Bradley Calls 24, Including Two American-Germans, For March Friendlies

Chandler says he's more interested in playing for the U.S. than for Germany.

Timothy Chandler, a 20-year-old defender for FC Nuremberg, and David Yelldell, a 29-year-old goalkeeper for MSV Duisburg, were among the 24 players U.S. coach Bob Bradley called into camp for upcoming friendlies against Argentina and Paraguay.

Chandler broke into the Nuremberg first team this winter and scored his first professional goal in February against Stuttgart. Yelldell, who once backed up Brad Friedel at Blackburn, is having the best season of his career, with 11 shutouts so far for Duisberg (extra points if you know the correct, and humorous, pronunciation of that name).

Both players were born in Germany, Chandler to a German mother and U.S.-serviceman father. Yelldell holds dual citizenship.

Also getting his first call-up is Norwich City defender Zak Whitbread, who’s had an injury-marred career since representing the U.S. at the 2003 U-20 World Cup. Whitbread, who was born in Houston and grew up in Singapore, where his father was coach of the national team, started his career in Liverpool’s youth system. He played at Millwall for five years before joining Norwich City in 2010.

Bradley’s roster is being called veteran-heavy, and there are many South Africa 2010 vets in the group, but in addition to the newbies mentioned above, there are also a handful of relatively new faces, including Red Bull youngsters Juan Agudelo and Tim Ream, Norwegian-born Mikkel Diskerud, and Jermaine Jones. Former Chivas USA and current Anderlecht midfielder  Sacha Kljestan was also called back into the mix for the first time since last winter.

Complete Roster:

GOALKEEPERS: Marcus Hahnemann (Wolves), Tim Howard (Everton), David Yelldell (Duisburg)

DEFENDERS: Carlos Bocanegra (Saint-Etienne), Jonathan Bornstein (Tigres), Timothy Chandler (Nuremberg), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Jay DeMerit (Vancouver Whitecaps), Oguchi Onyewu (FC Twente), Tim Ream (New York Red Bulls), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United), Zak Whitbread (Norwich City)

MIDFIELDERS: Michael Bradley (Aston Villa), Clint Dempsey (Fulham), Mikkel Diskeruud (Stabaek), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Benny Feilhaber (AGF Aarhus), Stuart Holden (Bolton Wanderers), Jermaine Jones (Blackburn Rovers), Sacha Kljestan (Anderlecht)

FORWARDS: Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls), Jozy Altidore (Bursaspor), Edson Buddle (FC Ingolstadt)

The U.S. plays Argentina on March 26 at the New Meadowlands Stadium, then meets Paraguay on March 29 at Nashville’s LP Field.

Why Was Borchers’ Goal Called Back on Tuesday?

MLS fans had to love the way Real Salt Lake came out of the blocks in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League semifinal against Saprissa on Tuesday night.

With the second leg set for the imposing “Monster’s Cave” next month, RSL knew a win at home was mandatory—and they played like it, right from the kickoff.

Only six minutes in, they found the back of the net on a great cross-and-finish by Fabian Espindola and Nat Borchers. But for some reason that still hasn’t been explained, the goal was waved off.

Borchers was not offside on the play, and he didn’t shove off the defender to win the header. If anything, the defender had a high boot near Borchers’ head.

It was a clean goal—as you can see below—yet it was disallowed. This might have thrown some teams off their game, but RSL didn’t even blink: They scored just three minutes later and went on to win 2-0.

Highlights here:

Great goals by RSL, especially Saborio’s opener. He got it off his feet so quickly with defenders crashing on either side. Goal-scorer’s goal.

The second leg is in San Jose on April 5.

Kosuke Kimura On the Earthquake In Japan

Colorado defender Kosuke Kimura, the lone Japanese player in Major League Soccer, shared his experience of Friday’s devastating earthquake in Japan, where his parents and two brothers live.

All four were unharmed in the disaster, and Kimura’s younger brother, who is in the Japanese Navy, will help in the relief effort:

You can give to the relief effort right here, or, to make a quick $10 donation, text “REDCROSS” to 90999.

All About the Bike.2

Short Friday for us today, but we hope to get a couple things up before we have to go check in with the parole officer.

Let’s start with this sweet bike by third-division Argentine player Claudio Riano:

Not bad. We’d put it at No. 4 on this list. (Also: pretty impressive crowd on hand for a third-division match.)

Riano’s golazo lifted his team, Tallares Cordoba, into a 1-1 tie with Alumni. Tallares went on to win 3-2.

The Whitecaps Uniform Will Not Look this Good on Jay DeMerit

Vancouver kicks off their MLS existence on March 19, and their marketing department is giving it their all to make sure you know about it. We appreciate the effort:

The Whitecaps host Canadian rivals Toronto FC in their opener at Empire Field.

