In an email to Steve Goff, Esky said the following:

“As a result of injuries that I suffered, I am being forced from the game of soccer at this time. I have not been able to receive clearance by doctors, and therefore I must take a step back to focus on my health and recovery. This has been a very frustrating and disheartening realization for me, and I don’t think the reality of it has set in yet. However, after consulting with several doctors, it is clear that I have no other option at this point in time.”

Retirement wasn’t a word used but believe me based on all the concussions he’s had over the years tells me he’ll have to hang his boots up soon enough if he doesn’t get any better. Goff mentioned that he is looking at other career options at this point too.

I can tell you first hand what concussions do to you. Back in my playing career I had a hand-full of them. I had two broken noses that resulted in concussions, and another couple concussions from others from just normal run of play. They aren’t fun at all and getting over a couple of them in a few years time is not easy. Still to this day I have neck problems and get headaches and migraines.

I’d hate to see Esky have to hang it up because of these things, mainly because I know the feeling. He really hasn’t been the same guy since his first one a couple years back. But each time he was out on the field he definitely gave it his all. No doubt he was a big fan favorite where ever he went.

If he doesn’t make it back on the pitch I’m sure he’ll always go down a big fan favorite for all. No doubt his Red Bull drink goal celebration is still one of the all-time best goal celebrations in league history.

The Galaxy could actually be better in 2010 than what they were in 2009. (Getty Images)

We’re a little over half way home in our look at each Major League Soccer club this winter. So far we’ve hammered out Chicago, Colorado, Chivas, Columbus, DC, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and Philadelphia in out preseason look ins.

So far this winter the LA Galaxy have had a similar offseason that we expected them to have. David Beckham went to Italy to be with AC Milan and Landon Donovan went to England to play for Everton until March. We knew going into the winter months that those things would happen. Unlike last year when there was a lot of bad press about loan moves for Beckham, this year was a little smoother for the two sides.

Aside from that Bruce Arena has made a couple moves since then and even with one draft pick back in January at the SuperDraft he came away with a solid draft grade by me and most people.

Let’s see how the Galaxy are looking right now and what else they need to do to their roster before the season kicks off.

Keepers:

Who they have: Donovan Ricketts, and Josh Saunders.

Notes: No third keeper on the books just yet but I’m sure they’ll have one eventually. It doesn’t matter though as I honestly believe they have one of the best starter/backup duos in the league with Ricketts and Saunders.

We know that Saunders can step in at a moments notice if Ricketts goes down but for the most part Arena has little to worry about in this department.

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Defense:

Who they have: Gregg Berhalter, Todd Dunivant, Omar Gonzalez, Yohance Marshall, Alex, AJ DeLaGarza, Leonardo, and Sean Franklin.

Notes: There were plenty of issues with this group last year, particularly when a team had speed to burn they’d be in trouble. Most folks believe the two Brazilians (Alex and Leonardo) are there to fix that as well as provide depth. Honestly this group is only going to get better considering the amount of youth there. I know Berhalter and Dunivant aren’t young but with guys like Franklin, DeLaGarza and Gonzalez this group should be fine for years to come.

I think they addressed their needs with the two Brazilians too. I haven’t seen much of them yet but a couple folks have told me they’ll fit in fine for Arena in the back. Alex was brought in to fill a left back spot and I’d imagine the Arena and company aren’t as worried about this group as they were two months ago.

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Midfield:

Who they have: David Beckham, Clint Mathis, Eddie Lewis, Chris Klein, Dema Kovalenko, Mike Magee, Juninho, Chris Birchall, and Michael Stephens.

Notes: They won’t have Beckham until after the World Cup, we know that much and really that isn’t a big deal as we saw last year. The big deal with this group is even though they added Juninho and Stephens they haven’t gotten any younger. I’m not sure but I am willing to bet this may be the oldest group of midfielders in the entire league right now. Its a risky move to have that many veteran players in one area of the team and at times last year it costed them.

Still as long as all the right parties are healthy and the ones that come off the bench produce they should see similar results from 2009. I love the addition of Stephens through the SuperDraft. He may end up being one of the more underrated picks of this year.

I would have like to have seen some more work done in this area on the wings but between the draft and the addition of Juninho and Mathis they will likely be fine here.

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Forwards:

Who they have: Landon Donovan, Edson Buddle, Jovan Kirvoski, Alecko Eskandarian, Tristan Bowen, Alen Gordon, and Bryan Jordan.

Notes: Donovan will be back but after the World Cup will he go again for good may be a big question on everyone’s mind. I think the big thing will be if Buddle can step up when he is gone with the national team leading up to the World Cup and during the it. Buddle is the X-factor here for Arena and the Galaxy, if he produced while Donovan is gone they’ll easily be a factor for the Supporter’s Shield this year, if not it could be a long summer.

