Some Soccer News for Jun 19, 2017

It's Day 170 of 2017.


Minnesota United

Results:
-Sat Jun 17
Salt Lake 1-0 Minnesota

My MNUFC Notes:

• Game highlights - literally ALL Salt Lake. There isn't a single Minnesota attacking clip in the 4 minutes.
• Where do you even start with a game like this?
• Loons started the game in 4-2-3-1. Then shifted to 4-3-3, which has never worked for this team.
• 3 minutes after the shift they got scored on.
• MU used 1 sub - 1 sub at elevation!
• Where was the bench? They only took 18 players and 2 were injured.
• Outshot 29-5 - on target 9-1
• It was The Inept v The Terrible.
• NRV = No Redeeming Value.
•  MU caught offside twice on set pieces.
• All that work gone in a flash: Shuttleworth made 8 good saves, then blows an easy one to give away the game - Ramirez and Cronin gave up on play too.
• Iron fucking skillet!
• Shuttleworth good, until he wasn't.
• Ibson good.
• Thiesson ok.
• Kallman ok.
• Cronin good in 1st half, invisible in 2nd half.
• Calvo messy.
• Ramirez, Molino, Ibarra, Danladi, all invisible.
• KVenegas good to see him on the field again, but the mustache appeared to be messing with his crossing abilities.
• Schuller who?
• It wasn't the defensive 4 alone who did not slow down RSL. It was the whole team. No one in front of the centerbacks slowed anyone down.
• Manny Lagos and Amos Magee have to be under tremendous pressure to get several quality players into this roster asap. They need 5-6 players. Will they get more than 1 or 2? This is important stuff.
• The Loons have dropped to the bottom of the overall league standings. Not good.
• The loss was the first of 5 games in 17 days. Big trouble for a team with such a thin roster.
• Other teams have figured out how to shut down the Minnesota offense. No re-adjustments from the Minn except reverting to defensive shell which does not work when you can't generate any offense.

Some more scary stats:

• 7 goals scored and 14 allowed in all comps since Apr 23 - 9 games.
• Last 5 games its 2 scored and 10 allowed.
• Only 5 teams have scored less goals.
• 1 team has given up more goals.
• Least amount of points in the league - 14.
• Only team in league that is averaging less than 1 point per game - 0.93.

Media:
(skip it - you don't want to read it anyway)

Schedule (2 this week):
-Wed Jun 21
Minnesota v Portland - 7:00pm CT on My29.
-Sat Jun 24
Minnesota v Vancouver - 7:00pm CT on My29.

Marc Burch has gone to a see a medical specialist about what has for weeks been called a groin injury. By Megan Ryan for the Star Tribune.

Heavy equipment is on the scene in St Paul and construction has begun on the new Minn United stadium. [BRIEF VIDEO]

dN

USMNT

A leak of the USMNT Gold Cup jersey from @Footy_Headlines https://t.co/b47vseXCRN pic.twitter.com/CCSwnwzES8

— Bruce McGuire (@dunord) June 19, 2017

Friendly schedule:
-Sat Jul 1
USA v Ghana - 3:45pm CT on ESPN
Rentschler Field, East Hartford

Gold Cup roster to be announced on Jun 27.

dN

CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying:

Hexagonal results:
Matchday 5
-Thu Jun 8
USA 2-0 T+T
Costa Rica 0-0 Panama
Mexico 3-0 Honduras
Matchday 6
-Sun Jun 11
Mexico 1-1 USA
-Tue Jun 13
Panama 2-2 Honduras
Costa Rica 2-1 T+T

Hexagonal Standings:
(6 of 10 games played)
14 Mexico (+7)
11 Costa Rica (+5)
8 USA (+3)
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7 Panama (0)
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5 Honduras (-8)
3 Trinidad +Tobago (-7)

Matchdays 7 + 8 will be played Fri Sep 1 + Tue Sep 5 - USA v Costa Rica and at Honduras

dN

MLS

My MLS Notes:

• Josef Martinez is really really good. And he is back in the Atlanta lineup.
• Chicago wins ON THE ROAD AGAIN! Sticking right behind Toronto for best in the league.
• Montreal has another guy to go along side Ignacio Piatti now! Look out - Blerim Dzemaili is for real.
• DC is nearly as bad as Minnesota right now. Its a race to the bottom.
• Alan frickin Gordon! 3 wins in a row for Colorado.
• BWP gets 2 late goals after missing about 60 chances. At least he got 'em.

David Villa is the best MLS import since Robbie Keane. By Matt Pentz for the Guardian.

• Giovinco has been better than Villa in my book.

Media:

• Observations on all 22 teams. By Matt Doyle for MLS.
• 6 takeaways and a new contender. By Caitlin Murray for Fox Sports.
• Heroes new and old. By Alexander Abnos for Sports Illustrated.

Week 16 schedule/results:
(11 games)
-Sat Jun 17
New York City 2-1 Seattle
Atlanta 3-1 Columbus
New England 1-2 Chicago
Orlando 3-3 Montreal
Toronto 2-0 DC
San Jose 0-0 Kansas City
Colorado 2-1 Portland
Salt Lake 1-0 Minnesota
Vancouver 1-1 Dallas
LA 2-2 Houston
-Sun Jun 18
Philadelphia 0-2 New York RB

30 goals in 11 games = 2.7 goals per game.

dN

CONFED CUP

• Does anyone actually care? Tell me if you do.
• It seems that the Russian people do not care. The stands were quite empty for the first two games.
• I watched Mexico v Portugal on Sunday and it was a decent game. The VAR came in to play.
• Later Sunday I watched Chile v Cameroon and again the VAR was used. But after getting the correct call the 1st time and disallowing a Chile goal, they got it wrong the 2nd time and gave Chile a goal that should have been stopped for offside.

The Bird Is The Word