A few stories tonight that are worth checking out. A lot of MLS based items that need discussed and a little US-Mexico hype for Wednesday. If you got a link that you feel needs discussed here just send me an email and I’ll do my best to get it up tomorrow.

Blanco and Kljestan Grace FIFA Soccer 10 Cover

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Cuauhtémoc Blanco of the Chicago Fire and Sacha Kljestan of Chivas USA will be featured on the front packs of FIFA Soccer 10. Anyone excited? Yeah, I’m honestly not. I use to be a big FIFA guy but I honestly haven’t bought the game in a couple years. The combo of Blanco and Kljestan is an odd one for EA if you ask me. I guess EA is trying to pick up on the Latin market a little more this year? Beats me. At least EA was wise enough to go with Frank Lampard too.

Look at Portland-Seattle Success in American Soccer

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If you haven’t taken the time to visit Pitch Invasion, do so and fast. Its a quality site with plenty of good material to read. Today we get a great look at the Portland-Seattle rivalry and its successes over the years. There is a reason why MLS will be great in two years, and this rivalry (along with Vancouver in the three-way rivalry) will be just the reason. Do yourself a favor and read all about these two clubs.

Ty Harden’s Track Back To MLS

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This was one of those stories a couple years ago that no one really understood but we all sort of respected the person involved for doing it. Ty Harden retired from soccer before the 2008 season, just out of no where, to focus on school and volunteering. It caught everyone with the LA Galaxy and throughout the league off guard since it wasn’t a retirement for injury purposes like we see with most young players. Harden did what he wanted to do and we should all respect him more for it. Now he is back with the Colorado Rapids after getting the itch to compete again. Good for him too.

Kyle Martino’s Story

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Here is a story from the Connecticut Post on ESPN’s B-team broadcaster Kyle Martino. Martino is one of those guys that deserved more love as a player and now deserves more as a broadcaster.

Cooper Scores In Munich Debut

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It took 17 minutes for Kenny Cooper to set his mark on his new club. The goal also ended up being the game-winner, as 1860 Munich defeat TuS Koblenz 2-0. The former FC Dallas striker was subbed off in the 72nd minute and was given a loud ovation from the 1860 Munich supporters.

Adu To Denmark?

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Could we finally see Freddy Adu get some real PT? It’s possible as Steve Goff is reporting that Adu is in final negotiations with Odense on a one-year loan from Portuguese club Benfica. Odense finished second in the Danish Superliga last season and will face Genoa in a Europa League playoff later this month.

Odense isn’t a big name club and Denmark isn’t a high profile destination at this point for Adu but let’s be honest as long as the kid gets some playing time it won’t matter where he is at. Denmark has plenty of American’s playing there right now so the move wouldn’t be the worst thing for him at this point.

Red Bulls New Project?

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Jack Bell over at the New York Times dicusses the possible resurrection project for New York. Again I will say, they need to take mold after some other MLS clubs and get some quality young American talent mixed in with some gritty MLS veterans. The MLS veterans are key because right now this club has veteran players but none are quality and most are over the hill foreign talent.

It still comes down to management and their lack of knowledge of the game. Bell runs down the list of talent that this club has missed on over the last year:

Agoos has always been quick to point out that constructing a team in M.L.S. takes a certain kind of alchemy. He is not wrong, and bad choices can be deadly: Juan Pietravallo, Diego Jimenez, Oscar Echeverry, Carlos Johnson, Gabriel Cichero, Jorge Rojas, Khano Smith, Dominic Oduro represent more misses than hits. Before the current season, the Red Bulls gave away Dave van den Bergh, ultimately for nothing in return. The team allowed their most consistent, albeit unflashy, defender Jeff Parke walk away.

Bad choices lead to a terrible record. In a league with pairity it doesn’t take much to suck. Talent wins and bad talent gets you fired or at least we thought it did.

Beckham Linked To Chelsea?

