Soccer archive

It can not. I think the World Cup is the place appear dark horse. He is the focus of world attention.

The new National Premier Soccer League team in Lansing has a name, and a name player.

Team owner Jeremy Sampson revealed the name of his new club, Lansing United, and introduced Major League Soccer veteran Thabiso “Boy😴” (pronounced BOY-zee) Khumalo as its first player at the team’s launch party at Jimmy’s Pub in East Lansing Wednesday night.

Sampson estimated the turnout at the party at about 150 people, some of them recognizable members of the Lansing soccer community.

“It was better than I expected,” Sampson said. “You’re always nervous when you’re unveiling something new, but they really seemed to like the name and the logo. A night like tonight, honestly, shows that the support is there and that the community is going to support our team.”

The newly unveiled logo includes a team motto, “Conjunctis Viribus,” which is Latin for “Joining Together.”

“Lansing United speaks to what I want this to be about,” Sampson said. “I want this to unite the soccer community in Lansing and I hope the fans enjoy it.”

Khumalo, 33, was born in South Africa before moving to the US at age 16.

He played parts of three seasons for Major League Soccer’s DC United, and has played for minor-league pro teams Charleston Battery, Wilmington (NC) Hammerheads and Pittsburgh Riverhounds.

The new team will consist mainly of college players looking for high-level completion in the NCAA off-season.

United head coach Eric Rudland said that Khumalo is the perfect player to build a new team around.

“He’s a true number 10, a playmaker,” Rudland said. “If you have somebody like that in your midfield, you can definitely put players around him that make everybody look good. He’s going to make the players around him even better, and he’s going to help attract better players because people are going to want to play with him.”

Khumalo said that he wants to not just play for the team, but help cement the club as a permanent fixture in the Lansing area.

“It’s good for the city to have a club that little kids growing up can look up to and go to games,” Khumalo said. “It’s not easy for kids to go to MLS games, so this team will make a difference in the community.”

The team will begin NPSL play next May. Sampson said that the timing is right for the birth of the new club.

“2014 is a World Cup year, and you know there’s always a spike in interest in soccer during a World Cup year,” he said. “And a turnout like tonight shows an interest in the team.”



www-lansingstatejournal-com/article/20131106/SPORTS/311060070/Name-Lansing-soccer-team-unveiled

In its final game of the regular season, Arizona soccer (8-7-4, 3-6-1 Pac-12 Conference) takes on ASU this Thursday at Murphey Field at Mulcahy Soccer Stadium. For three Wildcats — Jazmin Ponce, Ana-Maria Montoya and Shannon Heinzler — Thursday afternoon’s game will be their final home game at Arizona.

Ponce, whose 10 goals this season tie her for second-most in the Pac-12, said games with ASU are unlike any other games on the Wildcats’ schedule.

“It’s just a different game,” Ponce said. “Both teams are just out to get each other because it’s a rivalry.”

Last weekend, Arizona won its first home game in more than a month when the Wildcats beat Colorado 3-0 on Sunday after suffering a 1-0 overtime defeat Friday at the hands of Utah. The victory over Colorado bumped the Wildcats up to ninth place in the conference and gives them the chance to jump as high as seventh place with a victory over the Sun Devils.

In Arizona’s 3-0 victory over Colorado, Wildcat junior forward and former Sun Devil Ali Doller scored her seventh goal of the season. Doller said she is excited about playing against her former team because she still has friends on the ASU team, but her Wildcat teammates, including goalkeeper Gabby Kaufman, will also be lending her plenty of support.

“It’s always a big rivalry game for every sport,” Kaufman said. “We have Ali Doller on our team and we all have her back, which gives us a little extra fight, but every game against ASU is going to be a battle.”

ASU (9-7-2, 4-4-2 Pac-12) is coming off a successful weekend against Colorado and Utah, pulling out a tie against the Buffs on Friday followed by a 2-1 overtime victory over the Utes on Sunday.

Despite being tied for fifth in the conference standings, the Sun Devils have been average on offense and defense this season, ranking near the bottom of the Pac-12 in both goals scored and goals allowed.

ASU’s offense is led by sophomore forward Cali Farquharson, who, like Ponce, is tied for second-best in the conference with 10 goals. Senior forward Devin Marshall has six goals of her own to go along with three assists.

Wildcat head coach Tony Amato said he understood the magnitude of the ASU rivalry as soon as he arrived in Tucson.

“Obviously, from the first second I got here, I was hit with how important that rivalry is,” Amato said. “It sets up perfectly for us coming off a good game with a couple days to prepare. It’s something that we really want — to make sure we are the best team in the state and try and get the result from the first season I’m here. We are going to put everything we have into the game, and I think the girls will respond to it.”

Thursday’s “Red-Out” game begins at 2 p.m. and will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.




Arizona Daily Wildcat :: Soccer faces rival ASU in last home game

Ernie Merrick remained frustrated in his search for a maiden victory with the Phoenix but today's draw would have left the man he replaced more than satisfied.

Ricki Herbert had particular reason to pay attention to his former club's clash with Perth, with no fewer than five All Whites involved ahead of next week's pivotal match against Mexico.

The troupe of internationals all emerged unscathed from the 1-1 stalemate against Perth - which left the Phoenix without a win from five games - before dashing off to Christchurch airport to begin the long journey to Los Angeles ahead of Thursday's World Cup qualifier.

The health of Andrew Durante and Ben Sigmund was especially important to Herbert's cause after Winston Reid's withdrawal earlier in the week, and both men defended well throughout to keep quiet a Perth attack featuring All Whites teammate Shane Smeltz.

Durante even managed a rare goal in his record-breaking 132nd appearance for the Phoenix, putting his side ahead after four minutes with a third career strike. Smeltz was replaced early in the second spell after showing some nice touches in his second match since returning from injury.

His Glory teammates rebounded from conceding for the first time since round one, snapping a streak of three straight clean sheets, with Ryo Nagai finding the equaliser in what was at times a dour encounter.

An uneventful first half saw neither goalkeeper called upon to make a genuine save and required only to pick the ball out of the back of the net.

The Phoenix began positively and were rewarded for their efforts inside five minutes. After Stein Huysegems was brought down to the left of the area, Danny Vukovic found himself in no-man's land as Carlos Hernandez's free kick slipped through to Durante, who applied an unorthodox but effective finish at the far post.

The Glory grew into the game as the half wore on and were applying particular pressure on Louis Fenton at right break, the channel which produced an equaliser on the half hour.

