CORNER KICKS
Five things happening around the world:
1 Another of Major League Soccer’s original players called it a day Tuesday when Chicago Fire and U.S. national team defensive midfielder Chris Armas announced his retirement.
Armas, 35, joined the Galaxy’s Cobi Jones and Real Salt Lake’s Jason Kreis and Eddie Pope in ending their playing careers this year. The former Galaxy original and later Chicago captain played a total of 301 regular-season and playoff games, winning the MLS Cup in 1998 and the U.S. Open Cup in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006.
He also played 66 games for the U.S. between 1998 and 2005, helping it qualify for two World Cups.
“I’m very proud that I was able to play the game the only way I ever knew -- hard and honest,” Armas said. “I feel very proud to have been there from the beginning of MLS.”
The retirement of Armas, Jones, Kreis and Pope leaves only six original players still in the league.
2 Seattle officially became an MLS city on Tuesday when Commissioner Don Garber awarded the league’s 15th franchise to an ownership group led by Hollywood film executive Joe Roth, Seattle Sounders managing partner Adrian Hanauer, actor Drew Carey and Vulcan Sports and Entertainment, owners of theSeattle Seahawks.
The team will begin play in 2009, with its home games at Qwest Field. Plans are for MLS to expand to 16 teams by 2010 and to 18 by 2012.
3 David Beckham will earn his 98th cap for England if he plays in Friday’s friendly against Austria in Vienna. Meanwhile, U.S. national team Coach Bob Bradley’s roster for the match against South Africa in Johannesburg on Saturday has a decidedly 2010 feel to it. Included among the 18 players are 10 who are 23 or younger.
South Africa will stage the World Cup in 31 months’ time, but is running into construction delays at two of its venues--Nelson Mandela Stadium in Port Elizabeth and Green Point Stadium in Cape Town.
Also,former U.S. coach Bora Milutinuvic, has been fired as Jamaica’s national coach after serving only one year of his four-year contract and coaching only one game.
4 Another death, this time that of a Lazio supporter shot by police, has plunged Italy back into turmoil as sports authorities and the government grapple with widespread violence caused by hooligans.
Clarence Seedorf, of European champion AC Milan, said the sport unjustly receives the blame. All games in Italy have been canceled for the coming weekend. “It’s just like a civil war here,” Seedorf said.
5 Peering into the future, former Scottish international and Glasgow Celtic Coach Gordon Strachan told the BBC that he envisions the end of FIFA and UEFA as international soccer’s main power brokers. “There will be a new structure, a new body,” he predicted. “The powers that be, the businessmen coming into football now, will say, ‘Forget FIFA, forget UEFA, we’re so powerful we’ll have three leagues with the best 60 clubs” in Europe.
Top clubs recently have threatened to withhold players from international competition unless they receive compensation, especially if their players are injured while representing their country. “I think in years to come there will be a European league with 54 or 60 clubs,” Strachan told the BBC.
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STAT OF THE WEEK
* New York Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore, above, who could make his U.S. national team debut on Saturday, was 13 days old when former Galaxy defender Paul Caligiuri scored his famous goal against Trinidad and Tobago in 1989 that put the U.S. in the World Cup for the first time in 40 years.
MAKING THEIR PITCH
Ri Kum-suk, captain of North Korea’s women’s national team, after becoming the first Asian Women’s Player of the Year:
“The reason I was able to win this award was because of our great leader Kim Jong-Il and the support of the Korean people.”
