Archive for Clubs
Toronto Loses To Arabe Unido In CCL
John Molinaro
writes and broadcasts at CBC Sports
Toronto FC falters in Champions League
Toronto FC’s road woes continue.
Virtually unbeatable at home, TFC stumbled to a shocking 1-0 loss to Panamanian champions Arabe Unido Tuesday night in the CONCACAF Champions league.
With the win, Arabe Unido moves into a three-way tie with Toronto and Real Salt Lake for first place in Group A with three points each. Real Salt Lake, with a game in hand, visit winless Mexican outfit Cruz Azul on Wednesday.
The Challenge For De Guzman
Paul James
writes James on Soccer at GlobeSports
De Guzman not living up to status as designated player
In a sports era in which star status has replaced the class system of yesteryear, it is becoming more and more difficult to hack through the spin of soccer clubs, agents, players and even some kowtowing fans.
And all in the name of creating an unrealistic Utopia where criticism, directness, and honesty are all too often avoided to protect poor decisions, poor play, or just plain mistakes.
And why?
MLS Needs Results To Polish CONCACAF Image
Bob Koep
Senior Staff Writer
InsideSoccer Magazine
If the MLS ever wants to establish itself as a top professional League in this part of the world
(meaning CONCACAF) it will have to come up with some convincing scores in the round-robin group play of the Champions League.
MLS has four teams in the group stage, Columbus, Seattle, Real Salt Lake and Toronto and must get at least one of them into the final next spring in order to prove a point. It cannot be that Mexico keeps putting four teams into the semi finals, as it did last year, and make the Champions League final stages an all-Mexican affair.
There are four groups of four teams each in our Champions League and conceivably MLS can get all its four teams into quarter-finals, but so can Mexico!
In Group A, there are two MLS teams, Toronto FC and Real Salt Lake but both could advance as the top two teams in each group go to the knock out stage.
Three of the four MLS teams opened their campaign with victories as only Seattle Sounders suffered a 2-1 defeat at Marathon of Honduras, that club not necessarily being a household name.
With the second round of games coming up this week (Toronto is at Arabe Unido of Panama) we
will see how MLS teams do away from home. The three home games ended in MLS wins but playing away may tell a different story, as it did in the Seattle case.
With the MLS having improved its product, albeit slowly, in recent years it must now take the next step
and assert itself in CONCACAF play. In fact if its teams get stranded again one cannot help wondering why its image is still rather poor overseas.
Mexican team Guadelajara, finalist in this year’s Copa Libertadores, the South American Champions League, is not even in this tournament as it failed to qualify in the highly competitive Mexican environment. Mexican teams often compete in the Copa Libertadores as guest teams. At the end of this week we will see what the real MLS chamces are. Particularly Toronto has its work cut out at the Panama match tomorrow (Aug 24).
