Reyna Reportedly on the Move
Playmaking midfielder Claudio Reyna, who captained the U.S. at the 2002 World Cup, Thursday was reported to be on the verge of leaving his English first division club Sunderland and joining Fulham of the Premier League.
Sunderland was relegated from the Premier League last season and has since experienced an exodus of its top players.
Reyna also is being pursued by Blackburn Rovers, where U.S. goalkeeper Brad Friedel is a starter, but Fulham Coach Chris Coleman said the London club has the inside track.
“We’re pretty close to signing [Reyna] now,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be getting him through the door very shortly.... Everything is agreed. We’ve just got one or two details to sort out, but we’re optimistic he’ll be a Fulham player shortly.
“I’ve said all along that I’ve got money to spend, but I’m only going to bring in the right type of player, and Claudio Reyna is the right type.”
Meanwhile, agent Richard Motzkin told Bloomberg News that Freddy Adu, the 14-year-old striker on the U.S. under-17 national team that plays Brazil on Sunday in the quarterfinals of the FIFA Under-17 World Championship in Finland, would soon join a professional team.
Motzkin would not identify the clubs that are pursuing the Ghanaian-born Adu, but said a choice would be made between a team in Europe -- possibly Manchester United -- and one in Major League Soccer -- possibly D.C. United.
WUSA Standout
Forward Maren Meinert, 30 of the Boston Breakers was named the most valuable player in the Women’s United Soccer Assn. for the 2003 season that ends Sunday with the championship game in San Diego between the Atlanta Beat and the Washington Freedom.
Playing her final season before retirement, the former German international led the Breakers to the best regular-season record in WUSA and was also MVP of the league’s All-Star game.
She retires as the joint all-time scoring leader in WUSA with Atlanta’s Canadian international Charmaine Hooper.
World Cup 2006
Chile Coach Juvenal Olmos selected 25 players, including 13 who are with foreign clubs, for his roster for two upcoming World Cup 2006 qualifying matches.
Chile opens its two-year quest to get to Germany 2006 with a Sept. 6 match on the road against Argentina and then is at home against Peru on Sept. 9.
Olmos said the large squad was necessary for tactical reasons.
“It’s not the same to play Argentina away [as it is] playing Peru at home,” he said in Santiago, Chile.
In Switzerland, meanwhile, FIFA announced that a long-simmering dispute over ticket prices and distribution has been resolved and that the Germany 2006 World Cup Organizing Committee, headed by Franz Beckenbauer, will be in charge of ticket sales.
The 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea was beset by ticketing problems, but Beckenbauer promised that things would be different in 2006.
“Fans around the world may rest assured that we will do everything within our power to devise an appropriate, comprehensible system,” he said.
MLS Update
The Columbus Crew acquired Northern Ireland international defender Richard Williams as a discovery player while at the same time trading defender Brian Dunseth to the Dallas Burn for a conditional draft pick in 2004.
Williams, a veteran of more than 400 games in England, most recently with Stoke City of the first division, turns 33 next month, but Crew Coach Greg Andrulis said his experience would be “invaluable” to the struggling MLS team.
The Chicago Fire, meanwhile, signed Costa Rican international midfielder Jonathon Bolanos, 25, a former player with Alajuelense and Saprissa.
Also, the San Jose Earthquakes announced that they had acquired a third-round pick in the 2005 MLS draft from the MetroStars in exchange for a discovery player to be named.
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Times wire services contributed to this report.
