August 14, 2007
Congrats to Scott Vallow and John Ball for being named to the USL 1st Division Team of the Week.
However, you've got to be kidding me that a forward with a pair of goals in a pair of wins is more worthy of the Player of the Week award than a goalkeeper who gets two shutout wins when his team was outshot by a two to one margin in total over the two games.
And given that Taylor Graham scored another goal for the Seattle Sounders, perhaps he would have been a good fit to replace Deli's size up top?
Rochester won't be the kick off city for this edition of the USWNT's Fan Celebration Tour
St. Louis has already been awarded the first post-World Cup match by US Soccer. The US Women will face Mexico at the Edward James Dome on October 19th.
The USWNT opens World Cup play against North Korea on September 11th.
News & Notes
- US Soccer also made the US-Brazil makeup game for the cancelled US-Mexico game at Azteca official. Bob Bradley also named his roster for the upcoming friendly versus Sweden. Landon Donovan and Pablo Mastroeni are the only two MLS based players that will be making the trip across the pond for the match.
- Freddy Adu made his Benfica debut today when he entered their match as a substitute. Benfica defeated FC Copenhagen 2-1 in a Champions League qualifying match.
- Ives Galarcep believes that Jozy Altidore's price just keeps going up. His two goal performance against Toronto FC can't hurt. Especially that first touch on his second goal.
- The NJ Ironmen announced today that Tony Meola has signed with the team and will be with the team when they open their preseason on September 16th.
And now for the David Beckham portion of the program:
- SI's Grant Wahl , whom we found out on Saturday is following Beckham around and writing a book about the LA midfielder's first season in MLS, opened his latest mailbag talking about Beckham.
- Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer.com points out that MLS is allowing the Galaxy to charter flights when they nixed the idea when it was the Red Bulls asking for permission. I guess Beckham has more pull than Captain America and Bruce Arena.
- I have to give George Solomon props and Mike Biglin the big thumbs down. Or, to be more accurate, the accolades and the boos go to whomever is responsible for the headlines of the two articles. Seriously, the "Bench it like Beckham" tagline was cool the first time I saw it. Now it's getting old. Fast.
- "Spend it like Beckham" is another good line. Is it really that hard to get creative?
- "Beckham won't buzz off" That answers that question. It isn't hard to come up with some catchy little titles for Beckham articles. Let's just hope that the next batch of Becks articles actually has something to do with his play on the field........
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.
