CORNER KICKS
1 The United States plays China in a friendly at San Jose on Saturday and Coach Bob Bradley has called in no fewer than five of his former Chivas USA players for the game: Brad Guzan, Jonathan Bornstein, Sacha Kljestan, Jesse Marsch and Ante Razov.
Marsch’s only previous U.S. appearance came in 2001 and Razov has not played for the national team since 2004.
More intriguing than the Chivas quintet, however, is that the rest of the roster is foreign based and includes three newcomers: midfielder Nguyen Lee, 20, of Richardson, Texas, who plays for Dutch champion PSV Eindhoven, and forwards Kamani Hill, 21, of Berkeley who plays for VfL Wolfsburg in Germany, and Charlie Davis, 20, of Manchester, N.H., who plays for Hammarby IF in Sweden.
Twelve of the 19 players on the roster have played five or fewer games for the U.S., and Kljestan, Lee, Davis and Hill will be seeking their first caps. The latter three are prospective U.S. players for the 2008 Olympics.
2 The rumored move of 2002 World Cup-winning midfielder Rivaldo to Major League Soccer will not take place because the 36-year-old Brazilian on Tuesday signed a two-year contract to remain in Greece and play for AEK Athens.
Rivaldo became a free agent after leaving Olympiakos, which he helped lead to its third championship in a row and 10th in 11 years. His contract at AEK will earn him up to $2.7 million a year.
3 Former France national team coach Gerard Houllier’s decision to part company with Lyon after winning consecutive titles has fueled speculation that he might be in line for the technical director’s role with U.S. Soccer.
Houllier, who also coached Liverpool for six years, was one of the foreign coaches whose name was linked to the vacant U.S. national team position before Bradley was given the job two weeks ago.
Sunil Gulati, U.S. Soccer’s president, said when he selected Bradley that the federation would hire a technical director to oversee its programs and that the position would not be filled before the fall at the earliest.
Houllier, 59, has also been mentioned as a possible technical director for the French Football Federation.
4 Tom Hicks, who owns baseball’s Texas Rangers and the NHL’s Dallas Stars, said he has had his eyes opened since he and Montreal Canadiens’ owner George Gillett joined forces and bought 18-time English champion and five-time European champion Liverpool. “There’s no way either of my two teams’ fans have the level of intense passion that Liverpool has,” Hicks said.
5 Coach Thomas Rongen’s U.S. under-20 national team, which is preparing to play South Korea, Poland and Brazil in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Canada, will play Canada in friendly games Sunday in Ottawa and June 6 at Kingston, Canada. The 16-player U.S. roster includes defender Tony Beltran and forward Sal Zizzo, both of UCLA.
-- GRAHAME L. JONES
