The Chaucer Cup. The T.S. Eliot Trophy. The Order of the Early Bird. There is probably no greater honor in Major League Soccer than to triumph in the April showers. This year our winner is Red Bull New York, ahead of Chicago Fire based on goal differential. Congratulations! Previous winners: 2006: [...] Click to continue reading...

I admit it, I see that score all weekend, and think "Another round of ammo for soccer haters." 1-0 and 0-0, those always look awful. Even when the games are pretty good….which, for the most part, this weekend's games kinda weren't. Sorry. At least DC United tried creative ways to get [...] Click to continue reading...

I think by and large, I have more fun being a fanboy than an allegedly objective observer. But I think it's only the truly objective observers who will get the most out of this weekend's LA-CDCUSA game. Most MLS fans have a fairly healthy distaste for both teams, so they usually end up [...] Click to continue reading...

This, in all seriousness, is terrific, so looks like I'm gonna have to scrape up $10 from someplace. Click to continue reading...

No one is washed up at 17, least of all Freddy Adu. This isn't Olympic gymnastics. The "Where did it all go wrong?" chorus on this subject has been a little tedious. So it's interesting to hear Adu talk about believing his own hype in this article: "Honestly, when I first came into [...] Click to continue reading...

Jay DeMerit is one of the sport's ongoing feel-good stories. We're hearing a lot of talk these days about how players will be washed up if they're not professionals by age 17, so it's good to have another example of a guy who just up and made himself a star through hard work and [...] Click to continue reading...

Can't wait to watch tonight's Red Bulls-Dallas game on - aw, CRAP! AGAIN I forget the DVR. You know, I'm sitting here working on a post about Paul Gardner going on and on about Brazilian youth teams like some creepy-ass Scoutmaster, but I'll tell you something, at least Paul Gardner remembers to watch [...] Click to continue reading...

Well, congratulations to the Galaxy on showing the pride and fortitude necessary to win a game that, in all frankness, they were just as well off losing. I never thought for a minute that Frank Yallop, whose commitment to the Open Cup has historically been, well, questionable, would inspire his team to win on [...] Click to continue reading...

Robert's 95 Theses on the proposed national Academy program here. Just a couple of things I'd like to add. (1) College soccer must become irrelevant. The only reason colleges are useful for football and basketball is because the nation's college football and basketball programs are de facto minor leagues, and can reliably produce professional players. Click to continue reading...

Tough decisions for West Bromwich Babylon this week. My forward corps is Emilio, Cooper, Altidore, Herculez, and Adam Cristman. I had Jozy on the bench last week, darn it. This week - well, Cooper's playing twice. Emilio's back in action, but he's going to Columbus. The Crew will have played [...] Click to continue reading...

Kenn has been just killing people recently for getting information wrong, so it would probably be a good idea for me to keep my head down. I believe, to paraphrase John Mendelssohn, the last thing the world needs is another soccer writer who can keep his facts straight. But that's a minority view, [...] Click to continue reading...

Wait a gosh-darned minute, we're the Brazil of women's soccer. What the heck are they playing at, giving us a Group of Death? I know, the proper attitude is "Yeah, it's a Group of Death. And we're the ones holding the scythe." Probably fans of Sweden, Nigeria, and North Korea are even less [...] Click to continue reading...

Double-checking I had the right spelling for "Maykel" took longer than making the decision, too. Take that, Fidel. Click to continue reading...

Pretend I wrote this before the Rapids-FCD game, because even though it looks like hindsight I really did think it going in - the Rapids weren't an insurable risk yesterday, and here's why. You know those early-season Monday Night Football games they have that match up the previous season's Super Bowl teams? The [...] Click to continue reading...

Making one big post instead of one little post, to save electrons. Come with me, and you'll see a land of pure imagination. Hey, the "More" tag also acts as a spoiler shield. Posting Without Guilt. Awesome Blossom. Click to continue reading...

I was livid, I tell you, when I saw that WS2 added Boston and New York/New Jersey to the list of potential teams. Not you, Boston. We're good. Stay classy. But the whole point of the rejiggered WUSA was to learn the lessons of the past, and central to that would have been not putting [...] Click to continue reading...

Okay, so the list of ex-Toronto players has gone up by another one, as the Conor Casey Era has come to an end. Other prominent former TFCers include Richard Mulrooney, Jon Busch, and nine out of the ten players picked in last year's expansion draft - everyone except Paulo Nagamura. So, a roster [...] Click to continue reading...

Lead story at the Mothership is about the proposed National Academy. Robert's got part one of what promises to be a long, drawn-out battle here. We'll have lots of time to have lots of discussions about this. There are a number of what I consider to be central disconnects between theory and reality when [...] Click to continue reading...

Following news of the impasse between Lew Wolff and San Jose State University here. One freaking season above .500, and all of a sudden the San Jose State football program thinks they're something more than a regional joke. This isn't exactly dealing with USC over the Coliseum, or even with UCLA over the Rose Bowl. [...] Click to continue reading...

Well, it's not up on MLSnet yet, for some wacky reason, but another overall first round pick has been branded a washout. Marvell Wynne to Toronto in exchange for two bags of magic beans. Maybe I'm just really, really bad at spotting talent. I saw Wynne with the U-whatevers when he was at UCLA, [...] Click to continue reading...