Sounds like Portland mayor Sam Adams and County Chair Ted Wheeler are going to go toe-to-toe over the stadium situation for Portland and it’s MLS bid. The Portland Mercury is reporting more on the on-going saga of the stadium funds today.

Wheeler won’t support the $15 million for PGE Park. Adams is hoping to find another way to get Wheeler on board.

“If people believe that renovating PGE Park again is more important than some of the critical services in our community then that is up to them,” said Wheeler. “But from my perspective, the answer is no.”

More and more these reports make this situation more interesting and troublesome for the league. No wonder we are seeing plenty of reports about Montrel getting in the mix for 2011 again here too. While I still believe we will see Portland in two years, things have to get in place within the next couple months or this bid could see some real San Antonio-like trouble if you know what I mean.

With so few games this past week there really wasn’t a lot of change in the Power Rankings. Even with some wins for clubs near the bottom of the pack I just couldn’t punish those in SuperLiga play.

The only real movement was near the top-middle half of the order. This was mainly due to Colorado’s two game week that saw them draw Dallas at home (really could have been a loss) and a blowout loss at Seattle. I guess I jumped the gun with the Rapids too soon but I do still see plenty of quality in that club. But they do have company below them in the standings now with how RSL is starting to play. We could see a very good battle for forth in the west, which should end return be a playoff spot when things are all said and done this season.

The west is really strong right now while the east is just a traffic jam from top club to the sixth club. Only New York is out of contention here in the east (and overall for that matter).

Anyways, here is this week’s rankings.

Team	Rank (Last Week)	Record (W-L-T)	Comments
	1 (1)	8-3-4 28 pts.	The set-back in LA isn’t going to be a big one. But the next few weeks during the Gold Cup could tell us a lot more about this squad.
	2 (2)	8-4-3 27 pts.	Didn’t do well in SuperLiga, but let’s hope it doesn’t mean their in-league play will suffer as well. No one has played well enough to jump them right now anyways.
	3 (4)	5-3-8 23 pts.	No games this past week but they rise due to poor play on Colorado’s part.
	4 (5)	5-3-6 21 pts.	Advanced in SuperLiga and looked pretty good during the process.
	5 (6)	6-3-7 25 pts.	Big time win over a conference rival. I’m not totally jumping on board in moving them ahead of DC or Chicago just yet. Still they are holding their own and that is a good sign for this bunch.
	6 (3)	5-3-6 21 pts.	I gambled and jumped on this club’s bandwagon. A draw to Dallas at home and a blowout loss on the road to Seattle wasn’t a good start. Still this club has the quality to compete.
	7 (7)	5-3-7 22 pts.	Another one that could have moved up due to a win but honestly a win over New York at home is nothing to get super excited about for anyone this season.
	8 (8)	6-6-4 22 pts.	Nearly dropped this club but a blowout loss in Salt Lake isn’t the worst thing ever. Not many clubs come out of Rio Tinto looking good. But they absolutely dominated New York in the mid-week so they at least had something to show for this past week.
	9 (9)	5-5-4 19 pts.	No MLS games this week due to SuperLiga. They weren’t the worst MLS club but they certainly weren’t the best.
	10 (10)	4-4-4 16 pts.	Hard to believe this club has so many games in hand here. Honestly that’s a reason why they aren’t dropping, plus they looked solid in SuperLiga play.
	11 (11)	5-6-4 19 pts.	Should they have moved up? Yes, but I do have a tough time buying into this team still even after a 3-0 win over Toronto. Something just feels like it is missing with this bunch.
	12 (12)	3-3-9 18 pts.	Big time confidence win (without Landon Donovan) over Houston. Donovan Ricketts was a beast in goal too.
	13 (13)	3-7-5 14 pts.	The game in Colorado should have been a win but this club just doesn’t know how to grind out a gritty performance here.
	14 (14)	3-8-3 12 pts.	Good win over the Galaxy but not enough to move them up this week. Face it that wasn’t a win to get overly excited about here.
	15 (15)	2-12-4 10 pts.	Just a brutal week. Two road losses. Of all the moves they should be making they go out and sign Bouna Coundoul. That isn’t going to solve a damn bit.

