Midweek MLS Madness: Who Needs a Soccer Break Anyway?
Forget cleaning your grill. MLS is in full swing tonight, and if you haven't snagged your overpriced All-Star tickets yet, well, good luck with that. Oh, and there's Copa chaos and Euros drama, too!
If you were planning a soccer-free Wednesday, don’t be silly. There’s a (nearly) full MLS schedule this evening:
And then you’ve got to get your MLS All-Star Week tickets sorted:
The cheapest being $132. Yeah, we’d be waiting to see how Messi’s hamstrings hold up this next couple of weeks as well. Here’s the roster, containing four Inter Miami, and five Columbus Crew players for the game at Lower.com Field July 24th.
Keep an eye on whether ‘El Trafico’ between LA Galaxy and LAFC breaks the attendance record of 82,000 it set last year for its ‘Estallido rojo, blanco y azul’ Independence Day extravaganza at the Rose Bowl. This year they’ve gone all out:
A flyover by the Condor Squadron in restored World War II-era aircraft
National anthem performance by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Alycia Cancel
Pre-game and halftime DJ sets by Grammy Award-winning producer AFROJACK
The longest-running fireworks display on the West Coast following the match
If it does, especially during this summer of soccer, the calls for bigger stadiums might grow a wee bit louder.
EURO 2024 Round-up
Where to watch: all TV broadcasters around the globe from UEFA
QF Bracket:
ROMANIA 0-3 NETHERLANDS [Highlights]
: While not in the hot favorite tier coming into this tournament, they’ve progressed quite nicely and got the kind of result against Romania you’d expect, and without drama. Plus, they won’t be facing Austria again who beat them 3-2 in the group stages. The Netherlands could make their way to the final without breaking much of a sweat.
AUSTRIA 1-2 TÜRKIYE: Everybody said this had the makings of a barnstormer, and it didn’t disappoint. Only a few months ago, Austria, who beat the Netherlands 3-2 in the group stages and were everybody’s dark horse favorites, had beaten Turkey 6-1 in Vienna.
But, it was Turkey who took the lead inside the first minute, with the fastest goal in Euro knockout history, the Turkish center-half, Demiral, stabbing in from a corner the Austrians defended like a blind five-a-side team.
And it didn’t let up until the final whistle. Demiral scored again in the 59th minute from the same corner routine before Gregoritsch pulled one back for Austria seven minutes later. Ralf Rangnick’s men were running out of everything but the kitchen sink to throw at Turkey until in the 90+5th minute, the Turkish keeper pulled off the save of the tournament (and several other tournaments, as well):
Nedum Onuoha asks ‘Why football at Euros is different to what we’re used to’, because ‘Why are the big teams crap’, is unbecoming of the BBC.
COPA America Round-up
QF Bracket:
Colombia (who extended their unbeaten run to 27 games) topped Group D with a 1-1 draw against Brazil, and will face Panama in the quarter-finals, while Brazil take on Uruguay in the quarter final of death. [Highlights]
In Other Soccer News
Transfers:
The Guardian’s interactive transfer thing.
Premier League: Manchester United are cutting just shy of a quarter of its workforce in order to cut costs and some ‘non-essential’ activities after an operational review. Like roofers? (BBC)
Stat(s) of the Day
For the first time in the history of football, all groups of an international tournament (Copa America) were won by coaches from the same country: Argentina.
Group A: Scaloni (ARG)
Group B: Batista (VEN)
Group C: Bielsa (URU)
Group D: Lorenzo (COL)
Since Euro 2004, the country of the nationality of the referee in the final has made it to the final the following Euros:
In EURO 2004, referee Markus Merk from Germany officiated the final between Portugal and Greece. Germany then went to the final of EURO 2008.
In EURO 2008, Italian referee Roberto Rosetti officiated the final between Spain and Germany. Italy then went to the final of EURO 2012.
In EURO 2012, Portuguese referee Pedro Proença officiated the final between Spain and Italy. Portugal went to the final of EURO 2016.
In EURO 2016, English referee Mark Clattenburg officiated the final between France and Portugal. England went to the final of EURO 2020.
EURO 2020, the referee selected for the final was Björn Kuipers from Netherlands…….
The Daily Soccer Quote of the Day
“The four games we played were very entertaining, very intense, I have seen other games where it was difficult to stay awake and that was not the case with ours.” - Austria Coach, Ralf Rangnick, claiming a moral win after getting knocked out by Turkey.
Thanks for reading The Daily Soccer! Subscribe for free to receive new posts…