They do have plenty of strikers right now on the books but one has to wonder if guys like Jordan, Gordon, Eskandarian and Kirvoski will really all be here at the end of this season. One has to figure at least one of them won’t be. Still all will factor in some way off the bench this year.

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Overall:

I like the moves LA made this winter. In a way I want to say that they’re right on track to where they need to go but something in me thinks they may need to do a another move or two to be safe. This club should contend even without having Beckham for half the year and even without Donovan for some of the year as well. It will be interesting to see if Donovan scores a transfer this summer after the World Cup, if he does it could a big turning point in this club because it would open up a lot of cap space that I know Arena could work wonders with.

Still with Donovan on the roster you have to figure this club will do well this year. I like where this club is going here and they should contend again this year.

Eric Brunner trade turned into a solid deal for Columbus. (Getty Images)

Since we are nearly done with the 2009 regular season I figured it was high time we started looking back at the best deals that were made that shaped this season into what it has become. I say going into every year that there will pretty much be a trade that shakes up things a bit when it happens and really helps push a club towards the playoffs instead of an early start to winter.

This year there were loads of trades. Some were good and some were down right a waste of time. Now I won’t go through every single trade here today but I am going to point out the ones that I thought were good and some that were bad.

If for some reason you think I missed a trade that was noteworthy this year, just post it below.

Best Trades in 2009:

Chivas USA trades Alecko Eskandarian to LA Galaxy: When he was healthy this year this deal was a great one for the Galaxy. Esky proved to me that he still had what it takes to be an impact player in this league.

Chivas USA trades Atiba Harris to FC Dallas for Marcelo Saragosa: On the surface Chivas got the bad end of the stick, especially if Dallas reaches the playoffs. I put this in the good trade category solely because of Harris and what he has been able to do since he got to Dallas. Schellas Hyndman got a great deal when he finally shipped out Saragosa because Harris fits his system on the wings better than Saragosa ever did in the midfield.

New York trades rights to Eric Brunner to Columbus: There is a lot of reasons why New York has been terrible in 2009, their defense has been largely to blame. One has to wonder if they had been able to keep Brunner and sign him to a decent deal last year if their defense would be nearly as poor as it has been in 2009. Brunner got signed on by the Crew and has really come into his own with them this season.

LA Galaxy trade Josh Wicks to DC United: Before the injury and the kick to Fredy Montero in the US Open Cup final, Wicks was one of the big reasons why DC was playing well early on this year. After winning the starting job over Louis Crayton, Wicks proved to a lot of people that he was good enough to start in this league.

San Jose trades Pablo Campos to Real Salt Lake: Its weird, I was never high on Campos until he started actually producing in Salt Lake. If he helps get the Lakers into the playoffs this season this trade may help save Jason Kreis’ job.

Other notable trades:

Houston’s list of trades: Dominic Kinnear traded with four clubs and got four players in the process. He did his usually if he can’t get what he wants he will trade until he gets it. This year Kinnear traded twice with San Jose (Cam Weaver for Chris Wondolowski and Ryan Cochrane), once with New York (Dominic Oduro) and once with Kansas City (Abe Thompson in exchange for Kei Kamara). He also worked a deal to send Julius James to DC United. Overall not his best year of working the trades, partly due to Weaver getting hurt and Oduro not being the speedster that he was probably hoping for.

San Jose’s list of deals: Frank Yallop was also busy this year working deals. Along with the ones mentioned above with Houston and Salt Lake he also traded with DC twice early on in the season for Mike Zaher and Mike Graczyk. He got Aaron Pitchkolen from Dallas and Bobby Burling from Chivas USA. Yallop also gave up veteran defender Nick Garcia back in the summer to Toronto FC.

Young Players Sent Packing: Two trades here that saw young players traded away. Kyle Davis was won in a lottery by RSL only then to be shipped off to Dallas. New England and Colorado swapped some young talent when they swapped Nico Colaluca and Rob Valentino.

Chicago's Patrick Nyarko and Seattle's Osvaldo Alonso battle again this weekend. (Getty Images)

We steam roll into another weekend of soccer here starting with one game tonight along with a full slate of games tomorrow. Week 19 is the final week before the league’s All-Star break next week.

Plenty of good things will come out of next week during the league’s usual meetings that will go. We should more than likely hear a lot about certain things going on in the league like Beckham’s return, expansion, CBA talks and more.

