Sounders Insider

Updates on news, views and developments of the South Sound soccer scene.

Contributors:

Don Ruiz joined The News Tribune in 1988 and has been covering sports since 1999. He is a long-time recreational soccer player and has covered the 1999 Women's World Cup championship game and a variety of international, national and local soccer matches. E-mail Don.

Jon Billings is the director of communications for the Tacoma Tide. He'll be providing news, notes and updates on the Tide. E-mail Jon.

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The News Tribune's soccer blog
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Posted by Don Ruiz @ 09:13:41 pm

New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio resigned Friday.

Here's a report from the MLS website.

"I want to apologize to the fans for the results this season," Osorio says in the report. "I want to thank the players for their hard work. I'd also like to thank the club for the opportunity to coach the team for the past two seasons."

The Red Bulls are 2-16-4 this season, last in MLS. They have a goal differential of minus-23.

And, of course, you may remember that New York's troubles began on March 19 with a 3-0 loss in the expansion Sounders' first game ever.

Assistant coach Richie Williams will take over as interim head coach for the rest of the season.

Posted by Don Ruiz @ 05:30:07 pm

After last night's loss, coach Sigi Schmid implied he would have a few well-chosen words for his team at training today, and he apparently delivered.

After practice, Schmid gathered his team in a circle as usual. But then the team got up and headed to one touchline. They lined up along the line and then walked together across the pitch. Once at the far touchline, they remained in a straight line, which Schmid addressed them for 20-minutes or so, often gesturing for emphasis.

"That was just a little sports psych excercise that we did," Schmid said. "It's just for us. As I've said before to you guys a lot of times, the difference between winning and losing a lot of times is small, it's not big. It's not big things that changge games, it's little things that change games. Just putting the re-emphasis on that, on why we're getting so close and not finishing our chances, what's going amiss there. There were some good points brought up by the players, so I feel very good about that."

The media hadn't seen anything quite like it before, but Nate Jaqua said the overall message wasn't that different from other times when Schmid has attempted to get his team to be all it can be.

"We've had a few of those," Nate Jaqua said. "Some talk. This is the end of the season now, we're coming up to it. We've got to play this last part and kind of hit our stride if we're going to be the team we want to be. Sometimes we're the team we want to be and sometimes we're not. Part of it is consistency and the fact that we're a young group."

Categories: Major League Soccer
Posted by Don Ruiz @ 05:18:10 pm

Freddie Ljungberg admits he feared the worst when he was having his memory and vision issues last week.

However, he said today that all tests came back negative, and that doctors now think the issue was some hyperglycemic reaction that can be controlled with the proper intake of food.

"My body went into starving mode and started to shut down," Ljungberg said. "It was a severe hyperglycemic state. At least now we know what was going on. If I can just get proper food hopefully nothing will happen because that’s what triggers migraines. Normally I’ve had one migraine in 18 months and now I’ve had three in two months. SO we had to find what was different and that’s what the doctor’s think. Now hopefully we’re on the right track and we can fix it."

Assuming that's correct, Ljungberg believes he should be able to travel to Texas tomorrow and play 45-60 minutes -- maybe more -- Sunday in Houston.

"He trained today. He did what everybody else did today," coach Sigi Schmid said. "But we’ll see how he feels tomorrow. This is seven days. The doctors had suggested a protocol of seven to 10 days, depending on how he feels. So we’ll see how he comes back tomorrow. That will make the determination about him traveling with us to Houston. Obviously if he travels with us we would expect him to play. We’ve got to be a little bit cautious because of the heat and the humidity down there, which can dehydrate you and with his eating and so forth and his body being in more of a sensitive state right now with what he just came off of, we’ve just got to be a little more cautious right now."

Here's everything Ljungberg told us today:

=> Read more!