The Aztexan

The English Premier League season is 38 games long, and at this point most of the teams have played 10. That's about a quarter of the way into the season, so I thought I'd post a quick, "how are Stoke City doing?" post. If you already follow The Potters and attend watching parties with Chantico's Army at Cuatro's, none of this will be news to you. This is a simple summary of their season to date.

For a newly promoted team, Stoke City are doing okay, but not great. They're currently 15th (in the table of 20), with 10 points. Though since the positions are still pretty bunched up — there are 4 teams that have 12 points — you could almost say they're 9th out of 12. I know, I know, ties on points are broken by goal differential, etc., but I think it's worth pointing that out, especially this early in the season.

The Potters have been loitering close to or in the relegation zone the better part of the season. Of the newly promoted teams, they're tied on points with West Bromwich Albion, but not doing nearly as well as Hull City. (Then again, Manchester United's not even doing as well as Hull City at this point, The Tigers are so hot.) The commentary I've heard and read seems to hold the belief that Stoke will have a hard time staying up. This comment from Soccer By Ives' EPL correspondent James Tyler, following Stoke's 3-0 loss to Manchester City, is typical.

Manchester City 3, Stoke City 0
The Potters will definitely be relegated this season, but who's going with them? Robinho scored a hat-trick for the home side, and they could easily have scored 3 or 4 more.

However, it's certainly not all gloom, and there are lots of games left to play. This week saw them get their 3rd win at home, a 1-0 victory over Sunderland, that pulled them up and out of the bottom three. And though it was a draw, their 0-0 result against Liverpool — at Anfield — was a team victory.

And Liam Lawrence, the midfielder named as their player of the season last season, is expected to come off the injury list in November. He's been out for a month after tripping on his Labrador:

"It was in the middle of the night, the dog lies on the stairs and I didn't see him.

"I trod on him, realised what I'd done, tried to go to the next step but went over on my ankle and fell down the stairs.

"The dog is fine. I could have killed him at the time but he is intact.

If nothing else, they don't look like this year's Derby County, which won only a single game after their promotion last year, finishing the 38-game season with a mere 12 points.

They've also advanced to the fourth round of the Carling Cup (the "sweet sixteen", if you will). They will face Rotherham United on Nov. 10 in that competition.

Their next match is Saturday, when Arsenal play them at home, Britannia Stadium.

So that's where they stand. I'll post another catch-up after another 9 or 10 games, and see where things stand at that point. In the meantime, here's an old joke I came across recently.

A man is sitting in a pub with his jack russell dog one Sunday afternoon. The football results are coming up on the television in the corner: "Stoke City 2, Tottenham Hotspur 1," reads the announcer. Suddenly the jack russell jumps up and shouts out, "Oh, no, not again!" The shocked landlord says, "That's amazing. Why did he say that when it was announced that Tottenham lost?" "Because he's a Spurs supporter," the dog's owner replies. The landlord then asks what the dog says when Tottenham win a match, to which the man replies, "I don't know. I've only had him six months."

Labels: Stoke City

The inaugural year of the CONCACAF Champions League continues on, with group-stage play wrapping up today through Thursday.

Focusing on teams from U.S. leagues (MLS and USL-1), we have two games today (Tues. Oct. 28).

First, El Salvador's L.A. Firpo play their first game against the Houston Dynamo (their September match was postponed by Hurricane Ike, and will be played on Nov. 26). Kickoff is 9:00 PM CT, televised only on Fox Soccer Channel (FSC).

Today also sees Mexico's Atlante vs. the Montreal Impact, both of which have already secured their spot in the quarterfinals. This game also starts at 9:00 PM CT. It will be televised live on ESPN International and Galavision (channel 76 on Time Warner in Austin), and delayed until midnight on FSC.

Tomorrow (Wed. Oct. 29) the action continues for U.S. league teams. USL-1 champions Puerto Rico Islanders play Panama's Tauro FC at 7:00 PM CT on ESPN Int'l (or delayed on FSC at 10:00 PM CT). A win for the Islanders sees them through for sure; a draw might do it, too.

Last but not least, poor DC United has to play Honduras' CD Marathón. Coming into the game with only one sorry point after 5 games, and having just missed the MLS playoffs, I doubt they'll have much invested in this game. But who knows? You can find out yourself starting at 7:00 PM CT on FSC or ESPN Int'l.

Actually, I think if I were Fox Soccer, I'd swap tomorrow's games and show the more meaningful Puerto Rico-Tauro match live, and delay the DC-Marathón game.

