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Wednesday Kickoff: Rooney to miss 2-4 weeks, Pachuca ties in CCL and more

RooneyHurt (GettyImages)

Wayne Rooney will miss two to four weeks with an ankle sprain that will force him to miss high-profile matches against Chelsea and Bayern Munich in the coming days.

Rooney injured the ankle very late in Manchester United's 2-1 UEFA Champions League quarterfinal loss to Bayern Munich on Tuesday. He will now miss Saturday's crucial Premier League showdown vs. Chelsea, as well as next week's second-leg quarterfinal match against Bayern Munich at Old Trafford.

Initial reports indicate that Rooney should be fine ahead of this summer's World Cup.

Here are some other stories to get your Wednesday going:

LYON RIPS BORDEAUX

Long-time French power Lyon showed that it can still hold its own on Tuesday, downing reigning French champion Bordeaux, 3-1, in their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal.

Striker Lisandro Lopez and goalkeeper Hugo Loris were the heroes for Lyon, with Lopez scoring two and Loris making a handful of stunning saves to give Lyon a two-goal advantage heading into the second leg at Bordeaux next week.

PACHUCA TIES TOLUCA

Toluca finished its CONCACAF Champions League semifinal first-leg vs. Pachuca with nine men, but still managed to salvage a 1-1 draw after a late equalizer from Edgar Duenas.

Duenas' 75th-minute strike helped cancel out a first-half finish from Dario Cvitanich to send the semifinal series back to Pachuca tied.

U.S. national team midfielder Jose Francisco Torres started and played 68 minutes for Pachuca.

AMERICANS ABROAD UPDATE

Jose Torres wasn't the only American in action Tuesday. Here were some others:

Maurice Edu came on as a halftime sub and played 45 minutes in Rangers' 4-1 loss to St. Johnston.

DaMarcus Beasley did not dress for Rangers.

Jay DeMerit started and played 90 minutes in Watford's 3-1 loss to Crystal Palace.

Kenny Cooper came off the bench and played two minutes in Plymouth Argyle's 0-0 tie vs. Barnsley

USA MOVES UP IN FIFA RANKINGS

The United States moved up two spots to No. 16 in the newest FIFA World Rankings, released on Wednesday.

The United States moved ahead of Mexico, which checked in at No. 17. Spain is still No. 1, with Brazil and the Netherlands holding on to No. 2 and No. 3, respectively.

The biggest mover in the top 20 was Australia, which climbed four spots to No. 19. All three of the U.S. national team's World Cup opponents made moves. England nudged up to No. 7, Algeria climbed five places to No. 27, while Slovenia dipped two spots to No. 29.

NEWS & NOTES

San Jose announced its signing of goalkeeper Jon Busch.

Diego Maradona underwent surgery after being bitten in the face by a dog.

Brazilian club Cruzeiro is working on plans for a friendly vs. New England Revolution. A potential friendly at Red Bull Arena is also being discussed.

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What do you think of the above stories? Think Manchester United can still win the Premier League or Champions League now that Rooney could miss a month? Surprised with Lyon's performance? Think Pachuca will win its series for Toluca?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I saw some of the second half of the Pachuca-Toluca game and was pretty unimpressed with both sides, even more so with Pachuca after the two Toluca players were sent off and Pachuca’s players obviously decided to not even try to win the game.

    Why exactly does Concacaf have a club championship if none of the clubs care about it? Mexican and MLS clubs are more worried about league play, the Mexicans using it primarily to give some subs and youth players a run out, and only Costa Rica has the resources to put out a competitive side from the rest of the region.

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  2. well said. he is the god of football over there and everytime people talk about stopping England or Man U they usually just say stop Rooney and you should be ok. he’s gonna die if those limeys keep relying so much on him

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  3. if it was “intentional” in the rule book it would imply that the player purposely went and blocked the ball with his hand. deliberate may be similar with intentional, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing because deliberate just means it was a obvious foul the referee couldn’t miss and that the player could have avoided had he tried to block the shot correctly

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  4. you mean the Gold Cup final? that doesn’t count as a real loss we didn’t have one player there that even traveled with the first team

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  5. Bolton isn’t exactly “last 8 in the Champions League” quality, they’re a Hull win away from being in serious relegation danger.

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  6. Quakes signing Busch is a boneheaded move. Doyle, Yallop and Co. need to treat Cannon better, and Doyle bragging about the best goalkeeping the league? Please. Why don’t we work on holding some possession in the midfield and, what a concept, supplying our guys up front better? That might help a little more than and extra first-team ready ‘keeper.

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  7. It appears that our optimism about Beasley being ready and chosen for South Africa may have been premature. Since I haven’t heard injury reports, I assume the coach doesn’t think he’s good enough to crack the bench right now. Anyone else heard anything?

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  8. Dear moderator, can you post some rules for commenting? Some guy posted an ESPN link to a story about Gooch and it looks like it got deleted. Is it just arbitrary or are there guidelines?

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  9. Sorry if it’s been discussed… I didn’t see a replay – how did Rooney manage to twist his ankle? It was on the Olic goal, away from the ball. No?

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  10. YES YES YES! I am hoping this leaves the door wide open for an on form Chelsea to get back into first!!! Come on Malouda! Come on Drogba! Come on Lampard! Come on Terry! Come on Blues! Lets do the business this Saturday!!

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  11. Agreed I hope he is 100% for SA….as long as the US still wins. 😉

    Come on, I am not the only one that had part of me thinking that it would be nice not to have to face him.

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  12. Luke, where do you find this stuff? Was just thinking about this today. He really needs to play a bit, huh? Would be a huge X-factor for the team. He is capable of big moments and the bad, but when he is on I think he is a solid defender – and a great presence.

