The final push..

The MLS enjoy a long break now until LA Galaxy play Houston in what will be the show-down of the Western Conference on Saturday 18th October. Winning this game will put The Galaxy clear at the head of the Western Conference, having already clinched a place in the play-offs.
It has been four years since LA were in this kind of position and the last couple of seasons have been heavy with expectation since the arrival of David Beckham, yet poor in terms of league position. The Galaxy have consistently been in touch with league-leaders yet have failed to make the play-offs until this year.
Maybe the Beckham experiment is starting to pay-off, but it has to be said that he has been missing for much of the season, so The Galaxy as a team can feel gratified in a team achievement.
This has been a good year all-round. Beckham had the experience he wanted playing in Europe and was part of a team that qualified for the World Cup in emphatic style. The Galaxy achieved the long-term goal of reaching the play-offs even without the help of Beckham for much of the season. Winning the MLS must be the sole remaining goal for Beckham and the MLS this year.

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LA Galaxy 1 Chicago fire 0

LA are now within striking distance of a place in the play-offs, and temporarily top the league (with one game extra played). It was Donovan who supplied the goal just before half-time, breaking free from his marker and lobbing the keeper making it look too easy. This after a half of good pressure on the Chicago goal without much in return apart from just a few good saves that Ricketts had to make.
Beckham was quiet in the first half, but was a bit more involved in the second, even taking a rare shot at goal forcing a save from the keeper as it dipped over his head 5 minutes from time. Right at the death, there was a crazy goalmouth scramble which could have cost The Galaxy the win, but Rickets managed to claim the ball, and The Galaxy have the vital points which take them to the top of the table at least until the rest of the games are played later today.

The Galaxy prepare...

Training has been a serious affair this week at LA Galaxy as they look to work towards a place in the play-offs by beating their visitors the Chicago Fire later this evening.
Beckham remains a doubt with his swollen ankle, but will no doubt want to be in the thick of it and will want continue to add his contribution to The Galaxy's successes this season.
The Fire themselves are not without their own injury list, and have other similarities to LA in that they also lie second in their conference and will be looking to secure their own standings in the league coming up to the final few games of the season. After tonight, there is a break until 18th October (v Houston Dynamo) and the final game is on 24th (San Jose Earthquakes).

Columbus Crew 2 LA Galaxy 0

Beckham sits out this game with a swollen ankle, and the game seems to suffer as a result. The first half gave us plenty of end-to-end action with The Crew having the best of a relatively mediochre game.
The flash point of the first half was a Columbus goal on 33 minutes which saw the ball headed across the goal and Ricketts helpless as it fell into the far corner. The Crew deserved to be ahead at the break, but neither team was playing the beautiful game as it can be played.
Despite bringing Gordon into the play, and looking more likely to have an impact, LA went down another goal before the hour mark. This prompted Bruce Arena to throw Eddie Lewis into the mix.
Despite LA's best efforts, they rarely worried the Columbus goalmouth and hardly looked like a team determined to make the play-offs. At least they had a game in hand compared to conference leaders Houston, now that potential advantage has been wasted.
Badly missing Beckham the playmaker, The Galaxy host The Chicago Fire next Friday at The Home Depot Center - one can only hope that Beckham can at least make it to the bench by Friday, another performance like this does not bear repeating.

LA Galaxy 2 FC Toronto 0

Beckham scores and makes a second in an emphatic win over FC Toronto, taking The Galaxy to 2nd in the Western Conference with a game in hand.
LA's first came in the 8th minute when Beckham skipped through defenders and slotted the ball away from the edge of the box. Beckham was an awesome presence for the entire game having battled and provided without taking a break. Having spurned a chance in front of goal on 80 minutes eventually he provided the second in the 83rd minute when he took the ball off Toronto on the right wing and cut back to Donovan who slipped it to Buddle. Buddle took it on the volley for a great finish to a clean and crisp move.
This was a determined performance from the player needing to prove his worth to the England manager in the run up to 2010, and puts LA back on track for a chance to get to the elusive play-offs.
Credit also goes to Ricketts in the LA goal, who recovered from the trauma of last week's game and put in the sort of performance we have come to expect.