As usual, Wikipedia has good details, tables, etc. For complete TV listings, including the games I didn't mention, see the CONCACAF TV page and the Fox Soccer schedule.

Update: results:
LA Firpo 1-1 Houston
Atlante 2-1 Montreal (both advance)
DC United 2-4 Marathón (DC eliminated, Marathón advances)
Tauro FC 2-2 Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico advances)

Labels: CONCACAF, MLS, USL-1

FC Dallas saw their last flicker of hope for postseason play vanish Saturday night with a 3-1 loss to Real Salt Lake. RSL got their first win in the beautiful new Rio Tinto Stadium, and Dallas got served a heaping helping of offense, with a side of red cards.

Dallas will play their last game this Sunday, taking on fellow playoff non-contenders LA Galaxy. Pretty meaningless-looking game, though there may be a little Golden Boot excitement, if Kenny Cooper (#2, with 18 goals) can net a goal or two, and Dallas' defense can keep Landon Donovan (#1, with 19 goals) under wraps.

Ives has an interesting summary of the four teams that are now out of playoff contention: Toronto, San Jose, Dallas & LA.

And Buzz Carrick, of the Dallas fan blog 3rd Degree, has a joint game review covering both the loss to Real Salt Lake and the 2nd leg of the Rio Grande Plate against Tigres last week (Dallas won the game, but lost the series on PKs). Buzz has lots to say about the games, and some strong ideas about where some of the blame lies for this less-than-stellar 2008 season.

But of special interest to Austin fans are his words about Aztex alumnus Jamie Watson:

Jamie Watson was terrific at forward in the Tigres game and the previous reserve game, far outplaying Oduro. Watson was dangerous, created chaos, made intelligent runs, combined well checking back to midfield, scored goals, played defense, and drove the opposition crazy. It’s why he was on the travel squad and it’s why he got into the RSL game [subbed in for Cooper in the 80th minute]. He even scored on a header off a corner against Tigres. Don’t undersell in the Freddy Adu hype that Watson used to do all the dirty work for Freddy.

Labels: alumni, MLS

A quick follow-up to my recent post:

First, I went to the Longhorns game I mentioned in that post. It was a pretty good time. I can't really call the crowd anything more than "sparse", unfortunately. And I'm probably just showing off my ignorance of the college game, but some of their rules are crazy. No stoppage time, for one thing. Plus, the clock counts down, rather than up, even to the point of the announcer counting down the last 10 seconds of each half.

But the field at Myers sure is nice, there's no denying that. And they beat Iowa State 2-1, so I got a coupon for 5 free wings at Pluckers! Bottom line: there are worse ways to pass the time than watching athletic college girls play your favorite sport.

But if you want to check it out this season, you better act fast: there are only 3 home games left. Friday, Oct. 17 at 7 PM against Oklahoma (see UT beat OU again!), Sunday, Oct. 19 vs. Oklahoma State at 1 PM (tickets just $3 with this PDF coupon), and Friday, Oct. 31 vs. Baylor at 7 PM (trick? or treat?).

I also discovered that these games can be watched live online for free: look for "TexasSports.tv" on TexasSports.com for that.

The Women's Professional Soccer league (WPS) continues its preparations for next year. An article on the USL site sheds some light on the questions I had about if there would be crossover from W-League to WPS:

USL W-League players represented 24 of the 28 picks made in Monday’s Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) General Draft, which consisted of four rounds of selections between the seven WPS clubs. Moreover, 18 of those 24 selections competed as recently as the 2008 W-League season. Six players taken in the draft, including the number two overall selection Jill Oakes, were part of the recent USL W-League Combine held in Tampa, Florida.

One big standout seems to be the W-League team Pali Blues. They won the W-League championship this year — their first year in the league. And they've had no less than 9 players drafted into WPS so far, with more expected.

Labels: UT, W-League, WPS

Don't forget, the Aztex team will be participating in the Start! Heart Walk, a non-competitive 5K walk benefitting the American Heart Association. The walk begins at 8:00 AM on Saturday, October 18 in front of the Capitol building.

You can help the Aztex help this good cause by sponsoring a team member or joining a team yourself.

Labels: community

The USL-1 championship game between Vancouver Whitecaps and the Puerto Rico Islanders I mentioned in the last post is taking place tonight.

But shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone, we don't want the secret to get out.

At least that's how it seems, since I don't have Fox Soccer Channel, where it's being televised. Other outlets one might use to follow the game, such as a match-tracker on soccernet.com, are nowhere to be found. Even the USLSoccer website doesn't make a big deal of the game, placing their pregame write-up as the 2nd of 9 rotating stories on the home page. And no match-tracker there, either.

