Category: Uncategorized

OLSEN INTERVIEW

| admin

The manager of DC United, Ben Olsen, had recently been in Germany for a while. He had been spending a bit of time with the manager of Borussia Monchengladbach, Lucien Favre, there. He has now come back to USA and has started working on his plans for the next season.

In one of his interviews a couple of days back, when Olsen was asked about the reason behind him visiting Favre recently, he said, “I remain in contact with Favre. He is a man who has been managing teams since a long time and he has got a lot of knowledge about the game. It’s always good to spend some time with experienced coaches especially for somebody like me who is still young in this field. I must say that I learnt a lot from that trip.”

When asked if he had gone there for scouting purpose as well, Olsen said, “As a manager, whenever you go to a different country to watch the league over there, you have this thing in your mind. But, the main reason for me to go there was to spend some time with Favre and see how he goes about his job.”

When asked if his Staff is scouting in different countries at the moment, Olsen said, “No, my Staff is watching college matches these days and they have some other work to do here as well. So, all of them are currently here in USA.”

During the previous season, DC United had performed pretty poorly. They had won just 3 games in the entire league and had managed to secure just 16 points from their 34 league games. They were at the last position in the Eastern Conference points table at the end of the league.

DRAW

| admin

Seattle Sounders and LA Galaxy were involved in a 1-1 draw, which gave Real Salt Lake a great opportunity to go top of the table once again. The team was coming into the match against San Jose after having suffered a 2-0 defeat against Seattle Sounders in the previous week. Hence, there was a need for three points from Jason Kreis’ perspective because Seattle have the advantage of having matches in hand over Real Salt Lake. The team needed to win this match against San Jose in order to have a chance of winning the title, but they blew the chance after a 2-1 defeat.

Lenhart scored either side of a goal from Javier Morales in the first half to give the away team three points. All the goals in a match were scored between 18 minutes and 21 minutes in a frantic period. At the end of the day, though, it was Real Salt Lake who were disappointed with the result especially because it was home encounter. After the match, Morales tried to lift his teammates by saying that this result does not mean the end of the day, but it does give Seattle a great chance to win the title.

He has admitted that winning the title from this position will be tough.

“It’s a little bit hard. We have to be realistic. Right now it’s going to be hard. Seattle has more points than us in fewer games than us. Now we have to focus and improve our soccer and our team. If we want to be in the MLS Cup, we have a lot of work,” said Morales. “I probably still won’t be ready to throw in the towel on the Supporters’ Shield. But perhaps I will,” said Kreis after the match. Real Salt Lake will next be playing against Vancouver.

KANSAS STRUGGLE FOR FORM

| admin

Sporting Kansas City have been struggling a lot for form in the last month and it finally looked like they were going to get back on track with a victory over Dallas FC. However, they were held to a draw by Dallas. The result, though, did not affect the manager because he said that he is extremely happy with the performance of his players. Kansas managed to score two goals and go 2-0 up in the match after just 57 min. However, Dallas managed to create a stunning comeback in the final few minutes of the match to secure draw.

Sporting Kansas City manager, though, praised his players because they played with just 10 men for the last 20 min due to the red card for Sapong. Kamara and Watson had Kansas the lead early in the match. Kamara scored from the penalty, while Watson’s own goal was enough to hand Kansas a two-goal advantage. A victory would have been a real morale booster for the club who have been on a poor run of form in the last month. Jacobson pulled one back for Dallas in the 89th minute, while Zimmerman’s injury time equaliser helped Dallas secured at least a point from the encounter.

Kansas City will next be facing Columbus Crew.

“They’re the team with the most points in the league at this point, unbeaten at home, and we’re leading 2-0 until we went a man down. We did a good job to get out of here with a point. I’m not saying that’s where we wanted to be. We’re disappointed to get the point and not to get three, but the guys worked very hard. I’m proud of them. It was the end of the game and they were throwing numbers in there,” said the Kansas city manager.

TIME FOR CHANGE

| admin

LA Galaxy manager Bruce Arena has said that it is about time he thought about the change in the penalty taking specialist within the team. This decision by the manager came after the second penalty of the season for Landon Donovan. The US international recently returned to first team action after taking a four month sabbatical from the game. However, he has missed the two penalties that he has received since returning to first-team action. The missed penalties have proven to be extremely costly for the team, which has made manager Arena look at this aspect.

Donovan’s latest miss came in the match against Houston Dynamo. The miss proved to be extremely costly as Galaxy have gone on to lose both matches 1-0. Arena has pointed out to this fact and has stated that he will probably assigning a different player for the penalty taking duties from next match onwards. Robbie Keane could become the designated penalty taker for LA Galaxy, as he has a great experience and record of converting penalties from his days stretching back to Tottenham. MLS Golden Boot co-leader Mike Magee, though, has said that it is a very high price for Donovan to pay for his two misses.

“I’m not doing the job, so someone else is going to have to do it, but aside from that, we’ve got to play better. Certainly, goals change games, and I could have made a difference and changed the game, but it happens and you have to move on,” said Donovan. “Never good to miss a penalty kick. We’re probably going to have to change that. He’s missed two in two games that we’ve lost, 1-0. Not good, so we probably need to make a change there,” said Arena. LA Galaxy are seven points behind leaders FC Dallas in the Western Conference table.

ADU SET FOR RETURN

| admin

Freddy Adu’s much hyped second spell in the MLS could soon be over after the striker is set to join the Brazilian club Bahia according to the manager of Philadelphia Union – John Hackworth. He has said that the MLS club will be getting the World Cup veteran Kléberson as part of the deal. The 33-year-old Brazilian international is expected to provide some much needed quality in the attack after the failure of Adu. Adu was spoken of as the next big thing in world football. However, the striker has failed spectacularly in several spells in Europe and the MLS.

Hackworth, though, has said that the deal has not been finalised yet, but he does expect it to go through in the next few days. It is understood that Philadelphia Union will not be offering any transfer fee for the Brazilian. Instead, this deal is thought to be a straight swap between the two clubs. Adu came to the MLS for his second stint back in 2011. However, the former wonderkid has not been part of the first team plans after the new manager John Hackworth, who took over the reins in the summer. At the start of the pre-season, Hackworth revealed that Adu does not figure in his plans.

“It’s a complicated deal. But ultimately we’re going to get Kléberson here, they’re going to get Adu and we’re not going to be able to recover salary cap space in that. From Europe to Asia to Australia to South America to Mexico, there was interest in Freddy Adu. He’s the type of player and has the type of name that I think attracts that interest no matter what. Finding that situation that worked out for both parties has been much more difficult,” said Hackworth, whose team have stormed into the second position in the table.