USSoccer

If Rooney is out for any length of time, United are going to suuuuuuuuuuck.

I would assume if anything serious happened to Theriot we'd be seeing Castro anyway.

So I was pretty pleasantly surprised at the quality of play today... ...and then New England and LA basically just played 45 minutes of pub league long ball. I understand NE doing it, since they suck and have no skill players with Joseph out, but LA has some talent on their roster. Unfortunately, none of it plays center mid. Holy crap, what boring anti football

Glad to see RBNY's player are going all Arsenal and refusing to shoot on the rookie keeper. EDIT-holy crap, McBride. I didn't think you were young enough to do that anymore

i'm noticing an improvement so far in passing and technical ability so far. granted, it's only two games but its encouraging. at least the RBNY fans who are there are making noise. oh, and i'd rather listen to max bretos and sullivan over jp/harkes.

Way to sell out your brand new stadium, New York. Jackasses.

Berbatov put down his cigarette long enough to put up a brace. Too bad for Arsenal. Deuce didn't look good today, but he was playing up front and saw virtually no service. Hodgson rested most of his main guys for the Europa League match.

Sounders up 1-0 over Philly Union. As usual, Emerald City FC bringing the atmosphere, and there's been some pretty good build up play for the first matchday of the season. Interesting to see Michael Orozco in midfield for the Union. He's been their best player so far

I just watched Messi score 3 and then draw a PK by dribbling through at least 4 defenders and then getting yanked down. He's ridiculous.

I'm still not sure how Kane's shot in OT didn't go in.

-Glad that both sides decided to end the dumbest labor pissing contest of all time. Really looking forward to Thursday night, actually. I know MLS is not exactly a stellar league, but there's something exciting about watching it grow and develop, for example: -Red Bull Arena is the ish. Seriously. Beautiful park.

Hodgson for USMNT next cycle. He's fantastic. Without Andy Johnson all season, Pantsil most of the season, Zamora missed a month, Deuce missed about two, and they are in the top half of the EPL table and in the last 8 of the EL. Amazing job. And Bobby Zamora, for as hideously bad as he was last season, has been nothing short of stellar this term.

Goal of the year. http://videos.sapo.pt/CvZlPd5iGsNThs2CSoHv DONT TREAD

I don't see how it's anything but Sandberg projecting his old timey baseball gritvalue on his team.

Getting your cleanup hitters ready to lay bunts down in the early innings of a game has absolutely nothing to do with fundamentals or getting players ready for the majors. I'm sure it has to do with his self righteous "play the game the right way" mentality, which is exactly why I want him nowhere near the managerial job at the big club.

John Terry is such a jag. I completely enjoyed watching Chelsea lose. Jose is the ish.

I feel badly for him. Beckham the footballer deserved a much better sign off from international football than this. The man clearly loves his country and the honor of playing for it. Sucks. Also sucks for MLS too from a revenue standpoint, and from a USMNT perspective, as there's no way LD goes back to Everton on a loan again. LD will have to be bought.

In the conversation as in, participating in a conversation about which actual great players are the best ever?

http://www.3rddegree.net/2010/03/12/120-fahrenheit-why-i-think-a-strike-by-mls-players-wont-be-effective/ This guy does a good job explaining the issues

Totally agree relative to SUM and MLS, but here's the thing: There are some teams in the black now. Dallas excepted, it's the teams with SSS's and Seattle. The stragglers are the DCU's and Revs, who play in football stadia and don't control their revenue streams. It's those owners-the HSG and Krafts-who want nothing to do with loosening the movement within the league. And there are no players in the league making just $18k unless they are developmental players. This labor unrest is all about players like Kevin Hartman and Vandenburg not being able to make high six figure salaries as free agents in perpetuity. The Generation Adidas players, the DPs and the senior internationals in MLS don't (or shouldn't) give a crap about any of the things that the Players Union want. They want extra money for the guys that never sniffed the NT and are in the twilight of their careers. And quite honestly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for those guys if they're willing to put their own short term interests ahead of representing the interests of their constituency. The league offered to guarantee some contracts and change some rules regarding player movement, as well as a raising of the salary cap but the Union wants full blown free agency, which I don't think would be good for the league at this point in time. The players are making this play about a decade too soon. That said, I doubt there will be a strike.

My take on the labor bit is that the old, bad MLS players who control the union are being incredibly stupid and shortsighted. They see the league finally beginning to turn a profit and move more towards being a 5th major sport and less of a niche sport, and are trying to take advantage of that for their own benefit. They're trying to get a form of free agency that would damage MLS's single-entity status and cause long term harm to a league that doesn't need any speed bumps. Its a bunch of never-was's and has-been's playing chicken with the league right now, during a World Cup year. Idiots.

Clint's on the field right now; Fulham trail 3-1 after piss poor set piece defending in the first half.

Deuce is on the bench today for Fulham's round of 16 tie with Juventus. F yeah.

Promotion/Relegation for American sports is a terrible idea. European soccer clubs are just that-clubs. They have long traditions and only recently have people been buying them out of prestige or investment or whatever. No group of owners are ever going to approve something that would guarantee that two or three of them would see their gigantic investment completely dynamited every season. And as SSR pointed out, the presence of minor league systems make pro/rel impossible.

Milan probably need to start letting go of all the geriatrics. And Huntelaar. Beckham felt the love tonight. I think he teared up at his ovation. Rooney needs to pull a hammy or something prior to June 12