1) FC Salzburg, having drawn, Maccabi Haifa, look set to finally qualify for the lucrative group stage of the Champions League. The club was purchased by RedBull founder Dietrich Mateschitz with the intent to make it a player internationally, but it has failed in its attempts since the takeover to qualify for the competition proper.

It begins. Again.

As everyone has undoubtedly heard by now, Landon Donovan has made noise about leaving the small pond that is MLS for a foreign destination, with the English Premier League being the presumed destination.
Donovan does this occasionally -- discussing his chances in Europe with the press, that is.

Check out this article I wrote for Pitchinvasion.net on the 3. Liga, the reformed German third division.
Play starts this Friday, so get your p's and q's straight before the balls start rolling.

Here are the odds and ends that have kept me entertained this Tuesday morning:
1). Freddy Adu will join Carlos Bocanegra in France as he is heading to Monaco on a season-long loan.
2). Ridge Mahoney and Luis Bueno discuss MLS, Mexico and the SuperLiga.
3). David Beckham praises MLS.

The 2008/09 UEFA Champions League has begun.
The big boys will get the ball rolling in September, but in the heat of the summer the first qualifying round has begun. Ten matches took place last night, with another four scheduled for tonight.
For many, this stage of the competition may be tedious -- who cares about the Maltese champion!

L.E. Eisenmenger at American Soccer News has written an incisive review of MLS and its academy system. Find the article here.
For the first nine parts of our series on player development in the USA, go here.

Sixteen-year-old Abdus "Ibee" Ibrahim, a US U-20 international, has seen his stock rise (both north and south of the U.S.-Canadian border) in recent weeks after a string of strong performances with Toronto FC.
Selected in the second round of the 2007 MLS draft (I refuse to call it the "Superdraft") by FC Dallas, the Ethiopian-born Ibrahim found his way to Toronto FC this summer, and despite his age and size (he weighs just 153 pounds) has turned heads.

Jmayers at The Beautiful Game blog has asked an interesting question: Am I the only one tired of Arshavin?
He goes on to say: "This guy is getting so many headlines and I don't think he deserves them. It's not necessarily his fault -- our infatuation [with] transfer rumors probably is -- but with this guy I'm getting tired of it.

It has started.
In late May I wrote about how the CONCACAF Champions League would raise the level of play throughout the region. Proving me right, HexagonalBlog has passed along the news that a domestic league has been formed on Puerto Rico -- the Puerto Rico Soccer League (PRSL).
The teams involved will play just 14 matches (with playoffs to follow), and the resources available are limited, of course, but it is a start.

Gruffgoat has responded to my reply to his original post on putting two MLS franchises in Atlanta. (Are you still with me?) In other words, I'm it.
This is what Gruffgoat had to say in his response: "I guess my point is that the storied English football clubs rose out of neighborhoods (Highbury, White Hart Lane, Stamford Bridge, etc.

Who is going to be next, the fans wonder? Philadelphia is in, as is Seattle, but is Miami next? Or St. Louis? Maybe Sin City? Perhaps another team in New York? Atlanta, others wonder?
One of those wondering about Atlanta is Gruffgoat of Gruffgoat's Football Blog. He goes so far as to argue that the ATL should have two clubs, not just one.

Tom Dunmore at Pitch Invasion has written an interesting post on the developing academy system in the USA. Find the post, which I highly recommend, here.
You can find the previous posts on our series on player development in the USA here.

Jack Bell at The New York Times has written a short story on Josh Wolff's return to MLS.
Here is the key quote: "There was nothing for me in Germany. At the end of the run, they [1860 Munich] weren't going to re-sign me. My wife is pregnant, and we weighed the options. Coming back made a little more sense .

The latest edition of "Only a Game," a radio program produced by NPR and WBUR, includes an excellent report by soccer fan extraordinaire and host Bill Littlefield on the U.S. Open Cup. He chronicles the June 25, second-round encounter between the Western Mass Pioneers and Richmond Kickers and the following week's match between the victorious Kickers and the New England Revolution.