While I’m still not the biggest fan of the MLS All-Star game set up I do love some of the build up in the voting process. I have to give loads of credit out there to the Galaxy front office for putting this together as they want their keeper Donovan Ricketts to be voted into the mid-summer event.

Enjoy!

No shame in silver when the average Joe is starting to actually care. (Getty Images)

We’ve seen a big jump in soccer talk in mainstream sports media over the last few days. Big reason is not just the results on the field by the US over world powers like Spain and the toe-to-toe final against Brazil but it is due to the average sports guy/gal gaining more respect for soccer as a whole. More sports talk radio guys are talking US soccer instead of baseball and we are seeing more highlights of soccer on ESPN.

Think about this for one minute because if you are reading this blog it means you are probably a pretty avid soccer person. Think about a friend or two of yours that you know that kind of likes soccer but doesn’t love it like you do. Remember how they were a few weeks ago? They, unlike you, probably had no idea about the Confederations Cup or even what it was about. Fast forward to today and I can bet you that they like most casual sports fans can tell you who and when the US play next on a big time stage (the Mexico game folks…not the Gold Cup).

That’s a big time sign of respect in sports when the average fan knows when the next big game is for a team. Its like that in all sports. You see this a lot in college football or the NFL. I’m hearing more non-soccer guys now say that they are marking their calendars for August 12 for the Mexico game! None of these guys would have even considered giving a rat’s ass about soccer before this past week. These results over the last week have not only gotten people more interested but it means we are gaining steam here.

It’s times like this that MLS can bank on with people getting more interested in the game. I know we are still very far out for the average sports junkie in the US to mark their calendars for a Red Bull-Earthquakes game in April but I honestly believe due to the US results in South Africa we are closer than ever before.

We’ve been wanting respect for our sport for a long time here even with the large amounts of soccer followers in the States. Now the average joe is catching on to the US national team. We couldn’t say that after 2002 but now we can.

Even with only a few games this past week in Major League Soccer we still had plenty of quality goals to mention for goal of the week.

Order of video: Todd Dunivant, Fredy Montero, Nate Jaqua, Yura Movsisyan, Clint Mathis, Dwayne De Rosario, and Omar Cummings (no audio on his goal).

Around the league the last couple days we’ve seen a number of roster moves. Below is a current list of what’s gone on over the last few days. I’ll have the in-season player movement page updated with this information shortly.

Mostly these are moves where clubs are releasing or waiving players to make room on their roster for the upcoming transfer window this summer.The three signed over the last couple days were all keepers.

Expect more on the way too…

Waived/Released/Contracts Terminated:

Chicago: Nick Noble
New England: Zach Simmons
New York: Jon Conway, Juan Pietravallo
Seattle: Kevin Forrest
Colorado: Gregory Richardson
DC: Anthony Peters

Players Signed:

New England: Bobby Shuttleworth
New York: Bouna Coundoul
Seattle: Terry Boss

Kudos to EPL Talk for posting this just a bit ago. I found it to be something worth mentioning here.

The “World-Wide Leader” ESPN has announced more details regarding its coverage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa next June.

Highlights of the announcement:

• ESPN will present all of its 2010 World Cup coverage from on-site in South Africa, totaling more than 65 hours of original content.
• The studio hosts will be Bob Ley, Chris Fowler and Mike Tirico,
• SportsCenter will feature World Cup segments,
• There’ll be a nightly World Cup Live show (30 minutes) shown on ESPN or ESPN2
• ESPN will have pre-match, halftime and post-match shows, shown on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.

Some will be excited to see Bob Ley back on the soccer coverage for the World Cup. He is one of those ESPN guys with a good knowledge of the game. I’m really curious to see how Fowler and Tirico will be though on the studio show. I enjoy both as broadcasters and have met each of them in person, I just don’t know how well they will connect with the average soccer fan out there watching.

Still ESPN is doing their part here and with the recent run by the US in the Confederation’s Cup, you can almost expect even more coverage on their part if the US is still doing well going into next year’s Cup.