Sporting Kansas City Donates Stadium Name to Livestrong Charity

According to The Kansas City Star, Lance Armstrong, the soon-to-be-completely-unmasked former cyclist and cancer survivor, had an interesting reaction when Major League Soccer’s Sporting Kansas City approached him about naming their new stadium after his nonprofit organization, Livestrong.

“You mean that sport where they fall down, roll around, and act like they’re [injured]?” said the most famous practitioner of that sport where they fill themselves to the eyeballs with pharmaceuticals, shave their legs, and ride (possibly motorized) bicycles.

But when he homed in on the details of the deal, Armstrong’s skepticism vanished. Sporting Kansas City was not only offering the naming rights to its $200-million soccer complex for free, the club also proposed donating a portion of its stadium revenues—a minimum of $7.5 million for the six-year arrangement—to Livestrong, which has raised more than $400 million for cancer research since 1997.

Armstrong and Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman both recognized a sensible deal when they saw one, and agreed to the partnership, which was announced in Kansas City on Tuesday.

Livestrong Sporting Park, as the stadium was christened on Tuesday, will open on June 9, when Sporting KC hosts the Chicago Fire.

The arrangement is unique in North American sports, as no other venues in MLS—or in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB—are named after a charity.

Our Armstrong crankiness aside, this is a terrific move by Sporting Kansas City and an excellent partnership. It gives both sides a boost in profile and, as James Starritt wrote on the SKC website SportingTimes.net:

“A portion of everything we spend at the stadium will trickle down to Livestrong, which in turn will help direct and fund cancer research, awareness and educational programs.

My football team and I are going to save lives.”

Cheers to all involved—even the guy who somehow managed to completely dominate the most PED-soaked sport in the world while remaining “totally clean” himself.

Besiktas Fans: “We Are All Pluto”

Last week, The New Yorker ran a feature on rabid Turkish soccer fans (just about the only kind, apparently), and while we usually dislike “look at the crazy soccer hooligans” stories in American media, this one delivers some golden nuggets.

Jozy Altidore’s Bursaspor features in the article (even if he and fellow American-in-Turkey Freddy Adu both go unmentioned), but the focus is on Besiktas and its rivalries with the other two big clubs in Istanbul—Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.

If you had to choose one of those three to support, we would strongly suggest the “underdog,”’ “working-class” Besiktas. The main reason being this:

“‘We Are All Black,’ proclaimed one banner, after rival fans had made reference to the race of the French-Senegalese Besiktas star Pascal Nouma. When Fenerbahce disparaged a Besiktas manager whose father had been a janitor, there were banners saying ‘We Are All Janitors.’ And when an international committee of astronomers removed Pluto from the list of planets [supporters group] Carsi took up the cause: ‘We Are All Pluto.’ ”

That sealed it for us. As long as Altidore’s Bursaspor (and Adu’s second-flight Rizespor) are not involved, we’re pulling for Besiktas.

The piece, by Elif Batuman (a brave woman: she ventured into the terraces solo), contains multiple other high points. Such as:

“During the course of the Rapid Wien game, the covered stands recited several anti-Fenerbahce chants, a staple of the repertoire no matter what team Besiktas is actually playing. The most famous anti-Fener chant, sung to the tune of ‘Those Were the Days,’ consists of three lines pledging an end to swearing in soccer, followed by the chorus ‘But one last time, suck my d***, Fener.’”

And:

[A handful of old-timers from the supporters group, Carsi, discussing the turf wars that raged when the three Istanbul clubs were forced to share Besiktas’s Inönü Stadium]

“There would be news of a fight. Five hundred people would head straight there, some with guns. Have you seen the movie ‘Braveheart’? It was exactly like that.”

There’s a lot more good stuff in the story, including Carsi members joking [?] that they should kidnap Batuman, the supporters’ obsession with donating blood, and one fan’s assertion that he doesn’t care about extraterrestrials because, “Even if they exist, they’re hardly going to be Besikstasli.”

Check out the complete article in the March 7 edition of The New Yorker or read it right here if you have a subscription.

Red Bulls Wrap Up Preseason with Chippy, Less-than-Impressive Draw Against Atlas

We are still awaiting the day when Marquez applies himself in a Red Bull game.

Preseason games can be notoriously misleading, and an isolated preseason game is a limited sample size, for sure, but, man, based on last night’s performance in Glendale, Arizona, the 2011 Red Bulls look a lot like the 2010 Red Bulls—only not as good.

They were missing two projected starters in Juan Agudelo (groin) and Jan Gunnar Solli (undisclosed “minor” injury), but they looked far more than two pieces away from being a contending team. There was no rhythm whatsoever to their play, they struggled to connect passes, and they were fortunate to escape with a 1-1 tie against Atlas, which is currently 4-4-1 after nine games in the Mexican Primera Division.

In short, they looked like what they were last season—a work in progress, a team yet to cohere.