Fenton was caught pressing high and Sidnei Sciola Moraes was released down the left, making his way into the penalty area and waiting for Ben Sigmund to go to ground before squaring to Nagai to apply the finishing touch.

Though they spent more time in the opposing half, the Phoenix were continually struggling for either a final ball or a shot on target, exemplified through some wayward set pieces following their early success.

Merrick had evidently seen enough from Fenton in the first half, dragging him off at halftime for Jason Hicks and shifting Manny Muscat to right back. The Maltese international was far more capable dealing with the threat of Sidnei, using his strength well to negate the Brazilian's influence.

And Merrick could have been made to look like a mastermind had Hicks made use of a golden opportunity in a game with few of them, but the midfielder sliced his shot well wide after Brockie's cross found him in space.

Paul Ifill was soon summoned from the bench for his 100th match for the club, making an immediate influence by showing a more direct approach and taking on the Perth defenders. One such run brought about a free kick to give Sigmund a chance to replicate his late heroics from Wellington's last match in Christchurch, but this time his header was narrowly wide.

The Phoenix were almost made to pay for the pair of misses, only for Jamie Maclaren to blaze over from a tough angle after rounding Glen Moss, the last real opportunity to pinch the points.

Phoenix 1 (Durante 3)
Glory 1 (Nagai 29)
HT: 1-1





Soccer: Merrick still waiting on first win - Sport - NZ Herald News

A lot has changed for "soccer" in the US since Steve Nicol arrived nearly 15 years ago.

"When I first got here I couldn't find the football scores in the papers. Now you can watch live games from any league you want," says the former Liverpool and Scotland star, who went west in 1999 to take a player-coach role at the A-League's Boston Bulldogs.

The league and Bulldogs are no more - going the way of so many American soccer experiments before them - but Nicol stayed, moving to Major League Soccer's (MLS) New England Revolution, where he spent 10 seasons at the heart of something close to a football revolution.

MLS is currently coming to the end of its 18th season, which makes it the longest running professional football league in US history, beating the old North American Soccer League's (NASL) 17-season run from 1968 to 1984.

An average of nearly 18,500 fans have attended this season's games, putting MLS third behind the National Football League and Major League Baseball in terms of gates in US professional sport, and comfortably in the world's top 10 football leagues.

It is also growing. Having had only 10 teams as recently as 2004, 19 teams, three of them in Canada, played this season. A 20th, the Manchester City-backed New York City, joins in 2015, with four more "franchises" by 2020 - David Beckham's Miami "Nice" being perhaps the most eagerly anticipated.

MLS teams have also built or renovated 10 stadiums since 2005, and with many of them initially being unhappy tenants in venues designed for other sports, most now play in "soccer-specific" venues that have helped boost fan-bases and finances.

This has brought a more confident outlook. The league that nervously ripped up its rule book and threw money at Beckham in 2007 (and tolerated a fairly modest return on investment in purely football terms), has shown its new ambition by bringing in the likes of Tim Cahill, Thierry Henry and, most recently, Clint Dempsey.

So is it time for us snooty, Old World-types to put aside our Ted Lasso stereotypes and start taking the MLS more seriously?

"Our goal is to be among the world's top leagues by 2022," says MLS's senior spokesman Dan Courtemanche. That target will be measured on four criteria: the quality of play on the field, the passion of the fans, the relevance of MLS clubs in their "home markets" and overall financial viability.

"We have a group of owners who have been successful in business and their goal is to be profitable - look at the Bundesliga, that's our vision," adds Courtemanche. If World Soccer is to be believed, MLS is almost there. Earlier this year, the London-based magazine ranked America's top flight as the seventh best league in the world.

The Bundesliga and Premier League were first and second, but MLS, buoyed by high marks for competitive balance, crowds and venues, was just behind Mexico's Liga MX, and ahead of the Dutch, French and Russian leagues. Where MLS did not score so well, however, was on the actual football.

"They have done everything in terms of getting the league going - they've built it almost from scratch," says Nicol, who took the New England Revolution to four MLS Cups, the pinnacle of the US season, but lost all four.

"But what they have to do now is improve the product. That means bringing in better players, or producing more of their own."

Nicol says MLS clubs are trying to do both, but worries that the league's growth has diluted the quality.

"Seven or eight years ago I thought the best teams could have scrapped it out in the Premier League, but now they are more like Championship teams, top six perhaps," he says. "There are just too many teams for the number of good players they've got. Take this move to 24 teams. Forget the squads, just look at the first teams: that's nearly 270 players. That will mean a lot of players having careers they shouldn't have."

Nicol's theory would seem to be borne out by MLS results in the Concacaf Champions League, the competition for the best teams in North and Central America and the Caribbean. Only two MLS teams have won it, and that was when it was easier to win as a knock-out tournament. Since the LA Galaxy's victory in 2000, Real Salt Lake's runner-up prize in 2011 is the closest they have come. Mexican teams dominate.

But the real reason for this failure to kick on as a league in terms of quality is more complicated than a simple labour supply problem. There are 350 million Americans and Canadians, they are two of the richest groups of people to have ever walked the planet and, as Nicol points out, a lack of athletic ability is not the issue: MLS has the means to compete if only it would untie the arm it has behind its back.

To understand why this is the case you need to go back to the beginning. Part of the legacy plan for the 1994 World Cup, MLS was founded with one guiding principle: don't fail.

Fond memories of Pele's New York Cosmos packing them into Giants Stadium in the 1970s had been replaced by recriminations at what went wrong after Pele retired, and regrets at lost generations of US talent that had no domestic league to aspire to or grow up in.

Like generals scarred by their last campaign, America's soccer chiefs tried to fight that war again with a safety-first approach aimed at winning over the domestic sports fan. This meant a salary cap, a franchise system that sees the league effectively own all the clubs and players, and a summer schedule to avoid American football, basketball and ice hockey.

If they were the measures meant to protect MLS from overreaching itself, the concessions to American tastes included a closed league, a college draft, play-offs and a dislike of draws - so no promotion or relegation, then, a regular-season of diminished importance and the gimmicky use of ice hockey-style shoot-outs.

The shoot-outs were soon abandoned, and the play-offs have been tweaked, but in all other ways MLS remains unlike o

If anyone has lingering doubts about the enormous appeal of soccer in Orlando, I present to you Tom Eisenhuth.

He missed watching his beloved Green Bay Packers on television to watch the U.S. women's soccer match Sunday at the Citrus Bowl. And here's the kicker, the Wisconsin native is not even a soccer fan.

