12.9.13
ASN Morning Read: Mighty Cold in Kansas City
The Major League Soccer season ends on a brutally chilly night in the midwest, but SKC's shootout heroics heated up the night; World Cup 2022: still a nightmare; a starlet to Stoke City ain't happening.
BY
Noah Davis
Posted
December 09, 2013
8:42 AM
A cold MLS Cup took place over the weekend and Liviu Bird wasn't impressed: "Sporting Kansas City’s penalty win over Real Salt Lake will not be seen as a classic among fans who expect quality out of final matches." Ouch. Meanwhile, all Matt Besler does is win games and get married.
Newsweek and 8x8 publish a long piece that will get you depressed all over again about the World Cup in Qatar. A favorite paragraph: "Many in the football world, including some within FIFA, still haven't been able to swallow that decision, and would welcome a second vote. But while 2022 might seem a long way away, work has already begun in Qatar. In fact, the scale of investment—and of the profit multinational corporations stand to make from this endeavor—is dizzying. One such project, Lusail City, is nothing less than the creation ex nihilo of an entirely new town, which will be built on the sand dunes close to the northern suburbs of the capital Doha. Nearly 200,000 people will work and live there. (They will also be able to shop in the world's longest mall.) The contractor is the German company Hochtief, which is controlled by the Spanish consortium ACS - in other words, by the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez. Where money flows, the waters run deep."
Word on the street (read: in the Guardian) is that the United States will play England in a May friendly. The Three Lions are planning a "pre-tournament acclimatisation camp" in Miami.
Oh look, some news from Stoke City: Geoff Cameron thinks the club can finish in the top 10. "If we had won (against Cardiff) in mid-week then we would have shot up another couple of places in the table. It's a close group of teams we're in right now, and one win can be the difference between being 16th or 17th to 10th or 11th. As long as we're in that group, and we get a few good results before January, we can certainly be pushing for the top 10." The team currently sits 14th. One man who likely won't be helping is Juan Agudelo, as Stoke has all but given up on signing him after his work permit appeal failed.
If this can't get you pumped for Brazil, well, we feel sorry for you:
