Welcome in for another edition of the Morning Espresso from the SDH Network, brought to you by Oglethorpe University, Atlanta's premier undergraduate learning experience and soccer powerhouse.

Tragedy in Chile last night in the Copa Libertadores as two fans lost their lives in violence prior to the match between Colo Colo and Fortaleza from Brazil. Investigations are ongoing, but early reports say that two teenagers lost their lives when a fence collapsed onto them as another group was trying to break into the stadium without tickets. The police involvement in the deaths is also being investigated. 

As word began to make its way through the stadium prior to the second half, according to Chilean media reports, the supporters inside the stadium held a moment of silence for the deceased fans but then began to chant against the police. A retaining barrier between the bleachers and the field was broken and some fans began to run onto the field. The match was stopped, eventually Fortaleza players got to their locker room, and the referees suspended the match before officially abandoning it hours later. 

CONMEBOL could levy heavy fines to Colo Colo, declare the match a forfeit and 3-0 loss, and could even remove Colo Colo from the competition. The organization has to institute better security measures across its competitions and take a more proactive stance with its teams and organizations. 

More to come on this tragedy...

News came out yesterday that Major League Soccer will continue further exploration of changing their competition calendar from a February start to an August one, but it won't begin until 2027 at the earliest. It seems inevitable for many reasons, but it's a little surprising that it wasn't ready to be approved for the 2026 season to start after a long World Cup break. Yes, you will have to figure out scheduling flows involving teams in Northern climates in the winter, but your championship match will be in better weather and a better time period in the sports calendar and most importantly, your transfer business will be better aligned with the rest of the world. It will happen, and the sooner the better for the league's continued growth in my opinion. 

Mo Salah has signed a new 2-year contract with Liverpool, ending a years-long saga about a new deal. 

Kylian Mbappe is pursuing legal cases against PSG for a reported $61 million he says he is still owed by the club. The club says they had a verbal agreement to exclude bonuses from Mbappe's contract in return for bringing him back into the club after he refused transfers in the summer of 2023 after he said he was going to play out his contract and leave on a free transfer. Ugly situation that needs to get sorted for all concerned. 

Spotlight on the amount of running Mbappe and his Real Madrid teammates have done in this season's Champions League. They are last out of the remaining 8 teams in miles run in the tournament this season and the three forwards (Mbappe, Vinicius, and Rodrygo) are first, second, and fourth in the fewest miles run in the tournament. Quality can overcome that, but Arsenal outran them by 13 kilometers in the first leg of the quarterfinal and it showed in the performance. 

More Espresso on Monday on the SDH Network, presented by Oglethorpe University.

It was a long night in Chester as Atlanta United 2 was in town taking on Philadelphia Union II

Here's your highlights and the tale of the tape at the end of the night in the 5-1 road loss

Pulso Sports and Sounder at Heart's Niko Moreno visits on Thursday to SDH AM

We look at what went wrong in the Seattle-San Diego matchup plus the preview at FC Dallas
We look at the CONCACAF matches from last night and the difference in Vancouver

It's the review and preview of everything MLS

GOLTV's Nino Torres goes Fully Loaded on SDH AM

We go over the upsets in Libertadores and Sudamericana, look at the rumors and the race in Portugal, and check the story of one team of upsetters

It's Thursday Thoughts on SDH AM

We start in Hour 1 by looking back at CONCACAF Champions Cup from last night as well as Champions League from yesterday

Hour 2 has Nino Torres from GOL TV talking about the Copas in South America plus the story of one club and a big upset and

Pulso Sports Niko Moreno looks at the week that was in MLS and gets ready for the Jesus Ferreira revenge game with Seattle and FC Dallas

Welcome in for another edition of the Morning Espresso from the SDH Network, brought to you by Oglethorpe University, Atlanta's premier undergraduate learning experience and soccer powerhouse.

What a day of soccer yesterday, and it was punctuated by an incredible match as Miami came back to knock LAFC out of Concacaf and advance to the semifinals of the Champions Cup. Lionel Messi scored twice and assisted on the other one to lead Miami to a 3-2 win on aggregate, 3-1 on the night. The match had drama, near misses, hard fouls, screaming and yelling, controversial calls, everything you could hope for. 

Vancouver gave their fans plenty to enjoy as well as Tristan Blackmon's stoppage time volley pushed the Whitecaps past Pumas on away goals and books their ticket for a semifinal showdown with Miami later this month.

PSG and Barcelona put on great displays in the UEFA Champions League yesterday afternoon. Luis Enrique's side came back after conceding first to defeat Aston Villa 3-1. Désiré Doué led PSG back with an incredible curling goal, he's a name you need to get to know as the 19-year old might be the best young player this side of Lamine Yamal (who was also brilliant for Barca in their demolition job of Borussia Dortmund). Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's goal for PSG to make it 2-1 was another brilliant piece of individual quality after a beautiful team build-up. 

Dribbling is down in the top 5 European leagues 21% according to Opta. It's a shame when you see the top teams in the world use dribbling to great effect (the world champions Argentina, the European champions Spain, PSG, Barcelona, etc.). Pablo Aimar told TyC in Argentina that he feels it's because the young players aren't getting the free play elements in the neighborhood that his generation did, to go along with the professional coaching players received in the clubs. Embrace dribblers at a young age, encourage it, don't take it away from the kids. It can always be refined later, but it's important in players developing their own personalities on the field. Hopefully youth coaches and clubs can find ways to allows kids to develop this going forward. 

Liverpool making progress in retaining Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, according to reports.
 
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 More Espresso tomorrow on the SDH Network, presented by Oglethorpe University.

Tyler Pilgrim and Dylan Butler join Jason Longshore to talk about the morning's big news in MLS with Daniel Gazdag moving to Columbus from Philadelphia. The guys also discussed the league as a whole, Concacaf Champions Cup, Champions League, and more.

ATLUTD SVP/CBO Sarah Kate Noftsinger drops by SDH AM to discuss the "Rooted in The Stripes" series- how it's put together, from beginning to end, and how it is a part of the DNA of the franchise...

Presented by Kaiser Permanente

We go over the boys and girls polls in GHSA soccer
Girls head coach at Druid Hills Kai Uchimura stops by to talk about his season and
We look at tonight's schedule in a midweek, Spring Break schedule

A busy Tuesday Thoughts on SDH AM

We talk about the discovery rights on one potential new MLS signee- if he's interested...

SVP/CBO of Atlanta Unted, Sarah Kate Noftsinger, drops by to talk about the "Rooted In The Stripes" series and all it takes to put it together

Nick follows up with his thoughts on how the series is put together, plus news overseas at Manchester City, Chelsea, and West Ham