Every team has that one guy that will either help lead them to the MLS promise-land or be partly the reason why they are stuck at home in November instead of seeing the playoffs. These are you X-Factor players.

I have one (maybe two) guys for each MLS team that are those X-Factors for this new season. Some guys are really no brainers while others may surprise you a bit. Its safe to say that each club needs a big year out of their X-Factors.

If you think I’m way off base on someone or think I missed a sure-fire X-Factor please list it below. Continue Reading…

Toronto's O'Brian White looks to break out in 2010.

Normally in my season previews I go team-by-team but this year as I mentioned earlier in the week I am doing something a little different. Instead of the old way I’m trying something new to break up the content and give folks a little more room for discussion.

Today’s topic is all about who is the next guy to be a big impact player in this league. Or for someone to finally come out of their shell and help lead their club to the playoffs or even better a MLS Cup. I know a lot of these previews depend on the league and the player’s coming together on a new CBA but for the sake of things we’ll be optimistic here and say they do come to terms on something soon.

So I went club to club and asked a few folks who they thought would be the next big thing for their clubs. Some clubs will have just one guy to watch out for and some will have two. If a guy you think is going to break out this season isn’t on this list, hit the comments below with your reasoning behind it.

Now some are rookies and others are guys that have been around the league for a little while. I tried to balance it out between those two groups. Continue Reading…

Wow, I must say I’ve kept this post in the icebox for too long. I originally started writing this back in January when the adidas catalog came out with all the 2010 MLS kits. Somehow this got pushed back to the start of March. I’ll go ahead and blame couple things, my laziness for finishing it, the SuperDraft taking up a lot of my time in January and the whole CBA mess that is still going on.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about each kit and how the league is doing as far as their branding is concerned. Some clubs are hitting it out of the park with their branding while others aren’t doing too well with the kits that are being made. Some blame can be set on adidas for bad templates while others can be pointed to the club themselves.

The league as a whole hasn’t done great in the jersey department over the years. Who doesn’t remember when the league unveiled their first kits back in the day? Some were better than others at the time and we probably should blame Nike in a way for the train wreck in the naming of some clubs as well. But now that the league is strictly adidas it seems as though things are turning around for the better.

As FanHouse soccer writer Brian Straus points out back in January (he definitely beat me to this punch btw) there are still too many white jerseys. Straus did a similar look a while back, and he pointed out that some clubs are slowly getting things right with a few still picking up the slack. I agree with that, still too many white kits on the menu this year but it seems like as we add clubs to this league the new ones continue to brand themselves very nicely while the originals continue to catch up.

Anyways, here’s my look at the new jerseys for the year. Feel free to comment below on what  you like/dislike about the new kits. Continue Reading…

Is Blanco the best DP MLS has seen so far? (Getty Images)

I’ve had this thought for a little while, on the surface the Designated Player rule is good as it brings quality players into Major League Soccer that do help in more areas than just on the field itself. We know the cons against it like teams spending so much money on one player but I started looking at all the past and present DPs and started wondering if this rule really is worth it.

Now first of all I’m not going to advocate for or against this rule today. I just merely want to point out who’s done well with it and who’s not. We’ve seen this rule in place for a couple seasons now and so far only a few clubs have ventured out with this rule. Now it seems like most clubs are going away from the rule, currently only five clubs have a DP (Toronto, New York, LA, Seattle and Houston).

Also, so far five clubs (or six if you count Philly too) have yet to use their DP slot. RSL won MLS Cup 2009 without one so maybe they aren’t worth the money.

So let’s take a deeper look into each DP. What worked about it and what didn’t work on and off the field. We’ll go from worst to best in this instance. I’d also like to note that two fo the DPs on this list have only played a little under a half season with their clubs so grading and discussing them at length seemed unfair at this time. If you are wondering about who I am talking about here those two are Houston’s Luis Angel Landin and Toronto’s Julian De Guzman. (For the record I like De Guzman but don’t care of Landin…but saying that I am very curious about their upcoming seasons.) Continue Reading…

DC United fans are hoping for a return to playoffs in 2010. (Getty Images)

I wasn’t entirely sure I’d get to this offseason look at DC United today but extra time this afternoon came out of no where. So far these last couple weeks we’ve looked at a handfull of teams including Philadelphia, Chicago, Chivas, Colorado and Columbus.

Today is all about the Black-and-Red who have seen a pretty big change this winter. From Curt Onalfo taking over for Tom Soehn to seeing Ben Olsen retiring to not offering Christian Gomez or Luciano Emilio a new contract, this is a whole new United.

Let’s see exactly what they’ve done and what they need to work on before the season starts. Continue Reading…

The trade mill is still going today with DC and Kansas City as the trade partners. The Wizards have sent forward Adam Cristman to DC in exchange for an international roster spots.

“We are pleased to have concluded a trade for Adam,” said United General Manager Dave Kasper. “He is a hard working, athletic striker who will provide solid cover for us. We look forward to having him join us in pre-season camp.”

Injuries kept Cristman from seeing the field last year in Kansas City. He only played five games for the Wizards.

Getting an international roster spot for the Wizards mean they are obviously still searching for some answers to fix their roster. Cristman wasn’t a solid enough solution for them at forward but I actually like him in a Black-and-Red kit here. As long as he is healthy he should be a decent player off the bench for Curt Onalfo, who brought him to Kansas City a year ago from New England.

Right after the deal between Philadelphia and New York it seemed like a few people immediately were emailing about the new order. The deal between the Red Bulls and Union was simple, they swapped spots, NY went down to six and Philly went to number one.

After the Union made their deal to pick up Orozco the new order now looks like this with a new leader in the clubhouse. If you are San Jose and Kansas City you have to be hoping for some more players returning home to MLS here! Let’s just hope this time around the Quakes don’t waste their allocation selection. Remember Peguero Jean-Philippe anyone?

1. San Jose Earthquakes
2. Kansas City Wizards
3. Toronto FC
4. FC Dallas
5. New York Red Bulls
6. Colorado Rapids
7. New England Revolution
8. Chivas USA
9. Seattle Sounders FC
10. Columbus Crew
11. Chicago Fire
12. Houston Dynamo
13. LA Galaxy
14. Real Salt Lake
15. DC United – Troy Perkins
16. Philadelphia Union – Michael Orozco