June 13, 2008
The Vancouver Whitecaps hve won their last four matches and currently stand atop the USL 1st Division standings.
The Rhinos are 1-1-1 at home this season and currently at the bottom of the USL 1st Division table.
The good news for the Rhinos will be that Vancouver has had a couple of injuries (midfielder Jeff Clarke and defender Geordie Lyall) and a national team call up of their own (captain Adrian Cann), so the Whitecapswillnot be at full strength this evening.
Plus, there is some good mojo if you look at last evening's USL 1st Division results as the Puerto Rico Islanders jumped out of the basement with a 3-0 home win over the Carolina RailHawks and former Rhinos had big nights with Jonny Steele getting two assists, Noah Delgado had a goal, and in the Portland-Atlanta game Chris Bagley had a goal and David Hayes had an assist.
Perhaps the stars are aligning such that the Rhinos will get a big three points tonight!
News & Notes:
- US Soccer.com has a cool video following Abby Wambach around practice. Abby does need to give Kick This!'s favorite press officer Aaron Heifetz a break when he's officiating training matches.
- Steven Goff says that the winner of the DC-TBD 3rd Round USOC match is not guaranteed to take on the Chicago Fire-TBD winner.
- These pictures (Pic 1 - Pic 2 - Pic 3) shows what happens when a fan runs out on to the field of play to interact with David Beckham when Chris Klein is around. I wonder if Chris wants to work for the Secret Service when he grows up?
- Real Salt Lake's stadium is getting seats installed. It is looking like a really nice venue for soccer.
- You have to check out the second goal that Tony Caig gave up last night in NE's 2-0 win over the Dynamo. Pat Onstad is away on national team duty and that's why Tony was in goal.
- Not every MLS team is looking to host their first USOC match in 2008, but it does appear to be more than have in the past.
- Jozy Altidore has his first blog post at NY Times.com as a member of Villareal.
- ManU might be going after FC Dallas' Brek Shea.
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.