I've seen — and participated in — various debates about whether USL-1 and MLS are equivalent, or competitors, etc. With the former's better performance in the CONCACAF Champions League so far, it might make you wonder. Then again, when the final championship game of the top tier of the league registers as less than a blip anywhere but one cable-only TV channel, maybe there's not much to argue there, after all.

Update: Whitecaps win the championship, 2-1.

Labels: media, USL-1

This is a big week for the USL First Division.

First, there are two CONCACAF Champions League games tonight, featuring the two U.S. club teams who are doing best in the tournament so far. Not the MLS teams D.C. United or Houston Dyanamo, but USL-1 sides Montreal Impact and Puerto Rico Islanders. (Okay, so the teams aren't actually U.S. teams, but they both play in a U.S.-based league.)

Tonight in Trinidad, the Montreal Impact will to play Joe Public, and in Corona Stadium in Mexico, the Puerto Rico Islanders play Santos Laguna.

Then, in just 4 days, the Islanders turn around and play in the USL-1 Championship. They play the other Canadian USL-1 team (is there a pattern here?), the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Just think, next year we'll be watching the new Aztex team dominate both of these competitions.

In other USL-1 news, the Carolina Railhawks have gone through some big changes this week: President, General Manager & part owner Chris Economides is gone, as is head coach Scott Schweitzer. They also have some new ownership investment coming in, in the person of Bob Young. Young was formerly CEO of Red Hat Linux, and more recently the founder of the Internet self-publishing site Lulu.com.

Labels: CONCACAF, USL-1

My fifth-grade daughter volunteered to be a reporter on her school's closed-circuit TV news this year. The other day she was interviewing a classmate, and asked her that quintessential kid's question: "what do you want to be when you grow up?" The girl's answer: a professional soccer player.

Since the WUSA folded five years ago, there hasn't been a top-level pro league for women soccer players in the U.S. That league, created on the excitement of the national team's 1st place win in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup and the star power of players like Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy and Austin's own Mia Hamm, lasted just 3 seasons.

Now a new league, Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), is gearing up to take a second shot at the big time. They'll begin play next April, though of course preparations are well underway now.

This incarnation of women's pro soccer is also riding the momentum of the national team, though this time it's with gold medals from the Beijing Olympics. And it's a new generation of stars, too: Hope Solo, Christie Rampone, Natasha Kai and Shannon Boxx, to name but a few.

The league will start with just 7 teams in 2009, plus 3 more already announced for 2010. Dallas was on the original list of 2009 teams, but apparently they couldn't secure a place to play. The team in St. Louis not only has a very nice looking logo/crest, they also have an interesting name: "St. Louis". That's it. Just, St. Louis. No mascot, no club name, not so much as an "FC", from what I can tell.

The league is forming their teams now. They've already divvied up the 21 national team players, with three going to each team. And they held an "international draft", too. If I understand it right, that draft was just for the right to try to buy particular international stars, which I thought was pretty interesting. Marta, Daniela, Christiane and the rest of Brazil's single-named, silver-medalled Olympic squad will be the most sought-after, it seems.

Next up is the league's general draft, to be held this Monday, Oct. 6. This draft will include any players who signed up for it, whether domestic or international. I presume a good number of players will come from the USL's W-League. That's one aspect of WPS I'm looking forward to seeing: what its relationship to the W-League will be like. Hopefully more cooperative than what seems to exist between USL and MLS, anyway. And someday this could become of great interest to Aztex fans, if the club adds the W-League team they already own the franchise for.

Meanwhile, with no team in Texas yet, I've been following the Chicago Red Stars. And even though she's not listed in the international draft, if Germany's Fatmire Bajramaj ever comes to play in the WPS, I'll immediately switch allegiance to whatever team she goes to. Just because.

As I've said before, part of what I find fascinating about soccer in the U.S. is watching the business, promotion and marketing aspects of the sport. I think MLS has done a pretty good job so far in growing the league in a sustainable way. It's not perfect, and there's still criticism about the level of play compared to other leagues around the world. But at least they've avoided the flame-out of the NASL. So, I'm interested to see how WPS does, too. I understand their teams will be partnering with MLS teams in some cases, to take advantage of similarities and synergies (if you'll pardon the buzzword). As with MLS, the question boils down to: can this work?

On a related note, Austin's current women's team — the UT Longhorns, ranked 7th in the nation &mdash just lost the first game of the season last night, 2-1 to Nebraska. They play again at noon tomorrow (Sunday, Oct. 5), taking on Iowa State here at the Mike A. Myers stadium.

Labels: MLS, UT, W-League, WPS