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Pat Noonan played for the New England Revolution before going to Norway’s Aalesunds FK at the beginning of the year. Now the Revolution have signed their former striker and immediately traded him to the Columbus Crew. During Noonan’s years with the Revolution he has played 136 and scored 42 goals.
The Revolution will receive a first round draft pick and allocation money and the rights to trade allocation position with the Crew.
After twice losing to the Dynamo in the MLS Cup the Revolution finally got one last night in the SuperLiga final. Another close game saw the Revolution twice come back from one goal deficits to tie the game. Once they did it in regulation and once again in the extra time. The game could not even be decided by the normal 5 penatly shots. Not six, not seven, but it took eight penatly shots to settle the game and give the New England Revolution another trophy for their case.
VS 
Houston Dynamo - New England Revolution
Gillette Stadium
7PM CST (8PM local time)
Telefutura
The Dynamo and Revolution are no strangers to each other when trophies are at stake. The two teams have played for the MLS Cup both of the past 2 years, both of which the Dynamo have won despite never having beat the Revolution in the regular season. This will be their first meeting for a SuperLiga trophy in only the 2nd year of the tournament. Last season Pachuca beat the LA Galaxy in a shootout in the final.
Road to the finals
Houston Dynamo:
The Dynamo won group A by beating Atlante and D.C. United but losing to Chivas de Guadalajara. They topped the group by goal difference. Then they Dynamo had to face Pachuca in the semi-finals. Last season Pachuca beat the Dynamo in the same stage of the tournament - this year the Dynamo advanced to the final.
New England Revolution:
The Revolution beat Pachuca and Santos and finished in a draw with MLS’s Chivas USA to win group B. They went on to beat Atlante in the semi-finals to advance to play the Dynamo for another trophy. The Revolution remain the only unbeaten team in the tournemant so far.
So what is going to happen tonight? The Dynamo have the upper hand in games where trophies are at stake but they Revolution have dominated the Dynamo when it has not been the MLS Cup. The game is at the home of the Revolution which could help them. Both teams are in very good form right now in MLS regular season play.
Juan Toja played 2 season in Major League Soccer and played in 2 all star games. Now Toja is off to Romania - sold to Steaua Bucharest by FC Dallas. The Columbian midfielder will be the third Columbian on the Steaua Bucharest roster. He will join another attacking midfielder Dayro Moreno and goalkeeper Róbinson Zapata. During Toja’s stay at FC Dallas he played in 47 games and scored 8 goals. The amount of the transfer fee was not made public.
It was recently announced that MLS hopes to bring two more new teams to the league in 2011. Seattle is coming on next season and Philadelphia the following year. Now all the talk of expansion teams is in Canada. I do still think that St. Louis will probably get one and likely Vancouver could get the other.
Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash is a big soccer fan and former player. Nash along with USL’s Vancouver Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot want to bring MLS to Vancouver. The best part of this plan is that they want the team to be not-for-profit. All profits the team would make would be invested back into amateur soccer in BC. As far as I know this would be a first for Major League Soccer.
The owner of the Vancouver Canucks, Francesco Aquilini, was meeting with Nash and Kerfoot recently about MLS in Vancouver. It is yet to be known weather Aquilini would be a potential partner or competitor to Nash and Kerfoot when it comes to bringing MLS to Vancouver.
The rumors were true. Brian McBride is going to join the Chicago Fire. Toronto FC had the right to McBride, but McBride made it known that he wanted to play near his hometown which is right near Chicago. The Fire sent forward Chad Barrett to TFC along with future considerations in order to get McBride.
McBride spent several years playing for Fulham FC in England after a long and very successful career in Major League Soccer playing for the Columbus Crew. At the league’s 10th anniversary they named the all time best XI team which included Brian McBride.
Any team should be happy to have a player like McBride, but Toronto doesn’t come out of this deal in a bad way at all. Chad Barrett has played with both the US Olympic team and the full men’s national team. He should be a welcome addition at Toronto.
This morning I found a great site that tracks the odds that your team is going to make the playoffs at each week. Sports Club Stats tracks 8 different sports including Major League Soccer. It looks like a pretty neat thing Mr. Ken Roberts has built, a bit complex but still pretty cool.
So lets look at the chances of all the MLS teams as of right now:
99.0% Revolution
95.2% Crew
80.3% Fire
70.3% Real Salt Lake
62.2% CD Chivas
62.0% D.C. United
60.8% Dynamo
51.7% Wizards
——————–
51.4% Toronto FC
48.6% Galaxy
41.5% FC Dallas
39.0% Red Bulls
33.3% Rapids
4.7% Earthquakes
Looks pretty bleak for Earthquakes fans and very bright for Revolution fans. Only one time out of 100 would the Revs fail to make the playoffs according to his calculations.
The Olympics only comes around once every 4 years - so I figured I could take some time to think about the Olympics for a little bit. I had a hard time finding a full Olympic schedule - so here ya go: 2008 Beijing Olympics Soccer Schedule.
So a camping trip this weekend kept me away from everything happening, but I was able to watch the All-Star game on Thursday night before leaving for the camping trip. It was great to see the MLS All-Stars win again! Thats about all I have the energy to write today.
Peter Nowak named his sqaud for the Beijing Olympics. The team includes several current and former MLS players. Real Salt Lake, Toronto FC and Houston Dynamo are all losing 2 players to Nowak’s Olympic roster while the Columbus Crew, Chivas USA and the New England Revolution will be missing a single player to Nowak during the Olympics.
The Olympic competition is largely a U23 game - with the addition of 3 overage players. A surprise (to me at least) was the addition of Brian McBride rather than Landon Donovan. LA Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit warned that taking Donovan to the Olympics would be a bad idea due to the World Cup Qualifiers that will be going on in the upcoming months.
Here is the full squad:
Goalkeepers: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Chris Seitz (Real Salt Lake)
Defenders: Patrick Ianni (Houston Dynamo), Michael Orozco (San Luis), Michael Parkurst (New England Revolution), Nathan Sturgis (Real Salt Lake), Marvel Wynne (Toronto FC)
Midfielders: Freddy Adu (SL Benfica), Michael Bradley (SC Heerenveen), Maurice Edu (Toronto FC), Benny Feilhaber (Derby County), Stuart Holden (Houston Dynamo), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Danny Szetela (Brescia Calcio)
Forwards: Jozy Altidore (Villareal), Charlie Davies (Hammarby IF), Brian McBride (None), Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew)
Both of the final games of group B finished with 1-1 draws which was good enough to send the New England Revolution through to the semi-finals with the top spot from group B. Defending champions Pachuca advance with 4 points and second place in the group.
PTS - W - L - T (GF-GA) Team
7 - 2 - 0 - 1 (3-1) New England Revolution
4 - 1 - 1 - 1 (3-3) Pachuca CF
4 - 1 - 1 - 1 (3-3) Chivas USA
1 - 0 - 2 - 1 (1-3) Santos Languna
Tuesday the semi-finals get underway with Houston Dynamo playing Pachuca CF.  Then Wednesday’s semi-final will see New England Revolution play Atlante.
