Can anyone help me find some info on Cesar Alvardo? He played for the Tampa Bay Mutiny for 4 minutes in 1999. I’d like to know his Date of Birth if possible. I know he was selected with the 18th pick in the 1998 supplemental draft by the LA Galaxy. Just a little research that I’m trying to do.
EDIT
Well, forget that. After numerous googling, I was able to find something. odd that i had to do a google image search, and it was the last image.
Someone had to win… or to be more specific, someone had to at least get one point out of this game. Turns out it was the team with the soon to be new coach. For now, the Red Bull sent out former DC United starlet Richie Williams (I always wanted to use that phrase ironically) on a high note (which for Rich is a 12 inch high note) with a 2-0 win in Crew Stadium.
To be honest, I forgot it was on for the first 30 minutes. Turns out I missed nothing. Chris Henderson scored on an assist from Edson Buddle 5 minutes after the half. I’m pretty sure Shep Messing orgasmed over the goal, but it was a solid pass, not really the play of the century the Red Bull announcer portrayed it to be. It was more of a poor play by keeper Noah Palmer than a great play by New York.
No one really did anything for the next 40 minutes until Jerrod Laventure made a wonderful chip from about 35-40 yards out in stoppage time to finish out the Red Bull scoring binge. Pretty poor overall game from two pretty poor overall sides.
We really need some kind of promotion/relegation in US Soccer. Columbus is sporting what can at best be considered an A-League (USL1) squad. Aside from perhaps Eddie Gaven (who hasn’t shown a willingness to play soccer in about 3 years), who else on that team deserves to be in the MLS?
Oh, and Bob Gansler quit from KC. Brian Bliss takes over. The Metros live on in KC. We lose Williams, but gain another.
So The Bruce goes to New York. Can’t say this wasn’t rumored for the last 2 months, but I really thought he’d get a chance to try his hand overseas. I guess the debacle that was the World Cup pretty much blew that. Hey, it’s a good pickup by the Red Bulls. It gives the team more credibility than its had, and maybe he can change the pampered attitude that seems to permeate the side (I’m talking to you Guevara). The best thing that could have happened to New York… except maybe the whole getting rid of Lala to LA.
So in addition to the 11 already named, Nowak and Garber finished up with the final 7 players who get to take on Chelsea in Bridgeview next month. OK, you know what, fuck it, i can’t make heads or tails of who is on the damn 18 man roster, is this thing printed anywhere? The press release on the MLS website says 10 players were added today. Maybe I just can’t count, but I thought I counted only 9 players being added:
Four D.C. United players were included in Nowak and Garber’s 10 overall picks: defender Bobby Boswell, midfielders Freddy Adu and Josh Gros and forward Alecko Eskandarian. Goalkeeper Joe Cannon (Colorado Rapids), midfielders Richard Mulrooney (FC Dallas), Ronnie O’Brien (FC Dallas) and Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids) and Chicago Fire forward Nate Jaqua round out the team.
OK, reading further through the jumbled mess that is the press release, it also seems as though Brian Ching was added, but for some reason, he wasn’t listed with the other 9 players. Why? Are the just trying to confuse the hell out of me? And what’s with having 3 players miss the game because they play the next day? They couldn’t have scheduled the games a little better? It’s not like people wanted to watch Clint Dempsey take on Chelsea or anything.
I officially file this game in the fucking joke category.
So, I have to start by uttering a sentence I never thought I would utter:
“I Miss Max Bretos”
Good God, Brian Feldman is atrocious. Does he know anything about the game? Every time a Revolution player goes down, he screams foul. I understand they pay him to be a homer, and I’ve watched practically every Braves game since 1987 so I know a thing or two about homer announcers, but I honestly didn’t want to watch the game anymore. If I didn’t need the announcing (because you can’t really see anything in a 3×4 box), I would have shut it off. It was truly horrible. And am I the only one who thinks Greg Lalas sounds like Mr. Garrison from South Park? Read the rest of this entry »
So is anyone else a bit nervous to watch the MLS best play Chelsea? I mean, Chelsea is basically a glorified All-Star team as it is. How bad would it be if for some reason Chelsea decided to actually play. The MLS’s First 11 (though they don’t necesarily start… go figure):
G Troy Perkins
D Jimmy Conrad
D Eddie Pope
D Chris Albright
M Dwayne DeRosario
M Landon Donovan
M Christian Gomez
M Deuce
M Shalrie Joseph
F Ante Razov
F Jaime Moreno
First off. I’m not sure what to make of the 3-5-2. At least its more offensive minded than the Bruce, but we’ll be like sheep to the wolves. A backline of Alby, Pope and Conrad will just get passed like no one was looking. Joseph is a pretty imposing figure in the MLS, so it will be interesting to see how that translates against a talented team. I’ll enjoy seeing if Deuce can do anything against an English side. Maybe the attacking flow will encourage Lando to show up.
