Two interesting photos today.
More proof that Toronto FC is MASSIVE.
It seems 50 Cent (pronounced "fitty cen") has taken a liking to the beautiful game. Specifically Toronto FC.
Was it the sublime skill of Laurent Robert, the explosive creativity of Amado Guevara?

Photo by ISIphotos.com

The details finally emerged on the Carlos Ruiz trade from LA to Toronto FC on Thursday and they were shocking to say the least. The LA Galaxy shipped Ruiz to Toronto FC for a pair of supplemental draft picks.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

The Los Angeles Galaxy has traded Carlos Ruiz to Toronto FC, sources told SBI on Tuesday evening. Details of the deal were not available yet. To make room for Ruiz on the roster, TFC has waived French midfielder Laurent Robert.

The full list of each team's most valuable player award from 1996-2008 are below. Each Major League Soccer team gives out its own set of team awards at the end of each season, usually announced at the last home regular season game. Not to be confused with the leaguewide awards.
Sometimes the news articles state that the winner's fellow players voted him MVP, but I've read about the media voting as well.

Good afternoon to the folks on the West side of the country (and the MLS standings). Here are some news items and notes for you to peruse as your day winds to a close:

FC Dallas signs Sikora

FC Dallas said goodbye to Colombian midfielder Juan Toja over the weekend, but have already replaced him.

Best team: New England Revolution

Best DP signing: Macello Gallardo, DC United

Best non DP signing: Amado Guevara, Toronto FC

Best value international signing: Kheli Dube, New England

Best young player (under 20): Sueńo MLS winner Jorge Flores

Worst DP signing: Claudio Lopez, Kansas City

Worst international signing: Franco Carracio, Houston

Worst big name half season: Juan Toja, FC Dallas

Best overall player (best individual talent and ability): Landon Donovan, Los Angeles

Most Valuable Player (most valuable to team): Steve Ralson, NE Revolution

(runner up) Frankie Hedjuk, Columbus

Ranking the teams 1-14 (based on performance in the 1st half of the season and potential for 2nd half of the season with the current squad)

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.

Honduras released its list of players it will use against Mexico on Aug. 20 in a World Cup qualifier.
The list includes a pair of MLS players in Amado Guevara and Ivan Guerrero.
Honduras and Mexico played a memorable game in Azteca, of course. Back in November 2001 Honduras needed a win to get into the 2002 World Cup and knock Mexico out in the process but that didn't happen as Mexico won 3-0 behind goals from Francisco Palencia and Cuauhtemoc Blanco.

Photo by ISI Photos

Former MLS MVP and one-time MetroStars and Red Bulls standout Amado Guevara played his final match for Honduran power CD Motagua last weekend and appears ready to return to Major League Soccer.

What can we say other than we called it.
While it didn't go down as part of an epic 3-way trade involving Brian McBride, our sources were right in that El Pescado still ended up with a new northern pond.
Read more about that here.
We hope he likes the water temperature there.

It was a beautiful day in Toronto today.A gorgeous sun cast BMO field aglow in light while a stiff wind off lake Ontario made its presence felt as the flags stood at stiff attention.Twenty thousand plus Reds fans greeted F.C with great color,passion and excitement.John Carver fielded a Toronto Squad that played a 4-4-1-1 with Danny Dichio as the lone striker while Honduran Amado Guevarra was the pivot between the attack and midfield.

I'm trying to crank out my PE column tonight so I don't have to worry about it on Monday morning, which is a good thing since I'm going to be out and about most of the day. I'm writing a column on the horrendous scheduling by Major League Soccer and how they're playing right through World Cup qualifying.

Knowing I not only buried this feature, but essentially chastised myself for ever creating it, it feels like I should acknowledge that - no links, though. That said, my New Year's resolutions usually die a quiet death somewhere around January 10 and this one was no different. Well, there was my resolution to [.

Another exciting game tonite at Giants Stadium in front of a boistorous crowd of nearly 47 thousand tonight, as Landon Donovan manages to find the back of the net near extra time to steal a point away from the Bulls.

Down 1-0 early, the Bulls desperately fought back. Dave Van Den Bergh buried a back heal pass from Jorge Rojas.

I cant believe Toronto FC have waived Laurent Robert.In the same week they will say goodbye to Maurice Edu who has signed with Glasgow Rangers Toronto has released the 33 year old Midfielder.In his stead Toronto has signed former L.A. Galaxy striker Carlos Ruiz to the club.Ruiz is five years younger and has an MLS pedigree before loosing his job to Edson Buddle.

Rating: 5 (Very Good)
The on-again-off again dealing with Amado Guevara is on again and on in a big way. The playmaker is currently on his way to Toronto FC as reported by Univision's Republica Deportiva yesterday and in this report from Honduras.

"Polémica, lágrimas, goles y honor al fútbol.

Here come the Houston Dynamo and D.C. United.

The two teams favored to reach MLS Cup when the season began continued their turnarounds after bad starts to the 2008 season. The Dynamo improved to 4-1-1 in their past six with a comprehensive 3-1 win against Toronto FC while D.C. United halted the red-hot Chicago Fire, 2-1 at Toyota Park.

It seems that our story yesterday, on the potential 3 way deal involving Wilman Conde, Carlos Ruiz and Brian McBride may have legs after all. And perhaps the motive, that being the locker room dust up between Blanco and Conde really was the catalyst.
According to the front page of Fox Sports en Espanol.

As if the economic stimulus package wasn't enough to encourage the nation to put a little extra dough into the countries money stream, Wall Street has decided to bring in the big guns - The Red Bulls will be ringing the opening bell for NASDAQ today!

Agoos and Osorio will be on hand, along with Van Den Bergh, Stammler and about 20 other Bulls.

