Meanwhile Portsmouth Crushed by DC United (Liam O'Brien: Played last 11 minutes, so don't blame him!)Reuters - Portsmouth end nightmare tour with drubbing in Washington2 hours, 16 minutes ago
By Simon Denyer
WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) - With scarcely any sleep, in sweltering heat and after losing their kit, Portsmouth ended a farcical North American pre-season tour on Saturday with a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Major League Soccerâs DC United.
Relegated from the Premiership, in administration and placed under a transfer embargo by Englandâs soccer authorities, Portsmouth could scarcely field a team during their week-long tour of the United States and Canada, relying heavily on youngsters with little or no first-team experience.
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But if anyone thought things could not get any worse for the embattled club, they were wrong.
Stranded in Chicago by a lightning storm en route from their last game in Edmonton, the players had just four hours sleep the night before Saturdayâs game with DC United and with no time to train for three days.
As if that wasnât bad enough, 14 bags went missing en route, including the one containing their kit, meaning they had to play Saturdayâs game in a strip borrowed from their hosts.
They probably wished they had never arrived at all, after a thrashing at the hands of the MLS strugglers, which included a hat-trick by Australian striker Danny Allsopp.
âProbably that result summed up the tour for us really â it has been extremely tough,â Portsmouth manager Steve Cotterill told reporters.
The journey from Edmonton had taken 27 hours. The flight from England to their first game in San Diego took 42.
âThe time it took us to get here, we could have flown to Australia,â a furious Cotterill told Reuters after the game.
The newly installed Pompey boss has made no secret of his frustration with the gruelling tour, organised before he took over, and that he would have preferred to have remained in England to try and assemble a squad for the approaching season.
Two players went home injured after the Edmonton game, one with a broken leg.
Then goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown, trying to earn a new contract after the departure of David James, went off injured after colliding with a team mate during Saturdayâs game, to add to Cotterillâs woes.
Pompeyâs weary players soon ran out of steam on the hottest day of the year in Washington, with the temperature reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in the RFK Stadium.
As that wasnât bad enough, three players were sent off, including Portsmouthâs Hayden Mullins, whose only offence was to get into an argument with DC Unitedâs Santino Quaranta, which Mullins admitted included âsome swearingâ.
Quaranta then seemed to spit at Mullins and both men were shown straight red cards.
Cotterill called the refereeing âridiculousâ and âappallingâ.
âI canât believe heâs been allowed to officiate a game,â he said. âIâve never seen anything like it in my life.â
It has been an incredible fall from grace since Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008. On Saturday, the players were just relieved to be going home.
(Editing by Greg Stutchbury; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=reu-portsmouthWashington Post
Three goals by D.C. United's Danny Allsopp bury Portsmouth
By Steven Goff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 25, 2010; D06
As each day and hour passed, D.C. United's ill-conceived friendly with English club Portsmouth at RFK Stadium seemed to take a new and farcical turn.
It began with Portsmouth's utter lack of appeal beyond England's southern shores, resulting in an announced crowd of just 8,987 for United's 4-0 victory on an oven-baked Saturday evening not fit for athlete or spectator.
Financial ruin and recent injuries had left Pompey, as the 112-year-old club is known, with 14 available players for the finale of a four-game preseason tour. After playing in Edmonton on Wednesday, Portsmouth got stuck in Chicago because of a flight cancellation and didn't arrive in Washington until Saturday morning.
The players made it; their uniforms did not. Organizers awaited a last-minute delivery directly to the stadium. When it did not come, Portsmouth borrowed United's all-white ensemble (without names on the backs).
It looked like an intrasquad workout, and given Portsmouth's apathy, it turned out, for all intents and purposes, to be just that.
Australian forward Danny Allsopp needed just 30 minutes to equal his scoring total in 12 MLS appearances (two goals) and finished with a hat trick. After the second strike, the scoreboard clock flashed random times, as if possessed by the ghosts of a crumbling building.
The match turned nastier with each challenge, and at the halftime whistle, United Coach Curt Onalfo pointed and barked at Portsmouth bench personnel while being escorted to the tunnel. D.C. assistant Ben Olsen confronted the officiating crew and was ejected.
"I knew what their tactics would be -- they're in preseason, they're tired," Onalfo said. "Once we found our rhythm and started going at them, they decided to foul us on every other play. That's the job of the referee to realize that. It's not that difficult to see. It was a friendly, but it was heated."
Nine minutes after the break, MLS referee Jorge Gonzalez red-carded United's Santino Quaranta and Portsmouth's Hayden Mullins for a midfield exchange. United defender Julius James was sent off in the 89th minute.