"I know very little about soccer, but because Orlando approved the stadium deal and having a match like this, brings me out," said Eisenhuth, who wore his Packers jersey to the match. "I'm open-minded." The women's soccer match attracted an announced crowd of 20,274 new and old fans — a record high for the season — from 36 different states and eight countries. The volume reached a Justin Bieber concert-like pitch as several attendees waved American and Brazilian flags. It was so loud, in fact, the players couldn't hear each other. "This is a world championship environment and you can't create this every day, so this is an opportunity for us not only to play in a loud environment but against a good team like Brazil. You gotta use your body language, you gotta use your hands, you can't necessarily rely on word of mouth," Abby Wambach said.

"I'm not lying, there's very few stadiums where I lose my voice."

Who needs football, when you have fútbol?

Anyone who calls Central Florida home has been ribbed — or will be ribbed — at least once in their lifetime for being in a city with no NFL team. Jacksonville, Tampa and Miami residents have all punched their V.I.P cards, with their cities hosting Super Bowl events. There's an unspoken rule that "real" sports cities have NFL teams.

Fact is, Orlando made bigger national headlines for its sports drama than its sports success. Can we have more Dwightmare and Tiger Woods dating-life stories said no one ever.

Soccer will be — and for some already is — this city's crowning sports jewel. No disrespect to the Orlando Magic, but we are talking about the No. 1 sport in the world.

Now that the city approved helping fund construction of a soccer stadium next year, Central Florida can also become the premier soccer destination in America.

What makes a good soccer destination? A passionate fan base, a soccer-specific stadium and good attractions.

Check, check and check. And you can thank the Orlando City soccer team in large part for that.

"We have three successful seasons, we build the crowd and that base of interest and then suddenly [the U.S women's soccer team] wants to come back," said Phil Rawlins, Orlando City president.

Orlando City's 20,000-plus fan base paired with its successful push to get a new downtown stadium were, in fact, part of the reason the U.S. women's soccer team returned to Orlando to compete for the first time since 1999, according to press officer Aaron Heifetz.

Once the soccer stadium is constructed, you better believe Orlando will attract more high-profile women's and men's national team and NCAA national championship matches to the area.

I love football and basketball as much as the next sports fan. But waiting to see the next Super Bowl MVP riding in a car at Magic Kingdom and hoping — desperately — for another Orlando Magic NBA Finals run is not my idea of maximizing the Central Florida sports experience.

There's no need to focus on what we're missing when there's so much coming. At least, that was my take-away after Sunday's match.

There were tailgaters, ticket scalpers and ridiculously long lines to park. These are all the makings of a great sports experience.

And then there was 14-year-old Jaden Brown. Her face was covered in makeup — red and white stripes with blue stars. It was a make-up job worthy of mom's approval. She did, after all, wear a matching face-paint job.

"It's a pretty big deal [to see the U.S. women's soccer team]," said Brown's mother, Sabrina, who drove two hours from Parrish to attend the game. "Like a once in a lifetime deal."

Not anymore. Soccer can be king of Orlando sports for a lifetime.




Rowdy crowd at U.S., Brazil match shows Orlando is a soccer city - Orlando Sentinel

A big increase in the number of people playing soccer in Australia over the past three years has led to claims the game can soon become the biggest in the country.

Cricket, AFL and soccer all make claim to be Australia's top participation sport, depending on the interpretation of the data. New analysis by sports research group Gemba says that 1.96 million are now playing soccer, up from 1.7 million in 2009-10, an increase of around 15 per cent in the past three years.

David Gallop, chief executive of the FFA, believes that after decades of false starts, the game is finally getting its act together on and off the pitch.

"Today, the powerful idea that football could become Australia's biggest and most popular sport is no longer just a dream. Football is a game on the move. Our best years are still ahead of us.

"Football is now entrenched in the mainstream of Australian society. We are now an authentic Australian sport, with a broad, diverse following and a national spread that no other sport can match."

The research says that there are 960,000 people involved in organised soccer, which comes under FFA jurisdiction. Another one million are recorded as being involved in unorganised soccer – in schools, corporate games, indoor futsal centres and other informal set-ups around the country.

If the number of people interested in the sport – not just as a player, but as a coach, referee or fan – are included, the numbers climb to 3.1 million.

Where soccer scores is that, like cricket, it is a genuinely national code. Australian Rules and rugby league tend to be very strong in their heartland – the southern states in the former's code, the northern states in the latter's – but, proportionately, fall away when they leave their strongholds.

The growth of the A-League in the past few years has clearly helped, and with it being shown on free-to-air television channel SBS for the first time this year , officials are hoping for a further lift in numbers. The coverage of the English Premiership and European and South American leagues on pay-TV, as well as the plethora of product available through streaming on the internet, increases the opportunities for those with an interest in the game to follow it.

Read more: We will be top dogs, says soccer chief

There is no shortage of Major League Soccer news out of the American southeast – which is a little weird when you consider that Major League Soccer has been little more than a rumor in American southeast for well over a decade.

The Miami Herald’s Michelle Kaufman, a veteran soccer writer who once uttered the most brilliant, impromptu line I have personally heard about journalism in the sport, reported via Twitter this evening that David Beckham is in town scouting potential stadium sites. Last week, Kaufman wrote a big, sweeping piece on the Beckham-Miami-MLS expansion project, asking essentially if this puppy dog has a chance of barking? If Beckham, Simon Fuller, et all cannot sprinkle the magic dust around Miami, who can? Still, it’s no slam dunk, as Kaufman writes:

Is Beckham’s star power enough to turn the fickle South Florida sports market into a passionate MLS audience? Will Miami’s sophisticated soccer-savvy fans, who lead the nation in TV ratings for World Cups and European league matches, ever care as much about Real Salt Lake as they do Real Madrid? FC Barcelona drew 71,000 at Sun Life Stadium for an exhibition match against Chivas Guadalajara last summer. But will those same fans (some might call them soccer snobs) show up to watch a Miami MLS team play FC Dallas?

Related, here is a swell piece out of Miami on five potential sites.

Of course, there’s more to MLS expansion life than Beckham – even if there aren’t $50,000-a-month PR firms out there leaking news about it.

All this sports-stadium smoke moving over Atlanta was bound to waft over into soccer valley. Sure enough, a few smarties wondered whether Turner Field, about to fall-down-go-boom as a baseball ground, might be the perfect solution for a city flirting with MLS expansion?

