Former New York Red Bulls defender Alfredo Pacheco, El Salvador’s all-time caps leader with 86 international appearances, was gunned down at a gas station in his native Santa Ana. In 2013,Pacheco, 33, had been banned for life in a match-fixing scandal involving 14 members of the national team. Pacheco was shot three times at point-blank […]
obituary
Everton memorial for Kendall is also a tribute to soccer's power
This column is often devoted to discussion of the controversies and scandals that seem to roil the game every day, but today it will instead pay tribute to an iconic figure of a bygone era. At a funeral service in Liverpool on Thursday, the Everton community bade farewell to Howard Kendall, a longtime servant of […]
Two USC Upstate soccer players killed in crash
Soccer players Mills Sproull and James Campbell were among four USC Upstate students, all athletes, killed in a carcrash early Sunday morning in Boiling Springs, South Carolina. Joshua Lee, who ran cross country at the Division I school, and Sarah Grace Vande Berg, a tennis player, also died. Felicia Ahlborg, another tennis player, was in […]
France mourns late goalkeeper Dominique Dropsy
Goalkeeper Dominique Dropsy, one of the most popular French players of the 1970s and 1980s, died on Wednesday following a four-year battle with leukemia. Afterstarting his career with Valenciennes, Dropsy spent 11 seasons at Strasbourg, where he won the French league title in 1979, and then moved to Bordeaux in 1984, winning two league titles, […]
Obituary: German coaching legend Cramer (1925-2015)
Dettmar Cramer, one of the great names of German coaching, died on Thursday at the age of 90. In the United States, he is best known as the founder of the U.S. Soccer coaching school but he alsobriefly coached the U.S. national team in 1974, leading it in a two-game friendly series with Mexico. He […]
NASL pioneer John Best dies at age 74
[OBITUARY] John Best, one of pioneers of American pro soccer and the first head coach of the original Seattle Sounders,died last weekend at the age of 74. The Seattle Times reported that Best, who underwent three kidney transplants, died from a lunginfection while visiting family in Ireland. Best played for the Philadelphia Spartans of the […]
Belmont Abbey freshman McGuire remembered on campus
Belmont Abbey freshman Michael McGuire collapsed following a pre-season fitness test Aug. 16 and died five days later after being hospitalized. Campus membersset up vigils and organized memorials for him. “It’s just heartbreaking,” said Angelina Starr, a freshman basketball player. “Like the second day and hisparents go home thinking, like, ‘My son’s at college.’ And […]
U.S. Paralympic leader McCullough succumbs to cancer
[OBITUARY] Jon McCullough, chairman of U.S. Soccer’s Athlete Council and a member of the U.S. Paralympic Team in the 1996 and 2004 Paralympics as a defender, diedSaturday after succumbing to cancer. “We are deeply saddened by the news of Jon McCullough’s passing,” U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati said.”Jon lived his life with the embodiment of […]
Leo Stillitano passes away at age 55
[OBITUARY] Leo Stillitano, the president and general manager of MLS’s Miami Fusion for its launch in 1998, passed away athis home in Weehawken, New Jersey, on Saturday at the age of 55. Stillitano, an All-Ivy player at Columbia, had worked for the 1994 World Cup organizing committee, in MLS and at ChampionsWorld withhis brother Charlie, […]
Grondona dies after 35 years as Argentine boss
[OBITUARY] Julio Grondona, FIFA senior vice president, died on Wednesday after being admitted to a Buenos Aires hospitalfor an aortic aneurysm. The 82-year-old Don Julio, as he was known in Argentina, had been president of the Argentina soccer federation (AFA) since 1979. During his tenure, Argentina won the World Cuponce and finished runner-up twice. But […]