But until then we have to wait it out for the news to come down the pipe with all of those goodies. Thankfully the full slate of games this weekend should keep us entertained until then. Everyone is in action this weekend except for Chivas USA, good thing too since they really need a week to regain focus here after their stumble these last two months. They pretty much are the New England of 2009, hot out of the gate then cooled off too much in the summer. At least the Revs won SuperLiga last year, Chivas can’t say the same.

Anyways, as always feel free to drop in your predictions below as well.

Friday:

FC Dallas – at – Real Salt Lake:

One thing we know is RSL is possibly the biggest roller coaster of a team this season. One week they are way up and looking good (usually at home) and the next down in the dumps after a tough loss (typically on the road). All I can say by looking at this club, which is what I’ve been saying for month is they won’t make the playoffs until they win on the road. I’m even close to grouping them with their opposition tonight in the “won’t make the playoffs this year” category.

Anyways, the rant aside RSL is returning home after a tough blow in Columbus last week. Dallas comes off some much needed rest from last weekend to head back on the road to a place that they’ve done decently at before. Somehow Dallas has done well in RSL before but I just wonder if that will be the case tonight. I think Dallas will come in with a good bit of confidence after the week off and shock RSL early. Thing is I still don’t trust the Dallas defense on the road against guys like Robbie Findley or Javier Morales. This one will be close but I see RSL coming out with a Pioneer’s Day win thanks to a late goal (this series always has weird late goals).

WVH Prediction: RSL 2, Dallas 1

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Saturday:

Chicago Fire – at – Seattle Sounders FC:

Game of the week right here and even ESPN has it. Yes ESPN, not ESPN 2 (that’s the LA-KC game). Good thing too because Chicago should be right back on track after their 2-0 win last week against San Jose at home. They now take their show on the road. So far this year Chicago has been one of the best road teams in the entire league. They will need all they can get as they face a hot Seattle side. How Chicago hands not having Brian McBride going forward will be interesting to see. I’d take it Chris Rolfe and Patrick Nyarko are going to be called upon more up top for the Fire. Seattle should have the defense to handle what Chicago has up top in this one but will they handle Blanco? I think so because of the turf. Blanco’s play on turf usually isn’t nearly the same as it is on grass.

I think Seattle takes the three points here. Not because of the turf but because of just how well they are playing. Also throw in the fact that Fredy Montero is getting a lot of attention on the other side of the pond right now and you can bet he will be gunning for a goal or two in this one. The Fire will keep it close but Seattle will find a way to come out on top.

WVH Prediction: Seattle 2, Chicago 1

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Toronto FC – at – Columbus Crew:

Nothing like a little rivalry to get you into this weekend. If the last game mentioned wasn’t enough we get this tasty matchup as well. Columbus as we know are playing extremely well at home while Toronto really needs to find a good groove on the road here. What better place than Crew Stadium right? We know how their last meeting went back at the start of the season in Columbus, I don’t see it being much different aside from the late own-goal that gave Toronto a road point. I’m also curious to see how Toronto manager Chris Cummings handles his roster with their upcoming CONCACAF Champions League game coming up next week. I’d say he has to go for the valuable points here no matter what, which gets me thinking Toronto will jump on the board early to only see it slip away at the start of the second half. We know what Columbus can do without Guillermo Barros Schelotto last week and I think it will be enough to keep the stellar home unbeaten streak alive, but only with another draw.

WVH Prediction: Columbus 1, Toronto 1

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New England Revolution – at – Houston Dynamo:

If there is one club that can knock Houston off in Houston it is New England. Even with the strong performance last week against Chivas at home by the Revs I just don’t see them surprising Houston in this one. The Dynamo played pretty well to be without some key players last week in Toronto and I think they’ll only play better this weekend at home with a couple of them returning. I see Houston playing their typical style of play, get a goal (probably thanks to a set up from Brad Davis) and play tough defense the rest of the way out. Should be more than enough as I just don’t see New England having enough firepower to get by the Dynamo defense. I like Steve Ralston and Shalrie Joseph and I’d like the Revs even more with a healthy Taylor Twellman for this one but the lack of a big offensive punch hurts them yet again here.

WVH Prediction: Houston 2, New England 0

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LA Galaxy – at – Kansas City Wizards:

The second stop on the Beckham 09 Summer Tour takes us to the middle of the country in Kansas City. I believe this game is being played at the Wizard’s old stomming grounds, Arrowhead Stadium. I’m curious to see just how empty it will be there for this one. I’d much rather them jack up the ticket prices at their current place and have 9-10k there than an empty Arrowhead. But anyways, back to the story at hand.

