July 11th, 2006: Street cleaners are still working on tidying up Berlin’s fan mile after more than half a million Germans had gathered to salute Die Mannschaft on their improbable run to third place in the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Roberto Carlos might be the greatest free-kick-taker of all time in the hostory of soccerdom. This is neither an unpopular opinion nor an uncommon one.
But Roberto is gone, plying his trade in football exile in India, his skills eroded by the winds and sands of time. And so, as these things go, we must search for an heir.
Collegiate soccer programs began to truly emerge sometime in the 1980s. For women, the passage of Title IX opened up opportunities for female athletes that were only available to men playing football (the oblong type) and basketball. Men’s soccer programs have been around significantly longer (the first NCAA championship was played in 1959), but consistently take a backseat to padded football and madness of basketball.
Very soon, Carli Lloyd wil be able to add the title "published author" to her already impressive list of accolades.
Lloyd signed a book deal with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for her memoir, set to be released later in 2016.
The book is expected to cover Lloyd's soccer career, including the time she almost quit the sport entirely.
In a classic derby match where rivalry and home pride is all that matters, there is no telling what fans will do to help give their club any extra boost to win the match. New York is new to the whole derby experience, but that doesn’t mean they are short of energy and passion.
FOX Sports just got a whole lot more German.
The Bundesliga and FOX Sports have agreed to a deal in which FOX will either televise or stream every single Bundesliga game this upcoming season. Of the 306 Bundesliga games, 58 will be shown on FOX SPorts 1, 60 on FOX Sports 2, and the rest streamed on FOX Soccer Plus.
Drogba lands in Montreal
Everyone's likely already heard that Didier Drogba has signed with the Montreal Impact, a team that recently put up a second place result in the CONCACAF Champion's League. While the rumors were originally for Chicago, Montreal was able to steal him away with a combination of targeted allocation money — they backed the Brink's truck up to Drogba's front door — and location — Montreal being a French speaking town.
Nick Rimando looks like someone you'd want on your side in a bar fight. He's short for a goalie, but sturdy. He's friendly, gregarious even, but he gives off a subtle intensity, which loses its subtlety when he steps in front of a soccer goal. That's his territory, where he's made his living in MLS since 2000 with (now defunct) Miami Fusion, D.C. United and Real Salt Lake. At 36, he's an MLS lifer at this point.
The Club America U-20s defeated the MLS Homegrown All-Stars last night in penalties after the game ended 1-1 in regulation. This casts a poor light on MLS's player development efforts, however friendly the match ended up being. With that in mind, we did what we always do in trying times: we made a list of pros and cons.
Pro:
The MLS Homegrown All-Stars almost didn't lose!
Con:
The MLS Homegrown All-Stars lost.
Pro:
The MLS team was really young, with just eight players age 21 or older.
Denver, Colorado is 5,280 feet above sea level, and Tottenham Hotspur, along with most of the MLS All-Stars, won't be used to playing in those conditions.
"It's going to be a tough training session for us this afternoon and a tough game for us on Wednesday at this altitude, on top of the hotness" said Spurs midfielder Nabil Bentaleb.
"We had a gym session earlier, and it was quite tough," said forward Harry Kane. "We train this afternoon so we'll probably get a bit more used to it, being outside."