Catching up on things

The Trip
It’s been a busy week. As I’m sure you know from my postings, I drove to Columbus, Ohio with my friends, Joe, Kevin and Rich and met up with many other Minnesota National team supporters in Columbus. The short time I had there was full with rich experiences. I spent a few hours passing stories with Adam Spangler of This is American Soccer. Adam is an excellent writer and it was a pleasure to find out what a great guy he is besides being a top notch journalist. I also had the opportunity to meet Ives Galarcep of Soccer by Ives and spent time with the founder of Big Soccer. However, it was my good friends who really made the trip extra special.

Sweetwater
Thanks to everyone who came down to the Sweetwater and to Neal who made sure all the swag was handed out and things ran orderly. According to rough counts there were about 60 people in attendance. I can’t tell you how much more fun it makes these games when there’s a big group of like minded supporters in the house. We’ll plan another watch party for the next qualifier. Hopefully we will see you there. 

June 6th, US v  Honduras @ Soldier Field.
I was twitter texted by Madison Soccer Central while in Columbus – The message said US Soccer had chosen Chicago’s Soldier field for the June 6th World Cup qualifier against Honduras. There were more than a few eyebrows raised when the midwesterners heard that one. This made me wonder what the Fire’s schedule was that weekend and sure enough, they will play Friday evening at Toyota Park against the Houston Dynamo. So we’ve already been in contact with Section 8 looking at getting some tickets for the Fire game and then move on over to Soldier Field on Saturday for the WC qualifier. I’m guessing those Fire tickets will go quickly. By the way, the Thunder play in Rochester that weekend. Who’s in?

Fri Jun 05 – Fire v Dynamo – 8:00 at Toyota Park

Sat Jun 06 – USA v Honduras – 7:00 at Soldier Field

Twitter
This weekend was spent updating many things on my blog. As some of you already know, I’ve been active on Twitter for a while now under bquarstad. I ‘Tweet’ all my new Inside Minnesota Soccer posts which then get automatically posted on my Facebook page. This weekend I set up a new MinnesotaSoccer Twitter page. I’ve tried to notify most everyone who was following me previously that I will now be tweeting there instead. Please go to MinnesotaSoccer to follow IMS on Twitter. You can even set up your mobile phone to receive Tweets from IMS. I’ve also been working on getting a Twitter badge up on the site to make it easy to follow me on Twitter but lets just say I need to keep working on that one. 

USL
There’s been a lot happening on the USL stage the last several days. Perhaps the biggest news of all is that the Montreal Impact have now sold a whopping 42,000 tickets for their first home CONCACAF Champions League quarter final February 25th at Olympic Stadium. This breaks the old CONCACAF Champions League sales record of 40,000. 

Thunder release two players
The Minnesota Thunder released two players this week. Fredric Moojen and Kevin Taylor. 

Moojen was rookie of the year last year for New Jersey in indoor play. He had previously played in USL for Montreal. Moojen played a part in games this year but was not the impact forward the team had hoped for. 

Taylor was with the team as a central defender for 2 seasons. Picked up as an invite at a tryout in Madison, Wisc. Taylor was often impressive and was seldom beat in the air. However, his stature did not allow him play into Don Gramenz 3-5-2 as much as it did with Amos Magee’s flat back four. Taylor didn’t see much playing time towards the end of last season. Replacing Taylor will be a bit more difficult as the tall defender was a crowd favorite with his contagious smile and friendly personality. KT, as we knew him, came from the Michigan Bucks of USL-2 before joining the Thunder and played in New Zealand in our off-season last year. KT is from Miami, Florida. 

Good luck to both KT and Moojen. I think we will see both players catch on with other USL-1 teams. There is still no word from the Thunder front office on who will be replacing the two players. I know the front office have been busy and I’m guessing we will hear of some signings soon, but to quote Thunder historian Scott Kerssen, who recently posted on the Thunder discussion board, “At the end of last season, there were 27 players on the squad, with 23 players under contract. Since then, one has retired, one bought out his option and signed elsewhere, five have been released, and one, Brian Pederson, status unknown. Of the four players who were not under contract after last season, one has resigned with the Thunder, two have signed elsewhere, and one, Dan O’Brien, is status unknown.”

There was a feeling at the end of last season after interviewing Don Gramenz, that the team would remain fairly stable. It seems anything but stable at this point. However, flux is more the norm than the exception when it comes to USL teams. 

Thunder vs. KC Wizards
There was also word leaked this week from a youth club in Kansas that the Minnesota Thunder will be playing an exhibition game against the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer in a scrimmage. The game will be played in Cedar Rapids on the 14th of March at 5:30 p.m. Perhaps leaked is the incorrect word as the team site clearly has information regarding the match up. No official word from either organization yet, but on the trip to Columbus, a few Minnesotan’s ran into a Wizard ticket representative who explained that the the club in Cedar Rapids is sponsoring and paying the cost of the game. It is also rumored that neither organization has announced the event yet because the club and the two teams have not finalized and signed all the paperwork yet. In other words, this will probably happen but it’s  in no way a sure thing. 

Finally
There’s a lot more going on in the soccer world – like the Milan derby today where Inter beat AC Milan for the second time this season. (Correction: Each team took a game this season) Also, Michael Bradley, who scored two goals for the US, went back to his team on two days travel and scored to bring his Bundesliga team even against Borussia Monchengladbach  to help them climb out of the relegation zone. Also both Beckham and Donovan are being recalled by the L.A. Galaxy. There’s still a chance both of them will stay with their current clubs, but there’s just as much of a chance of them coming back to LA for another season. We will see, but for now, I’ll leave you with that. Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of regular posts again this coming week. 

Thanks to everyone who is reading. The numbers have continued to surprise me as the readership of IMS continues to grow each week and each day. Not only from Minnesota but from around the US. Make sure to tell your friends. Follow me on Twitter and lets all keep growing the sport in the U.S., from the ground up.  Thank you so much!