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LA Acquires Veteran Midfielder Pablo Mastroeni

By on June 17, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

So this is a trade that came out of nowhere. It was worked out on Friday but announced on Monday.

The Colorado Rapids have acquired a 2014 second round MLS SuperDraft pick and an international roster spot through the 2014 season from the LA Galaxy in a trade on Friday, with veteran midfielder Pablo Mastroeni and the MLS rights to midfielder Baggio Husidic joining the Galaxy in exchange.

Uh..huh?

Mastroeni,  holds Rapids franchise records in both games (225) and minutes played (18,669), and was named Rapids MVP in 2007, 2008 and 2010, when he captained the side to the MLS Cup.

So why trade the one guy that has been a consistent fixture in your locker room? It appears that Colorado needed to make a change and continue to get younger in the process. Mastroeni has been dealing with injuries for about three years now to be honest, if not longer. He hasn’t played all that well this season and if anything the move reunites him with Bruce Arena.

In all fairness, this deal is pretty level for both sides. LA gets a veteran to add to the mix that will likely help out down the road when the CCL stuff kicks back up later this summer. And if they can get Baggio Husidic down the road then good on them I suppose.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 } · in Colorado Rapids, LA Galaxy, MLS

LA Galaxy Release Third Kits

By on June 17, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

Last year the LA Galaxy opened up a contest through Facebook to decide the club’s new third kit. After a little delay, the club released the new kit last Friday.

Fans submitted more than 8,000 designs and were able to cast their votes for one of the final five fan-designed kits.

The winning kit was from Carlos Rodriguez, who snagged 30% of the vote.

I have to say, the kit is pretty snazzy in detail. I like the throw back look to some of the old Galaxy kits. But at the same it reminds me how bad the old kits use to be.

What do you all think of the new kits?

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 } · in LA Galaxy, MLS

2013-14 CONCACAF Champions League Groups Set

By on June 4, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

So there was a little confusion last night during the draw for the next edition of the CONCACAF Champions League.

The initial draw was immediately thrown out, and quickly redrawn in the span of an hour, owing to conflicts in the composition of two of the groups.

What caused the confusions in the initial draw? It centered around the composition of Groups 7 and 8 in the draw. Despite keeping the Mexican and American clubs apart in the group stage during the 2012-13 CCL, Group 7 included Mexican team Club Tijuana and the Houston Dynamo, while Group 8 consisted of the LA Galaxy and Mexico’s Cruz Azul. Since both groups had two Mexican teams and two American teams, they could not simply be redrawn with each other. This required four groups to be redrawn.

Once everything was redrawn, the groups were a little better.

The complete schedule for the tournament will be released later this month.

FULL DRAW FOR 2013-14 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP STAGE

Group Clubs Country
1 Árabe Unido
Houston Dynamo
W Connection		 Panama
USA
Trinidad & Tobago
2 Olimpia
Sporting Kansas City
Real Estelí		 Honduras
USA
Nicaragua
3 Herediano
Cruz Azul
Valencia FC		 Costa Rica
Mexico
Haiti
4 Club América
LD Alajuelense
Sporting San Miguelito		 Mexico
Costa Rica
Panama
5 San Jose Earthquakes
Montreal Impact
Guatemala 2 (TBD)		 USA
Canada
Guatemala
6 Comunicaciones
Toluca
Caledonia AIA		 Guatemala
Mexico
Trinidad & Tobago
7 Club Tijuana
CD Victoria
Firpo		 Mexico
Honduras
El Salvador
8 LA Galaxy
Isidro Metapán
Cartaginés		 USA
El Salvador
Costa Rica

Two MLS clubs will face off in Group 5, as the San Jose Earthquakes and Montreal Impact will represent their respective countries, as well as the champions of Guatemala’s current Clausura championship (still to be determined).

Houston gets a fairly decent group, one that they should come away from. Same should be said for Sporting KC. The LA Galaxy get a pretty tough group but they’ve come away from groups like this in the past.

I will admit, it is nice to see some new clubs from both MLS and Liga MX involved in this round. Club Tijuana and Club America should be fun to watch. Same should also be said about seeing Sporting KC and San Jose in this tournament as well.

Continue Reading · · in Champions League, College Soccer, Houston Dynamo, LA Galaxy, MLS, Montreal Impact, San Jose Earthquakes, Sporting KC

Bracket Revealed For International Champions Cup

By on May 29, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

Here ya go. The full bracket for the International Champions Cup, formerly known as the World Football Challenge.

icc-bracket

One interesting note from the International Champions Cup bracket is that Valencia is the only European team to get a home game. Everyone else is over here in the US battling it out at baseball and football stadiums.

The lone MLS side, the LA Galaxy, get a tough opening match against Real Madrid on August 1 in Phoenix.

I wasn’t expecting Everton to be a part of this but hey, why not? There are plenty of Everton supporters over on this side of the pond so that should work out fine against Juventus.

The last point from this is seeing Dodger Stadium listed as a venue for a couple of these matches. I believe that will be a first for that famed venue. Definitely a testing ground of some sorts for MLS with baseball venues for when it comes to New York City FC in a couple of years.

Continue Reading · · in LA Galaxy, MLS

Rogers: “I don’t want to play in Chicago”

By on May 6, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

Last week it seemed as though all the talks were about Robbie Rogers coming back to play after his retirement was announced just a couple months ago.

As most know, Rogers’ MLS rights are held by the Chicago Fire thanks to a pre-season trade that sent those rights from Columbus to the Windy City. Rogers had joked back how he was ‘rightsless’ in MLS back at the time of the trade when he was still living in England. Now it appears he wants nothing to do with the Fire.

“I don’t want to go to Chicago,” Rogers told the Soccer Today podcast. ”I think if it comes down to, ‘You can only play in Chicago,’ then I probably won’t go back. I need to do it somewhere where I’m totally 100 percent comfortable so … I would most likely do it closest to my family.”

Closer to his family ultimately means he will be going to LA to play with the LA Galaxy. That should come to no shock to anyone here. He did sound pretty positive in the interview that he would be back and given how MLS works, you know a deal with be struck between the Galaxy and the Fire for Rogers’ rights. The question will come down to it, what will the Fire be asking and what will the Galaxy be willing to give up?

My gut tells me a deal will pan out and it won’t involve any players. Likely a little allocation and a draft pick of some sort. Probably a conditional one.

Continue Reading · · in Chicago Fire, LA Galaxy, MLS

World Football Challenge Getting Facelift?

By on April 15, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

For the last couple of summers, fans across the country have been treated to a mini tournament called the World Football Challenge.

It looks as though the WFC is going to undergo another facelift this summer however. SI.com’s Grant Wahl is reporting that the tournament is set to become the International Champions Cup.

The World Football Challenge is now morphing into the International Champions Cup. After several years of one-off summer exhibitions, it will be a change of pace to see top teams in a tournament in which the winner takes home a trophy. In an additional wrinkle, one of this year’s group games will take place in Europe.

The lone MLS representative this year will be the LA Galaxy. Real Madrid and Juventus are two of the other teams that are set to be apart of this eight-team tournament. The final of the tournament will be held at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium.

There will be two groups of four — Eastern and Western groups. The tournament, which has a major title sponsor and a TV deal, will be officially announced on Tuesday in Miami, with figures from several of the participating clubs on hand.

From the sounds of everything we’ll see MLS sides go back to the one-off friendlies instead of the WFC-style series of games that we’ve seen them play over the years. More than likely teams will hosts other clubs this summer, rather than the big guys of Europe. We already know that Manchester City and Chelsea are playing some games this summer in the States, and I’d imagine that is just the beginning of it.

Continue Reading · · in LA Galaxy, MLS
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2013 MLS Season: Mike Magee Wins POM

By on April 3, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

Forgive me for the lack of posting today, I’m just a tad caught up in some things. But I did want to post my vote for the MLS Player of the Month award for March out there.

Today, it was announced that LA Galaxy forward Mike Magee was named the league’s first player of the month in the 2013 season. Magee scored a league-high five goals in the opening month for the Galaxy. But for me, his bigger contributions were in other places on the field like leadership when Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane were both missing.

Magee opened up the month with a hat trick against the Chicago Fire and added in two more by the end of the month.

I know some folks thought otherwise on this and picked Montreal midfielder Patrice Bernier, a good pick as well. Bernier was my second pick in the voting, which you can see here.

Magee took 17 of the 36 votes cast compared to 15 for Bernier with the other four ballots going to four different individuals.

Continue Reading · · in LA Galaxy, MLS
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2013 MLS Season, Week 1: Player of the Week

By on March 4, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

Now that I am a member of the North American Soccer Reporters, I am participating in the voting that handles the league’s Player of the Week and Month awards.

This week was a bit of a no brainer in my book. Out of the 29 votes tallied, only four folks decided not to vote for LA Galaxy midfielder Mike Magee. The veteran took home more than enough votes to secure the season’s first player of the week award.

I also had Graham Zusi as my number two pick on the week. Had Magee not ran up the Fire with three goals, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about voting Zusi in. If we were asked to do a third pick, that would have gone Alvaro Saborio’s way.

Continue Reading · · in LA Galaxy, MLS

2013 MLS Season Preview: Western Conference

By on February 28, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |
Could this be the year that Sigi Schmid and Seattle really celebrate? (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Could this be the year that Sigi Schmid and Seattle really celebrate? (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Earlier in the day I predicted how I thought the Eastern Conference would be in the new season.

Time now to examine the Western Conference for the 2013 MLS season.

To me the West is a bit of an interesting group of teams. Top to bottom I think they are still as deep as they have been these last couple of seasons but I do see a bit of a changing of the guard going on here. Teams we know will be good may not be as good as we’ve seen while others may surprise us.

Continue Reading →

Continue Reading · · in Chivas USA, Colorado Rapids, FC Dallas, LA Galaxy, MLS, Portland Timbers, Real Salt Lake, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders FC, Vancouver Whitecaps

Five Teams Show Off New Kits

By on February 28, 2013 | Follow @WVHooligan |

Yesterday was a full day in the league’s new Jersey Week. Five clubs showed off gear, with one of the clubs displaying their new third kits.

This week has been very fun with the unveiling of new kits. Some have been good, others have been alright. I think Wednesdays five unveilings showed that teams are willing to be bold with their kits for 2013.  Continue Reading →

Continue Reading · · in LA Galaxy, MLS, Montreal Impact, Seattle Sounders FC, Sporting KC, Vancouver Whitecaps