LA Galaxy 3 DC United 6

The LA Galaxy's fragile hopes of reaching the play-offs have suffered a severe blow as the Galaxy defence revert to type, allowing DC United to score at will. The first DC United goal was scored after 8 minutes and they scored again 20 minutes later. The Galaxy rallied and pulled back the two goals before half time.
In the second half, DC took the lead and followed up with another three goals with no reply until Edson Buddle managed to head the ball home in the 90th minute. Beckham walks away with an assist for the Buddle goal, but not a lot else. This has to figure as a week of ups and downs for Beckham after basking in the delight of helping England to reach the World Cup on Wenesday...
Next game is at home against Toronto FC, there is some serious work to be done in the intervening week.

After the most impressive start to England's most successful qualifying campaign ever, this is how the Group 6 table looks...
A goal difference of 26 is higher than any other team's total goals - England are averaging nearly 4 goals a game and giving away just 0.6 goals per game, are not only undefeated, but have won every game in their group, a feat equaled by Germany and Spain alone in this campaign - good company to keep...! It is worth noting however that Germany have let in just 4 goals and Spain 2.
I reckon England have gifted at least three of the five goals, there is work to be done here before we meet stiffer opposition, but you have to say that no-one is better place to complete this task than Fabio Capello.

In the meantime, Beckham will be winging his way back stateside having only played 10 minutes of a possible 180 and will be looking forward to helping the Galaxy to reach the play-offs this year, a task they have failed to do for the last couple of years. After that, David has confidence that he will be returning to Europe, and will be hoping to be able to step back into the Milan squad at the start of 2010. Nothing is certain at this moment except his determination to play in Europe in the build up to the 2010 World Cup - and he is to some extent master of his own destiny as he proved with the Milan deal this year.

Next game up: at home to FC Dallas who they tied 1-1 against in May away from home. Beckham will be looking to add to the goal he scored last time out against Chivas.

England 5 Croatia 1

England Qualify in Style...

Off to a great start against top-class opposition, it only took 7 minutes for Lennon to win a penalty, somewhat more convincingly than Rooney's penalty on Saturday. In the popular vernacular, it was 'stone-wall' penalty, the defender having no choice but to block Lennon and bring him down as he skipped across the penalty box. Lampard safely put the ball in the net and England were one-up and on their way to the World Cup...
England continued to push and pressure Croatia convincingly and pressure led to a second England goal from the head of Gerrard. Whatever Capello has been doing, he has certainly been able to get great results out of England players. He started without Beckham and with Rooney and Heskey up front. As a whole the team looks fluid and dangerous playing with confidence and intent. There could still be work to do at the back in defence, but going forward England are looking like a team that could take on the world. Which is exactly what they will be doing next Summer. On first half showing, Croatia looked unsettled and made few chances in contrast to an England side who created chance after chance and could consider themselves unlucky to go in to the second half with only two goals on the scoreboard.
Croatia made two much-needed changes at the start of the second half whilst England sat back a little resting on the two-goal cushion risking allowing Croatia back into the game. Around 60 minutes into the game, England managed to get the ball out of their feet in defence and worked the ball forward out to Glen Johnson on the right who cut the ball back onto Lampard's head for goal number three. Heskey was replaced by Defoe directly after the goal and the game began to look interesting again with all eyes on the developing 'super-sub' for another England goal.
The fourth goal came on 66 minutes as England ride rampant again as they have over every team in this group. This time England winning the ball in the opposition half by applying pressure on the defence, Rooney getting to the by-line and cutting back high for Gerrard to climb and head firmly over the keeper and into the net.
True to form, England despite having all the chances still failed to keep a clean sheet and after making two good saves in quick succession, Green was finally beaten in a goal-mouth scramble as the England defence shows it's weakness.
Rooney helped made up for the gaffe by collecting a goal from a goal-keeping error on 77 minutes at the other end. The keeper sliced a clearance under pressure from Ashley Cole, it fell kindly for Rooney who slotted it away from just inside the box. A period of 'Ole' football follows as Croatia more or less resigned themselves to a severe beating. Shortly after that, Lennon and Gerrard make way for Beckham and Milner - a roar greeted Beckham as he made his way onto the pitch for the last 10 minutes of what was already a very good night for English football.
England qualify for the world cup with a 100% record and two games in hand, a feat which they have never before accomplished. Cappello has earned his money in some style sacrificing some of the defensive prowess for extra attacking power with players like Johnson and Ashley Cole getting forward, a gamble that has paid dividends and goals by the hat-ful.