Canada's tie to Jamaica last night on its surface is nothing to be ashamed of.But being in a group with Mexico and Honduras finds the Canadians playing the role of scavenger,forced to seek out two lost points in what some are saying is Concacafs group of death.
Is the situation dire for Canada?

Photo by ISIphotos.com

John Carver is looking for some soccer players, any soccer players.

In a story widely-reported in Canada, Carver's Toronto FC will have to take on Chivas USA on Saturday missing nine players due to international duty.

Toronto FC hopes to strengthen their midfield by landing former MLS MVP Amado Guevara. Guevara was last seen in MLS getting the boot by Chivas USA coach Preki due to poor play and a horrible attitude.
Guevara is a very talented player however he only shows it when he is happy. If he is not fully satisfied with his situation, too often his play suffers.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

As you may or may not know, the 18-man MLS All-Star team isn't the only list of players selected with relation to the All-Star game. There is also a group of players known as "inactive" all-stars, who are considered the players who would also be all-stars if the MLS All-Star Game still had the same MLS-only format.

Neat game - quite possibly because it wasn't expected. That goes double for the second half. Between a couple Motagua players and the field, the Honduran team played the stronger game. Pachuca still looked the better team, but that's only in the abstract: by the end of the first half, I would have [.

So last week we welcomed the NY Post soccer blog to the fold and they didn't waste much time in getting their hands dirty digging for some scoop: they're saying that the Amado Guevara to Toronto FC move is in fact on.
Now if this does happen it is sure to have a profound effect on the troubled Canadian side, that goes without saying.

Toronto FC have again for the third straight week solidified a midfield that can now compete on par with any MLS team. But like a combination of elements from a periodic table a real danger exists of mismatching elements or mixing elements in the wrong order. This week Toronto completed rebuilding their midfield by signing Rohan Ricketts from Barnsley of the English Championship division.

There's really no drama in this news or any surprise for that matter but David Beckham leads the way in the MLS All-Star voting after two short weeks. Landon Donovan was second and Cuauhtemoc Blanco was third. Again, shocker, I know. Here is a look at the top 10 after two weeks of voting: 1. David Beckham, Los [.

Former Metro star and current Islander Peter Villegas scored a goal for Puerto Rico in Saturday's 2-2 draw with Honduras

Every region with the exception of the Euro engaged UEFA confederation has begun qualifying for World Cup 2010.

Another day, another game (or so it seems) for TFC. Tomorrow, cellar-dwellars San Jose pay their first ever visit to BMO Field, in what some fans are calling a must-win game. They cite the fact that we have not won in the past 7 games. Personally, this is an overreaction to me. 2 of those games were meaningless friendlies (Pachuca & Independiente) in which we played with a collection of players nobody had ever heard of (Murphy Wiredu, anyone?

Photo by ISIphotos.com

What a week for MLS goals. While Danny Cepero's 80-yard free kick shocker is the goal getting all the attention this weekend, some folks could argue that there are goals more deserving of an MLS goal of the week accolade.

Photo by ISI Photos

Toronto FC is close to landing former MLS MVP Amado Guevara, multiple sources told Soccer By Ives on Monday. Guevara could join Toronto FC in time for the team's MLS season opener against the Columbus Crew on March 29.

This morning on XM Satelite Radio's XM Deportivo (Channel 147), the hosts (Alejandro Blanco, Arley Londoño and Gerardo Villa) mentioned that Amado Guevara was definitely not coming to Toronto FC because the salary being offered was significantly less than that with his current club, Motagua of Honduras.

RED BULLS PREVIEW - 2008
Let me begin by saying - this is completely based on the team as currently configured. I know April 15th is right around the corner, and 2 signings can change everything, but this is the current situation.
With that said . . .
Lets begin with a Haiku . .

As we mentioned earlier this week, it's a done deal. Here is the official announcement.

With two furious weeks of losses followed by a big signing after each loss,Toronto FC should be the best team in the league if they can keep loosing for two more weeks and fill in the Central midfield.With the signing of Amado Guevara the Honduran international midfielder returns to the MLS and will balance out Toronto's midfield playing on the right while Laurent Robert patrols the left.

With only a couple weeks left to vote, fans are starting to pile on the votes for their favorite players in Major League Soccer for this summer's All-Star game in Toronto. Not a lot of changes at the top of the overall voting list.In fact that top three remain: David Beckham Landon Donovan Cuauhtemoc Blanco Once you get by the [.

So I told you about Bryan Truta and Cherryh Butler's visit to practice the other day seemingly 100 times now. Well, they just keep putting up more stuff about it! Both today posted the video at their respective websites. Check out Truta's blog here and the ink front page here.
The guys depart today for Canadia (spelled wrong on purpose) for the second match-up with TFC of 2008.

Top XI
G: Kevin Hartman Brad Guzan
D: Hunter Freeman Tony Beltran
D: Claudio Suarez
D: Gonzalo Martinez
M: Carlos Mendes
M: Clyde Simms
M: Sacha Kljestan
M: Marcelo Gallardo
M: Guillermo Barros Schelotto
F: Ante Razov
F: Landon Donovan Edson Buddle
Coach: Sigi Schmid.

The MLS All-Star Game XI (and actually another seven to round out the roster) will be picked at 8 a.m. Thursday from Toronto, site of the 4 p.m. July 24 game against East London's West Ham United of the English Premier League.

Coaches and general managers, fans, players, and media each had 25 percent of the vote to select the starting line-up.

West Ham keeper Robert Green spent his offseason in Africa doing what he could to help those in need. Incredible story he wrote for the Independent. See England News section.
SuperLiga
Official match reports and video highlights etc.