July 27, 2007
Montreal and Vancouver had been struggling lately. So while the two Canadian teams are rivals, they opted to swap high profile players yesterday in an attempt to get a boost prior to next week's roster freeze date.
Montreal acquires 2006 USL 1st Division MVP forward Joey Gjersten and midfielder David Testo with midfielder Zé Roberto and forward Alen Marcina heading west to join the Whitecaps.
The move to Vancouver is a homecoming for Marcina who is a British Columbia native. This move also reunites Whitecaps head coach Bob Lilley and Roberto. Roberto played for the Hershey Wildcats for two seasons under Lilley's direction.
Montreal continues their game of musical chairs up top. This off season, Montreal sent forwards Mauricio Salles and Daniel Antoniuk to Atlanta for Fabian Dawkins and Jason McLaughlin. Dawkins has only seen time in 4 games and McLaughlin never played a minute for Montreal. Then Montreal acquired Marcina from the Puerto Rico Islanders about six weeks ago before shipping him off to his third team of the season.
It's nice to see the constant shuffle of forwards isn't only a Rhinos thing.
Maybe it's a good thing that Sanneh didn't sign with the Rhinos
Apparently, Sanneh got burned on the game winner as California came into James Griffin Stadium and defeated the Thunder 2-1 last evening.
It will be interesting to see what kind of shape the Thunder are in when they roll into PAETEC Park tomorrow night.
The Portland Timbers and the Timbers Army team up to promote game
The Timbers new GM and their supporters club worked together to promote tomorrow night's visit by Preston North End.
Imagine that, a team working with it's fans to come up with inexpensive ways to market the club.
Who would ever have thought of that idea?
News & Notes:
- Center Circle at US Soccer.com has 11 questions with USWNT forward Abby Wambach. I think I've heard that name somewhere before.........
- Toronto FC goalkeeper Greg Sutton may be done for the year with a concussion. It's been a tough year for the former Montreal Impact goalkeeper.
- Jack Bell of the NY Times has the transcript of his Q&A with USMNT head coach Bob Bradley up. It was interesting to see Bob dance around the Olympic head coach question.
- Grant Wahl has a piece on SI.com where he talks about the Iraqi Nats, Superliga, and the Adu to Benfica deal or no deal.
- Now Chivas USA are saying that they weren't going after Juan Sebastián Verón. It's going to be very interesting to see if the Argentine international moves to an MLS club soon or not. Personally, I'd love to see him suit up for DC United.
- Here is a cool little piece on the return of the San Jose Earthquakes to MLS in 2008.
- Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle is giving Superliga a thumbs up.
- Kevin McGeehan of US Soccer Players.com thinks that DC United needs to push harder to get their new stadium deal done. Personally, I think a lot of the foot dragging has to do with the fact that United does quite well at RFK and there isn't the huge need to get a new stadium deal done ASAP. They can afford to take their time and get the best deal they can. And that appears to be exactly what they are doing.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
