General Soccer Thread

[thrill]

It would be a conflict of interest. I'd try to sign him up to my winter indoor league on a permanent transfer. I can offer him a couch to sleep on and frozen dinners from Trader Joe's.

[thrill]

Drogba or Torres will win it in like the 91st minute. If Bayern were going to do it, they would have done it by now.

[thrill]

Lol, great timing, thrillb.

Career defining goal for a mercurial player.

[thrill]

Oh [expletive]! I was 1/2 right! Big Game Didier Drogba!

[greenback44]

Every time I show the slightest interest in a game of soccer, it ends in a 1-1 tie. If the game is really important, then they have this penalty kick competition.

[slide_into_first]

They ought to settle ties with sudden death overtime but shorten the field by 1/2 by moving one goal to the midline for ot.

[slide_into_first]

With no defensemen.

[lukethedrifter]

U.S. U-20 GK TRAINS WITH CLUB

Tomas Gomez, a U.S. Under-20 national team goalkeeper, has been training with the club while third keeper Andrew Dykstra is on loan to the Charleston Battery.

Gomez, who grew up in the St. Louis area, has taken part in Tab Ramos' last two U-20 camps and is preparing for his sophomore season at Georgetown University. In the meantime, he's operating under Onstad's watchful eye while providing another body in training behind Bill Hamid and Joe Willis.

"It's nice to get a good look at him," Onstad said. "He's done very well. He's a young kid, just at the beginning of his career, so we'll see where he goes."

[thrill]

U.S. U-20 GK TRAINS WITH CLUB

Tomas Gomez, a U.S. Under-20 national team goalkeeper, has been training with the club while third keeper Andrew Dykstra is on loan to the Charleston Battery.

Gomez, who grew up in the St. Louis area, has taken part in Tab Ramos' last two U-20 camps and is preparing for his sophomore season at Georgetown University. In the meantime, he's operating under Onstad's watchful eye while providing another body in training behind Bill Hamid and Joe Willis.

"It's nice to get a good look at him," Onstad said. "He's done very well. He's a young kid, just at the beginning of his career, so we'll see where he goes."

If reports are to believed, Hamid has some Premier League clubs sniffing around, so that might take care of that hurdle. And Pat Onstad is about as ideal a coach for a young keeper as you'll find.

[lukethedrifter]

To make Oscar Pareja laugh, tell him that he'll be coaching a "tense" game this weekend for the Colorado Rapids of the MLS.

Pareja knows what tense is, and you're not within 10 stadiums of it.

Twenty years ago, Oscar Pareja was the star and captain of Independiente Medellin in Colombia, in the time when murderous drug czar Pablo Escobar terrorized the country.

One day in 1991, Pareja got a message. Escobar would like him and six of his Independiente teammates to come to Escobar's one-man, government-built luxury prison -- La Catedral -- and play a game. Escobar wouldn't be watching. He'd be playing against them.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7958 ... lo-escobar