Ride Free to Minnesota Stars Metrodome Home Opener; Metro Transit to Provide Free Rides
As was announced in the notes of the Dark Clouds supporters summit, if you live within the Metro Transit area you will be able to ride free to the Stars FC home opener at the Metrodome on April 7. The Minnesota Stars FC announced officially today that they have partnered with Metro Transit and all rides to and from the game will be provided free.
“As we kick off the defense of our 2012 North American Soccer League title, we wanted to build an event that showcases the Twin Cities as a soccer community,” said Stars FC CEO Djorn Buchholz. “We want to remove as many obstacles as possible preventing people from attending the game, and we appreciate Metro Transit’s cooperation and willingness to help our fans get to and from the Metrodome safely as part of their ticket purchase.”
Fans who show their ticket to Stars FC’s home opener against the Carolina RailHawks at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome can ride any Metro Transit bus or light rail train in the two-hour windows before and after the match.
General admission seats to the Dome Opener start at just $5 for all ages, with reserved seats available for $10 and on-field, pitchside seats available for just $20. For more information or to purchase tickets for the opener please see the Stars FC website.
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) announced major changes to the game of football (soccer) today that has sent shock waves through all the major leagues and national federations. Effective immediately the following changes will be made to all FIFA sanctioned matches:
•The height of the goal is now going to be 10 feet high and the 30 feet wide
•Regulation pitch dimensions will now be at a minimum of 165 yards by 124 yards
•The penalty box will be 23 yards instead of 18 yards
•All penalty kicks will now be taken from roughly 16 yards away
FIFA President Sepp Blatter would not comment on the changes. However, a high-ranking FIFA official stated off the record, “Adults expect young kids to play soccer on a large pitch to make it look like real soccer. What we have done is simply expand the pitch dimensions, so that adults can enjoy the same competitive experience.”
Clearly, an excellent player like Lionel Messi could not withstand the pressures of such a big field for 90 minutes. Goalkeepers like Iker Casillas or Petr Čech would hold their head in sorrow, as they would no longer be able to keep a clean sheet.
If you think changes like these are absurd, then think about how absurd it is for adults to demand players as young as nine or 10 to play in an 11 v. 11 environment on a regulation pitch. While soccer for adults is played in an 11 v. 11 environment, the same setting is not the best for younger soccer players. That is why small-sided soccer is being used more frequently at the younger ages, and continues to play a vital role in soccer training for all ages.
What exactly is a Small Sided Game (SSG)? read more…
Today is Valentine’s Day. Yes, I know it’s also the startup of Champions League again. But for many of us we are going to have to prioritize today. So with it being a big soccer day and a holiday where we honor our significant other, it seems entirely appropriate to bring back the Puma Men’s Hardchorus to sing Savage Garden’s ‘Truly Madly Deeply.’ It’s been a few years since I posted this so I thought it might be time again.
From IMS to all the significant others out there who, like it or not, share our 365-day-a-year obsession with the beautiful game, here is a dedication to our other obsession: You, our valentines.
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Savage Garden – Truly Madly Deeply Lyrics
I’ll be your dream, I’ll be your wish, I’ll be your fantasy.
I’ll be your hope, I’ll be your love. Be everything that you need.
I love you more with every breath, Truly madly deeply do.
I will be strong I will be faithful ‘Cos I’m counting on a new beginning. A reason for living. A deeper meaning.
I want to stand with you on a mountain. I want to bathe with you in the sea. I want to lay like this forever. Until the sky falls down on me.
And when the stars are shining brightly In the velvet sky
I’ll make a wish, Send it to heaven. Then make you want to cry.
The tears of joy. For all the pleasure and the certainty.
That we’re surrounded by the comfort and protection of – the highest power. In lonely hours. The tears devour you.
I want to stand with you on a mountain. I want to bathe with you in the sea. I want to lay like this forever. Until the sky falls down on me.
Francisco Grande Hotel was originally built in 1961 as the home of preseason training for the San Francisco Giants.