A positive echo of last season was the one player who made something happen—Joel Lindpere, who drew an 88th-minute penalty that enabled New York to tie it up. Sure, he embellished it a little, but he got himself in a good attacking position, made a move, felt contact and went down. Boom: penalty; tie game.

But there was very little else to praise. Thierry Henry vacillated between frustration with his teammates for their inability to read his intentions (we’re looking at you, Dane Richards) and wild-eyed outrage at some rash tackles from the opposition (late in the game, he retaliated for one in a fashion that would have earned him a straight red in 99.9% of the leagues around the world. He got a yellow.).

He had isolated moments of gliding-on-air effectiveness, but overall, Henry did not look like a player ready to dominate MLS competition. Which, you know, was sort of the idea when RBNY brought him over last season.

Rafael Marquez was even worse. He was beaten badly on a ball over the top in the first half, and if not for some excellent cover from American Carlos Mendes, New York would have surrendered a goal on the play. Later, Marquez sent an awkward backpass to Bouna Coundoul that forced the keeper into an even more awkward emergency clearance.

The Mexican international also seemed to mentally float in and out of the game—a trait we saw in his RBNY appearances last season.

Partnering Henry up top was the 6-4 Ghanian Salou Ibrahim—a player that coach Backe spent the preseason going out of his way to say is not in his plans. Now here’s a start, Salou—go get ’em. He was predictably feckless and missed a clear chance in the first half, sending a lob over the bar with the keeper beaten.

New signing Teemu Tainio did not look like the answer in the middle of the park, and slightly ahead of him in midfield, Mehdi Ballouchy made us think Backe and Co. fell in love with the Morrocan prematurely last summer, and made a rash decision when they acquired him from Colorado (which went on to win the league without him, btw).

Ballouchy brings sporadic flashes of skill to the table—and nothing else.

Speaking of one-dimensionality, Dane Richards didn’t even have his primary (solitary?) asset—speed—going last night. Atlas defenders seemed prepared for that element and did an effective job neutralizing the Jamaican winger—when he wasn’t neutralizing himself with unforced errors and passes to no one.

On the positive side, Tim Ream was his usual composed and consistent self at centerback (despite scoring an own goal when a driven cross wrong-footed him), and Mendes, as we suggested earlier, looked pretty good—especially so since he had played 90 minutes against Dallas the day before.

Beyond that, though, if Red Bulls fans want to maintain their optimism for the 2011 season, they’ll have to set this one aside and fuhgettaboudid, as they say in New York.

MLS Roundup: FCD Dallas, Portland Boost Colombian Influx; Red Bulls Ink Tainio

Three MLS teams announced significant acquisitions yesterday as FC Dallas and the Portland Timbers each landed a Colombian striker, and Red Bull New York confirmed the anticipated signing of Finnish midfielder/defender (and Name Hall of Fame candidate) Teemu Tainio.

FC Dallas signed 18-year-old forward Fabian Castillo, who made 17 appearances and scored three goals for Deportivo Cali last season. Castillo recently played in the South American U-20 championship, and was reportedly being courted by several European clubs.

The Timbers finally put striker Jorge Perlaza on their books after the 26-year-old striker had been with the team for most of training camp. In 2010, Perlaza scored 15 goals in 31 appearances for Colombian first-division side Deportes Tolima, helping lead the club to a first-place finish.

Castillo and Perlaza become the 14th and 15th Colombians to join MLS in the past few years, and Castillo is the fifth Deportivo Cali alum to migrate northward, following Fredy Montero, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (both Seattle), Jamison Olave (Real Salt Lake), and Jair Benitez, whom Castillo will join in Dallas. Dallas has two other Colombians in 2010 league MVP David Ferreira and striker Milton Rodriguez.

For more on Cafeteros in the U.S. circuit, see here.

Tainio, 31, officially signed with New York after joining the club in training camp on Feb 10. He’s expected to line up in midfield for tonight’s exhibition against Mexico’s Club Atlas—the Red Bulls’ final tuneup before their MLS opener on March 19.

Altidore Goes 75 Minutes, Sets Up Goal for Bursaspor

U.S. striker Jozy Altidore made another start for Bursaspor on Sunday and produced another decent performance in a 1-1 draw with mid-table Istanbul BB.

In the 37th minute the 21-year-old Yank collected a deflected cross at the top of the box and shot on goal. The ball got tangled in the spokes of teammate Pablo Batalla, who corralled it and fired home from close range.

Click on the image below to see the goal (courtesy of Johan Derksen):

Assist for Altidore? Not according to ESPN Soccernet, but no matter: Altidore was effective throughout his time on the field, testing the Istanbul keeper three times and just missing the target with a header on another occasion.

Also, he wears that Celtic-esque Bursaspor kit well, so he’s got that going for him.

The tie leaves Bursaspor in third place in the Super Lig, five points off the pace with 10 games to play.

The top two teams in the Turkish league get Champions League berths (CL qualifying for second place) while third and fourth go to the Europa League.