Oguchi to Play for Free

A very interesting bit of news today is that USA central defender Oguchi Onyewu has signed a one-year extension at AC Milan, keeping him at the San Siro through the 2012-13 season.  That's not the really interesting part.

Oguchi offered, and Milan duly accepted, to play that final season for free.  Noble gesture, in light of his injury-missed season?  Or stupidity, because why play for free when one of the best teams in the world will pay you handsomely? 

It's a clever move by Gooch, convincing Milan to give him another year that maybe they would have otherwise questioned in light of his injury and lack of games with the team. Certainly if Gooch gets on the field and holds down a starting position, he'll get rewarded once he needs to re-sign again.  Hopefully Gooch is healthy enough to play well in the World Cup and carry that over into next season.

Transfers, Audi Cup, All-Star Game, Oh my!

A variety of things to cover this morning.

Transfers first. Liverpool news reports indicate that Xabi Alonso has handed in his transfer request for a £28 million move to Real Madrid, who are in a fight with Manchester City over who will alter this season's Premier League title race the most. Man City's latest such move, signing Kolo Toure on top of Emmanuel Adebayor, has forced Arsenal to seek a replacement for the defender and striker by offering a one year deal to past-his-prime defensive midfielder and former Arsenal skipper Patrick Vieira. That makes perfect sense. Granted, Arsenal do need someone to keep the youngsters on their toes and remind them of how hard things used to be, walking miles in the snow without boots just to get to some relic called Highbury. One of the players who Wenger hoped to step in and play a key role this year, Tomas Rosicky, may have had a set back in his attempt to return after 18 months on the sideline.

Proving that Inter really made out like bandits in the Ibrahimovic-Eto'o swap, they don't really seem concerned that Alexander Hleb will be moving to Stuttgart on loan rather than to the San Siro.

Staying at the San Siro, AC Milan (more on them in a second) need reinforcements badly, so Wolfsburg striker Edin Dzeko, who netted 26 times while helping his team to the Bundesliga title last season, has declared his desire to move to Milan. However, it doesn't seem like there's much movement on Milan's end.

If you're not tired of reading about Franck Ribery, well here's more! Bayern put a €94 million price tag on the France winger. By setting a market price, the thought now is that if Real is willing to match that price they can get their man, rather than flatly denying that he's moving at all. Chelsea, who have looked strong in preseason, apparently remain in the hunt for Ribery, even though it seems like they're a ways off from meeting Bayern's valuation of the man.

Back to Milan. Yesterday in Munich began the Audi cup, a short tournament pitting Boca Juniors v. Manchester United and AC Milan v. Bayern Munich, with the winners facing off for the championship.

Let's just say AC Milan looks a little bit in disarray.

They are old. They are slow. They have no strikers (would you want to start the season with 19 year old Pato, still an unproven commodity, and 35 year old Pippo Inzaghi?). The defense looks like Swiss cheese. Oguchi Onyewu's move looks worse every time he steps on the field. While he can't be blamed for it all, he hasn't looked great as part of a defense that allowed 3 more goals once he came on. Yesterday the damage was a 4-1 loss in which Milan was thoroughly outclassed, and even the lone goal from Pirlo's free kick was really the result of a goalkeeping blunder.

Here are the full highlights.



Additionally, Man U defeated Boca Juniors 2-1, with Anderson and Antonio Valencia combining to reproduce what used to be done by Cristiano Ronaldo (Anderson scoring from a nice free kick and Valencia opening his account by making a nice burst slightly in from the wing). Man U looked tentative in its overall approach to a degree, which was disappointing, but it's still early.

Here are highlights (including Anderson becoming the 1 millionth person to honor Michael Jackson by celebrating his goal with a patented leg kick).



I also wanted to briefly comment on how impressive the atmosphere seemed at the Allianz Arena. It was a reminder of how great the crowds were for the 2006 World Cup, particular as Germany made its surprising run to the semi-finals. Too bad 2010 will be marred by those damn vuvuzelas.

Finally, last night was the MLS All-Star game, pitting Everton against a team that wasn't really the best of MLS (with some players out or withheld because of injury or their teams playing in the CONCACAF Champions League). The result was a 1-1 tie after 90 minutes, with Everton prevailing in PKs on the back of superstud goalie Tim Howard. Not sure that game means anything at all, other than Stewart Holden apparently brought with him some of the Gold Cup final karma by sending Louis Saha in alone with a wonderful pass for Everton's lone goal, and it's a great sign to see Howard on top of his game ahead of the upcoming clash against Mexico.

Here's video of how not to take penalty kicks.

Instant Reaction to Confederations Cup Final

The championship that got away? A heartbreaking end to a fabulous tournament results in Brazil winning the Confederations Cup, USA finishing as runners up, and Spain as the third place team.

First things first, I want to salute the US for playing great football and having a wonderful tournament in which they showed abundant heart and perseverance and tenacity. Many players stood out, including Landon Donovan who thoroughly deserved to cap a brilliant tournament with his goal on a breathtaking counterattack. Oguchi Onyewu and Jay DeMerit were rocks, Tim Howard was great, Clint Dempsey responded well to those questioning his recent play, Spector made the right back spot his, Benny Feilhaber looks ready to return full time with the national team, and Jozy Altidore and Charlie Davies provide hope that the US can produce a quality strike duo.

While taking nothing away from Brazil, who attacked relentlessly and deserved their victory, I do want to briefly question Bob Bradley's decision making in the second half. I gave him credit for his decisions in the Egypt and Spain matches, but here I have to question him. His double substitution of Sacha Kljestan for Feilhaber and Jonathan Bornstein for Altidore was disastrous. Dempsey was clearly dead at that point and even pushing him up top just wasn't going to cut it, and ultimately it was Dempsey who was beat by Lucio on the game winning goal. Kljestan has been in awful form and should not have been used, and by removing Feilhaber the US no longer had any possession in the middle of the field. Kljestan might have completed one pass during his time on the field, the remainder finding only those famous yellow shirts. And then finally Bradley put in Connor Casey, who time and again this tournament has proven that he's lazy and really shouldn't be playing international level football.

Hopefully this will spur the US on to greater things next summer at the World Cup. Michael Bradley (whose absence was felt greatly during the second half of the final as the US clearly tired), Jermaine Jones, and Maurice Edu will bolster the midfield, hopefully Altidore will continue to develop (as well as Freddy Adu), and the return of a healthy Brian Ching and Steve Cherundolo will provide depth to the front and back lines. All in all I enjoyed the Confederations Cup and I'm proud of the US performance, and now I turn my attention to the Gold Cup and trying to get a victory at Azteca. Dos-a-cero!