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England manager Fabio Capello has told David Beckham to leave the US as soon as possible if he wants to be a part of next year’s World Cup squad. Now we all know Beckham will end up back in Europe but with clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham eyeing the midfielder it may be end up being a battle for his transfer rights. Then again it may end up being another ugly loan from LA.

Collection of US-Mexico Links

Instead of commenting on each, here is just a simple hype list for Wednesday’s game against Mexico.

USA Roster Breakdown (Avoiding The Drop)
USA-Mexico Update (Soccer Insider)
Guardado: “Of Course We Will Win” (SBI)
Five factors favor the US as it looks to break curse in Azteca (SI.com)
USA-Mexico behind tennis on Extra Mustard event for the week (SI.com)
US Players Like Their Chances at Estadio Azteca (ESPNSoccernet)

Woo, made it to day two with this new concept or idea rather. I know I’ve been a bit quiet today with post, blame the load of actual paying work that I have at the office for that. We also have a couple MLS teams in action tonight, two facing very important matches, and the third being a big time friendly. But more on those in a second.

I mentioned earlier on Twitter that I will be doing a post about each club’s remaining schedule. That may be up by the end of the week. I was hoping to get it out today but again work kept me from getting finished with it. I believe my stopping point was either Dallas or Houston. I do hope to finish it soon though.

Anyways, down to the business at hand, a few links/stories for your evening reading.

2009 SuperLiga Final

Chicago Fire host Tigres UANL of the Mexican Primera Division.- 7pm CST on Telefutura

I would expect nothing less than a Fire win really. I hear the Fire are taking this game serious and from the sound of it so are their supporter’s, which is really good to see. Tough part is until this tournament gets an English broadcast on FSC or something like that no one will care about it (you can watch it online though). I asked folks on Twitter earlier if they cared and those that responded didn’t see too unless they were actually a Fire fan.

CONCACAF Champions League Play-In Round

New York Red Bulls host Trinidadian side W Connection – 8pm EST on FSC

This is big and it is a make or break kind of game. If the Red Bulls win and advance they could at least salvage a little bit of their pathetic season. All they need is a win or even a 0-0 or 1-1 tie to advance. It is that simple. All MLS fans need to get behind New York tonight and hope they advance. If they don’t it will just add fuel to the fire on so many things surround this club.

International Friendly

Seattle Sounders FC host FC Barcelona – 10:30pm EST on ESPN

This should be fun. Tune in to ESPN2 tonight for this one folks. I know Seattle held their own against Chelsea a while back but I would be impressed if they are able to do the same against Barca. If I were Sigi Schmid I would be resting key guys as much as possible in this one, even if it means getting beat. With the playoffs coming up you don’t want to lose someone because of this game.

Jozy Moves To England

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The big topic today was Jozy Altidore and all his tweeting about moving to England to play for Hill City. The best part was reading all the reports with quotes from Jozy’s Twitter feed. I guess that is the world we are starting to live in, when players say something on twitter before the press get ahold of them in person.

Cooper Introduced in Germany

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No need to say much, Cooper is finally over in Europe and looks happy in the process.

Argentina League Season Put On Hold

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Wow, big news down in Argentina is that a new season was suppose to start in two weeks. However that has been put on indefinite hold due to a deep financial crisis at many of the clubs. No other actions were announced. This could very well mean we could see a flood of players come north if nothing is resolved soon.

In a way I guess the writing has been on the wall for a while for this move (or any for that matter) for Kenny Cooper. Today we have learned that FC Dallas has sold the star striker to German side TSV 1860 Munich of the 2. Bundesliga pending a medical examination.

Not official word yet on how much the deal is for. Some across the pond have been saying it is less than a million. I don’t buy that for a second. More credible people here like Buzz Carrick at 3rdDegree or Steve Goff at the Washington Post suggest the club/league could end up with as much as $3 million, depending on how Cooper does in Europe. Which Dallas will pocket most of that.

Cooper had wanted to move across the pond last summer but the club rejected mulitple offers from clubs. Apparently the club also rejected a couple more offers this past month from various clubs, including 1860 Munich.

