Reeves' Army

I’m not afraid to provide exposition for the cartoons of Juan Terrazas when they refer to Monterrey, so long as they’re safe for work. Earlier this month, he had a Mexican national team-themed cartoon with alcohol and…paraphanelia. (If you don’t know, don’t ask. If you’re not of age, don’t look for it.)

(Refined translation: Guy: “We’ve determined he had ‘championitis’.” UNAM: “Yeah… and it’s turned purple… already rotten.”)

Yeah, that’s Monterrey’s avatar. Sucks to be 1-0-3, huh?

The matchups are set for the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic, and Orlando City will face FC Dallas on Thursday, February 24 at 6pm EST. A match between Houston Dynamo and Toronto FC will follow at 8pm.

The losers of the two matches will play each other at 6pm on Saturday, February 26, followed by the championship match.

Stoke City advanced to the 5th Round Proper in the FA Cup by taking a 1-0 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Robert Huth put in a header at 81′ for the lone goal. Goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen only needed two saves against a typically-hapless Wolves offense.

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The Football Association did the draw for the 5th Round Proper today after the last matches were finished.

Burnley will play at Premier League side West Ham United, while Stoke City will host League One side Brighton & Hove Albion. There are two other League One sides left in the Round of 16: Leyton Orient and Sheffield Wednesday.

Amazingly, there is still a fifth-level side from the semi-pro Football Conference: Crawley Town. Not likely they’ll go further; they’ll be at Manchester United.

Match times will be determined but they will take place the weekend of February 19.

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Finishing the week, Monterrey was dropped by UNAM Pumas, 3-2.

I need to keep better track of the Clarets. With 46 season matches, the Football League Championship is far more hectic than the Premier League.

That being said, Burnley beat Portsmouth F.C., 2-1, on Tuesday night. Pompey, which was a hair’s breadth from folding as recently as this past October, is now down to 18th (4 positions and 4 points out of the relegation zone), while Burnley is now solidly in 10th place with 19 matches to go.

Today, the Clarets beat League Two side Burton Albion, 3-1, to advance to the 5th Round Proper in the FA Cup.

Burnley will go to Doncaster Rovers for their next Championship match on Tuesday. We’re still over a week away from the draw for the FA Cup 5th Round Proper, which will have 16 teams. FA Cup matchups are completely random through the semifinal round.

As for our other sponsor clubs: Stoke City will face Wolverhampton Wanderers in their FA Cup match tomorrow. Monterrey goes to UNAM Pumas in Mexico City tomorrow afternoon.

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I should go ahead and note that I kinda underestimated the attendance for the Supporters meeting last weekend. The official signed-in tally was 69. While I was technically right (I said 40+), it was a bit much. 40-ish was what I had heard when I was there, and I’m bad at counting people personally.

More than 40 fans braved the chilly early evening at the Orlando City Supporters meeting last night at Orlando Brewing. In attendance were the front office of Orlando City S.C., including majority owner Phil Rawlins.

Although it’s a vast improvement from the eleven that met at the organizational meeting, it’s less than the 80 that RSVP’d. A lot of them probably wussed out due to the cold.

It should bear mention that there is no fee to join OCS.

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Stoke City lost to Fulham, 2-0. They are now 9th place in the Premier League, the bottom of three teams with 30 points, and 8 points out of European play.

Burnley took a scoreless draw at Scunthorpe United. They are 10th place in the Football League Championship with 37 points, having a goal differential advantage over 11th place Hull City.

Monterrey got its first win of the 2011 Clausura, 1-0 against Atlante. (Team site recap, en Español) The win permits them to jump Necaxa for 5th place in Group 1.

And today gets even bigger.

The MLS club Philadelphia Union announced today that they will take preseason training in Orlando for the next four years. Their training camp will be sponsored by the U.S. division of Mexico’s Bimbo Bakeries, a major sponsor of Mexico’s Premier Division.

The training camp this year will run January 31-February 20, and culminate in a preseason friendly against Orlando City S.C. on Saturday, February 19, at 7pm at the Citrus Bowl.

This is extremely exciting. If you want to know what being a soccer fan is all about, look no further than Union’s supporters, the Sons of Ben.

Tickets will be $10 and $15.

The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex has announced that Orlando City S.C. will participate in the 2011 Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic.

The Lions will join three MLS teams: Houston Dynamo, Toronto FC and FC Dallas. The games will be Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26.

In addition, Houston is scheduled for a scrimmage against Seattle Sounders in Orlando on Tuesday, February 22. Toronto will not have other matches here, but will go from Orlando to the Carolina Challenge Cup, where they will face our future USL Pro rivals, Charleston Battery. FC Dallas has not released its preseason schedule yet.

