HexagonalBlog

Ariel Ortega to FCD?

Argentine sports daily Olé is reporting that FC Dallas is making an offer to former Argentina World Cup midfielder (and current River Plate player) Ariel Ortega.  Olé links to this story on the Dallas Morning News website, but from reading the article it appears that Ortega is part of a group of players at River that John Ellinger will take a look at.   Ortega had fallen out of favor with Diego Simeone and the River Plate management, but relations are much better now and I doubt that they would let him go.  I would rate FCD's chances of signing him under 25 percent.

Even if they managed to get him, FC Dallas would be taking a gamble with Ariel Ortega, almost as big as the one they took when they signed Denilson.  Ortega has been one of the most gifted Argentine midfielders of his generation, and when he was at his best he was one of the best midfielders in the world, but his recurring problems with alcohol have started to take a toll on him.  Looking back, that fiasco of a transfer to Fenerbahce was the turning point of Ortega's career.  Dallas would serve as a change of scenery that could be beneficial to him, but the Hoops need to go into this decision with eyes wide open.

FC Dallas is also receiving offers from Steaua Bucharest for Juan Toja, and if he goes they would need to sign a midfielder and striker during the transfer period.

Where's yours, CONCACAF?

It is now 38 days before the start of the CONCACAF Champions League.

CONCACAF had a "Champions League Summit" to discuss logistical and competition-related issues among the participants.  One might think that this means that a publication of rules and regulations has been published, but I have yet to see one on the CONCACAF website (but you can find rules/regulations for the defunct(?) Champions' Cup).  None of the websites of the clubs that will be participating in the Champions League have articles that go into any detail on the meetings, either.

I thought it would be a good idea to place, on a single post, the rules and regulations of the continental club competitions for the other five confederations.

Below are the regulation documents for:

• the UEFA Champions League,
• CONMEBOL's Copa Libertadores,
• the CAF Champions League,
• the AFC Champions League,
• and the O-League (Oceania Champions League).

All right CONCACAF, where's yours?  Chuck Blazer says on his blog that he's busy, but he's not too busy to bang out a longish post on Nelson Mandela's principles for leadership.  Surely he can find some time to contact some underling to post the regulations to the CONCACAF website - provided that they've finished transcribing them from the napkins. 

Revolutionary heroes

Tomorrow, the New England Revolution will play Chivas USA in a SuperLiga match.  But three members of the Revs staff have already distinguished themselves by subduing a disruptive passenger on their Boston-Los Angeles flight a few days ago.  I'm pretty sure that Mike Burns, Craig Tornberg, and Gwynne Williams don't necessarily see themselves as heroes but rather as people who did what needed to be done at the time.  And for that, the rest of us are grateful.

Incidentally, Mike Burns was a defender on the 1998 US World Cup team.

Maybe CONCACAF will clue us in

So last week CONCACAF held a "Champions League Summit" with the participating teams, and it seems that they've made some progress with regulations, sponsorship, and other logistics.  Perhaps they'll clue the rest of us on what kind of progress they've made.  Who knows; it could inspire some confidence that CONCACAF might actually pull off this Champions League endeavor.

Chuck Blazer has a blog

Okay, he's had a blog for a while.  But I'm only noticing or caring now.

Looks like it's really him.  Lots of name-dropping and schmoozing going on.  Being a high-level official of an international federation has its perks, doesn't it?

A trip to an Arizona Rush game

If you drive around Tucson it's possible to find billboards advertising Arizona Rush soccer matches.  I knew that they were a women's team in the semi-pro WPSL, but not much more than that.  Two weeks ago I finally got around to seeing a match and I traveled to the University of Arizona's Murphey Field to watch the Rush play the Utah Spiders.

Arizona Rush are having a very good season at the top of their division with an unbeaten home record.  I arrived about 20 minutes into the game, and the Rush had already scored.  Sure enough, that would be the only goal of the game.  There was some good play from the midfielders on both sides -- such as Alexandra Davis who plays a central playmaker role for the Rush and the Utah #10 (don't remember her name) who plays on the wings -- but there were few scoring opportunities.  Most of the players are college level players drawn from the local universities, with a few players from out-of-state universities and a couple more with WUSA experience.  The crowd was what you'd expect for a semi-pro league, small (around 100) and relaxed.  I ended up sitting next to a woman who plays goalkeeper for Berkeley (I looked past that) and the Sacramento WPSL team, and I learned quite a bit about the players on both sides. 

Murphey Field is about two miles from the UA campus, in a complex with some other athletic facilities that can't be accommodated on the main campus (University of Arizona's campus is very compact, very much like Georgia Tech).  All of the stands are on one side, with tall trees bordering one end of the field.  I haven't been to a UA soccer match but I can't imagine them drawing more than a modest crowd.  It's not an easy stadium to get to, and you can't walk to it from the main campus (I suppose you could, but I wouldn't want to, especially at night).   The natural grass field looks to be in decent shape with the exception of a few brown spots. 

The WPSL seems to be a feminine analogue of the USL's Premier Development League: an opportunity for college-level players to play competitive matches during the off season.  In the wake of the WUSA's demise, it's also served as an opportunity for former top-flight players to remain in playing shape.  I think the WPSL is one division below the W-League on the American women's soccer pyramid, but I doubt that there exists a big drop in playing quality between the two leagues.  Both leagues are big enough and distributed enough that a promotion/relegation scheme might work.  Don't expect such a setup between the professional league -- whenever it starts up -- and the W-League/WPSL; perhaps some sort of feeder network with affiliations with the professional teams (like baseball) will occur. Heck, it would be better if the professional soccer leagues in this country knew that the lower divisions even existed, which I doubt if some of their decisions are anything to go by.

Anyway, it was a nice evening out.  Unfortunately it won't be able to attend any more games this season (their home finale was Wednesday July 2nd, when I was out of town, and then the playoffs), but I'll watch out for those billboards next season.

Montreal's to lose

The Montreal Impact are celebrating tonight's 2-2 draw between Vancouver and Toronto FC.  TFC came back nicely to take the lead after falling behind just before halftime, only to give up the lead three minutes from time.  Eduardo Sebrango took advantage of a shockingly bad Edu clearance, rounded 'keeper Greg Sutton, and slotted the ball into the net. 

The result eliminates the Whitecaps from the Championship and means that the Impact only need one more point to secure the sole Canadian place in the Champions League.  The catch is that the Impact will have to get that one point from a sea of red in BMO Field on 22 July.

CBC gets the Champions League wrong

I was watching the first half of the Vancouver Whitecaps-Toronto FC match for the Canadian Championship (now showing on the CBC Sports website), when I heard the main CBC commentator say that the winner of the Championship would playoff against the Nicaraguan representative, and then the winner would enter group play at the beginning of 2009.  That's not correct; group play actually starts in mid-September and continues through the end of October.

Maybe the commentator misspoke -- not impossible, it's extemporaneous speaking after all -- but I would have thought that he would have had a clear handle on the facts of the tournament.  And they're not hard to find either, as one can go to CONCACAF's official site or a number of other websites like this one.

Costa Rica and Panama have new coaches

Last week Costa Rica made a replacement for Hernán Medford at the helm of the national team.  His name is Rodrigo Kenton, a Costa Rican with extensive experience with national teams.  He was an assistant coach to Bora Milutinovic when he coached Costa Rica in 1990 and Nigeria in 1998, and he was also a manager of the junior teams in Costa Rica (which he qualified for the 2004 Olympics) and Guatemala.  Kenton becomes the 24th Costa Rican to lead the national team.

Panama made their move today, selecting the Englishman (and longtime Panamanian resident) Gary Stempel as the national team coach.  Stempel was the manager of Apertura champions San Francisco FC, but he also had experience with Panama's U-20s, who he led to their first U-20 World Cup in 2003.  As you can tell from the post-match interview on this clip, Stempel has a very good command of the local language. 

Obviously, Costa Rica needed to hire a new coach for the next round of World Cup qualifying, but why was Panama in a hurry when they had nothing to play for?  The answer is the UNCAF Nations Cup,  which will take place in Panama early next year.  Federation president Ariel Alvarado gave the Cup as the motive for the quick hire. 

In the end, both federations went with coaches who have intimate knowledge of their countries' youth national teams, some of whose graduates now make significant contributions to the senior team.

One more slot for the Champions League

Well I hope those of you in the USA had an enjoyable and safe 4th of July weekend.  I returned late on Sunday and worked very late on Monday, so I'm just getting to a new post tonight.

It looks like the timing of my earlier post on the Champions League was perfect, as the Guatemalan and Nicaraguan playoffs were played last week.  Municipal defeated Deportivo Jalapa 3-2 on aggregate to advance to the group stage (Jalapa to the preliminary round), while Real Estelí defeated Walter Ferreti 1-0 on aggregate to earn Nicaragua's only slot into the continental competition.  The Honduran playoff is being played as I'm writing this, and it's a single match in San Pedro Sula between Olimpia and Marathón.

So now there is just one more slot to be decided for the Champions League, and it will come from the winner of the Canadian Championship.  Toronto FC blew a chance to take control of the competition when they lost 1-0 at home to the Vancouver Whitecaps.  Tomorrow's match in Vancouver between the 'Caps and TFC will be critical to the MLS side's chances.  Montreal Impact is waiting the final match of the competition against TFC on 22 July, knowing that they will only need a point to win the championship.

UPDATE (2029): Olimpia have just won 3-1 over Marathón, so they will advance directly to the group stage while Marathón play Isidro Metapán in the qualifying round.