September 5, 2008
USL Soccer.com - FSC Game of the Week
USL Soccer.com - USL 1st Division Standings
USL Soccer.com - USL 1st Division Schedule
Tonight you have the two teams that are tied atop the table facing off in Puerto Rico.
You also have the 6th place team (Montreal) hosting a team tied for 8th place (Minnesota) in the FSC Game of the Week.
Tomorrow's games (Charleston @ Carolina, Portland @ Rochester, and Miami @ Seattle) also have boatloads of playoff implications as the table is so tightly packed that the teams tied for 3rd and the teams tied for 8th are only separated by 6 points with most teams having only 4 games left in the regular season (Montreal has 6 games remaining while Atlanta and Miami have only 3 games left).
It will be interesting to see how much the table shifts between now and when Puerto Rico comes to town a week from tonight.
The two big MLS issues knocking around the internet
Shaka Hislop blog at Guardian.CO.UK
Tweaking the MLS schedule to not conflict with FIFA designated international match days and the continued fallout around New England and Chivas USA getting bounced prior to gorup play in the CONCACAF Champions League are the two big issues knocking around the internet today.
MLS will be lacking a boatload of big name players this weekend as World Cup Qualifying matches take place this weekend.
MLS will look at adapting their 2009 schedule to work around these dates so that teams won't have to deal with playing big games without stars like Landon Donovan, David Beckham, etc.
It's about time!
News & Notes:
- Grant Wahl and Steven Goff continue their reporting from Havana before tomorrow night's Cuba-US match. Soccer America has an interesting piece about how the game isn't really being marketed.
- I'm surprised that only 14,518 fans made it out to Toyota Park for the Chivas de Guadalajara-Club America match.
- The Portland Timbers blog at The Offside.com has a nice match report from Portland's 4-0 home win over Miami FC from last evening. Former Rhino Chase Harrison got the clean sheet for Portland.
- It looks like the newspaper coverage that the Carolina RailHawks get will be getting worse.......
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
