BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (June 22, 2008) — With a 1-0 victory against Barbados Sunday afternoon, the U.S. Men’s National Team captured the two-game, aggregate goal series by a 9-0 margin, advancing to the Semifinal Round of qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Eddie Lewis scored the only goal of the game in the second leg of the affair at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, providing the U.S. with their fourth straight shutout against the small Caribbean nation.

The U.S. will now prepare for their first match of the Semifinal Round, which will be on the road against Guatemala on Aug. 20. Overall, the U.S. will play a total of six games in the round-robin Semifinal Round, facing all three opponents in the four-team group home and away. The top two teams will advance to the Final Round hexagonal that will be played in 2009.

Costa Rica advances as do Guatamala and Mexico. UPDATE - Soccer by Ives previews all 12 qualifiers

Barbados currently lies 100 places below the U.S. in the FIFA World Rankings. Their roster is comprised mostly of domestic players, and of the rest, only a handful, including Crystal Palace midfielder Paul Ifill, have top flight experience in one of the world’s top leagues.

The second leg of the Second Round series will be played Sunday, June 22 at 3 p.m. ET in Barbados. The match will be broadcast live on ESPN Classic and Galavision.

The US is part of the North and Central America and Caribbean (CONCACAF) region which has been broken up in to three groups. The top two teams from each group will advance to the Semifinals.

The US is in Group One and will play its first World Cup qualifier next June against the winner of an opening-round series between Barbados and Dominica and could face Cuba in its regional semifinals group. Here are the first round group games:

Aruba-Antigua and Barbuda_Cuba winner
Guatemala_Turks and Caicos Islands-St. Lucia winner
Trinidad and Tobago_Bermuda-Cayman Islands winner
United States_Dominica-Barbados winner

The complete list is available at US Today. UPDATE - US Soccer chimes in.

Brazil Bounces U.S. From Women’s World Cup by Steven Goff - The United States was smashed from the Women’s World Cup on Thursday night by a Brazilian team that displayed the skill, speed, composure, class and finishing prowess of its celebrated men’s squad.

Unforgiven by Adam Spangler “To nobody’s surprise, Brazil proved to be in a different class against the U.S.” That’s the ESPN headline still up at soccernet regarding the recent friendly between our men’s national team and Brazil’s. I never in a million years thought the same could be said for our women.

Adam also pointed to this one
Hope Solo Rips Ryan, Scurry: ‘Wrong Decision … I Would Have Made Those Saves’ - It’s 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can’t live by big names. You can’t live in the past.

Important matches this week include Joplin traveling to Camdenton Tuesday and Parkview Wednesday while the Vikings face the Tigers in Waynesville on Tuesday before the Eagles visit. Add in the West Plains Zizzers visit to Glendale Tuesday and we should see who wants to challenge.

Plenty of big games on Wednesday. One I’ve had on my calendar since August is the homecoming of Elle Holtman (pictured) with her Rockhurst Hawk teammates when they visit Drury. We last saw Elle leading her Catholic teammates into the Class 1 Sectionals in May. She returns as a regular member of the Hawks, playing in all ten games as a midfielder. The team is 7-2-1, 4-2-1 in the GLVC after losing to St Joseph’s Friday and beating Indianapolis on Sunday, in OT, where Elle was the first sub off the bench.

Drury will host the women’s game at 5:00 pm. I think it may be on Hutchen’s (grass) field since there’s a Central game on my calendar at Harrison that evening as well. The men will play at 7:30 pm. The Hawks are 3-1-1 in the GLVC after also losing to Indianapolis this weekend while walloping St Joseph’s 6-2. This is the team we saw beat MSU 3-0 in preseason so some good soccer is ahead of us on Wednesday.

Updated - The Women’s World Cup has reached the semifinals and the first match will feature holder’s Germany versus Norway, 7:00 am Wednesday morning on ESPN2. The US against Brazil is scheduled for Thursday morning at 7:00 am. According to US Today, that game will be power vs finesse

Plenty of video and stories on the FIFA website.

I’ll sort out the weekend opportunities later this week for you.