If last week showed us anything, the Landon Donovan-Alecko Eskandarian-Edson Buddle group up top works. Best of all it doesn’t even have to use David Beckham that much. Now that Becks has had two games to get back into gear with the club (one league game and one friendly) we should see him more into the run of play with those three. That’s dangerous for KC due to how up and down their defense can play. KC is a good young club but without the proper parts they really aren’t anything great. Look for LA to be all over the place in this one and control the pace just as they did early against New York last week. KC just doesn’t have the offense to stay with LA, nor do they have the defense right now to slow them down.

WVH Prediction: LA 2, KC 0

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New York Red Bulls – at – Colorado Rapids:

What’s the key to getting back into the playoff race when you are on the outside looking in? A visit from the lowly Red Bulls. New York hasn’t won anything in a while and after last week’s game I wouldn’t expect them to start anytime soon. Colorado should be better than what we saw last week in DC out of them. So far they’ve only dropped one home game this year too. Look for Colorado to handle the play throughout this one and grab one goal to finish off New York in typical fashion. What do I mean by that? Expect a late first half goal to be the difference maker and it could also be an own-goal on New York’s part.

WVH Prediction: Colorado 1, New York 0

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DC United – at – San Jose Earthquakes:

Last game before the All-Star break is out west with the Quakes and United. San Jose looked pretty looks last week in Chicago and now they host another of the best from the east, that doesn’t look good for them as they head towards not making the playoffs for the second straight season. DC needs the points no matter what in this one so look for them to be gunning for a goal early on with guys like rookie Chris Pontius and Luciano Emilio. I like the Quakes but not enough to pick them in this one though. Darren Huckerby and company are nice but not enough against what DC has right now on the pitch. I do expect the Quakes to make it interesting but stumble late, DC is always good for a late goal.

WVH Prediction: DC 2, San Jose 1

By the way, what was with Rob Stone’s Max Bretos call on the DeRo goal? That was just plain annoying.

Order of video: Kheli Dube, Steve Ralston, Steven Lenhart, Jason Garey, Patrick Nyarko, Blanco, Bryan Namoff, Dwayne De Rosario, Alecko Eskandarian, Landon Donovan, and Eddie Lewis.

Order of video: Alejandro Moreno, Alecko Eskandarian,  Wilman Conde, Jeff Cunningham, Kai Kamera, and Arturo Alvarez.

I felt looking at the results and each game this past week that week 16 was really predictable. I know I missed a couple games in my score predictions but aside from the RSL-San Jose game this week lacked a lot of surprise or anything worth getting overly excited about. Maybe that is the dog-days of summer kicking in here for the league but each result was as predictable as the next on Saturday.Which can be a good thing but can also be a bad thing.

RSL Gets Lucky Late

I’ll start with the first game of the week on Friday here today. Something can certainly be said about Real Salt Lake nearly losing at home to San Jose while dominating the bulk of the game. Kudos to the Quakes for their defense for the first 90 minutes of the game. Unlucky was certainly the own-goal to Chris Leitch. Sometimes the ball bounces that way folks.

But looking at this result for RSL I begin to really question this club going forward this season. Certainly some pieces were missing but I still felt they had the side on the field that should have won this game. I just feel that they are certainly missing a piece or two here though. I like Robbie Findley and Yura Movsisyan but neither are the go-to striker that this club needs to depend on. Findley can be too hot and cold while Movsisyan tends to miss the easiest of shots. Then I look at their defense and wonder if they have the talent to hold up against clubs like Houston or Chivas in the playoffs. Right now I just don’t see them getting there.

Red Bulls On The Brink

The few that cover this Red Bull club up in New York are all saying the same thing today. “The Season on the Brink.” Well with the most games played (19) and the most losses (13) and the fewest points (10), yeah you could say they are on the brink. Honestly they’ve been done for a lot longer than that. I said in my season preview for this club that they’d either be a good playoff club or an underachieving side.

One thing that is amazing is how long Juan Carlos Osorio has kept his job here. After nearly two-thirds of the season being complete and his club is this bad, many would think he’d be gone already. I kind of have a feeling he will be there until the end of the season. That is unless he decises he has had enough before then and leaves on his own terms via Fernancdo Clavjio.

I think the only thing that can be said for Osorio at this point is the couple players he draft this year that have turned out to be pretty good. Jeremy Hall and Nick Zimmerman both definitely show a bright spot for this club’s future. Comes to show that you can’t win on over priced foreign talent alone in this league, you need quality young talent to do work too.