Long before the ejections, United seized control on Allsopp's first two goals. In the 21st minute, Allsopp rose at the edge of the six-yard box and nodded in Pablo Hernandez's 35-yard free kick.
After David Nugent missed a sure equalizer from six yards, Quaranta squared the ball to Allsopp, whose first touch was too heavy. He recovered possession, however, carved some space and neatly side-footed a 10-yarder into the lower right corner.
Squandered opportunities on both sides and Pompey's hard tackles on Hernandez marred the remainder of the half.
"It was hot," United defender Carey Talley said, "and they were grumpy."
In the 56th minute, Hernandez finished a series of one-touch passes with a simple tap-in, and in the 65th, Allsopp completed his hat trick on a breakaway.
United (MLS-worst 3-11-3 record) will resume league play Saturday at Real Salt Lake. Portsmouth, in deep debt and relegated to the second tier of English soccer after a last-place finish in the Premier League, will head home from this forgettable tour and begin assembling a roster for the Aug. 7 league opener at Coventry City
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/24/AR2010072402309_pf.htmlPortsmouth Official Site
DC United 4 Pompey 0
by Mark Storey at the RFK Stadium
No training, no sleep, no kit â no big surprise Pompey got drubbed at DC United.
Danny Allsoppâs hat-trick put the knife into the leg-weary Blues, who could not have arrived in worse shape for this friendly in the United Statesâ capital.
A cancelled flight â blame a lightning storm â left the Blues stranded at Chicagoâs OâHare Airport on Friday night.
The players got just four hours sleep and were unable to train in preparation for the game.
In fact, they didnât kick a ball from Nadir Ciftciâs winning penalty in Edmonton, Canada, on Wednesday night until stepping out for a warm-up at the RFK Stadium in Washington three days later.
It took the Blues 27 hours to get from Edmonton to Washington, wrecking training plans.
And then 14 bags went missing en route, including the ones containing Pompeyâs kit.
It meant Steve Cotterillâs side had to borrow DC Unitedâs change strip of all-white.
All this after a trip which began with a 42-hour journey to San Diego, California, from Britain.
Pompey, backed by about 100 fans, tried as hard as they could in the sweltering heat â at 105 degrees Fahrenheit, Washingtonâs hottest day of the year.
And they had their strongest side yet on tour with Tommy Smith, Richard Hughes, Jamie Ashdown and Hayden Mullins all back from injury.
But they looked exhausted from the kick-off and were carved open by a side currently bottom of the MLS with three wins in 17.
Allsoppâs first came on 21 minutes when he got between two white shirts to nod in Branko Boskovicâs cross.
Worse followed on the half-hour when Allsopp, a 31-year-old Australian who spent several seasons in England with Manchester City, Notts County and Hull, took advantage of sluggishness in Pompeyâs defence to prod past Ashdown.
The only bright note of the night was that the Blues could have been level with better finishing.
Matt Ritchie capped a brilliant run down the left with the perfect ball for David Nugent. But the striker, having got in front of his marker, side-footed wide.
Nugent then swapped passes with Ciftci but was denied from close range by keeper Troy Perkins.
Both sides were reduced to 10 men early in the second half when Mullins and Santino Quaranta saw straight red for an off-the-ball incident that no-one in the stadium except the referee appeared to see.
The misery piled up for the Blues when substitute Junior Carreiro and Boskovic combined to give Pablo Hernandez a tap-in on 56 minutes.
Allsopp squandered two great chances for his hat-trick before finally delivering with 25 minutes left, racing onto a through ball to slide home past Ashdown.
The Pompey keeper and team-mate Joel Ward collided, leaving Ashdown needing treatment.
He struggled on but was eventually replaced by Liam OâBrien â sparking more injury worries for the Blues.
Julius James was sent off for fouling and then pushing Michael Brown in the last minute, before Ritchie had a free-kick superbly saved by substitute keeper Bill Hamid.
But it was all an irrelevance given the larger picture.
Pompey: Ashdown (OâBrien 79); Mullins, Ward, Wilson (Martin 69), Ritchie; Pack (Gregory 60), Brown (c), Hughes; Ciftci, Smith, Nugent (Ryan 83)
DC United: Perkins (Hamid 46); Talley (King 60), Rice, James, Graye (White 75); Khumalo (Carreiro 46), Simms, Quaranta; Boskovic (Morsink 60), Allsopp (Najar 87), Hernandez (Rivas 67)
Attendance: 8,987
www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/LatestNews/news/DC-United-4-Pompey-0-1165.aspxDC United Official Site -
www.dcunited.com/