Reuters Soccer Blog

Egyptian soccer at a crossroads as Bradley jets in

Cairo giants Al Ahli’s elimination from the African Champions League at the weekend is the latest blow for soccer in Egypt and their golden generation.

Al Ahli failed to reach the semi-final stage after drawing 1-1 at home with Esperance of Tunisia in their final group game in the Egyptian capital on Friday.

It was Egypt’s last chance of salvaging some success from what has been a terrible year for their football.

They have gone from an unprecedented three successive African Nations Cup titles to missing out on defending their title at the next edition, to be hosted in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon early next year.

Al Ahli’s long-standing dominance at club level is also at an end while Egypt’s other major club Zamalek surprisingly did not even make the group phase.

In all likelihood, it signals the end of an all-conquering generation who rewrote the continent’s record books.

Egypt’s national team, close to officially naming American Bob Bradley as coach, and Ahli have perhaps kept faith for too long with players like Mohamed Aboutrika, Mohamed Barakat and Wael Gomaa who ruled the roost for almost a decade, but no longer have the aura of invincibility they so long enjoyed.

RSL will miss their ‘Rasta passer’

There is a rare air of jubilation around Major League Soccer after Real Salt Lake managed to come away from the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League final away to Mexican champions Monterrey with a 2-2 draw but it is tempered by the loss of their best player for the return game.

MLS commissioner Don Garber took to twitter to post ‘Congrats RSL! Well done’ and many fans of other MLS teams have been quick to applaud the result. In many ways, this year’s run to the final by RSL has been taken by the league and its supporters as a validation of their status in the game.

Tired of being labeled a ‘Mickey Mouse’ league by foreigners and dismissed as irrelevant by old-school mainstream sports media and equally annoyed at the tendency of some American fans of European soccer to laugh off MLS as a pale imitation of the ‘real thing’, MLS fans have delighted in Real’s achievement. This is the first time a team from the league has reached the final of the Mexican-dominated competition since it changed to a league format in 2008. In the days when the tournament for North and Central America and the Caribbean was a knockout affair – only twice did an MLS team make the final. Added to the odds stacked against RSL on Wednesday was the knowledge that no team from the North American league has ever won on Mexican soil in a competitive game.

As this emotional account of the game concludes, Javier Morales superbly taken 89th minute equaliser was much more than an equaliser “It was, most of all, the moment so many fans of Major League Soccer have waited for: a concrete result providing a firm reason to believe”.

Still, as the author of the above piece notes, 90 minutes remain to be played and they will be anything but straightforward for the team from Utah. The confidence, verging on over-confidence in some quarters, that RSL can finish the job off next week, is largely based on the fact that Salt Lake have not lost at their Rio Tinto stadium for 34 straight regular season and Cup games.

But Jason Kreis will have to a field a team in the return leg that does not feature his most influential player – central midfielder Kyle Beckerman, who is suspended after picking up another yellow card in Monterrey. No player is irreplaceable but Beckerman’s importance to Salt Lake’s success over the past two years cannot be understated. The 28-year-old, who sports distinctive Rastafarian-style dreadlocks, is not only the best American midfielder in MLS, he is absolutely central to the team’s appealing possession football.

Could you just talk us through the goal, Bob….

After little more than four hours’ sleep, plenty of driving and the inevitable drop in adrenalin following a big game such as Saturday’s U.S. v England match, there were a few weary souls among the reporters following the United States when we headed to team HQ at Irene Farm on Sunday morning for a press conference with coach Bob Bradley and defender Steve Cherundolo.

There was no sign of jadedness from Bradley, though, who when touching upon Steven Gerrard’s fourth minute opener for England, described it in the following terms:

“When the ball came into Lampard, Michael stepped up to close him down, Rooney came into the hole, now Gooch has to decide how tight he is going to go. Michael put enough pressure on that the initial pass that Lampard made was intended for Rooney but it skipped by him and went to Heskey, so in that moment, that space, with Gooch out of there, between Jay and Carlos and now Ricardo is caught in a tough spot because he has to decide if he can recover and track Gerrard. So all it takes in these kind of games is a couple of seconds where the reactions aren’t as good as they need to be and you’ve left a hole and you pay. This is what happens when the games are up there at the highest level.”

A bit more than “the boy done well” or “lapse in concentration”, that, isn’t it?

In the light of that remarkably detailed description, I asked Bradley if, like some NFL coaches, he spends the night after a game watching the video of the match at his hotel?

“I am pretty fortunate that I have a good recollection. Immediately after the game, the way you test it is that you watch and see if what you think you saw is what happened. By the time we rolled in here last night, I had watched that goal a few times.”

And I bet he watched it again over breakfast, don’t you?

Nothing ‘meaningless’ about U.S. defeat

USA 2 Czech Republic 4 was hardly a morale boosting result for American fans as their team prepares for the World Cup finals, which begin for the U.S against England on June 12.

Of course, as the ESPN commentators were at pains to point out, perhaps worried about viewers turning off from the team before the tournament has even begun, the squad on the field last night was missing key starters such as Landon Donovan, Carlos Bocanegra (who instead was spotted chomping chicken wings in the stands) and Clint Dempsey. And as the ESPN crew also repeatedly reminded us, the result of games like these are “meaningless”.

But there is nothing meaningless about 90 minutes of football just over two weeks before the start of the World Cup. Sure, the result is secondary, but a lot of meaningful things can come out of games such as these. For starters, we learnt how good the U.S. back-up players are.

