica and Raúl Jiménez to sign the on-loan striker permanently in the summer.
There’s always going to be an emphasis on how Designated Players perform in MLS, that comes with the territory of earning 20 times more than your teammates. And there’s always going to be an extra emphasis on Mexico’s internationals in the league, especially when they’re just 29 and stepping away from three years in the Bundesliga with Eintracht Frankfurt.
A big storyline from Major League Soccer’s opening weekend was the debut of 16-year-old LA Galaxy phenom Efrain Alvarez. The Los Angeles native was an academy product before becoming a revelation in the USL last year, scoring 12 goals and adding three assists in 17 appearances for the club’s reserve team, LA Galaxy II.
It would be hard to argue that Bob Bradley isn’t the most accomplished American soccer coach. He was the first American to coach a Premier League team, he coached the Egyptian national team and he led the USMNT to first place in its group at the 2010 World Cup.
But he should probably stop talking about this nonsense comparing Carlos Vela to Lionel Messi.
LAFC began the 2019 MLS season with a 2-1 come-from-behind win over Sporting KC on Sunday night. The match came on the heels of the LA club releasing its “We Are LAFC” documentary on ESPN+.
Monterrey kept pace with Tigres at the top of the Liga MX Clausura table with a 2-0 victory over Guadalajara at Akron Stadium on Saturday, and both Rayados goals were of the highest order.
Also, they were both scored by Colombian attacker Dorlan Pabón, who ripped a long-range golazo in the second minute and then did it again in the 89th.
Here’s the first.
Here’s the second. Déjà vu.
The Galaxy had a Designated Player problem. With four LA Galaxy DPs — and only three allowed by MLS rules — the league’s flagship club had to do something before the start of the 2019 season.
Last year when Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed with the Galaxy, he signed a smaller contract to keep him under DP status because the club already had three DPs: Giovani dos Santos, Jonathan dos Santos and Romain Alessandrini. But Zlatan re-upped his contract in the offseason, putting him in DP money despite the fact the three others remained under contract.
There was a time when Brek Shea a lanky winger from the great city of College Station, Texas — home of the Dixie Chicken and the greatest football stadium in the country — looked like the next big thing for U.S. soccer. The Cockatrice, as no one but myself calls him, had a combination of skill, panache, size and athleticism that earned him a move to Stoke City after five seasons with FC Dallas.
If you enjoyed the 2016 Copa América Centenario, you’re gonna love what U.S. Soccer is trying to do next.
U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro sent a letter to the heads of each of the 10 South American football associations on Tuesday, inviting them to join Concacaf for a quadrennial international competition in the United States, the New York Times reported.
Last time we checked in with Diego Maradona and Dorados, it was to report on the Argentine legend’s antics during his side’s Ascenso MX Apertura final defeat. After the heartbreak of that 4-3 aggregate defeat, Maradona has since returned to lead Dorados during the Clausura season.
While the club has achieved success in the Copa MX — they’ll play Liga MX side Atlas on Tuesday in the Round of 16 — the regular season has been something of a disaster for the club. After six matches, Dorados has only managed one win.