It’s weird to say that its been another quick week for me here but it has, this week has flown by. Tonight’s links and thoughts may end up being a quickie. I had some things planned for the day and for the week for that matter but I never got around to some of them. Blame it on time getting away from me and my normal day job. Whatever it is I just didn’t get around to a couple things. No biggie as some of them centered around the season ending awards and the playoff scenarios, which both are likely to change after this weekend anyways.

No tonight I wanted to quickly touch base on a couple interesting links. One surrounds the on-going USL issue, one is about the LA Galaxy’s post season tour in Europe and the last is about FC Dallas.

First up the USL. Apparently some folks are telling the angry USL owners to just suck it up and deal with what it happening. With the USL final this weekend players from both Montreal and Vancouver will more than likely be getting the same letter that a couple other club’s players got recently telling them they are no longer under contract with the USL. A nice parting gift especially to the club that actually wins the league (note Montreal is up 3-2 over Vancouver going into the final leg).

The Whitecaps and Impact are part of the Team Owners Association (TOA), a group of franchises, plus expansion Tampa, on-hiatus Atlanta and prospective St. Louis that are upset with the new USL ownership. Yes that is sugar-coating it but by now if have been keeping up you know the two sides just don’t get along.

Now apparently the new USL management is just telling the TOA to just suck it up and accept defeat.

You can bet after this weekend’s final there will be a load of stories that come out of the USL front office surrounding talks with the TOA. Okay, well it may be the other way around. Its the TOA who has been talking not the USL. Still whoever does talk next week will sure let us in on what is going on. I still believe that the USL and the TOA will come to terms before long. And yes I just don’t buy that MLS-2 stuff that people have been saying the TOA would turn into. They just don’t have the teams to do it unless a couple other USL clubs joined in with them, which probably won’t happen.

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It’s been a pretty good Tuesday around the world of soccer. Jozy Alitdore scored his first goal for Hull City and some young Americans are getting their shot in Germany. I know I’ve been a bit quiet these last couple of days, just expect more of that in the coming couple weeks as my wedding and honeymoon approach. Just a bit of programming information, expect few if any posts between September 3 through the 11.

Now back to the task at hand for the evening dose of links and thoughts. I will first start with a letter that was posted over at 3rd Degree, the wonderful FC Dallas new source. This letter was penned by the man who has been dubbed the “first fan” of the FC Dallas/Dallas Burn.

This guy is a true fan, and even these last couple years has been driving over a 1000 miles to see the club. Yes a 1000! Dustin Christmann is that man that all MLS clubs need.

But that ends next year. This super-fan will no longer as he puts it enable “an incompetent organization in which performance is clearly optional.” Christmann went on to list a bunch of problems by the organization under the Hunts since their takeover of the club.

I can side a bit with Christmann in how the club treats the real soccer fans in Dallas. What’s really weird is I’ve heard the Hunts want to sell Columbus and not Dallas when it is all said and done. That just shows you how silly they really are.

If you read on in the comments you will notice some good suggestions by some folks of what the club should do. It’s nice to see people write letters like this but it really helps when people take it a step further and give the owners something to actually go on with to correct their issues.

Writing the club’s decision makers and letting them know what they can do is a good start if you ask me. Furthermore the club needs to get their brand out there more in the area. Its sad when I can find a DC United soccer ball at a local target and not a FC Dallas ball. Same goes at the airport when I cannot find even a keychain of the club’s logo.

What’s really sad is people working at this club don’t even realize the problems that surround the club in the area.

I don’t want to sound like I am ragging on my local side here but when you see it up close year after year you really start to see the little things that matter. Right now this club just doesn’t take care of the little things that clubs like Seattle, DC, Houston, etc. do. And by the way, Dallas isn’t the only one in this boat that sucks at the little things. I can think of at least three more that come in behind the Red Stripes.

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Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan.com each week. Today he returns to the defense of American managers high and low. Feel free to give him your thoughts below.

In 2009, there has been pieces written on certain web sites and podcasts hosts on shows have said the American player is hurting because coaches within MLS are not up to standard. The big evidence is not one has gone overseas and been successful.

This analogy is completely wrong and I will speak out in Defense of American Coaches.

It took a long time for an American player to play in a top league in Europe and eventually Paul Caligiuri became the first to earn a contract in the Bundesliga in the 1980’s with Hamburg firstly, then Meppen and later Hansa Rostock and finally Freiburg before leaving to help kick start MLS in 1996. It was a milestone for American soccer and so were that generation of players. Now to compare that with American managers it is a completely different kettle of fish in that there are much more player opportunities then head coaching ones. The one similarity is that it’s a major stepping stone once the first coach can do it.

The next big argument that’s been vented against this subject is with the National Team in that some folks think that the USSF should hire a foreign coach instead of an American one. Why? They won’t know the system unless they’ve been in this country a number of years. Steve Nicol would be a perfect example of a foreign coach to take the National Team job because he’s been in the country since 1999 and clearly by looking back at his draft pick choices down the years he understands the American player. However, looking at current American coaches that could take the job there is plenty out there and once Bob Bradley’s reign comes to an end for one reason or another when it does, the top two choices are simple: Dominic Kinnear and Sigi Schmid. Continue Reading…

Editor’s note: Geoff Reid appears each week on WVHooligan.com. This week he is tackling the great debate about who is the best US National team player? Feel free to leave Geoff your thoughts below.