As an aside, I’ve never been a fan of friendly games of this nature, primarily because I think they cheat supporters who buy tickets expecting to see the national team play and end up forking out good money for a glorified training session. But I was surprised that U.S coach Bob Bradley fielded such a second string side given that, as I noted previously, he really needs to settle quickly on a starting line-up and get that team to gel. Does he really have time for experimentation?

Bradley cuts seven players from his 30 man squad today (13.20 ET on ESPN) and then he has a friendly against Turkey in Philadelphia on Saturday where he will surely field a first choice line-up. After that there is only the June 5 friendly against Australia in South Africa before the real business begins. In other words, 180 minutes before his defence comes up against Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard.

And what defence will it be? The heart of the U.S back-line throughout qualification was Oguchi Onyewu but after his performance on Tuesday, Bradley will surely be working on a formula that doesn’t feature the AC Milan centre-half. Onyewu was making his first appearance after seven months out recovering from a knee operation and frankly it showed. He was tentative and there are big questions arising from the way he didn’t jump when Tomas Sivok headed in to make it 1-1. When Onyewu left the field in the 65th minute he had a huge icepack swiftly attached to his knee. Everyone involved with the U.S team will be hoping the popular “Gooch” will be fit to face England but the evidence indicates he is a long way short of that target.

10 things to watch out for in the new MLS season

The 15th Major League Soccer season kicks off on Thursday as fans thankfully turn their thoughts from collective-bargaining agreements and guaranteed contracts, to action on the field, safe in the knowledge that the only strikers making the news this week will be those who score goals.

Others will make their judgments on the deal that avoided a strike — but what is certain is that the new five-year contract and modest salary structure ensures not only that MLS will start on Thursday (Seattle Sounders host the Philadelphia Union) but also that it will enter its 20th year in much the same status as it began its first – a league featuring a surprising number of good players, being paid a surprisingly low amount of money.

But anyway, this writer too has had enough of all the financial and contractual talk and rather is looking forward to the start of the new season. Here are ten things to keep an eye on this year:

1. Philadelphia Union – a brand new franchise to finally give the enthusiastic supporters club who preceded them, the Sons of Ben, something to cheer about. With the canny Pole Peter Nowak as head coach, the Union will be well prepared but they lack a proven prolific goalscorer and are relying on the unpredictable (but superbly named) Brazilian midfielder Fred for their inspiration. Expect workmanlike solidity, the odd upset and perhaps some sparkling moments from their number one draft pick Danny Mwanga, who could get more playing time than most rookies.

2. New York Red Bulls – with a shiny new stadium and an experienced new coach, the Austrian owners also hope for a new vibe around one of MLS’s most disappointing franchises. Last year saw abysmal crowds and performances to match. Red Bull’s success this year will be measured more in terms of tickets sold than goals scored but Swedish coach Hans Backe has been trying to drill some shape into the formation. Bustling Belgian Ibrahim Salou has been signed to partner the prolific Colombian Juan Pablo Angel in attack.

3. Kyle Beckerman – The dreadlocked Real Salt Lake captain was outstanding in the MLS Cup final win over the LA Galaxy at the end of last season but needs to get off to a great start this time if he is to earn a place in Bob Bradley’s U.S squad for the World Cup finals. Beckerman has the quality most sorely lacking in MLS midfielders – composure. The U.S national team could do with some of that as well.

4. Strikers – Bob Bradley needs to find at least one to settle on for the World Cup. Houston’s Brian Ching and Colorado’s Conor Casey are two big target men who are in contention for the slot alongside Jozy Altidore for the U.S but there is such a lack of real firepower that the field is pretty open for any American forward to make a blistering start to the season. Is there any hidden talent out there in the MLS?

Azteca defeat exposes U.S. weaknesses

After a wave of optimism following their successful run in the Confederations Cup, the United States have come back down to earth with their 2-1 defeat to Mexico.

Although Mexico didn’t seal their victory on Wednesday until Miguel Sabah’s strike seven minutes from the end, the result actually flattered the United States who were outplayed at the Azteca stadium.

The U.S’s victory over European champions Spain in the Confederations Cup and their impressive performance in the final against Brazil – when they lead 2-0 before going down 3-2, showed the potential of Bob Bradley’s team.

A great win over Spain … now can the U.S surprise some more?

The Confederations Cup, effectively a warm-up tournament for the World Cup, rarely captures the imagination but fans in the United States aren’t lacking enthusiasm for the tournament after their team produced a major upset by defeating European champions Spain 2-0.

Goals from Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey ended Spain’s world record run of 15 successive victories and their 35-match unbeaten sequence, a world record streak they share with Brazil. That run has taken Spain to world number one in FIFA’s global rankings.

So a major upset — but just how big a surprise was it?

Our man at the game, global soccer editor Mike Collett, poses the question by putting the U.S’s victory in historical context — North Korea beating Italy in the 1966 World Cup probably takes the prize for this reporter and the fact that the Confederations Cup is a lesser tournament than the World Cup probably weakens the case for this win being among the very greatest upset ever. But regardless of the global-historical rating there is less doubt that, as Mike argues, the win is the biggest for United States since the 1950 shock over England in the World Cup finals.

The U.S have pulled off a few surprises since then, though, and Kartik Krishnaiyer at MLS Talk lists the main triumphs. As Kartik notes, a 3-0 win over Argentina in the 1995 Copa America was a particularly impressive result for a team which had yet to make a real impact in a World Cup. But probably the best U.S result, up until Wednesday, taking into account the importance of the match, was the 3-2 win over Portugal in the 2002 World Cup.

The inevitable question then arises, could this result mark the turning point for soccer in the United States?