The winner will face the winner of the Brazil vs Australia game that will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Sunday at 6:55 am. Australia won their first ever World Cup match to reach the quarterfinals so the odds are that the US (or England) will see Brazil. That game will be Thursday at 6:55 am (ESPN2)

On the other side of the bracket, Saturday mornings early game features holders Germany vs. North Korea, 4am on ESPN2. Sunday morning features China vs. Norway at 4am on ESPN2. Winners from those two games face off on Wednesday morning at 6:55 am (ESPN2)

Plenty of stories and video on the FIFA.com website and I’m keeping the Calendar up-to-date with broadcast information.

7:00 am Tuesday on ESPN - USA vs Nigeria with North Korea vs Sweden on ESPN2

While I’m still in St Louis, there is a fine game to consider this evening. Joplin visits Greenwood this evening, this is a rivalry that has some roots that always make it an exciting game. 5:00 pm JV start, at Cooper.

Tuesday night there is a full slate of Ozark Conference games as we get into the meat of the schedule. Camdenton, West Plains, Joplin, Parkview and Lebanon are at home.

This weekend, Bolivar hosts their annual tournament beginning Thursday and running through Saturday. In addition, Parkview and Glendale are playing a pair of games on Saturday with the Poplar Bluff Mules and Cape Central Tigers visiting. The Tigers have already beaten Class 3 Finalist Lafayette this year so I anticipate checking out at least one of their games.

For the college fan, MIAA Women’s Conference play is heating up. Southwest Baptist and Missouri Southern have home games Friday and Saturday this weekend, hosting Missouri Western and Central Missouri. Central Missouri is ranked #15 nationally and knocked off #9 Washburn this weekend.

Oh, and for the international fan, the Champions League has begun and ESPN2 kicks off their broadcast schedule with a pair of games between the English and Portugese representatives this week. Tuesday at 1:30 pm it’s Porto vs Liverpool and on Wednesday its Sporting vs ManU.

The day after the FIFA Women’s Soccer World Cup was rocked by a pair of opening-round tie games in the tournament’s toughest group, the U.S. team did its best to put its 2-2 stalemate with North Korea in the rearview mirror.

It has to: Friday, world No. 1 USA plays equally desperate Group B rival and world No. 3 Sweden, which got its own shock in a 1-1 battle with upstart Nigeria.

The US Team and Coach offer their feedback on the US Soccer website

Game time is Friday morning, 4:00 am CST on ESPN. England plays Germany at 6:55 am

Hat tip to My Soccer Blog for posting the complete schedule. He notes that the favorites coming in are Germany, the US, Sweden and host China. Who are you rooting for?

On Tuesday the US Women will take on North Korea with the game beginning at 3:55am CST

Update your calender with the schedule for the Final as well. It will be Sunday September 30th, 6:55 am on ESPN2. Or bookmark my Soccer Calendar to stay up-to-date.

Here’s an overview of the teams at the World Cup, courtesy of Du Nord contributor Adam

USA ON ESPN: The U.S. Under-20 Men’s National Team is set to face Brazil in the third and final Group D match of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup. Kickoff is set for 6:45 p.m. CT from Frank-Clair Stadium in Ottawa, with a sold-out crowd of over 26,500 expected to be on hand for the double header as Argentina will battle North Korea at 4 p.m. ET. Friday’s game will be shown live on ESPN, ESPNU and Galavision, and fans can follow along on ussoccer.com’s MatchTracker.

THIS ONE IS FOR THE GROUP: The U.S. currently sits in first place in Group D with 4 points after their win over Poland and tie with South Korea. Poland and Brazil are tied for second in the group with three points each while South Korea is in fourth with one point. With a victory over Brazil, or a draw and a Poland loss or draw against South Korea, the U.S. will win the group for their third consecutive time at the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top two teams in Group D will advance to the quarterfinals, along with the four best third-place teams in the tournament.

Woo Hoo! And don’t even think about watching the Cardinal’s, that guy is still several away from tying the record with his steriod boost and didn’t even play against Cincinnati due to ’soreness’. Boycott!

“Fifty-eight per cent of the players who were treated on the pitch during the 2006 World Cup eventually turned out not to be injured,” confirmed FIFA in a statement.

The analysis was done by FIFA’s medical staff and was part of an effort to prevent injury during the World Cup. This analysis was incidental to the effort

Although they suggest that cheating is endemic among the elite nations and pinpointed “tactical reasons” as the most likely cause of the players’ actions, there was no indication whether players or coaches were to blame.

More fuel for the fire that burns in the Professor’s gut and not the example we would hope that sports should provide.

Hat tip to Bob Jordan.