Personally, I see a 5-1 scoreline in favor of the Brits (errr… the British based team, since they have like 1 brit on the squad). If we play a 3-man backline, we’ll get crushed if Chelsea even brings their B+ side.
OK, so knowing what we know now, should we perhaps take a new look at the US’s performance in the World Cup?
First off, we lost badly to the Czechs. However, they were the #2 team in the world at the time, so should we really have competed? Obviously everyone already believed we were vastly overranked (though looking back so were the Czechs)
Second, we drew with Italy. We played 45 minutes down a man, down to 9 players. Italy just won the World Cup. We were the only team to score against them during the run of play (although we didn’t really score). We were the only team Italy played that didn’t lose to them. We were the only team to draw a point from Italy the whole tourney.
Finally, if not for a poor refereeing decision, we looked to have Ghana at a draw. Who knows what happens if that call isn’t made in the last few seconds of the half.
Was the tourney a disappointment, of course. But we lost to the #2 team, drew the champion, and lost to a team that beat the #2 team by 2 goals and needed a phantom PK to beat us. Was it really as bad as it first seemed? Can I try to get a job alongside Tony Snow?
It seems Frank Yallop has instilled the idea of defense in the heads of the Galaxy. As was repeated ad-naseum by Max Bretos and the other clown in the booth, the Galaxy has now gone 400 some odd minutes without giving up a goal. They had about a 7 minute stretch where they just attacked the hell out of RSL, which ultimately produced the 2-0 scoreline which vaulted them… well it vaulted them nowhere in the standings, but at least they’re firmly in 5th.
Hercules Gomez got a goal… good for him. Actually, it may be Herculez. I’d actually research it, but that would require me to switch tabs in Firefox and I’m a bit too lazy at 12:40. The rookie named Gardner (again too lazy to find a first name, though I’m probably expending more energy telling you about the laziness) scored a short time later after Scott Garlick had a gaffe. It seems he got caught up in his facial hair and was unable to kick the ball out of his box. Inexplicably, he also failed to cover the goal 6 seconds later, instead stopping off for what can only be assumed a nice tea break. How in the hell he didn’t cover the net in time is beyond me. I know he’s older than God, but come on man.
Salt Lake have now gone winless for the past 34 days (oh shit, I have to wish my sister a happy birthday today, that’s going in the calendar) after seemingly turning the corner around the end of May. Meanwhile, the Galaxy have won 3 straight and haven’t lost in 4 games since going winless for 10. Lando seems to have awoken in the MLS, which shouldn’t be surprising since the summer games don’t really matter. Good for him. I’m sure he’s happy in his Crib with his girl (a weird episode of cribs by the way).
So I just turned on the RSL-LA game on MLS.tv. It has some random puff piece from a Fox Sports Channel. Then, the channel changes to RSL v. LA. Turns out MLS has on the wrong TV channel for the game. Seriously, that’s all they’re doing? Hell I could do that if I wanted. All I’d have to do is buy direct ticket and turn on Orb or buy a slingbox. That’s some crazy shit.
Anyway, I’m getting really bad about not recording the MLS Saturday game. I ended up ceding the control over the remote to the lady, so I missed the last 30 or so minutes of the Houston-Chivas match. Seems Houston won 3-1 somehow. The Chivas back line looked horribly pretty much the whole time I was watching. Garcia nearly murdered someone with the two footed jumping tackle. Shameful he didn’t even get a card. Ching looked dangerous in the box, but I couldn’t tell if it was him or just horrible marking.
