CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER
Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson will have the services of striker Wayne Rooney for Sunday’s match with Newcastle. Rooney contracted a virus on the team’s trip to Africa last month, but is healthy and ready to play now. It was believed to be malaria according to some early reports, which was denied by the club. Ferguson now has at his disposal two strikers, but he will be without injured Cristiano Ronaldo.
There is a talk about Bruce Arena taking over LA Galaxy. He watched the match between Galaxy and Chivas and Thursday night with the club’s president and CEO Tim Leiweke. Galaxy parted early this week with coach Ruud Gullit and Cobi Jones filled in on an interim basis. Leiweke said, “I personally think he’s the best coach in the history of the league and we’d be lucky if we can get him here.” Arena’s last coaching job was with the NY Red Bulls were he resigned last November. The match ended in a 2-2 tie after Alan Gordon scored from a header in injury time.
The Olympic Soccer tournament continues Saturday with the quarter-finals and we should see a couple of interesting matches. 2004 Olympic champion Argentina will face a strong Dutch squad with names like Babel, Makaay or their leading scorer Gerald Sibon. Brazil against Cameroon will try to avenged their loss to this African team in the 2000 Sydney games. Cameroon knocked them out in the quarter-finals and went on to win the gold medal. In the other two matches Italy meets Belgium and Ivory Coast is facing Nigeria. Italy is a favorite in this match especially after Belgium’s biggest star Vincent Kompany left the Olympics for his Bundesliga team Hamburk SV.
Struggling Chelsea striker Claudio Pizarro was on loan to Werder Bremen, where he played in from 1999 to 2001. He than moved to Bayern Munich and in 2007 signed with Chelsea. But the 29-year-old Peruvian didn’t live-up to his reputation and became mostly a substitute during the last season. He appeared in 21 matches, scoring only two goals.
Major League Soccer expansion team the Seattle Sounders made their first big signing by getting Kasey Keller from Fulham. Keller was born in Washington state and started his soccer career with the Portland Timbers back in 1989. He played in England, Spain and Germany. Keller said: ‘When I started my career in Europe, I always said that I wanted to finish playing back at home in the US.” He represented the US in four World Cups, appearing 102 times for the national team.
After a US men’s team disappointing knock-out by Nigeria, the US Women’s team lived-up their potential and reached the semi-finals by beating Canada 2-1. The winning goal came in the 11th minute from Natasha Kai into the extra time. The match was suspended for almost two hours because of lightning. The US team will now meet the underdog Japan who beat host country China. In the other semi-final match, tournament favorite Brazil will face Germany.
