Top Stories

MLS Ticker: Arena blames himself for Galaxy schedule; FC Dallas players fined for altercation; and more

BruceArenaLAGalaxy2012 (Getty)

By DAN KARELL

Though the Los Angeles Galaxy would rather focus on their final game of the Major League Soccer regular season, they’re a bit preoccupied at the moment with the CONCACAF Champions League.

The Galaxy, who are currently in El Salvador preparing for their CCL Group Stage match against Isidro Metapan, are one of four MLS teams in action this week and will have to stretch their squads thin when trying to keep players fresh for the important league action. Head coach Bruce Arena isn’t happy about the scheduling situation, with a game in El Salvador followed by another one four days later in Seattle, but he’s putting the blame on himself.

“I think that the whole exercise of us playing this week is stupid,” Arena told LA Galaxy Insider. “I take the majority of the blame for that. I should not have allowed this to happen. It is poor communication and procedure on a part of the LA Galaxy, CONCACAF and MLS. This shouldn’t have happened at this time.”

Arena claimed in the report from Galaxy training earlier this week that MLS and CONCACAF had held discussions but couldn’t come to an agreement to move the games away from the final week of the MLS regular season.

Here are some more stories from around the league:

JACKSON AND FERREIRA FINED FOR HALFTIME TUSSLE

FC Dallas midfielders Jackson and David Ferreira learned on Wednesday that they were both reprimanded and fined by Major League Soccer for their actions last Saturday at halftime.

The two players nearly came to blows moments after the halftime whistle blew and teammate Andrew Jacobson came between the two to keep the emotions from spilling over any more than they did. However, in response to the actions, the MLS Disciplinary Committee fined both Jackson and Ferreira an undisclosed amount for “unprofessional conduct detrimental to the image of the league.”

In addition, the Disciplinary Committee fined Toronto FC $5,000 and head coach Ryan Nelsen $1,000 for violating the league’s “mass confrontation policy” during TFC’s 1-0 defeat to the Chicago Fire last Saturday.

Maybe the biggest news out of the whole report is that Clint Dempsey wasn’t fined for his actions in Dallas, which saw him kick-out in retaliation for a foul from FC Dallas midfielder Peter Luccin.

YOUNG-PYO LEE SET TO RETIRE ON SUNDAY

The Vancouver Whitecaps will have to replace a huge piece of their lineup when they reconvene for pre-season training next January.

On Tuesday afternoon, the club confirmed that veteran full back Young-Pyo Lee has decided to hang up his boots following this Sunday’s season finale against the Colorado Rapids at BC Place. The team plans to honor the 36-year-old South Korean former international prior to the match.

“It will be the most memorable game in my life,” said Lee in a statement on the club’s website. “I’m a happy guy. I learned so many things throughout my career, much more than I had expected when I was young.

“It is a great time to finish with a great team and great people. I deeply appreciate our fans, my teammates, and all of the staff in the club. I’m sure Vancouver Whitecaps FC will remain in my mind as my team forever.”

Since turning pro in 2000 for K-League club Anyang LG Cheetahs, Lee played across Europe for PSV Eindhoven (2003-2005) in Holland, Tottenham (2005-2008) in England, and Borussia Dortmund (2008-2009) in Germany. After two years at Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, Lee signed with the Whitecaps in December 2011 and has been a regular in the lineup week in and week out for the last two seasons.

Currently through 64 games played for the Whitecaps, Lee has scored one goal and added ten assists.

DAVIS LEFT OFF DYNAMO TRAVELING SQUAD

Brad Davis won’t have a chance to step on to the field at Estadio Rommel Fernandez for the second time in two weeks.

After helping lead the U.S. Men’s National Team to an improbable 3-2 comeback victory over Panama on October 15, Davis was left off the Dynamo squad that is in Panama City, Panama to face Arabe Unido in their final Group Stage match of the CONCACAF Champions League.

Also left off the roster are Oscar Boniek Garcia and Jermaine Taylor, who all played during the international break and haven’t had a full week to recuperate since early this month. Included on the Dynamo squad though are the likes of Will Bruin, Ricardo Clark, and Tally Hall.

QUICK KICKS

The Columbus Crew announced on Tuesday that in it’s first year, the Kirk Urso Memorial Fund raised more than $100,000 to “develop and help support youth heart health research and programming.” (REPORT)

Vancouver Whitecaps forward Kenny Miller won’t be available for the team’s final game because he is in Europe currently seeing a specialist to receive advice on his ailing knee, which has been suffering from patellar tendinopathy, better known as “Jumpers Knee”. In Miller’s place, 18-year-old Sam Adekugbe will make his first MLS start. (REPORT)

If the Seattle Sounders defeat the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday, they’ll finish with their best home record since joining MLS (currently 10-2-4, 34 points). (REPORT)

——

What do you think of these reports? Do you agree with Arena’s point? Did you expect Ferreira and Jackson to be fined? Where does Lee rank among all-time full backs in MLS?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. This is apparently a surprise to all you Arena haters, but it’s part of his job description to complain about scheduling. Sigi does it too, when he’s not complaining about refs. Come to think of it, Kreis tends to keep his mouth shut on the topic of scheduling, which is commendable (no, I’m not an RSL fan).

