Bobby Wood spent an anonymous 56 minutes on the pitch last weekend in Hamburg’s 2-1 defeat to Hertha Berlin, consigning the club to 16th in the 18-team Bundesliga and opening Wood to fierce criticism from manager Markus Gisdol. Wood has started nine league matches for Hamburg this term, but he’s only managed a single goal. That was back in August.
Monday night’s playoff encounter between the New York Red Bulls and Toronto FC saw the continuation of a narrative that’ll likely follow TFC for years to come: wherever the club goes, Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore are not going to be given a warm reception. It began on October 22 with Toronto’s visit to Atlanta, TFC’s first road match since that unspeakable encounter between the United States and Trinidad & Tobago. It continued on Monday night at Red Bull Arena.
Mexican midfielder Gerardo Torrado played his final match on Sunday, ending a legendary career that spanned 20 years. He played for more than a decade with Cruz Azul, amassing 325 appearances. He played 146 times for the Mexican national team, trailing only Claudio Suarez for most all-time El Tri appearances.
Now that all the hysteria surrounding the USMNT's final World Cup qualifiers has dissipated somewhat, it's time to look toward the future. I am referring, of course, to Christian Pulisic's tattoo game. Pulisic was photographed on the bench during the second half of the USMNT's 4-0 demolishing of Panama with a rather large eagle/American flag tattoo. It's an extremely patriotic piece of ink, the type of thing I've only regularly seen at country music festivals.
FC Porto manager Sergio Conceicao’s search for the right formation and personnel in both the Primeira Liga and Champions League has led to Mexican international Jesus “Tecatito” Corona being handed less minutes than he’d probably like, but the 24-year-old winger was handed a start against Pacos de Ferreira on Saturday and certainly gave his manager something to think about with a flawless 75-minute display that included a goal and an assist.
The man who will start the rebuilding process for U.S. Soccer is Dave Sarachan, who was named interim USMNT coach for the team’s final match of 2017, a November friendly against Portugal. That the press release from U.S. Soccer mentioned Sarachan exactly once in six paragraphs tells you all you need to know about the new coach.
You could forgive Bill Hamid for electing to stay with DC United for the rest of his playing career — he’s got a pretty good thing going in the nation’s capital. Having risen through the ranks of the club’s youth system, Hamid established himself as the team’s No. 1 over the course of eight stellar seasons, including a 2014 campaign that saw him named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year.
Hirving “Chucky” Lozano signed with PSV Eindhoven last June looking to cement his growing reputation in Europe and follow in the footsteps of players like Arjen Robben, Memphis Depay and Georginio Wijnaldum — all former PSV talents that honed their skills there before moving to some of Europe’s biggest clubs.
Twenty one years ago, Rafael Márquez made his professional debut playing for Atlas. “El Káiser de Michoacán” is one of the most emblematic players ever to have played for Mexico. He is no doubt among the most successful players to have played internationally.
The story started a long way back, on October 19th 1996, when he was only 17 years old. On that day, Rafa Márquez made his professional debut as Club Atlas faced Pumas UNAM.
From 1996 to 1999, Márquez was a Club Atlas player, even reaching the league final in 1998 and losing it to Toluca.