Games are included with admission to ESPN Wide World of Sports, which is currently $14.50 per person. There will be two games per day, with the winners of the Thursday game facing off in the final game on Saturday. The schedule for Thursday has not been set yet, though Orlando City is asking for suggestions on their Facebook page.

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Also, don’t forget that the Orlando City Supporters are assembling for a meeting tomorrow, Saturday, January 22, at 6pm at Orlando Brewing. Orlando Brewing is on Atlanta Ave., in the vicinity of ORMC and the Orlando Amtrak Station, accessible from the I-4 exit at Kaley St.

Stoke City has drawn Wolverhampton Wanderers for the Fourth Round Proper of the FA Cup tournament. The match schedule was set today, with Stoke’s game to take place Sunday, January 30, at 8am EST (13:00 GMT) at Molineux.

If they draw, the replay will take place Tuesday, February 15, at Britannia Stadium in Stoke-on-Kent. This is later than the customary one week holdoff due to a FIFA international matchday.

The club has also announced a one-year contract extension with backup goalkeeper Carlo Nash. He has one appearance this year in the first round of the Carling Football League Cup, getting 3 saves in a 2-1 win over Shrewsbury.

The Potters’ next Premier League game is this Saturday at Fulham. They are currently tied for 7th (8th on goal differential) with Bolton Wanderers at 30 points, and have a game in hand.

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When Brian Laws was fired as Burnley’s manager just before the death of 2010, the Clarets were stuck in 9th in the Football League npower Championship. They’ve held steady under Stuart Gray’s caretakership, but yesterday announced the hiring of Eddie Howe as their new manager.

Howe was hired from AFC Bournemouth, where he earned the team promotion from League Two to League One (League One is directly under the Championship in English football). He leaves Bournemouth in second position in League One–a position where they would earn automatic promotion to the Championship if they ended the season there.

So assuming he can’t earn Burnley promotion to the Premier League by the end of the season (they are 10th, six points out of the promotion playoffs and 10 points out of automatic promotion with 21 games to go), there’s a chance he might have to coach against his former club next season.

Burnley’s next Championship game is this Saturday at Scunthorpe United.

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Monterrey has begun the 2011 Clausura, the second half of Mexico’s Premier Division season. They entered the league competition as winners of the 2010 Apertura, but slipped out of the gates, currently 0-0-2 after losses to San Luis and Estudiantes Tecos.

Los Rayados are playing in the same group of six as in the Apertura, competing directly with UANL Tigres (also in Monterrey), Santos Laguna (Torreon), Chivas de Guadalajara, Estudiantes Tecos (also Guadalajara) and Necaxa (Aguascalientes City).

The three groups of six are only for ranking purposes for the end-of-season 4-team tournament. Each team plays all 17 of the other teams once each during a season.

Juan Terrazas, a Mexican cartoonist who specializes in Mexico’s soccer scene using avatars for each of the teams, has an interesting take on it. (WARNING: one of the comics currently on for January 2011 is NSFW.)

(Refined translation – Santos Laguna: “I’m a runner-up with a dark future.” UNAM Pumas: “Don’t despair… If only you could see the champs…” In the distance is his avatar for Monterrey.)

Mexico’s Premier Division also ranks its teams by its average finish over the current and previous five seasons (three years total), with the bottom team being relegated to the Second Division after the Clausura. Monterrey is currently second place in this classification (behind Toluca, winners of the 2008 Apertua and 2010 Clausura/Bicentenario), with Necaxa currently at the bottom and, thus, at risk of relegation.

Los Rayados next play this Saturday night, hosting Atlante.

Devorn Jorsling will not leave his career in his native country empty-handed.

After nine years of trying–eight with Jorsling leading the charge–Defence Force finally won their first TT Pro League, clinching it with a 2-0 victory over Caledonia AIA last night.

Teammate Jemel Seabro scored the opening goal at 56′ after a scoreless first half. Jorsling kicked in his 13th goal of the season at 77′ to lock in the title.

With the win, Defence Force now has 21 top-level championships in Trinidad and Tobago. Their last one was in 1999 in the inaugural season of the original Pro Football League.

Orlando City made a big pickup today by announcing its signing of Devorn Jorsling, a forward with the national team of Trinidad and Tobago.

Jorsling, whose first name is commonly misspelled in several sources as “Devon” but is listed as “Devorn” by his agent and the T&T national team website, has spent the last eight seasons at TT Pro League side Defence Force in Port-of-Spain, where he picked up close to 100 goals, third-most in TT Pro League history. He had 16 goals this season before we signed him away, including 11 in his last 13 games.

He also has 14 goals in 27 caps for his national team, including a recent hat trick against St. Vincent and the Grenadines this past November in the Caribbean Championship.

Jorsling was born in Morvant, a town just east of Port-of-Spain on December 27, 1983.