Thursday Report: September 20, 2007

By Mike Miller

BRIEFS
Canadian Teams and Players in Action

National Teams
Was this Even Pellerud’s last game as head coach of Canada’s Women’s Team? With his dispute with the CSA over Olympic wualifying and now first round elimination from the World Cup, Pellerud’s days may be numbered. Just as it looked like Canada would advance, leading 2-1 in stoppage time, Australia socred in the 92nd minute for a 2-2 tie.

That was all Australia needed, the tie gave Australia 5 points, enough to edge out Canada who finished third in the group with 4 points.

Atiba Hutchinson played 74 minutes in Copenhagen’s 1-1 away tie in Lens in the opening games of the European Champions Cup. Canadian keeper Lars Hirschfeld held Chelsea to a surprise 1-1 away tie for Rosenborg in another Champion’s league match.

U-20 player Mike D’Agostino has signed to play with Blackpool of the English Championship League. D’Agostino played one game for Canada at the 2007 U-20 World Cup. D’Agostino played last year at the University of Kentucky. In 57 career games at Kentucky D’Agostino scored 11 goals and had 14 assists. D’Agostino’s Kentucky teammate Riley O’Neill also made the move to Europe, signing
in Germany. Riley’s four year career at Kentucky saw him score 28 goals (17 in 2006) and add 16 assists in 73 games.

MLS
Below are the single table standings for MLS. The top two teams in each division (East & West) make the playoffs, as well, the next four teams with the most points also make the playoffs, regardless of division. While TFC has a mathematical possiblity of
making the playoffs, their mathematical probablity is close to zero.

Pts-Potential Points –Team-Division
49-64 :: DC United (East)
45-57 :: Houston Dynamo (West)
45-60 :: New England (East)
44-62 :: Chivas USA (West)
39-57 :: FC Dallas (West)
37-52 :: New York (East)
36-51 :: Kansas City (East)
30-48 :: Chicago (East)

29-44 :: Colorado (West)
28-43 :: Columbus (East)
21-39 :: Toronto (East)
20-34 :: Salt Lake (West)
18-39 :: Los Angeles (West)

Los Angeles and Real Salt Lake didn’t do their playoff chances any good as they tied 2-2 last night before 25,633 fans in Salt Lake. TFC plays Columbus at home on Saturday.

Former TFC player Andy Welsh came in as a substitute for the second game in a row for Blackpool. This time he picked up an assist in Blackpool’s 2-2 tie.

MLS Reserves
A TFC team finally managed a goal. The reserves won their first game of the season, taking a 1-0 victory over the Real Reserves. Four Canadian Soccer League players were included on the roster as guest players. Nicki Budalic who plays with the Serbian White
Eagles scored the only goal of the game and played 90 minutes. Desmond Humphrey a defender from the Italia Shooters also played 90 minutes and set up Budalic’s goal. Jason De Thomasis who has scored 8 goals with the Shooters came in late in the game.

Evan Milward, one of the leading scorer’s (13 goals) in the CSL with the Canadian Lions played the last 13 minutes of the game. Milward also plays college soccer with the Toronto Blues where he has scored 3 goals.

USL-1
Portland opens their semi-final series on Friday in Atlanta. The teams met twice in July. The Timbers won the first game 1-0, the second game ended in a 0-0 tie. Number one seed Seattle open in Puerto Rico. The Islanders upset the Montreal Impact in the QFs. Seattle took the season series with a win and a tie.

Two Canadians remain in action, Justin Thompson with Portland and John Hudson with Atlanta. Thompson scored a goal and had an assist in Portland’s victory over Vancouver. During the season Tompson played 23 games, picking up a goal and an assist. Hudson has seen limited action with Atlanta, playing 4 minutes in Atlanta’s 1-1 tie with Rochester and appearing in only 7 games (105 minutes) during the regular season.

Vancouver has decided not to renew the contract of Bob Lilley. No surprise after taking the USL-1 Championship last year, Vancouver was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The team finished 7th in the league standings, as the team managed a meagre 11 goals in their last 21 games of the season.

PDL
The Ottawa Fury have announced that Stephen O’Kane will take over the head coaching duties with the Men’s team. O’Kane is the Head Coach of the highly successful Algonquin College men’s team. The Ottawa college team won the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association National Title in 2006. O’Kane also coached the Fury U-16 boys to a Super-Y league division championship, the team will compete in the USL finals in November. O’Kane replaces Chris Roth, under Roth the team finished 3-8-5 in 2007.

The PDL has already granted a franchise to Houston for next season. Canadian cities Vancouver and Victoria are also rumored to be entering teams in the PDL in 2008. If true it would bring the number of Canadian teams in the PDL to five.

Canadian InterUniversity Soccer
Adrian Kekec of Trinty Western was voted the CIS athlete of the week for the second week in a row. The #1 ranked TWU have won their first 4 games of the season. Karli Colpitts from the University of Manitoba was the CIS female athlete of the week.
Ontario teams moved up the rankings this week, with York, Western and Carleton now all in the top 5. Trinty Western took the top ranking for the second week in a row.

Ranking (Last Week) Team (Won-loss-tie)
Men
#1 (1) Trinity Western (4-0-0)
#2 (3) York (6-0-0)
#3 (5) Western Ontario (5-1-0)
#4 (2) Montreal (1-0-2)
#5 (6) Carleton (5-0-1)

Women
#1 (1) UBC (3-0-0)
#2 (2) Ottawa (6-0-0)
#3 (3) York (6-0-0)
#4 (6) Cape Breton (3-0-0)
#5 (4) Trinity Western (3-1-0)

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