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Afternoon Ticker: Kandji sidelined, Man City & Tottenham coming to America, and more

Macoumba Kandji (ISIphotos.com)

Photo by ISIphotos.com

 

New York Red Bulls striker Macoumba Kandji is set to miss two to three months after undergoing surgery for a broken foot.

Kandji suffered a fractured fifth metatarsel during team practice on Tuesday. Kandji had started all four games for the Red Bulls, but will now be sidelined until summer. He has been plagued with injuries ever since joining the team in 2008.

The Red Bulls will now have to turn to newly-signed striker Salou Ibrahim, who struggled in his first start for the team in the 2-1 win vs. FC Dallas. The Red Bulls are still trying to finalize the move for English striker Luke Rodgers, who could challenge for a starting role. Red Bulls head coach Hans Backe has also stated that Danish midfielder Brian Nielsen could also play as a second striker if needed.

Here are some other stories that emerged on Wednesday:

Red Bulls to host Manchester City, Tottenham and Sporting Lisbon

The New York Red Bulls will host the inaugural New York Football Challenge in late July and the participating clubs have been identified as Manchester City, Tottenham and Sporting Lisbon. The three teams will join the Red Bulls in a four-team competition that will take place July 22 to July 25 at Red Bull Arena.

The tournament is the second event featuring the Red Bulls and international competition to be announced in recent days. The Red Bulls are scheduled to play Juventus on May 23rd.

Chicago Fire to face AC Milan

The Chicago Fire will take on AC Milan at a friendly at Toyota Park on May 30th.

The meeting will mark a rematch of a friendl played at Soldier Field in 2005. AC Milan won that match, 3-1.

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What do you think of these stories? Who do you see picking up the slack for Kandji? Excited about the New York Football Challenge? Think the Fire can beat Milan this time?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Nothing will happen to Ribery or Benzema, the details seems sketchy at best, it will be similar to the Ben Roethlisberger situation

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  2. Here’s a question I’m not finding answers to anywhere else: why are Milan, PSG, Red Star and Legia coming here in May? Shouldn’t they be playing these matches in July as part of pre-season training? I can’t imagine that any of their players are going to be happy coming over here at the end of a long season and with the World Cup looming.

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  3. I hope our young bucks have awful games during this series. If Juan Agudelo streaks past Bridge and Toure for a brace or if Timmy Ream jukes Tevez a couple of times to clear pressure, they’d draw more admiring stares than the 25 yo Swiss co-worker to my immediate left when she wears short skirts and places each foot indivudually on each knee to change her shoes while talkin to a brother…

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  4. It just sucks that the game is May 30th.. which means all the “big” names will be away with their National teams.

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  5. I used to think Ribery was a good player and of solid character. Doing something terrible like this to a minor is an unforgivable sin and I hope he pays dearly for it…

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  6. Because 1) It’s a football stadium. What makes you think Stanford wants to share it on an ongiong basis?

    and 20 It seats 50,000. SJ wants to build a 15,000-18,000 seat stadium so they can sell some tickets. You play in Stanford Stadium and you get a situation like the Red Bulls in Giants Stadium or the Revs in Gillette Stadium where no one comes because the atmosphere sucks and there’s no reason to buy tickets in advance.

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  7. I’m disappointed by Kandji’s injury, but, for once, I feel like the Red Bulls have enough depth to handle some injuries. Salou had a bad game last week, but he played very well against Santos, so maybe he’ll return to form. Chinn had an excellent pre-season and he’s been rocking our reserve opponents, so he might do well too.

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  8. I thought Ives would be all over the “Ribery admits to having sex with underage prostitute” story. This could be huge news in the very, very near future

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  9. Jack Bell from the NYTimes wrote a little piece about why that might be. It has to do with Paul Kemsley (i.e. Tottenham), Man City, the New York Cosmos, and their marketing firm, which covers all of them in some way or another.

    Speculation…

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  10. hmm– spurs come to NY, but not SJ where their ‘partner’ club are? they could always play at stanford stadium again…

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  11. I always thought a Mexican All Star Team vs an MLS All Star team in the MLS All State game would be interesting. You could fill a huge stadium with that game.