Background: The former, small-beer talk of MLS in Atlanta mushroomed recently when Arthur Blank, owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, got into serious conversations with MLS commissioner Don Garber about a new football stadium that would double as a home for pro soccer. The Seattle Sounders’ terrific arrangement and cooperation with the NFL’s Seahawks is the model here, although I continue to call that one the outlier. Which means I continue to be nervous about a joint arrangement in Atlanta, which could turn into another Giants Stadium situation, Gillette Stadium situation, Arrowhead Stadium situation, etc. If you don’t know your MLS history, suffice to say, those were/are pretty awful situations for MLS. But that’s another conversation.

Anyway, Atlanta’s MLS interest is all about Blanks’ new stadium, not about a soccer team becoming the primary tenant at suddenly lonely Turner Field, which was always an odd duck of a facility anyway, a retrofit for baseball after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Anyway, even if you think that’s what should happen in Atlanta, its’ not an option now, apparently. They are committed to tearing the thing down.

Oh, we cannot have a post on MLS expansion in the American Southeast without mentioning Orlando. So … we just did.

Nothing new to report on that one today.



David Beckham touring Miami, and other news in Major League Soccer

A plan to save indoor soccer at the Centennial Park's inflatable dome, conjured up by the two not-for-profit groups that built and operate the dome, passed another hurdle at Guelph city hall Wednesday night.

The Community and Social Services Committee voted 3-0 to refer to council a deal Guelph Soccer and Guelph Community Sports reached after months of negotiating with the city.

Under the terms of the deal, the City has agreed to support extending from 10 years to 15 years the repayment term of the loan Guelph Community Sports undertook with the Royal Bank of Canada to finance the dome's construction.

Lengthening the term of the loan effectively halves the monthly payment, putting Guelph Community Sports back on stable footing.

"The monthly costs drop by half," Guelph Soccer Chairperson David Tack told committee members. "This is absolutely a no-cost thing — we built a $2 million facility at virtually no cost to the city."

The loan's outstanding balance is roughly $500,000.

Guelph Community Sports and the dome's main tenant, Guelph Soccer, agree to publicly release audited financial statements annually. Both groups promised to work with the city to expand opportunities for partnerships and additional recreational programming at the dome and throughout the city.

Guelph Soccer also agreed to convert $379,100 in loans to Guelph Community Sports during the construction of the dome into an operating grant that will never be paid back.

But Guelph Soccer refused to co-sign the loan Guelph Community Sports took out with backing from the city. Throughout the last several months of negotiations, city staff requested Guelph Soccer co-sign the loan.

But Tack said Wednesday the Royal Bank "wouldn't agree to have another non-profit involved" in the loan, as the non-profits had little in the way of collateral should Guelph Community Sports and Guelph Soccer default.

Tack said the time it took to reach a deal bothered him and his peers but didn't seem to concern city staff.

"Going into the fall, we were terrified because we seemed to be the only ones not sleeping at night because a $500,000 axe was going to fall on the city if we did nothing," Tack said of the back-and-forth deliberations occurring between Guelph Soccer and the city between July and September 2013.

"This sounds like an awful lot of red tape to me," Coun. Maggie Laidlaw said, asking staff what took so long.

Business services manager Peter Avgoustis replied that negotiating the deal required help from city lawyers and the finance department, and the first proposal to extend the loan failed when Royal Bank wouldn't agree to it.

Guelph Community Sports later went to Mayor Karen Farbridge's office and chief administrative officer Ann Pappert's office for help, which spurred a revised deal brought to council on Sept. 9.

"Everything except one clause was agreed to," Avgoustis said, referring to the requirement that Guelph Soccer add itself as a guarantor of the loan, something Tack said the sports organization could not do.

Council will consider whether to approve the deal at a meeting scheduled for Nov. 25.




Soccer dome deal passes another hurdle

The most popular soccer player in Mexico right now plays for the U.S. Men's National Team.

Graham Zusi, a left-footed midfielder who plays for Sporting Kansas City in the MLS, became a Mexican soccer hero when he scored a last-minute goal that kept Mexico's World Cup dreams alive.

Zusi's goal came against Panama last month in the USA's final game of qualifying. His powerful header eliminated Panama from World Cup qualifying and put Mexico into a two-game playoff with New Zealand.

In a Skype interview with reporters, Zusi laughed about his newfound fame.

"It's quite funny to me," said Zusi, whose Sporting Kansas City team is alive in the MLS playoffs. "You know, a country that's usually our bitter rival, for (their fans) to be so appreciative of a U.S. National team player, it's kind of surreal. It's a strange feeling. "

Zusi doesn't regret scoring a goal that kept his rivals' World Cup dreams alive.

"When (the goal) happened, in our minds, it had nothing to do with Mexico," Zusi said. "It had nothing to do with Panama. We were playing our game, and that's the way soccer is sometimes."

Zusi's header came in the 92nd minute of the match. The U.S. team had already secured qualification, so the game was, from a qualifying perspective, meaningless to them. Panama needed to win to move past Mexico in the standings, but Zusi's goal tied the game and restored Mexico's hopes.

Zusi's name was chanted in front of televisions from Mexico City to Guadalajara, as a soccer-obsessed nation found salvation in a kid from Longwood, Fla. He received hundreds of Twitter messages from Mexican supporters thanking him, and some Spanish journalists have joked that a statue of Zusi should be erected in Mexico City. Adidas created a Mexico jersey that says "GRACIAS" with Zusi's number and gave the shirt to Zusi as a gift.

Mexican journalists have even started calling the goal the "billion dollar goal" for the economic impact it could have in team Mexico apparel and other sales leading up to the 2014 World Cup.

The Mexican team has made the most of its second chance, as El Tri beat New Zealand 5-1 in the first game of their playoff. Mexico, which is on its fourth coach in six weeks, look poised to finish off the Kiwis in Wellington next Wednesday and book their ticket to Brazil.

Now that Zusi's name is known throughout Mexico, Zusi was asked if he'd ever consider joining a club team in Mexico.

"Yeah, I'm not sure," he said. "I'm very happy where I am."

He paused. "But I'd certainly have to consider it, I guess, if the right thing came along."



Mexico finds soccer hero on U.S. Men's National Team

Iceland’s recipe for soccer success is risky, but ultimately rewarding. All you need is a total collapse of your currency and economy.

At least that’s the picture painted by those at the center of this unlikely sporting renaissance, which continued Friday night in the capital Reykjavik against seasoned Croatia.

Iceland is now one game away from becoming the smallest nation ever to advance to a World Cup. The team finished second in its group during European qualifying, and has advanced into a do-or-die scenario against Croatia.

