Ando

Couldn't decide which thread to bump for this, but Zarek scored today in a friendly versus LA, et L'impact a gangé 3-0

Gabby's a good twitter follow. Totally different type of player than his brother in that he's a Stoke supporter and says things like "should have gone in with studs up on that one" all the time

Re: Wahl, the article he wrote describing his run for the presidency of FIFA is easily one of the best 10 pieces of sports journalism I've ever read

If the home/away setup at Pitt had been the other way around, I would have been able to make both. :/ Oh well.

love the last answer. swag.

What are the residency requirements to be considered a domestic? Is Luke anywhere near getting a green card so that'd he wouldn't take an international slot?

Hmm. Makes sense from the MLS's standpoint, I think. It'll be interesting next year to see if GA salary stagnation is a real trend or if this has as much to do with the draft just not having the same depth in GA quality as last year's.

Has it really been a failure? Again, I'm not totally familiar with the quality overall, but it has produced, by it's own count, "300 players through the full-time Residency Program, and more than 100 of those players have moved on to Major League Soccer, or the professional leagues in Europe. Nineteen players have also registered at least one cap with the full MNT: Freddy Adu, Jozy Altidore, DaMarcus Beasley, Kyle Beckerman, Michael Bradley, Bobby Convey, Landon Donovan, Eddie Gaven, Omar Gonzalez, Eddie Johnson, Justin Mapp, Chad Marshall, Dax McCarty, Oguchi Onyewu, Heath Pearce, Santino Quaranta, Robbie Rogers, Jonathan Spector and Danny Szetela." http://www.ussoccer.com/teams/youth/us-und.../residency.aspx Admittedly, a lot of those guys were "can't miss" type prospects, but I'd hardly say it's been useless. The biggest criticism I've heard from the residency program is that it's really political and not everyone can gain access. Interesting article by kyle martino on TSG touched briefly on this: a response in the comments: http://theshinguardian.com/2011/02/16/kyle...-urge-to-surge/

^forgot agudelo again, in aggregate, of course it's much better for a player's individual interest to have a degree to fall back on that said, had the Andy Najars and Juan Agudelos gone to college - which is an environment that inherently isn't as good for development as a professional setting - It's doubtful they'd be the players they are today university athletics are far from unimportant, and won't be for a long time, if ever - the academies are too widespread and generally too inaccessible to reliably pick up every interesting or talented kid, and college can still act as a safety net for academy kids who don't make the immediate jump to the senior level but if nearly all players start their pro careers at age 22 or 23 instead of 17 or 18, that places those players a solid 5 years behind the rest of the world. It's not good for the development of the game in the country long term if we insist on the sacredness of the idea of student athletes

From an austerity standpoint, sure. But it's probably better for their development as a player, and for US soccer long term, that academies keep the better prospects, and that the academy system develops to the point where more prospects are able to forgo college entirely

it's such an asinine argument to be making at this point. Terrence Boyd, Dominique Fennel et al are American every bit as much as Hargreaves is English, or Rossi is Italian Zimmerman's tirade just screams of xenophobia to me There might be a racial dimension as well - I don't want to be that guy, but where was this outcry when the only 'fake' american was a white guy (holden)?

tangentially-related interview of Eric Wynalda on Sent Off's podcast http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/sear...p;client=safari interesting, to say the least

I think he's got a case of turf-toe, and otherwise would have been included.

Koroma's younger brother is listed as committed to Akron for the next year as well - so we might have the footballing version of the mcknights now so what do we think for next year? Assuming 4-3-3 again, I suppose this would be the most obvious 11: I think we see more of Akiel Barret next year, though. He's got good feet and without Luke Holmes in front of him, he probably gets some more time It'll be interesting to see if we get someone else to play leftback. I haven't given up on Mayer yet, and I'd like to see him do well

Who do you guys think wears the 10 next year? The only returner who would make sense at all in a 10 is Caldwell, and even then that doesn't make a ton of sense

http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives...af-mexico-.html We drew a pretty soft group. To an extent, that's nice, but it'd almost be nicer to have Honduras in our Group so we won't have to play them in a must-win semis game I like our team's chances, though.

Arsenal DC United (Although in MLS I root for "the league" as much as anything) edit: Swansea too. Hoping the Swans stay up permanently

I think I've asked this before, but I forget what the answer is - Any relation between Evans Frimpong and Emmanuel at Arsenal?

It's be a Friday night, no? - The 5:30 game Would probably be fine at Barley, but it might get a little club-ish by the end of the second one.

yeah, it'd be more fun to see him in montreal (do they need a striker?) rather than norway somewhere

Mattocks has said he's going pro for sure, for what it's worth: http://www.televisionjamaica.com/Programme...px/Videos/14153 Segment on Mattocks around the 4:30 mark

It's nuts how you could make a servicable starting 11 entirely out of akron players Nagbe-Bunbury-Zakuani Zemanski - Gavin - Ampai Korb - Valentin - Kitchen - Sarkodie Bush the attack is pretty nuts on that squad

I think the Bolton faithful might be a little disappointed if all the team can muster up for a January loan/transfer bid is Bunbury, although I think it'd be a good move for Teal, provided he doesn't wither away on the benchEven if Bolton gets relegated, it'd be fun to have another guy overseas I think. It's probably better for his development too - The quality between the Championship and MLS is probably levelish anymore, but the English leagues are probably a little deeper still yet. The MLS aren't going to be getting the Messis or Ronaldos or Van Persies anytime soon. That's just unrealistic thinking. Twilighting players like Lampard or Del Piero might be a little more feasible, should teams be willing to cough up the money for themI don't buy the notion that we should be hoarding our best players - Michael Bradley's time with Chievo, for instance, is doing wonders for his tactical awareness, something that just wouldn't have happened had he been playing in MLS at the moment

You have to think some of these teams have some sort of a gentleman's agreement with Montreal - I don't get how some of thse guys were left unprotected

Bolton basically went to shit when Stu went down pretty remarkable, really. Hope to see Teal do well, and hopefully get into a few reserve matches