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  12. not a bad idea, mls vs the world in late july every year, 1-2 games/team. the next thing is to start considering “out-of-conference” play for post season like in basketball. (not serious)

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  13. I have a bit of a pessimistic reaction to this idea, but on reflection I would think a name club could fill an SSC or the equivalent in any MLS market. Right Colorado? Frisco?

    The only problem I would think of would be how profitable it would be for the other teams; don’t they generally play more than one game? Can the US soccer market sustain 40+ games in a week or two span? I would pay plenty of money to catch a MLS-X/FMF-Y double header, for example, but then again I’m posting on here during work.

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  14. I was insinuating that we would look to release him or trade him after he recovers from his injury….. I should have made that clear in my initial post, but my boss was sitting behind so I had to just ramble my thoughts out. I swear people on this site just wait to crucify people. I am not claiming to be a King, my fair Roman solider.

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  15. Hopefully they will go back to East vs. West once we have 20 teams. I like the idea of 2 MLS clubs vs. 2 international clubs though. Example: Houston loses to Valencia, but then FC Dallas somehow pulls out the victory. Those type of victories could add to existing rivalries. Just a thought.

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  16. I was going to be snarky, but you have actually made an interesting point. An MLS vs. the World series would have some value in that it would get all the teams involved in the action, and not just a handful. I’d still like the climax of the All-Star game. Nothing like seeing MLS’ best on one side of these matches. The other matches aren’t usually very competitive or very exciting. Having all those stars on one team ensures a certain amount of quality that makes for attractive soccer — a rare thing to see if you’re watching an MLS club side.

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  17. Math isn’t your strong suit, huh? Or is reading comprehension your weakness. 2-3 months for Kandji. If Henry comes, it will be — wait for it — just about 3 months from now.

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  18. “The three teams will join the Red Bulls in a four-team competition that will take place July 22 to July 25 at Red Bull Arena.”

    I do not suffer gladly.

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  19. I was at that game too. I went away wishing they played to win. Not just give everyone a chance to play. Hopefully the Fire are past the “just happy to play” stage. Same goes for their Sister Cities International Cup in May.

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  20. I think it’s time to abandon the All Star Game in favor of a yearly break where every team in the league plays an international opponent. Maybe even have little four team tournaments with two MLS teams and two foreign teams as a round robin.
    But with all of these foreign teams coming over (which is great) the single all star game against a foreign opponent has less appeal and doesn’t capture as many audiences as an annual week-long “MLS vs The World” event.

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  21. I think the tourney is great for RBNY but my other loyalties sadistically have me hoping sp@dz and citah’s planes land in the ocean because I’m not sure I have the lung capacity to boo that much. Plus I’d get tossed out of my seats for the profanity I’d utter

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  22. you can look at it as it is easy to make the playoffs and thus have a shot

    ….or you can look at it as a few teams finished very tied or very close to Salt Lake, but didn’t make the playoffs. One slip up in MLS at anytime in the season and you will be regretting it come October.

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  23. Yeah, I remember that game. Chris Rolfe scored a great goal. Chicago thouroughly outplayed the A.C. Milan first team for 75 mins. It wasn’t until the Fire put in their 2nd and 3rd string players that Milan pulled away.

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  24. is NY participating in this tournament? or is the Arena just hosting it?

    i think it is a great thing for MLS teams to take on 1-2 international friendlies but after that it has to be taxing on the MLS season to play so many additional games. then again in this league (like most other US sports leagues) you only have to slightly above .500 to make the playoffs and a run at the championship.

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  25. If Ibrahim can’t get it done, we’ll have to look to give the young boys a shot.

    Chinn and Agudelo did look to be in good form during the preseason.

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  26. As to the Fire ACMilan game a few years back. The Fire kept Milan to 1-0 late in the game when the fire started subbing in 2nd and 3rd stringers to have an opprotunity to play against Milan. That is when Milan took advantage and score three late goals. The Italian press skewered Milan for their poor performance and applauded the American team.

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  27. Good stuff. (Bad about Kandji of course) These tournaments and friendlies boost the clubs’ summer revenue and shock the US soccer scene a little during a time when not much is going on in American sports. I think foreign attention is drawn to this country and MLS too which is good.

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