The teams played to a 0-0 draw, meaning it all comes down to who wins Tuesday in Croatia. The Croatians generally controlled play, and enjoyed the lion's share of scoring chances, but the home team withstood the challenge as fans chanted throughout.

The result is even more unlikely given Olafur Skulason's red card ejection five minutes into the second half. Icelandic goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson deserves accolades for his play.

“It’ll put us on the map,” Iceland’s captain, Aron Gunnarsson, told the Wall Street Journal, before the game. “People will notice us a bit more.”

Mostly, they’ll be asking: “How did Iceland make it this far?”

Well, it started in 2008 when the national economy, under the weight of an inflated currency, tanked.

The modest Iceland soccer league cut ties with nearly all its more expensive foreign players, leaving the door wide open for homegrown talent.

They took advantage, getting the experience they needed at home to impress visiting scouts. Now, Iceland’s top players are playing in places like England and the Netherlands.

But isn’t it permanently dark and cold in Iceland?

Well, they didn’t name it Iceland for tourism purposes. When the superheated economy allowed, the national program built infrastructure.

Indoor, heated stadiums popped up, and players had the chance to train year round.

That hard work also convinced top-flight coach Lars Lagerback, who led teams in his native Sweden and Nigeria to World Cup appearances, to accept the job of steering Iceland.

“He succeeded in sharing his experience, and brought us a new philosophy,” Gunnarsson told the New York Times. “He believed we have huge potential, despite the small size of our country.”

Frustrated fans, players, coaches and administrators in larger nations such as Canada, South Africa, China and Austria take note.

Canada, by comparison, has more people playing soccer recreationally (nearly 2.7 million) than there are people in all of Iceland (325,000). Ireland is one frustrated World Cup nation that has taken notice. At least the fans have.

Eoin Conlon and friends were lamenting their country’s failed attempt to reach Brazil when he realized there’s only one nation that deserves their support now.

“And we kind of laughed, saying: ‘Well, that’s as close as Ireland's going to get to Brazil. It's only a letter difference. A ‘c’ for an ‘r.’ We might as well be brothers,’” Conlon told Public Radio International.

So they struck up a website and Twitter profile to encourage Irish football fans to back tiny Iceland.

“There are only about 320,000 people in Iceland,” Conlon told PRI. “So if they were a county in Ireland — I'm calling them the 33rd county — it would [be] only the fifth-largest county in Ireland. It’s incredible the success they’ve had. And I hope it continues.”


Iceland closes in on World Cup bid. Wait... Iceland has a soccer team? | GlobalPost

Daniela Simone Bailey and Nathaniel Bowditch Custer were married Saturday at the First Congregational Church in Farmington, Conn. The Rev. John M. Gregory-Davis, a minister of the United Church of Christ, performed the ceremony, with his wife, the Rev. Susan E. Gregory-Davis, also a United Church of Christ minister, taking part. Ms. Bailey, 30, is keeping her name. She graduated from Williams College and is pursuing a master’s degree in private-school leadership at the Columbia University Teachers College. She is also a high school social-sciences teacher at the National Cathedral School, the Episcopal girls’ school in Washington.

She is the daughter of Carmenza L. Gallo and Thomas R. Bailey of Manhattan. The bride’s father is the George and Abby O’Neill Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, where he is the director of the Community College Research Center in Manhattan. Her mother is an associate professor of sociology at Queens College in Flushing, part of the City University of New York.

Mr. Custer, 29, is an associate in Washington at the law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr. He graduated and received a law degree, magna cum laude, from Georgetown.

He is a son of John B. Custer of Meriden, N.H., and the late Karen J. R. Custer. The groom’s mother was a mathematics teacher at Kimball Union Academy, a boarding school in Meriden. His father is a history teacher at the school, which the groom attended.

The couple met in 2007 in Farmington, when both joined a soccer team made up of boarding-school teachers. Ms. Bailey at the time worked at Miss Porter’s, the girls’ school in Farmington, and Mr. Custer was teaching at Avon Old Farms, a boys school in Avon, Conn.

They came to know each other as teammates, and then as collegial adversaries when the soccer team that she coached at her school took on the soccer team that he coached at his school in a match for charity.

About two months into this soccer-themed interaction, he asked her out. He might have benefited from a bit of coaching himself, though,.

“I took her to her least favorite restaurant in all of Connecticut,” he said.

“The service really isn’t good and the food really isn’t as good as you want it be, given the price, and it’s surrounded by all these other places that are better,” Ms. Bailey said.

Yet once they arrived, she said, “It didn’t really matter that we were at that restaurant.”

Though the couple did not end up going back to the restaurant very often, when their engagement photographer suggested it as a potential location, Ms. Bailey and Mr. Custer looked at each other and didn’t say a word.

“It is a place about which I have very fond memories,” she said.



www-nytimes-com/2013/11/17/fashion/weddings/leading-with-soccer-html?_r=0

As hostess of the poplar authentic Bosnian restaurant Grbic’s, Erna Grbic said she rarely uses her native language and might seat 150 guests on an average Sunday. But Sunday was anything but usual, as a crowd of about 800 filed in throughout the day for a taste of home and the hype building around perhaps the biggest soccer match in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s 21-year history.

Grbic found herself slightly embarrassed by her self-admitted lack of grammar when it came to speaking Bosnian to the guests, many of whom had come from Europe and throughout the country to see tonight’s friendly match between Argentina and Bosnia-Herzegovina at Busch Stadium.

It seemed every Bosnian-themed restaurant in the Bevo Mill area — one of the largest settlements of Bosnian immigrants in the country — had lines waiting outside their doors along Gravois Avenue. Even when Grbic began telling parties they would have a more than one-hour wait by 1 p.m., they would opt to stay just to be surrounded by those donning royal blue, yellow and white team regalia.

“Do you have a heart inside? Have you ever fallen in love? You know the feeling you have for your boyfriend or girlfriend? This is much more than that,” said Semso Becirovic, who along with his son and three of his young friends, made a 20-hour drive from Connecticut to see the match.

Many waited outside despite high winds and severe weather earlier in the day. Bosnian flags draped across and hung from many passing cars, blaring Bosnian music and honking at crowds and other similarly outfitted cars. Bosnian team regalia hung from cars with license plates bearing origins such as Massachusetts, Texas and Ontario, Canada.

Aldina Jahic, 25, of the Affton area and Sandra Kurtovic, 23, of the Mehlville area chose to grab coffee at another Bosnian shop while waiting for a table at Grbic’s.