    The humor in this article is that Galaxy is absolutely not sending a single starter to El Salvador, and Arena is a safe bet to stay home too, leaving the sideline duties to Asst. Head Coach Dave Sarachan. So how this so deeply affects the Galaxy’s final game in Seattle next week is hazy at best.

    Reply
  2. I dont want to sound like a eurosnob but I never hear european coaches complain about playing a game midweek then playing again on the weekend… Bruce is a big crybaby.. really..

    Reply
    • Oh yes they do. Sir Alex bitched every time he had a game on the weekend against a top EPL club after playing in the CL. Wenger moans about the schedule all the time.

      The EPL and the Bundesliga teams regularly complain about the schedule and point the La Liga where almost every year Barca and Real Madrid have easy schedules either the weekend before or theweekend after. The only time it was really a problem for El Classico was a couple years ago when they played in a league game, two -way semi-final for the Spanish Cup and had CL semi finals to boot.

      Reply
      • Yup. And Mancini made complaining about the schedule a centerpiece of his press conferences from the start of his tenure at Man City to it’s finish.

  3. Will Bruin is making the trip to Panama which means the Dynamo will have to hold Arabe Unido scoreless to come out of there with a point.

    Reply
    • Well played! As an MLS fan, I am pretty disappointed to see that Davis and Garcia are not making the trip for a game where Dynamo MUST get a result. Dynamo can be very ugly without those 2.

      Reply
  4. CONCACAF Champions League shoudn’t have group stages at all. UEFA didn’t have a group stage until the 1990s (it was knockout all the way) and that was a big part of how the tournament built a fanbase. In CONCACAF, the distances are farther and thus scheduling is more difficult. I think CONCACAF would do much better for everyone if it was a knockout all the way through with a final in Miami every year.

    Reply
    • It used to be a knockout tourney for years, This was the time period when DC United famously won it. Then CONCACAF rebranded to the Champions League in order to lend the tournament prestige and to follow in the models of UEFA and CONMEBOL. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to go back there – it was too rinky-dink and nobody took it seriously. If they were to do that, a spot in FIFA’s Club World Cup would be questionable.

      Reply
  5. Umm…LA doesn’t even have to get a result in tomorrow’s game. They are through to the next round no matter what happens. So again, Why is Bruce upset?

    Reply
  6. *Of course* the DisCo took a pass on retroactively punishing Dempsey. The league has long had a set of rules for big names and a set of rules for everybody else, but every time they indulge in that double standard, it ruins the league’s credibility a little bit more.

    Reply
  7. Would somebody please tell that whiny old man to shut up! You dont have to play USOC or CCL if you dont want to! Ya i agree that MLS should certainly do a better job fitting their schedule around other schedules but they guy has the deepest roster in the league (certainly up there in every competetion they have been in) and he still compains anytime anything slightly inconvient happens to him… Beat LA!

    Reply
  8. Did half of the Seattle lineup also get fined for violating the league’s “mass confrontation policy” in the Portland game? I thought they were going to run the assistant referee right into the ground. Or maybe they have a special exemption. (See above re: no penalty for Dempsey kick-out.)

    Reply
  9. “Maybe the biggest news out of the whole report is that Clint Dempsey wasn’t fined for his actions in Dallas”

    come on, dan, you know better than that. big news is when the league actually does punish one of its ‘marquee’ players.

    Reply
    • This time he’taking a different tack. Instead of blaming Concacaf and the MLS, which probably would have gained him another fine, he backhandedly blamed himself for something everybody knows he has NO control over.

      The MLS will never win a CCL title should this scheduling continue like it is. The MLS squads are too shallow to field two “strong” teams for two games in one week, with a major amount of international travel. If this was not bad enough, the CCL will probably play the quarter-final BEFORE the start of the MLS season, just like last year. This is probably when the MLS teams are at their weakest, as opposed to the Liga MX which mt the time the quarters are held have at least 2-3 weeks of games in the Mexican League.

      The Galaxy DO NOT need a win to advance, they have already qualified. But a win would now most likley give them a one or two seed and avoid playing any Mexican team until the semi’s or finals.

      Reply
      • I’m not saying the schedule isn’t messed up, but it is what it is and i’m tired of reading/hearing Bruce Arena whine about it.

        Put your big boy pants on and get on with it.

Leave a Comment