“Three years ago this was all a desert,” says Jerry, a Grande Sports World employee who gesticulates by sweeping his hand across the landscape of where the sports complex and its 8 soccer fields now sit firmly planted in the sandy soil of Arizona. Grande Sports World, now a destination for preseason training for MLS and NASL teams, has indeed gone through a metamorphosis of sorts. In fact, even though the facility is only 3 years old, they’ve already changed gears and moved a different direction in that short time. But it’s possible Grande Sports World have now found their mark, servicing professional soccer teams in preseason training, providing a complete facility for coaches training through the NSCAA and U.S. Soccer, and academy hosting with Real Salt Lake and in the near future, possibly Grande Sports World.
Fifty years ago the resort, which included the Francisco Grande Hotel, was built for the spring training camp of the San Francisco Giants. The hotel and golf resort were built in 1961, just a few short years after the team moved from New York. The hotel, which jutted out of the flat Arizona desert, was built with features of a MLB stadium. External staircases wind, reminiscent of the older baseball parks, as well as a cantilevered roof off a top floor building.
Horace Stoneham, who then owned the Giants, built the unique hotel about 5 miles from the town of Casa Grande and about an hour’s drive south of Phoenix. There still are remnants of the preseason baseball camp with items like a baseball bat-shaped pool and a two story observation tower that used to be surrounded by 4 baseball fields. Nowadays the tower sits in front of the 8 soccer fields, 6 of them lit. read more…
Minnesota’s Jenna Roering Named to Gatorade Girls State Fall Soccer Players of the Year Team
ESPN Announced on Thursday morning that Circle Pines, Minn., resident Jenna Roering has been named to the 22 women Gatorade State Fall Girls Soccer Players of the Year Team.
The Centennial junior forward scored 34 goals and passed for 12 assists this past season, leading the Cougars (18-2-2) to the Class AA state semifinals. A member of the Minnesota Thunder Academy and U.S. Soccer Under-17 Women’s National Team player pool, she is a two-time Minnesota State High School Soccer Coaches Association Class AA First Team All-State selection and a two-time Class AA All-State Tournament Team honoree. Roering has 70 goals and 26 assists to this point in her prep career. She has also maintained a 3.39 GPA in the classroom.
The ESPN article states that Roering has volunteered locally as a youth soccer coach and mentor, as part of area food drives for the needy and as a peer promoter of healthy eating in the Centennial High cafeteria.
Roering has verbally committed to play soccer at Santa Clara University in the fall of 2013.
List of all 22 Gatorade Girls Soccer Players of the Year —> read more…
NASL News: Signings in Carolina and Fort Lauderdale, NASL Combine, & Silverbacks’ Pre-season Schedule
Recently the Carolina RailHawks have announced the signing of Costa Rican James Scott Guevera, while the Fort Lauderdale Strikers have added Alfonso Motagalvan to their roster. This weekend the 2012 NASL Combine takes place, with each of the 71 players involved hoping to make a good impression and win a 2012 contract with one of the eight NASL clubs. In other news, the Atlanta Silverbacks announced their 2012 preseason schedule, including two matches against other professional clubs.
RailHawks Add James Scott Guevera
New Carolina RailHawks headman Colin Clarke is in the task of rebuilding the RailHawks 2011 regular season champion squad, and reached out to the Primera Division de Costa Rica to sign 25-year-old midfielder/defender James Scott Guevera. The Costa Rica native has played most recently for Orion FC, where he started 23 matches and was one of the top five Orion players in minutes played this season. The versatile player will enter RailHawks camp in shape, as he was a recent starter for Orion in their January 29 match against CD Alajuelense and two days later against Belen Siglo XXI. Guevera has also played for Costa Rican clubs Barrio Mexico, Municipal Liberia and Brujas before joining Orion in 2011. read more…
US defender Harry Keough clears a ball out of the box in the famous 1-0 World Cup win over England
Harry Keough, one of the greatest players and coaches in the history of U.S. soccer, passed away today, Feb. 7, 2012 in his home in St. Louis, Missouri. Keough was one of the key players on the U.S. team that defeated England 1-0 at the 1950 World Cup.
The following is St. Louis soccer writer Dave Lange’s shortened version of his story about Keough that appears in his excellent book “Soccer Made in St. Louis,” published in August 2011.
A special thanks to Dave Lange for making this excerpt available to IMS readers.
-Brian Quarstad-
~~~
There are so many ways to measure the career of Harry Keough: eight national titles won as a player; five NCAA national championships as a coach; one of 11 starters for the U.S. in its momentous victory over England in the 1950 World Cup; scores of players developed into college and professional stars, including his son; enshrinement in a fistful of halls of fame.
Another measure: his mistakes, remembered by his friends and admirers because there were so few of them.
“Only one time do I remember Harry making a mistake,” said Rich Meisemann, Keough’s teammate with Kutis in the 1950s, during lunch in a south St. Louis restaurant. “We were at Walsh Stadium. It was late in the game and we’re winning by one goal against Simpkins. Harry had the ball on left side and PeeWee Wallace took it away from him and they went down and scored. Harry only had to clear the ball and the game was over.”
A week later, when told that Meisemann could only recall one mistake by Keough, Val Pelizzaro knew it immediately without further clues. “It was the one when Harry didn’t kick the ball out of bounds,” said Pelizzaro. “It was PeeWee Wallace at Walsh Stadium.” read more…
Minneapolis, Minn., – 02/06/2012
The University of Minnesota women’s soccer team has announced the 2012 signing class with the addition of six new student-athletes to the Gopher program. Head coach Mikki Denney Wright has snagged five Minnesota preps stars in Ellie Arvesen, Mehan Bolton, Elle Dykema, Kristen Knutson and Allie Reinke while also pulling in Iowa native in Haley Helverson.
“We would like to welcome the 2012 recruiting class and their families to the Gopher Soccer Family,” said head coach Mikki Denney Wright. “This is a very athletic and versatile class with tremendous overall potential. Through discipline, commitment, hard work and deliberate practice these young women can develop into impact players for our team. I know our team and our coaches are expecting this group to embrace the Gopher Soccer culture immediately and become a valuable part of our program. These young women have an incredible opportunity to be surrounded by a group of truly extraordinary teammates. I encourage them to make the most of it.” read more…
Strikers president Tim Robbie
The year 2011 was a good one for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. The Traffic Sports-owned team, which originally started out as Miami FC in 2006, rebranded last year as the born-again Strikers with a new logo and uniforms to boot. Traffic pushed more money toward the organization than it ever had in the past with stepped up marketing and better players. The team finished 5th in the league standings but made it to the NASL Championship series where they lost to Minnesota. In the process the Strikers drew an average of 3,769. Excluding the MLS-bound Montreal Impact, it was a league-high attendance number and well over triple of what Miami FC drew in their 4 previous years.
Many both inside and outside the Strikers organization give credit to Tim Robbie for much of the team’s 2011 success. Robbie is a name known to South Floridians for the time spent with the original Strikers when his father owned the team. It took Traffic’s Aaron Davidson a while to convince Robbie to come aboard with the new NASL and the Strikers. But once he did, Robbie threw himself into the team and the league.
But this offseason hasn’t been without its challenges for Robbie. The FAA, who owns the property that the Strikers home stadium, Lockhart, sits on, is once again this year playing hardball with the city of Fort Lauderdale and the team. Changes have also occurred in the Strikers front office as Traffic USA has separated themselves from the organization. There have also been plenty of rumors of an impending sale of the team with reliable sources telling IMS that a large English Financial corporation is interested in the Strikers.
IMS talked to Robbie on Monday afternoon so that he could clarify the ongoing situations with the Strikers this offseason.
Interview after the jump —> read more…
The Minnesota Youth Soccer Association (MYSA) hosted their annual Winter Coaching Symposium Saturday at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Around 500 coaches from around the state of Minnesota and MYSA affiliates attended the symposium.
Shattuck-St. Mary’s, a coeducational Episcopal college preparatory boarding and day school enrolling students in grades 6 through 12 and located in Faribault, Minn., announced on Friday that 13 boys and girls who are part of their soccer program signed letters of intent for NCAA division I and II schools. Five more students, four girls and one boy, signed institutional letters of commitment to colleges.