This is a question I’ve thought about the last few days. There can be cases made for a number of players depending on accomplishments achieved, trophies won, goals to matches ratio and list can go on and on. The big question here is who is the current best national team player? Four players come to mind in no particular order: Michael Bradley, Timmy Howard, Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan. Continue Reading…

They say if you first don’t succeed to try and try again. I guess that is the approach for Landon Donovan as he takes another stab at playing in Germany. Now I know this time around it is only a 10-day trial with Bayern Munich but you know it is more than just “staying fit”.

With Bayern head coach Juergen Klinsmann being a fan of Donovan, you may see this 10-day stay with Bayern turn into a more permanent fit. Some are even saying that it may be the best fit for Donovan.

Some will say why German again for Donovan? We know he wants to stay fit and we also know he wants to play in Europe again. Will it be Germany thtough is the bigger question because he talked about how much he hated the first two times he was there. Then again he was much younger then and maybe now he knows more than ever that he won’t have another shot at trying the European scene out.

Bayern is a good fit though for Donovan I think. Klinsmann is probably the most American person living in Germany right now and would be a great coach for Donovan. Not to mention the thoughts of him being a decent replacement for the possible exit of German striker Lukas Podolski.

Either way it will be very interesting to see what comes out of this trial with Bayern. A part of me still believes he won’t be leaving MLS anytime soon but the “never say never” kind of notion is really starting to ring true with situation.

What do you think will happen with LandyCakes? Will he stay or will he go? And if he goes where will it be?

Another fun weekend abroad for Americans. Some played very well and others either did not or didn’t play at all. We had a couple game-winners from Americans, and a couple guys on the wrong end of a defeat.

If there are players I forgot to list feel free to list them below, also if anything is incorrect please let me know. Thanks to a couple readers who e-mailed in a couple players that I missed last week to add to this list.

England

• Bobby Convey (Reading): Dressed but did not play.
• Jay DeMerit (Watford): Started and played a full 90 minutes in a 2-1 win vs. Ipswich.
• Clint Dempsey (Fulham): Club did not play this weekend.
• Brad Friedel (Aston Villa): Started, played a full 90 minutes, and made one save in a 0-0 tie vs. Liverpool.
• Brad Guzan (Aston Villa): Dressed but did not play.
• Marcus Hahnemann (Reading): Started, played a full 90 minutes and made two saves in a 4-2 win vs. Crystal Palace.
• Tim Howard (Everton): Started, played a full 90 minutes, and made four saves in a 3-0 loss to Portsmouth.
• Eddie Johnson (Cardiff City): Came off the bench and played five minutes in a 0-0 tie vs. Sheffield United.
• Frank Simek (Sheffield Wednesday): Did not dress in a 1-1 tie vs. Swansea.
• Jonathan Spector (West Ham): Did not dress in a 4-1 win vs. Blackburn.

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Call it a new feature here on WVH, while I’m trying to maintain focus on the MLS playoff race; this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, a focus on the Americans abroad in other leagues. I was going to debut this last week but honestly ran out of time early in the week so I put it off until today.

Hopefully this will evolve a bit more over time but for now its just going to be a simple rundown of how everyone did this weekend in their respective leagues.

Some Yanks had the weekend off, some didn’t make it back to their respective clubs after the World Cup qualifier on Wednesday in Guatemala.

Biggest news may be out of France, Freddy Adu did make his debut for AS Monaco this weekend, playing just three minutes in place of Jeremy Menez. We could see Adu replace Menez at Monaco here real soon as from what I’ve been reading Menez is looking to transfer out. That could be a very good thing for Adu as we all want to see him get more playing time, wherever he is.

If there are players I forgot to list feel free to list them below. Or if something is incorrect, also please post it below. As much as I try to focus on everyone I know I will miss or slip up on someone, somewhere.

ENGLAND

• Tim Howard started, played 90 minutes, and made three saves in Everton’s 2-1 win against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday. Give this man an iron-man award for actually making the hustle back to England for this match, despite getting knocked in the head by Carlos Ruiz on Wednesday.
• Brad Friedel started, played 90 minutes, and made zero saves in Aston Villa’s 3-2 loss to Stoke on Saturday. Ugly game really, I caught some of it and felt kind of bad for Friedel, his defense really looked bad in this one.
• Marcus Hahnemann started, played 90 minutes and made six saves in Reading’s 4-2 loss to Charlton on Saturday. Another ugly game, lots of goals though which was fun but defensively it was not pretty.
• Bobby Convey started and played 73 minutes for Reading.
• Clint Dempsey came off the bench and played 13 minutes in Fulham’s 1-0 win vs. Arsenal on Saturday.
• Jay DeMerit started and played 90 minutes in Watford’s 3-2 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
• Eddie Johnson did not dress in Cardiff City’s 2-2 tie vs. Norwich on Saturday. Might wanna cut Eddie a break, if you’ve seen this video you will know what I am talking about. The Grown-Ass Man clearly is a bit jet-lagged right now and knows very little of why he is playing in the Coca-Cola division.

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