“This is the first positive thing for our country since all of the negative things our country has been through,” Kurtovic said.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is rebuilding from a war that killed nearly 100,000 and laid waste to the capital of Sarajevo. But the nation experienced a shining moment of its 21-year existence on Oct. 16, when its soccer team qualified for the World Cup for the first time.

And it was Vedad Ibisevic, a Roosevelt High School grad and former St. Louis University player, who got them there with the sole goal in a game against Lithuania that Bosnia-Herzegovina had to win to avoid going into an extra set of games to qualify.

Ibisevic has returned to St. Louis for tonight’s game.

While Ibisevic might be the center of attention for the area’s large immigrant population, Argentina’s Lionel Messi is a main attraction for others. Messi has been voted the top player in the world every year since 2009, but will miss tonight’s game due to a leg injury.

The match itself is thrusting St. Louis into the international soccer spotlight for the third time this year. First, the city hosted Manchester City and Chelsea at Busch Stadium. Then Spanish giant Real Madrid and superstar Cristiano Ronaldo played Inter Milan at the Edward Jones Dome.

The reputation the city is earning as a soccer destination has given Anes Mehmeti, 14, reason to brag about his American hometown.

“In the United States, you don’t experience soccer as much and it’s not everyday that you get to see a soccer team at the professional level,” Mehmeti said. “St. Louis is the perfect destination to play a game like this. Organizers can see that they are selling out really quickly. People are thirsty for soccer.”

Mehmeti spent Sunday selling authentic Bosnian team regalia from the bar inside Grbic’s restaurant. The Grbic family asked Mehmeti’s father, who owns a company that sells the merchandise, to offer select pieces to its customers after being inundated with requests for the gear the wait staff has been sporting since Friday.

Scarves proved to be the most popular at $10 each.

“I’ve barely been open for an hour and already made like $300,” Mehmeti said.

Late Sunday afternoon, hundreds of fans cheered the players as they left their hotel for the bus ride to Busch Stadium for practice. The fans followed. At the stadium, they chanted and cheered and pushed against the gates, wanting inside to watch what was supposed to be a closed practice. Busch officials opened the gates about 5:40 p.m., and more than 1,000 fans swarmed inside.

Mehmeti said the excitement of the event blows away the enthusiasm he saw during the lead-up to Cardinal’s World Series games.

“If you are a true Bosnian fan, you will come from anywhere to see this,” he said. “There are people here from Los Angeles. I didn’t see anyone drive from Los Angeles during the World Series.”




Bosnian community bursting with pride in anticipation of soccer game : News

LeBron James has had “preliminary talks” with David Beckham about bringing a Major League Soccer team to Miami. “There’s some interest on both sides,” said James, who already has a small ownership stake in the English club Liverpool. “David has become a good friend of mine over the last few years.”

■ Giuseppe Rossi scored in his first start for Italy in two years, helping the Azzurri tie Nigeria, 2-2, in an exhibition game.





www-nytimes-com/2013/11/19/sports/soccer/stars-eye-a-miami-soccer-team-html?_r=0

Hulk and Robinho scored to lift Brazil to a 2-1 victory over Chile in a soccer friendly Tuesday, a game that was both part of World Cup preparations and a spirited clash between two South American sides.

Hulk scored in the 14th minute, the goal coming after Oscar intercepted a pass out of Chile's backfield. Oscar sent a long cross to Hulk, who launched a left-footed shot past 'keeper Claudio Bravo.

Robinho gave the Brazilians the lead in the 80th minute when he headed in a perfectly-placed goalmouth cross from Maicon.

Eduardo Vargas scored Chile's lone goal in the 71st minute, taking a short pass from Jean Beausejour and launching a long shot that tucked just inside the left corner, catching Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar flatfooted.

The match featured some of the game's biggest stars — 21-year-old striker Neymar for Brazil, and Chile's Alexis Sanchez being just two. It also marked Brazil's final match of 2013 and part of the team's preparations for the 2014 World Cup in its home country — which coach Luis Felipe Scolari promised last week that Brazil, already five-time World Cup champions, will win.
Strong finish

The No. 11-ranked Brazilians — one spot ahead of Chile in the most recent FIFA world rankings — scored on the only shot on net in the first half. But both teams came alive in a fast-paced final 45 minutes, keeping the noisy Rogers Centre crowd on its feet.

In the 56th minute, a shot from Robinho — just a couple of minutes after he entered the game — appeared destined for the net before Bravo dove to clear it.

Less than a minute later, Hulk banged a 20-yard shot off the crossbar.

The Brazilian contingent in the crowd roared whenever Neymar, a striker for Barcelona, had the ball, including a spectacular 60-yard run in the first half that saw him finally lose possession on Chile's end line. Neymar looked poised to score in the 83rd minute, when he was one-on-one with Chile's 'keeper only to trip over the ball in the 18-yard box.

A chanting, singing crowd of more than 30,000 packed the Rogers Centre, dressed in either the canary yellow jerseys of Brazil or the red and white of La Roja (The Red One).

If there was any negative on the night, it was the temporary grass field. Two days after the stadium hosted the CFL East Division final on turf, real grass had been rolled out for the friendly, and while it looked decent at first glance, it clearly wasn't. Early in the game, Brazilian defender David Luiz picked up and replaced a huge chunk of dislodged turf, and then stamped it down with his foot.

A few minutes later, two Brazilians could be seen replacing a chunk of turf the size of a large pizza box. By halftime, an official ran onto the field during every stoppage to tamp down loose pieces.
Logical venue

The game was part of the Gillette International Soccer Series, and Toronto was a logical venue based on the city's large Brazilian and Chilean communities. Dozens of flags of both countries hung from the railings around the stadium.

It marked Brazil's first game in Canada in almost 20 years and the first ever in Toronto. The Brazilians last played in Canada in June 1994 in Edmonton, settling for a 1-1 tie versus the Canadians in front of 51,936 fans at Commonwealth Stadium.

Brazil came into the game on a roll, unbeaten in five games, and the Confederations Cup champions after a 3-0 victory in the final over World Cup champs Spain. And on Saturday in Miami, Brazil routed Honduras 5-0.

Chile, meanwhile, has also had some strong results, including a 2-0 win over England in a friendly Friday at Wembley Stadium that ended England's 10-game unbeaten streak.



Brazil edges Chile in Toronto soccer friendly - CBC Sports - Soccer

At halftime of July’s 2013 MLS All-Star Game, commissioner Don Garber joined the broadcast crew to announce to a national audience that Major League Soccer planned to expand to 24 teams by 2020. That idea would have seemed preposterous ten years ago, when the league was hemorrhaging cash by the millions and two teams had recently been contracted. Yet these days, those plans for MLS to become the world’s biggest soccer league seem conservative. In fact, considering the financial success of the league over the last five years, 24 teams might not be enough.

