Sorry if anyone was looking out for a post from us yesterday. I'm not hassling Charlie very much about doing any writing while he's on vacation (though we may see something from him soon) and honestly I hadn't really watched anything since Tuesday night. I turned on the Chicago vs DC open cup match briefly, and even flipped over to the Portland vs Real Salt Lake game...but I was too enthralled with playing with my new Blu-Ray player and getting it synced up with all my digital movies.
But enough of my excuses, things did happen in World Soccer this week. Many nations have announced their rosters for the midweek International Friendlies next week. As usual the US is probably going to wait till the last minute but reports from SI.com have stated that US Captain & recent Seattle Sounders addition Clint Dempsey will not be on the team, his teamates Brad Evans and Eddie Johnson and also John Anthony Brooks of Hertha Berlin have been tentatively listed in the same report. Ligue 1 kicks off today in France with Montpellier vs PSG The Bundesliga begins today as well with Bayern Munich vs Borussia Monchengladbach. The MLS mid-season transfer window has closed, the big moves announced werre
I am concerned with the Agudelo transfer. He isn't making this move until January which means he still has about 5 months to be in New England. Now I'd like to think that he wouldn't do this, but with his dream to move to Europe all but assured, whats to stop Agudelo from phoning it in. I like the kid and in no way to I think he is going to do that, but this is a guy who has struggled with injuries for the last several years, and subconsciously he's going to have that weighing on his mind whenever he goes for a 50/50 ball. I hope he doesn't hold back and I hope he uses the rest of his season with the Revs as an audition. See you later today with some more stuff, P4TP Edin Džeko is really the highlight of this very good B&H roster. The 27-year old Manchester City Striker is the nations all-time leading scorer with 29 career international goals in 54 caps. He is also leading at scorers in UEFA World Cup Qualifying with 8 goals. Bosnia & Herzegovina currently sit at 1st place through six games in UEFA Group G. The share a group with Greece, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia & Liechtenstein. The nation is hoping to Qualify for their first ever World Cup. This is their first ever match-up against the United States, in previous appearences against CONCACAF they have 2 losses. The game will be played in Sarajevo at 3:30 ET on Wednesday August 14. The US Roster will likely be announced within the coming days, it is expected to be mostly consis
KEEPERS- Asmir Avdukić (FK Borac Banja Luka), Asmir Begović (Stoke City), Jasmin Fejzić (VfR Aalen) DEFENSE- Ermin Bičakčić (Eintracht Braunschweig), Mensur Mujdža (Freiburg), Emir Spahić (Bayer Leverkusen), Toni Šunjić (Zorya Lugansk), Ervin Zukanović (KAA Gent) MIDFIELD- Senad Lulić (Lazio), Haris Medunjanin (Gaziantepspor), Zvjezdan Misimović (Guizhou Renhe), Miralem Pjanić (AS Roma), Elvir Rahimić (CSKA Moscow), Sejad Salihović (TSG Hoffenheim), Miroslav Stevanović (Elche), Avdija Vršajević (Hajduk Split), Adnan Zahirović (VfL Bocum), STRIKER- Edin Džeko (Manchester City), Vedad Ibišević (VfB Stuttgart), Edin Višća (Istanbul BB FK) The biggest and best 4 soccer leagues in the World are arguably; Germany's Bundesliga, England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga, and Italy's Serie A. I wanted to breakdown the best 10 teams in International Soccer (as of the FIFA World Rankings on August 6), so that we can see how many of their players come from "The Big 4" and how many are represented in the nations domestic leagues.
These are from the most recent squads (23 players), be they Confederations Cup, International Friendlies or World Cup Qualifiers
15. England - 23 from England; 23 from Big 4 22. United States# - 8 from United States; 8 from Big 4 Bold indicates Big 4 #- US roster pulled from June Qualifiers, instead of Gold Cup (clubs as of July 1) ^- Indicates 26-man roster *- Indicates 21-man roster %- Indicates 25-man roster Quite impressive that teams like Croatia and Columbia find themselves in the Top 10 with so little representation from the Big 4. Many of these teams also feature players at top class clubs that don't belong to the Big 4 like PSG, Benfica & Ajax, they may not compete against the class of Europe every week but they do play many of these squads in European play. Very impressed with England going 100%, though we haven't seen many big English players in continental Europe, the only one I can think of over the past several years has been David Beckham. Even looking through their call-ups going through last September, the only non-English club represented is Celtic of Scotland. How does the US look now that Landon Donovan is back in the fold and Clint Dempsey 7 Clarence Goodson have made their returns to the MLS? Looking pretty good for the Stars & Stripes moving forward. New FIFA rankings come out on August 8th. P4TP |
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