August 23, 2007
While a penalty kick is never the greatest drama when a record is set, the fact that DC United forward scored his 109th career MLS goal against the NY Red Bulls, in DC's 3-1 win no less, is very fitting.
Not only is the club formerly known as the MetroStars the arch rival of DC United, it is also the only other MLS club that Moreno has played for in his career.
Moreno has spent 11 of his 12 years in MLS with DC United. He has scored 107 of his 109 MLS goals in a DC uniform. In 2003, he scored a mere 2 goals as a member of the MetroStars.
Moreno passed former Dallas and Real Salt Lake, and current Real Salt Lake head coach, Jason Kreis to move into first all-time in MLS goal scoring.
The question now is where will the 33 year old Bolivian's goal total end and how long will it be before players like Chivas USA's Ante Razov (104 career goals) and New England's Taylor Twellman (85 career goals) pass him?
US falls to Sweden
I have a confession to make. While I taped the US-Sweden game yesterday, I didn't watch it after seeing the highlights (or should that be the lowlights) of the 1-0 US loss.
Seriously, from the highlights, it appeared that goalkeeper Tim Howard was far and away the best player on the field for the US last night. And that's not the type of game that I want to spend a couple of hours watching if given the choice.
Now if Clint Dempsey would stop missing sitters, and I know Fulham wants that trend to stop ASAP as well, and if the US had a more dominant presence up top (Brian Ching went down with an injury on game day), then perhaps things would have been different.
But alas, the US learned again that they need to step up bigger when playing a European team on the road.
Hopefully Bob Bradley and the boys will figure out the winning formula sooner as opposed to later.
News & Notes:
- The USWNT has announced two more post-World Cup home games versus Mexico. The U.S. women will play on Oct. 17 in Portland with a 10 p.m. ET kickoff at PGE Park before wrapping up the three-game series vs. Mexico in Albuquerque on Oct. 20 at 6:30 p.m. ET.
- SI.com's Ryan Hunt has his latest edition of MLS Free Kicks. For the bettors out there, he was 2 for 2 last night .....
- NY Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore has another blog entry for the NY Times up. I like the old school mention that the Red Bulls take the train down to DC for games against DC United.
- Soccer 365.com has an interview with a currently out of work Kasey Keller. Perhaps he should hang up the boots and angle to get a position with the potential MLS franchise in Seattle?
- FC Dallas goalkeeper Shaka Hislop is retiring. Hislop played in a grand total of 10 games (4 last year and 6 this year) for the Hoops.
- Beckham played the entire game against Germany yesterday for the English national team. If Beckham plays in tonight's game between LA and Chivas USA, he won't be the only player in the game with tired legs. Both Landon Donovan and Jonathan Bornstein played for the US versus Sweden and were hoping to play tonight as well. Thankfully, LA head coach Frank Yallop is only talking about a five minute cameo for Beckham. Although, if Beckham were to start and go say sixty minutes+, that should quiet any and all "Beckham is dogging it" talk.....
- USA Today has a feature on Maykel Galindo who defected from the Cuban National Team at the same time as the Rhino's Rey Martinez.
- And finally, Yahoo! Sports.com's Martin Rogers comes up with a list of 10 players he thinks that MLS should try and go out and get. Well, make that nine players and a referee. The only problem I have with this list is the utter lack of good debate it could raise, outside of mentioning retired Italian referee Pierluigi Collina at number 10.
Give me some good debate starters such as Chelsea forward Andriy Shevchenko. Play up the angle that he's married to an American, model Kristen Pazik, and the fact that he's been a disappointment since his move to the EPL last year.
And forget Ronaldo. PLEASE.
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.