Dallas Gaining

Much can be said about winning 2-1 at home but a lot more can be said about how it was done. Dallas got a huge lift getting New York in town this past week. Not only were the Red Bulls a fairly easy test but it gave way for guys lik Jeff Cunningham to break the club out of a bit of a funk when the club doesn’t have Kenny Cooper in the line-up. I liked the combination of Cunningham and former Red Bull Dave van den Burgh on Saturday for Dallas. Some how it worked but sadly enough we won’t get use to it here once Cooper returns.

Still on another note Dallas has a long way to go here. No doubt they won’t be in contention to reach the playoffs out of the west this season. But they are slowly building a decent base for next year.

Houston Returns To Winning

After a small slide for the Dynamo the league leaders return to the road in Kansas City and get a quality win. The Dynamo get another win, their ninth of the season and become the first club to break the 30 point mark in the standings.

Houston really handled the pressure well late as Kansas City pressed for a game-tying goal late. KC continues to lack some punch up top which is going to haunt them as this season moves towards the playoffs in the next couple of months.

This was a physical game between these two sides. Houston may have gotten the win but they will be without two key defenders for their next game in Seattle. Both Geoff Cameron and Bobby Boswell will miss the important game with the expansion Sounders due to suspension.

Crew and DC Level

Too bad both sides were missing a chunk of their roster for call-ups and injuries because this one would have been much better for it. Still a quality game with some bad calls from the center ref in it. DC took a late first half lead into the lockerroom to only give it right back up after the break to the Crew. From there on neither side really took hold of this game. DC seemed to control a little more of the pace in this one which lead to a boat load of extra attempts on goal. Big credit to the Columbus defense for stepping up a little more in this one because of that.

DC presented the Crew with a five-man midfield which seemed to slow down Guillermo Barros Schelotto a decent bit. The Crew did find a couple ways around it but never enough to really pressure the Black-and-Red backline.

Both sides are in the thick of things for this eastern crown race. In all honesty right now I think it will between these two sides though we could see the Fire sneak up in there after the way they played in Colorado this week.

Colorado On the Slide

I guess my talk of this side being a dark-horse in the west was possibly a kiss of death to the Rapids. Another loss at home, this time to the Chicago Fire who have looked really good in their last couple of games (SuperLiga mostly). To me Wilman Conde was the player of the game and possibly the player of the week from this game. Colorado had no answer for him when he was around the goal and when he was defending his own goal.

The win was a big one for the Fire as they leap back up the standings into a tie with DC. They really looked like the side we thought we’d see all season long this past weekend. Maybe this is the start of their run going forward here.

As for the Rapids I still have high hopes for them going forward, espeically once they get Conor Casey and company back in the lineup. This club still has some work to do though to make sure they are in contention for the rest of the season to get into the playoffs. I’m slowly writting them off for catching Houston or Chivas here but if they want to stay up there with Seattle for third-best in the west they need to improve their roster right away. Add some depth to the defense and find a playmaker who can set up the scoring in the midfield. Right now they are lacking a bit and it is causing them to drop games that they shouldn’t drop, especially those at home.

Newcomer Nets One For LA

Not a bad start for Alecko Eskandarian. He moved lockerrooms at the HDC over the week and it payed off in a big way. His goal marked a quality win for LA on a night that really saw nothing more than a bunch of fouls. Honestly there may have been more fouls on the field than fireworks in the sky after the game.

The Galaxy really controled this match from start to finish as Steve Nicol’s group is really struggling to find their way again now that the injury bug has knocked out more key members of their roster. Either they are going to have to be creative to find ways to win or just hope they can ride out this strom of injuries again here this summer. Things are not looking good either way in New England right now.

As for LA it was a typical win for them, once they got the goal it was all they needed to play their style of game. Sit back and take pressure while countering when needed. Look LA will make things interesting this season but once this circus called Beckham kicks up again it will be real interesting to see which way this club heads. History should tell us which way that will be though.

Butts-in-Seats

Holiday weekend produced good numbers for the league. All over 10k, even in Dallas. LA and Colorado posted the biggest numbers with 20k and 19k respectively while Columbus and Dallas each got 14k. RSL posted a solid 17k on Friday’s game. And KC scored another sell-out, five in a row at home now. Very positive things there folks.

Apparently Chivas had been shopping their strikers around and Esky was the guy that happened to be brought up in most of the discussions. Chivas has quite a long list of strikers that needed to get moved and sadly enough Esky was going to be the first to go. Don’t be at all shocked if Chivas ships off another striker before the end of the summer.

In the process of bringing Esky in the Galaxy also waived Josh Tudela.

We could see a couple more moves announced today. Today does mark the day that MLS contracts become guaranteed, but clubs can designate two players into a non-guaranteed mode after July 1st. Either way we may see one or two more waived players by the end of the day. I’ll keep ya posted on that if we do.