August 24, 2007
With a win tonight at home versus Montreal, the Rhinos would leap over the Impact in the USL standings.
Both teams have clinched playoff spots and now they are merely playing for playoff seeding.
Both teams are on hot streaks with Rochester winning three in a row and all three by shutout. Montreal is 4-0-2 over their last six and have have a four game shutout streak going.
On the injury front, Montreal will be without former Rhino Mauro Biello who suffered an elbow injury in Montreal's last match versus Vancouver and is expected to miss 3 weeks. The Rhinos on the other hand should have Matthew Delicate and Kenney Bertz back in the 18 man roster, although neither player is expected to start.
I can't wait for tonight's game to get here and hope that the crowd is as big and loud as any this season. This team and this match up deserve it.
News & Notes:
- Rhinos playoff tickets go on sale Monday. Season ticket holders should stop by guest services tonight or call 454-KICK to get their playoff ticket package.
- Kasey Keller has found a home with Fulham FC of the EPL. Keller is the fourth American on the Fulham roster joining forward and team captain Brian McBride, defender Carlos Bocanegra, and midfielder Clint Dempsey.
- In other Fulham news, Brian McBride is hoping to be back around Christmas and Clint Dempsey hopes to see more playing time due to the injuries that have ravaged the Cottagers lineup early in the season.
- Steven Goff's Soccer Insider blog is off the chain today. From Fabio Capello talking to US Soccer to talk about how bad the LA Galaxy are to the lowdown on the Israel Sesay lottery to Brazil's roster for the US friendly , Steven has loads of good stuff today.
- Beckham went the full 90 in LA's 3-0 loss to Chivas USA last night. The fact that a less than 100% Beckham played 180 minutes of soccer on two continents between Wednesday and Thursday is amazing to me. Even Landon Donovan didn't try it as he was a second half sub for the Galaxy. And Andrea Canales is defending the decision to have Beckham play the whole game last night.
- FC Dallas has finally signed Denilson as their Designated Player. It will be interesting to see how much the 29-yo attacking midfielder has left in the tank as he had most recently been playing in Saudia Arabia. Hopefully he makes as big an impact as Beckham, Angel, and Blanco has thus far.
- Dema Kovalenko will not be in the lineup tomorrow when the Red Bulls travel to New England.
- US Soccer has launched a couple of new blogs. One covers the USWNT and another is basically their version of Yanks Abroad called US Soccer Global. There appears to be a lot of updates on these blogs, so they are definitely worth subscribing to.
- This Is American Soccer.com has a piece on the USWNT before they head off to China. You have to read what Adam says about Abby. Although, Devo may tell you to stop at the picture of Natasha Kai in the article header.
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.
