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…

Photo via FC Dallas

I guess once one club does it they all decide to take part in the fun that is signing home grown talent. Just last week New York signed their first academy player and now FC Dallas is doing the same. Today the club announced the signing of Bryan Leyva of the FC Dallas Juniors Program to a Generation adidas contract. Leyva is the sixth player academy player signed to the a MLS club.

The signing of Leyva means he won’t have to go through the SuperDraft, something quite a few people thought he would do if the club failed to sign him. He is a highly regarded midfielder who trained with the Mexican National team at the age of 14 and is currently with the Mexico U17s.  From what I’ve been told here in Dallas multiple foreign professional clubs have attempted to sign the Leyva, but none of the deals has worked out.

Levya is said to have US residency so he shouldn’t count towards any of the club’s international roster spots. Also due to the new home grown player rule he will not count towards the club’s 24-man roster.

I’ve only seen this kid a couple times down here and he is pretty impressive. I doubt we will see him get any time on the field in the final few games of the season but Dallas did a good thing by signing one of their own and believe me they have a handful of others in their system that could be worth signing before long too.