Yanks Abroad: Bradley with his 17th! Pickens, Szetela, etc.

Michael Bradley didn’t let his US/Mexico disappearance get to him and continued his scoring ways for Heerenveen. This time, the 20 year old halted PSV’s dominance of the Frisians with a 52nd minute equalizer. It’s 17th goal overall, 13th in Eredivisie play. See below…

Danny Szetela – newly loaned out to Brescia of the Serie B – looked decent in the last 10 minutes of a 4-2 Brescia comeback win.

Oguchi Onyewu played all 90 minutes in a Standard Liege shutout of Rosealare. Unfortunately, Liege couldn’t find any offensive production either. 0-0 tie.

Not one American started for Fulhamerica in a 1-0 loss to Middlesbrough. Brian McBride and Clint Dempsey did get in. Dempsey after the break, McBride with 30 minutes to go. Kasey Keller sat on the bench, but is back and ready for selection. Eddie Johnson apparently got into a reserve game a couple days ago and scored in a 3-0 win.

Timmy Howard won the battle of the American goalies as Everton beat Marcus Hahnemann‘s Reading 1-0 and put them into the relegation zone. Bobby Convey was not selected.

Benny Feilhaber was not selected for Derby’s ass-whooping at the hands of Tottenham. Eddie Lewis is out injured.

Jonathan Spector was a last-minute sub for West Ham United in their 1-1 tie with Birmingham City.

Johann Smith wasn’t selected for Bolton’s 1-0 loss to Portsmouth.

Matt Pickens was on the bench for QPR’s 3-2 triumph over Southampton. He didn’t play.

Jay DeMerit was not in the line-up for Watford’s 2-1 win over Ipswich.

Fullback Zak Whitbread went all 90 minutes for Millwall in a 2-0 loss to Nottingham Forest.

Jemal Johnson got on for the last 5 minutes in a MK Dons’ 1-1 tie with Rotherham.

Steve Cherundolo started at fullback in Hannover 96’s 2-2 tie with Karlsruhe. Sal Zizzo was on the bench, but didn’t see any time.

Bryan Arguez wasn’t selected for Hertha Berlin’s squad and Preston Zimmerman didn’t make the Hamburg squad.

Greg Dalby wasn’t selected for Charleroi’s game versus Sint Truiden.

Danny Szetela loaned out to Brescia

Steve Goff at the Washington Post has thrown this little teaser in his early evening round-up. It apparently is with an option to buy. Haven’t seen it anywhere else yet. Not even in the Italian press.
Szetela originally turned down an August offer from Brescia to sign for Racing Santander. With his Santander first-team hopes pretty remote, Serie B is not a bad destination for the midfielder. Even better, the Biancoazzurri are sitting in 6th place with close proximity to the leaders and promotion into Serie A. All with around 20 games to go.

He’s going to shine here. I have no doubt about it. Not only that, he gets to play some pretty damn good players – former Italian internationals Alessio Tacchinardi and Fabio Bazzani and 19 year old Hungarian starlet Adam Vass.

He’s going to prove himself in Italy.

LA LIGA: Outsider´s Perspective of Camp Nou

Quick hello from Barcelona – and the slow computers of free-internet IES Barcelona. Attended Barcelona-Racing Santander last night. A 1-0 win for Barça thanks to a Thierry Henry knock-in. Couple observations and then the next time you´ll hear from me specifically is Wednesday.

Thierry Henry is simply a beast to watch in person. His grace is just as intimidating as his strength on and off the ball. Playing mostly on the left – but switching into the center when smart to do so – Henry handled the inexperience on the front line with him. Giovanni Dos Santos lined up on the right side, with Bojan Krkic in the center. Only Krkic had a great game as Gio made too many stupid passes to warrant praise (in fact all of Camp Nou jeered the little guy at one point)

We had a birds eye view of the field (meaning last row in the whole frickin´place), but it was great in terms of taking everything in.

Walking in, we were given Barça newsletters, which once inside, were promptly used by the masses to create paper airplanes. Many failed to reach their target – the pitch – instead, gliding down the three tiers and plunking an unsuspecting spectator in the head. Good for a few laughs, but it really summed up the atmosphere. Could be due to the opponent – one they´ve beaten 10 out of the last 10 times, but this stadium was somewhat quiet. Almost peaceful, to be exact. No real supporter group presence and my girlfriend at one point – one who has taken in many a-Red Bull games – added that the Red Bull´s supporter groups were simply much louder and dare I say it, more in numbers.

Regardless, the flow of play was slow, with quick stretches of brilliance. Combination passes, give and gos, feints, Maradonas, we got the whole lot, but Racing Santander was tough and frankly, Barça kept them in the game. Andres Iniesta is damn good – he caused most of the disturbances, while Deco was kept quiet the whole game and looked rather unfit. On top of that, Gio´s inconsistent play on the right caused for the crowd to ask for the return of their injured star Leo Messi. And it came, with about 15 minutes to go amidst a standing ovation from the Nou Camp crowd.

One other quick word, that stadium is OLD. Tradition or not…a 50 year old stadium, housing over 100,000 every weekend or so is interesting to say the least. No alcohol either. We couldn´t believe, but the grandeur of the place certainly made its mark. Just walking into the stadium, you could feel how important this club was to its city.  Poor Espanyol…

Danny Szetela dressed for the visitors, mainly due to injuries. Never saw time. He did get up to stretch out at one point though. Apparently, there is word of a loan move for him…don´t know much more than that right now.

Back with a big EPL post on Wednesday.