Shattuck-St. Mary’s soccer academy program was founded in 2005 by Tim Carter and has graduated many student-athletes playing in college soccer programs throughout the U.S. Teal Bunbury, U.S. National Team player and member of Sporting KC, is perhaps their most famous graduate. Students attend school but also train twice a day in a true live-in academy program. The boys program is part of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy.
“It is an exciting day for these players, their families, our soccer program and our school,” said Scott Curwin, Director of Athletics at SSM. “These 18 student-athletes represent countless hours of practice, travel, and sacrifice to achieve this moment.”
Here is a list of the players who signed on Wednesday, February 2, 2012. —> read more…
Photo by Aaron Frederickson
Last fall IMS reported on the surprise demolition of the beer garden at the northwest corner of the National Sports Center Stadium in Blaine, Minn., home field for the Minnesota Stars. The beer garden had become a fixture at the stadium for Stars fans since it was built for the Thunder in the spring of 2009 by former owner Dean Johnson.
IMS was told the demolition was done last fall in order to lay the ground work (sewer, gas and water) for construction that would take place this winter for an expansion at the Schwan Center called the Sport Expo Center. That work seemed slow in its progress, but in the last several days seems to be taking a fast track. Numerous pre-fab walls have now gone up, giving us a glimpse of how the stadium will have a new more intimate look. read more…
FC Edmonton Stadium Announcement Coming Soon; Canadian Championship to be Played at Commonwealth
Steven Sandor of The 11.com posted yesterday that FC Edmonton has confirmed they will play their Amway Canadian Championship match opener at Commonwealth Stadium. The game will take place on May 2nd against the Vancouver Whitecaps. According to Sandor, the CSA does not allow ACC matches to be played on fields with “football lines or other sports’ markings on the field.”
Commonwealth stadium is a 60,000 seat stadium that is used for the Edmonton Eskimos of the CFL. It has turf but no markings cut into the field.
IMS contacted FC Edmonton about the regular venue for 2012 which still has not been decided. In an earlier conversation in mid-January with PR director for the club, Andreas Morse, he had indicated that the team would most likely not be playing their regular season games at last year’s location, Foote Field. read more…
Pablo Campos will be wearing new colors this season as he joins the San Antonio Scorpions. Photo - Rob Kinnan
The NASL expansion San Antonio Scorpions club added four more players, including long-time MLS vet Ryan Cochrane, along with one of the top NASL attackers last season, Pablo Campos of the Carolina RailHawks, in addition to signing two young players with local ties. The RailHawks, meanwhile, will have Chris Nurse back in the fold for the upcoming season and have added promising defender Gale Agbossoumonde to their squad.
San Antonio Bring Roster to 16
Scorpions Coach Tim Hankinson now has 16 players signed for the club’s initial season of competition. The club announced not only the signings of vets Cochrane and Campos, but also locals Matt Gold and Craig Hill.
Ryan Cochrane, a 28-year-old defender, attended Santa Clara University before turning pro in 2004. He was a Hermann Trophy semifinalist in college and was the fifth pick in the 2004 MLS SuperDraft, selected by the San Jose Earthquakes. He went with the club when the franchise left for Houston in 2006, and played on two MLS Cup championship squads with the Dynamo in 2006 and 2007. He had a second stint with the Earthquakes expansion side in 2008 and a later turn with Houston again. read more…
U.S. Men’s National Team to Play Canada Before 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifying
The U.S. Men’s National Team will face off against their northern rival, Canada, on June 3rd, just one week before the 2014 CONCACAF World Cup qualifying begins. The announcement came late Thursday afternoon, first by the CSA and then by U.S. Soccer. The game will be played at BMO Field in Toronto and will be the first time the two teams have played on Canadian soil in 15 years. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. ET, and the match will be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network.
The U.S. are 3-6-1 when playing in Canada and dating back to 1925. The U.S. have won the last two matches on Canadian soil. The most recent visit came in the final round of qualifying for the 1998 FIFA World Cup on Nov. 9, 1997 when the U.S. defeated the Canadians 3-0 and assured their trip to France 98.
The announcement came as part of a 4-match celebration of the CSA’s 100th anniversary. The U.S. friendly and 3 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers will all take place at BMO field.
