The Soccer Thread (Version 7.0)

The Olympic tournament is over, European leagues are starting again and there's a USMNT friendly next week. Seems as good a time as any for a new thread.

Playing at home in its season-opener, Paris Saint-Germain is down 2-0 at halftime to Lorient. Considering that Antoine Kombouare got the sack while PSG was in first place, I wonder how long Carlo Ancelotti has to get France's answer to the Death Star fully operational.

 

Ibrahimovic's brace (one a 90th min PK) gets PSG the 2-2 draw.

 

Signs of progress, I suppose. PSG lost last year's season opener 1-0 at home to Lorient.

 

Interwebs are buzzing with RVP going to Old Trafford.

 

One week till the season starts and Michael Owen is still tweeting about the Olympics. Come on dude, sign with Stoke and get to work.

 

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/video_audio/164807.html

Soccer's version of "The Expendables" open their FA Cup run with a 3-2 win over Langford FC.

 

Langford Town scored two? Time to sign a few recently retired defenders, Wembley.

And WTF was Derek Rae doing calling a glorified rec league match?

 

The power of Budweiser...

Oh, and it's the Bud FA Cup...so that might have a "teeny" part of it as well.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19225698

Not sure if this story was touched on in the last thread...but now it looks like up to 9 Newcastle players could be headed to newco Rangers

And a recap of Game 1 as a 4th tier squad, a 2-2 draw with Peterhead: http://www.scottishfootballleague.com/football/third/results/3539383/

 

Forgot to post this last week. We saw a little-used rule enforced in the USA-Canada women's game, there was another one enforced in the US Open Cup championship game.

Sporting KC and Seattle went to PKs. Tied 2-2 in the fifth round, Sporting's Paulo Nagamura's shot was saved by Seattle GK Michael Gspurning. Immediately, the referee and assistant pointed at Gspurning and called him for moving off the line before the shot. Nagamura made the re-kick and Eddie Johnson blasted his kick to Nebraska Furniture Mart, giving Sporting the win.

The controversy spilled into postgame, where Sigi Schmid insisted nobody wanted Seattle to four-peat. While I am an unabashed Sporting fanboi, photos of the PK in question showed Gspurning completely off the line by about a foot before Nagamura's successful PK. Still, you hardly see that called. After, Nagamura said he reminded the ref about Gspurning moving too soon, and I guess Kei Kamara did too.

 

It's hardly called, but it should be called more often. I've seen keepers take three full steps forward once the shooter approaches the ball and get away with it. You can question whether or not a team gains an advantage from encroaching on the penalty area before a PK is struck, but there's no question on whether a keeper gains an advantage from coming off his line too soon.

 

If there were powers that be, they couldn't give the furst crap whether Seattle wins 4 straight USOCs.