This guy’s life = better than yours, Jon Conway. Also, I know you’re mad and probably found your way into a suit of “Hans Backe” skin, but letting go of Danny Cepero like that was bogus. Oh well.

That being said, enjoy that rad clip of “world renowned freerunner Ryan Doyle” treating RBA as his own personal playground.

Photo Credit: Seth Binsted/The Breeze

In today’s MLS Expansion draft, we expected to see Amado Guevara, Frankie Hejduk or Eddie Robinson taken to help coach Peter/Piotr Nowak build the nucleus of what should be a pretty decent team in Philly next year. Instead, we saw a good, scrappy bunch of kids (including RBNY’s Nick Zimmerman) leaving their digs for “greener” pastures in Philadelphia.

There were no superstars taken, no former league MVPs. No players with U.S. national team caps, or players with multiple all-star appearances, or even players with ties to the Philadelphia area. When the final list of players chosen by the Philadelphia Union was announced, we were treated to a group of MLS players who could make up the type of tough and tenacious team that Nowak likes, and Philadelphia fans will want to root for. [SBI]

The fact that Zimmerman was left exposed (eff you Jeff Agoos!) makes me very, very angry. The new sporting director is on his way (believe me, it’s no damn secret who it is!) but we couldn’t find a way to hang on to a kid that had proven that he got it. We didn’t let Sassano or Sinisa go for similar reasons and dammit, I wanted Nick around. Now that $5 thing I bought off that kid in the Giants Stadium parking lot isn’t worth $h!t.

Ugh.

In what is being called the “fastest goal in a professional soccer match,” Saudi striker Nawaf Al Abed scored 2 seconds into the match when he caught the goalkeeper off his line. Thankfully, the goal played little role in the final score (save for totally deflating the team who conceded it) as Nawaf and his team ended up winning the game, 4-0.

From the YouTube description: “Straight from the kickoff, Al Abed spotted the Al Shoalah goalkeeper off his line and that was all the invitation needed for the striker to try his luck from the halfway line. With power and accuracy, Al Abed launched a shot goalwards which flew of the keepers head and into the net ”

That, kids, is why goalkeepers must ALWAYS be paying attention. ALWAYS.

We’re not going to sit here and say that this type of play is acceptable, but this level of “bush league” play in WOMEN’S COLLEGE SOCCER is so…so…completely hot. In case you need a point of reference, the above clip features New Mexico’s Elizabeth Lambert (15) beating the ever-loving crap out of BYU’s Kassidy Shumway (21) in the Mountain West Conference semifinals. Here at IHJC, we only encourage this type of brutality against our namesake (only kidding, sort of) but it’s important that the kids understand that while jostling on and off the ball will always be a part of the game, stuff like this most certainly shouldn’t.

Even still, chick fighting is pretty hot, right?

Man, what a great day. Soccer by Ives just wrote the sweetest 4 words I have ever read: RBNY “waived goalkeeper Jon Conway”. I am BEYOND ecstatic that this happened at all; that it took this long is scary, but with with “Duckman’s” departure last week, as long as we don’t spend cash on any major, overpriced acquisitions (read: Khano/Rojas), we are finally headed in the correct direction. The last two-three seasons have been very difficult for this RBNY/Metro fan as my (now-)wife and I made the season ticket splurge two years ago and got to witness not only last season’s amazing playoff run, but this year’s epic collapse as well.

Yes, the chips seem down, don’t they? Who cares? 9 months ago when we launched, most people told me I was just bitter and crazy and that no one would EVER agree with me. Well, RBNY let the bum go and I kinda proved that I was right all along. While I don’t welcome the bad karma of wishing another man out of a job, I have a feeling he’ll probably con his way into another gig soon enough (and if the NJ-area player ends up in Philly and plays a role in hurting us, I will FREAK). He wasn’t the team’s only problem, but he was a big one.

I heart you, RBNY. Agoos is next.

Last season, our precious Danny wasn’t granted his rightfully earned Goal of the Week for his 81-yard blast into the net, the first for an MLS keeper. In order to make it up to him, let’s all vote his amazing save against “The Wookie” Dan Dichio as MLS’ Save of the Week, mmm kay?

Go here and vote now, he’s currently in 2nd with 23% of the vote! (edit: as of 3:25 PM ET, Danny’s in the lead with 26% of the vote, but it’s close…keep spreading the word!)

(Update: 6/18 – 4 PM ET)

Rare is the day that I actually get an opportunity to sit down and rebut an intelligent and thought-provoking blog post, but here’s an example from Monday [Not every steroid scandal is quite what it seems]. Honestly, I don’t really do that here, this was designed as an attention-grabbing blog PRIOR to the performance-enhancing drug suspension of Major League Soccer’s own Jeff Parke and, the namesake of this blog, Jon Conway. I was bored and the guy has rubbed me very wrong personally so I made this as a way to entertain myself and the fans/season ticket holders of section 105 (we sit in row 9 and I am pretty easy to find if someone wanted to talk about my opinions or even share their own!) and it didn’t catch a lot of heat from players, but there was some. We still get grief from other Metro/RBNY supporters because they feel that what we do/think is disrespectful when, in fact, it’s just in fun. Always has been. (more…)

Eff yeah, our little Danny got the call-up to the big leagues. I didn’t see any mention of Jon Conway on this list, must be that he’s a big ol’ ugly troll.

Click to See Larger Image

From the article:

Cosmo Girl: KISSING ON THE FIRST DATE?

Cepero: Absolutely necessary. [Cosmo Girl]

You go, Danny. Slip that lucky lady your golden tongue.

In a post from Soccer by Ives, it turns out that Dave Van den Bergh not only got traded away to FC Dallas, but REQUESTED that trade. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy here in NY/NJ area – his wife has family in the Dallas area who, according to SBI:

Van Den Bergh’s wife has family in Dallas which could help them with the care of their oldest son, who has been battling an undisclosed illness. The Red Bulls weighed the request, along with Van Den Bergh’s own demands for a new contract, and decided the best thing to do for all parties involved was to trade the 32-year-old winger away.

[Soccer by Ives]

The good news is that we got good value for him: the Red Bulls traded Van Den Bergh and the No. 14 overall pick in the MLS Draft to FC Dallas for forward Dominic Oduro, the No. 11 and the No. 18 picks in the draft. The MLS, Agoos and JCO did right by DVB.

I never thought that I would say that.

Wow, Ashley Young is a stud. His counter against Everton just delivered an Aston Villa win right at the death in Goodison Park. I heart you, Ashley Young.

Ashley Young grabbed his second of the game deep in injury time to give Aston Villa a 3-2 win over Everton in an amazing finale to the match at Goodison Park.

Joleon Lescott thought he had won a point for Everton after netting his second of the game in the third minute of added time, but with just 15 seconds remaining, Villa broke to the other end and Young finished coolly to give the visitors all three points.

[Yahoo! UK]

Guess he shook off that calf injury, eh?