Also caught the Germany-Portugal 3rd place match. All I can say is I’m thankful Portugal lost. Honestly one of the most disgraceful teams I’ve ever seen. If they spent half as much time playing as flopping, they’d have won the tourney. Instead, they’d rather fail at drawing a PK than win scoring on a shot. I’d love if FIFA grew some balls and banned them from Euro 2008, just out of spite. It’s great how the biggest diving team in the World Cup got the most yellows, something fitting about that. Also, Critiano Ronaldo is a waste of talent, period. He can dance as well as anyone and he finally had a nice shot, but I give it 1 more year before he either gets killed for his diving or people realize he’s just not that talented in getting the ball off his feet.
Anyway, time to re-buffer the game.
That’s right, I’m damn clever. I came up with that amusing title all by myself. That’s right, the blog is back, at least for the evening. With the World Cup consuming all my soccer viewing and the fact that the wi-fi I leach rarely works weekends, I haven’t really been able to follow the MLS much. Well I finally got my chance to watch an MLS match today with with the Refs v. the Reds.
First things first. I’m just happy I got to watch so much soccer today. 120+ minutes of England v. Portugal, or as I like to call them, little Italy. Seriously, it would be disgraceful if those two teams get to the finals. They’re like teenagers in the back of a car with all the going down and flopping they do. Seriously, why is Cristiano Ronaldo considered great? He’s somewhat quick and likes to dance on the ball. He can’t pass, he sucks at crossing, his moves actually do nothing. All he does is shoot. He’s like Arjen Robben but completely unlikeable because he dives so much.
Then, I went shopping. Everything seemed perilous. Suddenly my day of soccer drops to 1 game. I mean, how can you say no to your fiancee (I got a green sweater in 3 hours). So we get home right at 6. Just enough time to walk the dog and see my boy Clint Dempsey score his first goal.
Have I mentioned I went to college with Clint? Yeah, that doesn’t kick ass. So the Revs seem to be dominating, until Edson Buddle makes the NE D look stupid. It was a good run and possibly a better finish with absolutely no angle. Of course, after watching World Cup soccer, watching that made me realize again how far the MLS has to go to be considered a world class league. That run doesn’t happen against a real side.
Twellman knocked home a fine header after, and Mike McGee took one back on another lazy NE play. But my boy Deuce got the game winner. Seriously, he finished that so non-chalantly. Granted, Meola made a mess of it, but perfectly placed shot. My only concern is that he’s getting a bit full of himself. To be honest he looked bored in the game. The thing was, it wasn’t a Donovan “bored so I won’t play” kind of thing. It was almost like Dempsey was sleepwalking, but he still managed to beat NY easily. He needs to move on by the end of the year or else he’ll waste away in the MLS.
NY fought hard most of the game, but they were clearly outmatched. Buddle looks strong on the ball. Not technically strong, but like a bull. Kid is a hoss. He seems to have awoken a little in NY after disappering in Columbus for a while. He always seemed like he would be a good holding parter for Johnson on the Nats. Not that strong in the air from what I saw, more of a Connor Casey thick kind of guy.
Nice to Mike Magee is still alive. I was getting worried there for a while. Marvell Wynne is going to have to work on his D. Twellman was his mark on the goal. He never looked dangerous venturing up the wing and he’s not as good with the ball as he thinks he is. He’s still got a lot to work on before he’s going to figure in with the US side (especially if Dolo can keep his self going for 1 more cycle).
Disgraceful display by Guevara on the flop, almost C. Ronaldo-esque. John was dumb for shoving him, but it was a yellow at the worst. New England is going to be a force in the second half if they can regain their focus. The team does have a tendency to look uninterested. Joseph looks to have gotten in the habit of venturing forward a little more than I’d like, which leads to the defense being out of shape.
So there is a bit of a retelling of my first MLS game in almost a month. Meanwhile, I almost watch Chasing Liberty to appease for all the soccer I’ve made my fiancee watch (and would I really need to justify watching a Mandy Moore movie? I mean, its Mandy Moore). But lo and behold, ESPN shows the France-Brazil match again. Obviously I mortgage the rest of my 4-day weekend to appease the missus, but I watch that. Ahhh I feel good now.
300+ minutes of soccer later, and what am i doing? Well, blogging obviously, but I’m watching ESPN baseball highlights on TV. Oh, and watching two games on MLS.tv. i may hate soccer soon, but it’s really a risk I’m willing to take.