We know that Dallas in a way was planning for such a move during the Gold Cup run while Cooper was with the US national team. Head coach Schalles Hyndman tried a couple different moves up top in place of Cooper, one being veteran striker Jeff Cunningham. At times things worked out but just like most of the season it did not.

At this point FCD has 14 days left in the summer transfer window to bring in a player (window closes on August 14th), but can also sign anyone that is out of contract during that window until the roster freeze date on September 15th.

In a way I just don’t see them filling this void until the winter. Maybe I am wrong and will be proven wrong but I kind of think the club is throwing in the towel on this season with this move.

Overall though I can’t but be more excited for Cooper. I know this is a move he has wanted for some time, even though he does indeed love Dallas. It’s a good move for him personally because another year in Dallas would continue to hold him back I think. He could only carry that club so much.

I blame the holiday weekend for getting me off to a late start here this week. Plus throw in the fact that I am a homeowner now all the trips to Home Depot and places like that are easily killing off any spare second over the weekend. Oh well, no time to bitch and moan about that but time to get down to business once again this week.

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. Continue Reading…

Plenty of good goals this week for you all here. I’ve put together the usual mix of goals that I thought were goal of the week material. A couple really jumped out at me like Arturo Alvarez’s goal against Dallas, as well as Omar Cummings’ game-tying goal against RSL.

If you think I missed a goal, please let me know below.

Order of goals: Taylor Twellman (New England), David Ferreira (Dallas), Arturo Alvarez (San Jose), Kenny Cooper (Dallas), Omar Cummings (Colorado), Edson Buddle (LA), and Stuart Holden (Houston).

Guillermo Barros Schelotto got the best of Claudio Lopez on Saturday in KC. (Brian Stevens, WVH Photo Correspondent)

If you blinked this weekend you may have missed some changes in the standings this weekend. A couple clubs continues to fall down the standings while a couple more continue to rise. Also we saw the western race (and the overall race for that matter) tighten up a bit with a Chivas win and a Houston win this weekend.

I believe the groups I’ve mentioned a couple weeks ago in the standings are still shaping up though one or two teams may have shifted around in the groups. The bottom of the barrell is still what it has been for a while now this year.

The Shifting Crew

The biggest move though may be one few noticed due to their game being on at the same time as the US national team’s game on Saturday (yeah, genius plan to schedule it like that). Columbus notched another win in typical Crew fashion this week in Kansas City behind two goals from their MVP and probably current league MVP front-runner Guillermo Barros Schelotto. With GBS scoring instead of setting up the goals this season we are seeing a slightly different Crew side this season but one that is starting to get results.

Sometimes it takes a club a while to get use to a new coach but if you didn’t notice the Crew are back in playoff contention right now. They also have a game to spare on those above them in the east.

Weird part may be though that this club still isn’t healthy here in the least bit this season. But as always good teams figure out a way to get results no matter the lineup. Columbus was still a good team at the start of the season but now they are finishing out games and getting points rather than struggling to get draws. Its hard to keep in mind that they’ve only lost twice this season.

One more thing, when I look at KC I still see a quality team here but I’ll keep saying it, they are missing one to two key elements to make them really good here. I think keeping their attack through Josh Wolff and Claudio Lopez can help but the playmaking in the middle just isn’t there enough. Also the defensive mistakes are really hurting this club. The U-8 style defending on the first goal just won’t get it done. I know Jimmy Conrad is already taking the blame for that goal. Continue Reading…

I know this week has been pretty light from me. Blame the main job that pays the bills for keeping me away from the laptop more than usual. I do hope to have a couple other posts up today though with this being a fairly big weekend for both MLS and US national team. Plus I may have a follow up to an article I read earlier today about current MLS guys that would be a good fit in Europe right now.

Seven games spread out on three days this weekend with one tonight, four tomorrow and two on Sunday. Not to mention the all important US game tomorrow in Chicago as well. Continue Reading…