International Highlights, News, and Notes

Catching up on last week's friendlies, here are all of the highlights and results, plus some news and notes at the end:


Thursday

Spain 1, South Korea 0

Mexico 2, Italy 1

Germany 3, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1


Friday

Slovenia 3, New Zealand 1 

Ivory Coast 2, Japan 0

China 1, France 0


Saturday

Switzerland 1, Italy 1 

Netherlands 6, Hungary 1

Serbia 4, Cameroon 3

South Africa 1, Denmark 0

Slovakia 3, Costa Rica 0

Ghana 1, Latvia 0

Algeria 1, UAE 0

Romania 3, Honduras 0


Sunday 

Nigeria 3, North Korea 1


Monday

Brazil 5, Tanzania 1 

England 3, Platinum Stars (South African club team) 0

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Unfortunately, one of the biggest stories of the weekend did not involve anything on the field, but rather a scary incident off of it.  The Nigeria-North Korea friendly was marred by a fan stampede outside the lone gate at a 10,000 seat stadium in the township of Tembisa, which left 16 injured.  While a lot of the factors that contributed to this incident will not be present for the actual World Cup matches, the stampede has raised a lot of questions about South Africa's ability to host the event without a hitch. 


Sacha Kljestan might have missed out on the USMNT's World Cup squad, but it does appear that things aren't all that bad for the former Seton Hall standout.  It's being reported that Belgian champions Anderlecht are keen on signing Kljestan, a year and a half after Celtic briefly courted the Chivas USA star.  A deal seems to be on the horizon, but nothing has been made official at this point.

I think this move would be a good one for Kljestan, who has expressed his desire to make the move to Europe in the past.  Ever since his move to Celtic fell through, Kljestan hasn't quite been the same player, so finally making the jump might be the boost he needs to get him back to form he showed two years ago.  He'll have to battle for minutes, but there should be plenty of minutes to go around at the early part of the season when Anderlecht take part in the Champions League and domestic play.  Belgium proved to be a great stepping stone in the career of Oguchi Onyewu; should this move go through, we'll see if the same can be said of Kljestan.


Last, the referee for the USA-England match will be Carlos Simon, a selection that is causing a lot of concern on both sides of the pond (and for good reason).