Soccer News

Where in the World Wide Web, can you find all the latest soccer news, soccer videos, and interact with the latest sports and soccer buzz?
You can do all this and more on a site I came across the other day called Sports Pundit. The sports pundit site sets out to cover all the popular sports including cricket, tennis, boxing and golf but has a lively and informative section dedicated purely to soccer. The soccer content includes news at both club and international levels, even having profiles of some clubs who are not even in the top flight in their regions.
Sports Pundit brings you competitions including fantasy football, soccer forums and the chance to voice your opinion on the hottest topics across all the leagues in Europe and beyond.

A search for the term 'Beckham' on the site gives us a profile of the player plus more than 25 links to related articles. In fact the site boasts a 'colossal' database covering every major sport and accepts contributions from members who can sign up for free and not only browse the news and views, but also take part in forums and submit and edit articles for inclusion. You can search through profiles of 591 players under the heading of ‘Premier League’. You can also search the ‘players’ database in the ‘Soccer’ section and find 239 English players, 321 Italians and even 17 Welsh players (I think that must be the entire Welsh squad!).
The search can be narrowed down to league or team or you can even define whether you only want to search goal-keepers, defenders, midfielders or forwards.
There are even statistics for thousands of individual soccer matches played and almost 1500 soccer teams across the world.
If you enjoy soccer and/or any other sports, this is a must-visit site for you to mark as one of your favourites, not only to get the latest news and views but also as a vast resource of sports information and knowledge.

England 2 Slovenia 1

Beckham sat this one out as Capello tried a few different combinations ahead of the qualifier against Croatia on Wednesday. It is not clear at this stage whether Beckham will feature in the match on Wednesday, much of Capello's experimentation was down the right hand side with Lennon and Wright-Phillips along with the usual rotation of strikers.
Rooney is looking strong although he missed a few chances to extend his scoring record, he did 'win' a penalty early on in the match which left many observers slightly puzzled. Lampard scored from the spot to take England into an early lead which remained until half time and beyond. Defoe demonstrated his prowess by scoring on 62 minutes and giving England a well-deserved cushion despite a competant passing game by the visitors. The Slovenia team proved competent opposition being able to more or less keep good periods of possession, but lacked a sting up front and they had just about one shot on goal after 84 minutes - unfortunately that shot went past Robert Green in the England goal and showed once more English frailties at the back. A rejuvinated Slovenia took the game to a nervous England and for a while there was expectation of an upset, but England quickly regained the upper hand and should really have had a third goal which would not have been undeserved. The game finished 2-1 and it was a pity that England could not have notched up a rare clean sheet.
Capello will be happy with the win but certainly NOT with the fact that England defence threw away an opportunity of keeping a clean sheet, and not with the amount of missed chances.

Beckham makes England squad

Unsurprisingly Beckham makes Capello's England squad for the two games coming up. This will surely add to Beckhams impressive tally of England caps. Cappelo's squad looks like this:

Goalkeepers
Ben Foster, Robert Green, Paul Robinson.
Defenders
Wayne Bridge , Wes Brown, Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson, Joleon Lescott, John Terry, Matthew Upson.
Midfielders
Gareth Barry, David Beckham , Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Ashley Young.
Forwards
Carlton Cole, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney.

Names to watch should include Carlton Cole and Jermaine Defoe up front, Aaron Lennon down the right wing and Glen Johnson pushing out down the right wing from defence. All have impresssed recently for their clubs and offer some interesting alternatives to the familiar names.