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  13. Every Englishman will be waiting for the results of the scan. I hope he will be 100% for the World Cup. He’ll be fun to watch in South Africa.

    I still have Lyon as my underdog to sneak into the finals. They’re a great team, although missing Govou and Lissandro (I think?) next leg due to bookings will hurt them.

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  14. FIFA rankings don’t monitor player selections for each match. The gold cup loss to mexico is still a loss to mexico. Other countries fielding reserve or youth lineups will have their results incorporated in the same way. Like mexico’s reserves drawing iceland.

    The USA suffer a vast dropoff in talent after the first 11-14 players. Until our backups can actually compete, we won’t break into that first pot. A nice world cup run wouldn’t hurt either.

    But yeah, using the fifa rankings to try to compare one team against another is pretty pointless. The sole reason for their existence is tournament seeding.

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  15. Hey, Bob Bradley! Were you watching yesterday. Those were two QUALITY minutes my son got yesterday. I think you can safely pencil him into the lineup ahead of that diver Jozy Altidore.

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  16. Indeed. Great news about Cooper. He’s found a role now, perhaps? Bradley could bring him into the fold, as every team needs someone they can bring off the bench to waste time and run out the clock in the final minutes of a game when they’re ahead. The question is — how did Cooper do in wasting time?

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  17. the game in Azteca they tied it by outrunning a swine-flu infected Landon Donovan into the box. the game in NJ was more like Mexico A/B team against our B/C-team. Heaps, Perkins, Pause, Arnuad, these starting players are not our B-team…

    both are valued more in rankings:

    Continental Championships Finals (x3.0)
    you also get points for goals scored (Mex scored 5) and multiply that by the strength of the opponent (USA is ranked high but of course that is the rank of the team when Donovan, Onyewu, Howard, Bradley, etc play) so they got a boat load of points from that match.

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  18. The player deliberately made himself larger by raising his arms, which is pretty much the exact wording issued by FIFA (well, the IFAB), to call a handling violation on. Doesn’t matter that he was actively turning his head away – as a professional defender, he clearly knows the consequences of his arms coming up on a sliding challenge such as that. Penalty as clear as day. (and as a note, I could care less about either team, and just watched the penalty call online).

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  19. Unfortunately the FIFA rankings, by definition, aren’t useless because FIFA USES them for world cup seedings. They are maintained to establish the record in the meantime between major competitions.

    Now, do they suck, and are they still pretty inaccurate? Yes and yes, but that’s the game we have to play, so it’s worth paying attention to.

    I’m very interested in how ESPN/Nate Silver’s SPI index works out this summer. I’m a stats & prediction model geek, so applying sabremetrics to soccer appeals to me. And I tend to agree with that list more than FIFAs.

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  20. As each own goal has rolled in for Man U, i’ve sworn somebody important was going to get injured when the title race counts….

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  21. Fair enough. I just hate the Mexico National Team with passion, and don’t think they deserve any of their rankings or accolades. This isn’t to be confused with me disliking Mexico the country though. I just hate the team. Which is unlike my distaste for the entire cities of Liverpool and Philadelphia. I can’t even stand the Beatles.

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  22. As a United fan, I can’t say how happy I am to hear the semi-good news!!! I thought the worse when I saw him limping, he isn’t a player who feigns injuries like that…

    Glad to see Cooper manage, literally, a couple minutes out there. Hopefully he did enough to impress, sigh. If he had played his cards right and was playing day in and out, he’d be on the plane to SA. As it stands he isn’t even in consideration.

    Why didn’t Beasley play??

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  23. Maybe he had a relapse of pain in his leg and as his doctor is the best in the world for that, they sent him back.

    Although I hate LA, I prefer the idea that he was going to loaned to LA : )

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  24. A win is a win unless FIFA says otherwise. We were beaten and Mexico has played more times in the last year than we have…

    Don’t agree with their rankings but they are what they are…

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  25. Ives or anyone: Why is Gooch back in the U.S.? He was recently in California to let the doctor who operated on his knee examine it agaub. Why did he come back for that after returning to Milan? Could he not train? If he could train, wouldn’t it have been better to stay in Milan and keep working with the team?

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  26. Since they changed the formula, FIFA ranking are less useless than they used to be. Nonetheless, they are completely irrelevant now. The Groups are what the Groups are.

    I agree with you on the impact on ManU – who is going to score the goals for them now? Berbatov??

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  27. Yes, the wording of the rule is deliberate, but aren’t deliberate and intentional synonyms? I think GJ might still say he doesn’t see it as deliberate/intentional, but your description of the sliding with his arms up thing is a good point.

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  28. FIFA rankings – useless.

    Rooney being injured, might make or break Man Utd’s season. I know they still have quality players, but Rooney is the engine. That team would NOT be where it is right now if it wasn’t for Rooney’s form. He has really grown into a true world-class player since CRonaldo’s departure for Real Madrid.

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  29. once in Mexico, during a match I’d rather not go into detail about and once in Giant’s stadium with the B teams playing, and they cheated to win in both of them.

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  30. “intentional” is not the word in the rules, “deliberate” is.

    As a player slides with his arms up, if the ball is kicked and one arm blocks the ball, he committed an offense. The question is not “was it intentional?” the question is “could he have avoided it?” The answer is yes, he could have kept his arm down.

    Penalty was the right call.

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  31. Seriously, how screwed up is FIFA that the USA was behind Mexico in the rankings, even though the USA finished first in CONCACAF in World Cup Qualifying? I just don’t understand that. Either way, considering that the US beat Spain when they were ranked #1, I suppose that the rankings mean absolutely nothing.

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  32. This is a relief. Not that I like Rooney, Utd, or England, but it’s always better to see the best players in the world on the pitch.

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