There’s certainly no lack of demand for the proposed expansion teams. Two new franchises in Orlando and New York City are already expected to join in 2015, bringing the league up to 21 teams. Former LA Galaxy striker David Beckham is exploring expansion opportunities in Miami, while Atlanta, Minneapolis and Sacramento suburb Elk Grove are just a few cities that appear intent on claiming an MLS team in the coming years.

That demand should be little surprise given the league’s recent success. In 2011, average MLS attendance hit 17,872 to surpass both the NBA and NHL, and it has since increased to 18,611 fans per game. More impressively, the average franchise is now worth $103 million, up more than 175% over the last five years. With five planned expansion teams and a new league TV deal on the way, there’s no reason to believe that growth is slowing anytime soon.

FORBES hasn’t compiled MLS valuations since 2008. The league had just 14 teams that season, with the Seattle Sounders joining the following year on an expansion fee of $30 million. The average MLS team was worth $37 million and losing money. The LA Galaxy, the league’s most valuable asset, had an enterprise value of $100 million.

And today? Ten of the league’s 19 teams are making a profit (in terms of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). The Sounders are now the league’s most valuable franchise at $175 million, a massive 483% increase over its 2009 sale price. And in May of 2013 a new ownership group paid $100 million just as an expansion fee to start a team in New York City.

How did MLS grow so big, so fast? MLS president Mark Abbott cites a host of league investments, particularly those targeted at improving the league’s level of competition. In terms of on-field product, Abbott points not only toward the premium salaries paid to designated players like Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane, but also to America’s developmental programs that have produced homegrown stars like Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan.
Rank Value ($M) Revenue ($M) Operating Income ($M)1
Seattle Sounders 175 48.0 18.2
LA Galaxy 170 44.0 7.8
Portland Timbers 141 39.1 9.4
Houston Dynamo 125 32.6 8.2
Toronto FC 121 30.9 4.5
New York Red Bulls 114 28.1 -6.3
Sporting Kansas City 108 27.7 5.1
Chicago Fire 102 24.5 -3.2
FC Dallas 97 24.2 0.6
Montreal Impact 96 26.2 3.4
Philadelphia Union 90 21.4 1.1
New England Revolution 89 17.1 2.6
Vancouver Whitecaps 86 23.0 0.0
Real Salt Lake 85 23.0 -0.1
Colorado Rapids 76 18.1 -2.9
San Jose Earthquakes 75 15.0 -4.5
Columbus Crew 73 18.6 -1.6
DC United 71 17.7 -2.8
Chivas USA 64 15.0 -5.5
FORBES estimates; revenue and operating income is for 2012 season
1 Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization

The recent growth has been tremendous, but getting there wasn’t easy. The league had ten teams for its inaugural season in 1996, with original teams selling for $5 million each. But a brief honeymoon period was followed by plummeting attendance. Two new teams, in Chicago and Miami, would join in 1998, but the expansion failed to solve financial woes. MLS reportedly lost $250 million in its first five years and in 2002 was forced to contract the Miami expansion and the charter franchise in Tampa Bay.

But later that year the United States would make a surprisingly deep run in the FIFA World Cup, leading to a surge in soccer’s stateside popularity and a wave for MLS to ride forward. MLS teams, following the Columbus Crew’s lead, soon began building soccer-specific stadiums, which had been foreign to the league before Crew Stadium was built in 1999. The new venues not only enhanced the gameday experience for fans, but they also granted teams full operating control of the stadiums and greater shares of stadium revenue.

And as Abbott notes, those stadiums are now being filled with the young sports fans who became hooked on soccer during the 2002 World Cup. “That fan base has grown up with the sport,” says Abbot, and they are now coming to an age where they are able to go to games and buy jerseys and beers with their own money.

Increased popularity helped MLS sign an eight-year, $64 million TV deal with ESPN in 2006, which provided the league’s first media rights fee, and by 2007 MLS was successful enough to attract English superstar David Beckham, arguably the most popular soccer player in the world. Beckham didn’t come cheap – he received a $6.5 million base salary plus a cut of LA Galaxy revenues – but the designated player rule that was formed to facilitate his entry has since helped MLS add other global superstars like Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane. As of 2013, nine MLS players make more than $1 million per year.

That’s a long way to come, and the lights are about to get brighter. MLS’ current TV deals with ESPN, NBC and Univision, worth a combined $30 million annually, are up at the end of next season. Negotiations for new deals are currently underway. Previous reports have pegged the league’s goal at double its current rights fees, but with networks clawing for live telecasts MLS should easily be able to exceed that.
Major League Soccer’s Million Dollar Men Only nine players in MLS make more than $1 million in salary. The Billionaire Owners Of Major League Soccer Major League Soccer may be viewed as the little brother to America’s

Derry boss Brian McIver is set to put an end to Eoin Bradley's flourishing soccer career after saying the Oak Leaf star could not combine the two sports.

Bradley has impressed for Irish League side Coleraine this season, scoring five goals in his last eight games.

McIlver believes Bradley would like to play soccer on Saturdays and gaelic football on Sundays.

However, he has ruled this out as a possibility and the inter-county campaign starts in January.

Bradley joined Coleraine in the summer and has emerged as a key player for Oran Kearney's team.

He is also a talisman for the Oak Leafers as the spearhead of their attack, but Coleraine will be hugely disappointed if Bradley has to leave the Showgrounds in the New Year.



BBC Sport - Derry boss McIver says Eoin Bradley must quit soccer

The Stade de France, just outside of the Paris city limits, is the site of France’s greatest sporting triumph: its victory in the 1998 World Cup final, when the peerless midfielder Zinedine Zidane scored twice in a 3–0 defeat of Brazil. Since then, the French soccer team has delivered mostly disappointment, and when France took the field against Ukraine before eighty thousand fans at the same stadium on Tuesday night, all signs pointed toward ignominy. At stake was a berth in the 2014 World Cup: France had placed second in its qualifying group, and needed to win a two-match playoff to earn a trip to Brazil. A listless and clumsy French squad had lost the first game, in Kiev, two goals to none. Les Bleus (as the team is known) needed to win by three goals, no easy task—or miss the World Cup for the first time in twenty years.

