With the new Pope hailing from Argentina, it is no surprise that media are making Diego Maradona 'Hand of God' references… as seen in the NY Daily News cover pictured. Pope Francis, as it turns out, is a football fan and has been, as quoted by a club source says, living in 'a permanent state of suffering' for San Lorenzo of Argentina.
The MLS Pope?
Speaking of leaders, one of the founding fathers of MLS will be getting back to a more hands on role. It was announced Thursday that Anschutz Entertainment Group was being taken off the market after not getting the sales bids it was looking for to sell. In addition to the change of direction, the company also announced the departure of Tim Leiweke and that billionaire owner and chairman Philip Anschutz was resuming a more active role. If you are not familiar with the massive presence of AEG in sports and entertainment, this story has a lot of interesting information and numbers that will amaze you, especially the number of venues they own/control.
Speaking of Venues
As mentioned here previously, Sacramento has been throwing the 'MLS expansion hopeful' tag around a lot to help sway the city council to make a new soccer stadium complex large enough to lure an MLS team in the future to the market. Well, after a few days of silence, MLS finally made a statement, albeit brief, on the matter.
Rivalry Week Video
Earlier this week FC Dallas released a cheeky infomercial spoof for their Orange Crush campaign. Today the Dynamo fired back, picking up on the infomercial concept and throwing all their championships back at them in the clever response.
And in a continuation of rivalry videos, a pair of MLSsoccer writers went back in time to the first year of the league and dug into the story of how future US MNT coach Bob Bradley craftily skirted the rules which at the time allowed for a fourth sub for goalkeepers. Long before Tim Howard was a US star netminder, he was caught up in this controversial story in which he played in the field briefly for the MetroStars (now Red Bulls) to allow then 16-year-old Eddie Gaven to come on for another player who had 'switched' with Howard in overtime against DC United. After the ball was played out, Gaven and Howard then switched to their proper positions with the keeper making a brilliant save and Gaven going on to net his first-ever professional goal for the win. You have to see it to believe it.
'Soccer with Breakfast' is a quick recap of interesting, underreported, or top soccer news items - sometimes accompanied by some commentary - to give readers in the Inland Northwest area (or beyond) a brief look around the North American news scene.
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