Giant Match Fixing Scandal Brewing in Europe (Again)

Here we go again. 40 teams are implicated in a match fixing scandal in Europe. The games cover Champions League, UEFA Cup and Europa Cup fixtures. Of course the sophisticated Europeans are blaming it on a few bad seeds from Eastern Europe (gee, it's not like AC Milan or FC Porto would get caught up in match-fixing now would they?)

Saragosa Suspended Two Games for Montero Facial

Here's some more soccer violence for ya!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52t5ifcmoxM&NR=1&feature=fvwp

MLS Set to Recognize FIFA World Cup

For all of its existence, MLS has stood fast in its belief that the World Cup does not warrant a pause in league play. The joke was always that there wouldn't be any MLS players in the World Cup so what's the big deal? Well, it appears that someone at MLS HQ has convinced the bigwigs that the World Cup is, indeed, a legitimate soccer tournament worthy of league stoppage. This represents an enormous sea change in MLS ideology and may signal that the people running MLS have actually started watching soccer.

And You Thought Josh Wicks Was Nuts...

Check out what Adebayor does to Van Persie at 11 seconds...

Dallas destroys LA Galaxy 6-3 at LA

LA played the worst half of soccer I've seen since Montreal's Epic Fail against Santos Laguna in last year's Champions League. Dallas absolutely owned the midfield and the offensive zone. It was really embarrasing to watch LA revert back to it's unbalanced crappy self after the nice little run it had put together.

And Up the Table They Go!

Sounders beat DC United 2-1 tonight, earning 3 points and pushing them up the league table, at least until the rest of the weekend games are decided. The Ravers almost blew it by giving up a 1-0 lead in the second half, but Fredy Montero put them back ahead late in the game. Ljungberg was absent due to yellow cards but that didn't seem to matter at all to the Sounders since their passes and crosses were crisp and their defending stout. Sounders now have 37 points. Figure they need 40 to 43 total points to make it to the playoffs and they're looking pretty good going into the rest of the regular season.

Anyone else notice that the Sounders score lots of goals when Levesque subs in? Add all those created opportunities with two US Open Cup and you come to the inevitable conclusion that he's a screaming deal at $40,000 per year.

We Aren't Crying for You, Argentina!

Argentina loses 1-0 to mighty Paraguay. They are now in a desperate race to claim the fifth non-guaranteed World Cup entry spot in CONMEBOL. Another nail in Maradona's coaching coffin:



Maradona is now 1-4 in World Cup Qualifying matches as a manager. His team can't stand him.

Imagine a World Cup without Lionel Messi? It might happen...

Sounders Salaries Released

MLS has released the Sounders salaries and it makes for very interesting reading, particularly since you, dear reader, probably make more than many of them. Leonardo Gonzalez is not on the list. Freddie Ljungberg is our top paid player by a mile at $1.3M. Kasey Keller is next at $300,000, and then the salaries drop all the way down to $20,000. Here is our opinion on the wages of each player:

Player Salary Judgement
Freddie Ljungberg $1,314,000 - Overpaid: lack of leadership / screams at refs
Kasey Keller $300,000 - No amount is too much for KaKe.
Nate Jaqua $208,121 - Fair deal, but Montero should be up here
Steve Zakuani $163,000 - Needs to start scoring at that pay level
Tyrone Marshall $161,250 - Must have a good agent
Peter Vagenas $158,400 - Fair deal: why doesn't he start more Sigi?
Fredy Montero $155,000 - Should be higher than Jaqua but he's younger
Nathan Sturgis $133,000 - 5 starts at that salary? Trade bait.
Sebastien Le Toux $112,000 - Underpaid: Huge heart and a better free kicker than Ljungberg (hell, Vagenas is a better corner kicker than Ljungberg)
James Riley $72,625 - Underpaid: Rock solid at right defence
Patrick Ianni $72,000 - Underpaid: Goal of the week / adds depth on D
Osvaldo Alonso $65,000 - Are you freaking serious? Way underpaid
Taylor Graham $55,000 - Stanford grads are always overpaid.
Chris Eylander $45,500 - Underpaid: Keller backup
Brad Evans $44,550 - MASSIVELY UNDERPAID - National Team Player
Roger Levesque $40,008 - MASSIVELY UNDERPAID - 2 US Open Cup Game Winners
Zach Scott $40,008 - Trade bait
Jhon Kennedy Hurtado $37,000 - MASSIVELY UNDERPAID - As good as Marshall
Tyson Wahl $34,650 - On his way out with arrival of Gonzalez
Ben Dragavon $34,000 - No opinion, but also a cool name
Stephen King $34,000 - Underpaid: Adds depth at midfield + cool name
Sanna Nyassi $20,100 - And the award for most underpaid Sounders goes to...Sanna Nyassi! The guy comes in late in most games and is solid at midfield, has more appearances and shots than Vagenas, and adds attacking depth at midfield.

Observations: The Sounders are following the MLS rule where you pay all your money to attackers and goalies and throw in some cheap defenders. Hopefully the signing of Gonzalez is evidence that the Sounders understand that you actually need quality defenders on a professional soccer team.

Financial Analysis:The Sounders are selling 33,000 tickets per game at about $25 per ticket. This works out to $825000 per game in gate receipts alone, or over $16M for the season. Typically, you'd expect salaries to equal 40% - 60% of a team's gate receipts, but the Sounders are paying out about 25%. Of course, with the salary cap they are restricted on what they can spend. The question is: what are they going to do with all that money?

Conclusion: You could sign ten Latin American stars for the price of Freddie Ljungberg, all of who would run circles around most MLS defenders. Houston understands this and have signed young Latin American star Lundin as their designated player.

The future of MLS lies in Latin America, not Europe.

DC United beats KC

DC United beat KC at RFK stadium tonight. DC continues to climb the table in the east. The one good thing for the Sounders out of the game is that DC only has 3 days to prepare for the Sounders-United matchup on Saturday.

We still hate DC.