After the first match, gloom had descended on the French media, which anticipated a failure even more abject than the team’s past three World Cup efforts: the mediocrity of 2002, when the defending champions didn’t make it past the preliminary stage of the tournament; the epic collapse of 2006, when France lost to Italy in the final after Zidane was ejected for head-butting a defender; and the implosion of 2010, when the players rebelled against their coach and went home early again. Some reasoned that a failure to qualify altogether might have its benefits—among them a long overdue housecleaning of the team’s leadership and the sport’s national governing body. It might even do the country good, for a couple of years, not to have to think about soccer at all.

Most of the places where it’s called football have a somewhat obsessive relationship with their national soccer teams. In France, the obsession is relatively new, and mostly unhealthy. When a previous national team, led by the midfield genius Michel Platini, reached the World Cup semifinals in 1982, and again in 1986, it was widely supported but never regarded as a mirror of the national condition. (This in spite of the fact that it was eventually defeated, in both tournaments, by Germany.)

The winning 1998 team, however, was enshrined as a validation of not merely France’s football prowess but of its entire social project. Thanks to immigration, the team was mostly non-white: its black-blanc-beur composition (beur is slang for French North Africans), with Zidane—a working-class Marseillais with Algerian roots—as its leader, made it easy to project its success as a triumph for multiethnic France. The victory also established the French—who had always considered themselves, rightly, to be decent but never great at soccer—as one of the sport’s new powers. Expectations soared. That “certain idea of France”—as Charles de Gaulle once expressed French exceptionalism—now incorporated football.

These glories made the team’s subsequent failures all the more damaging—not only to its own image but also to the national psyche, where it meshed all too well with the ambient marasme and socioeconomic discontent. Nativist resentment found easy targets in mostly black and brown soccer stars who collected enormous salaries from clubs in more lucrative foreign leagues, while appearing to give less than their best to the national team. Even Zidane lost some lustre when his coup de boule, in the last match of his career, cost France the 2006 title. In 2010, the team’s rebellion was pinned mostly on two black players, the defender Patrice Evra and the forward Nicolas Anelka, whose richly vulgar words to coach Raymond Domenech were plastered on the front page of the sports daily L’Equipe. Today, complaints are often directed at two starters of North African origin, the forward Karim Benzema and the midfielder Samir Nasri, who have underwhelmed with Les Bleus, despite playing superbly for Real Madrid and Manchester City. Similar discontent is sometimes directed at the Bayern Munich star Franck Ribéry, who is a white convert to Islam. (It must be said that neither Ribéry nor Benzema helped their own cases by becoming entangled in an underage-prostitution scandal, in 2010.)

No controversy better captured the mood than the one over whether players should join in singing the “Marseillaise” during the performance of anthems that precedes an international match. In the past, plenty have demurred—Platini himself called the song a “war hymn that has nothing to do with sport.” Now, however, charting which non-white players sing and which do not has become an obsession in some circles. After Benzema announced, last March, that “no one can force me to sing the ‘Marseillaise,’ ” one radio commentator said that given his poor play, he did not “merit” the anthem. Blunter attacks came from the far-right National Front, whose xenophobic brand of populism is on the rise; a party spokesman called Benzema “a mercenary” who should be kicked off the team.

Last weekend, after the defeat in Kiev, there was plenty of domestic Schadenfreude—some from soccer insiders with axes to grind, some from columnists eager to offer broad conclusions. No one revelled more than Marine Le Pen, the head of the National Front, who gave an I-told-you-so interview to LCI television. “We’re paying the price,” she said. “No team can be driven just by the desire for wealth or the egos of the individuals who comprise it.” Le Pen called the squad “a bunch of badly raised children.” “Today,” she said, “the rupture has been consummated between the people and this France team.”

That was Monday. The next day, events on the field proved the naysayers wrong. France came out organized and enthusiastic. Midway through the first half, the defender Mamadou Sakho surged forward and slotted home France’s first goal. Eight minutes later, Benzema, though offside, scored a second. (Earlier, he had a valid goal disallowed.) After the break, a Ukrainian defender committed his second flagrant foul and got ejected, giving France the numerical advantage. In the seventy-second minut

Nike launched a key battle in its war for shirt supremacy on Sunday when they unveiled the kit Brazil will wear to host the 2014 World Cup.

VfL Wolfsburg midfielder Luiz Gustavo appeared in Copacabana wearing the famous yellow shirt and coach Luiz Felipe Scolari warned Brazil's rivals the five-times champions aim to make an important alteration by winning the competition for a record sixth time.

"The shirt looks great, the only thing missing is a sixth star," Scolari said.

"We aim to have that on there after the World Cup."

The Brazil shirt is Nike's top selling international jersey and the company will do one billion dollars worth of business in the South American country this year, said their vice president of communications Charlie Brooks.

Nike expects Brazil to be its third largest market in the world by 2017, behind only the United States and China.

Sportswear rivals Nike and Adidas are battling over supremacy in the 5 billion-euros soccer kit market.

The two firms are virtually neck and neck in a market which the American company entered around 20 years ago.

The German company recently announced that it had extended its sponsorship agreement with FIFA to 2030, building on a partnership that dates back to 1970. The deal allows Adidas to supply match balls, kit for officials and volunteers and to advertise at World Cup venues.

Nike has a long-term deal with the Brazilian Football Confederation that has run since 1997. It also sponsors Neymar, the young Barcelona striker who will shoulder much of Brazil's expectation next year.

Nike is already celebrating an early victory in the kit war, as the supplier to 10 of the tournament finalists. Adidas and smaller German rival Puma each have deals with eight teams.

Yet the top four teams in the FIFA rankings - Spain, Germany, Argentina and Colombia - all wear Adidas.



REFILE-Soccer-Nike kick off World Cup shirt war with new Brazil kit | Reuters

The boys soccer season culminated with the group championships on Sunday and The Star-Ledger and its affiliates were at The College of New Jersey in Ewing to bring you all the results.

Delran earned the day's first title with a 3-2 victory over Newton in Group 2, then Northern Highlands tied Allentown, 0-0, in the Group 3 final.

West Orange topped Clearview, 1-0, in the Group 4 final, while Brearley blanked New Egypt, 3-0, to take the Group 1 title.

We had live updates all day as the games were happening. Check out our staff reports and photo galleries now that they are over.

GROUP FINALS

GROUP 4

West Orange 1, Clearview 0

Staff report || Live blog recap



GROUP 3

Northern Highlands ties Allentown, 0-0

Staff report|| Live blog recap



GROUP 2

Delran 3, Newton 2

Staff report || Live blog recap



GROUP 1

Brearley 3, New Egypt 0




Boys soccer: Full results from the group finals - NJ-com