Photo by David Bernal/ISIphotos.com

As it turns out, Arturo Alvarez won't be suiting up for Chivas USA heading into the 2012 MLS season after all.

Alvarez, who was selected by Chivas in the first stage of the MLS Re-Entry Draft but never came to terms with the club as he sought opportunities overseas, has reportedly signed with Portuguese top-flight club Pacos de Ferreira on a two-and-a-half-year contract.

While the transfer window in Europe opens up in less than 48 hours, Major League Soccer teams have been busy since the season ended, rebuilding and retooling for next season. Here is a team-by-team look at what each side has done so far this offseason. Who has had the best offseason?

Chicago Fire

IN: G Jay Nolly (12/5: trade from Vancouver); F Kheli Dube (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/New England)

OUT: F Christian Nazarit (12/7: option declined); F Gabriel Ferrari (12/7: option declined); G Alec Dufty (12/12: option declined); M Baggio Husidic(12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Colorado); G Jon Conway (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/LA Galaxy)

Chivas USA

IN: M Ryan Smith (11/21: trade from Sporting KC); D James Riley (11/23: from Seattle, via trade from Montreal); M Arturo Alvarez (12/5: Re-Entry Stage 1/RSL); M Oswaldo Minda(12/21: SD Quito)

OUT: F Justin Braun (11/23: trade to Montreal); M Gerson Mayen (11/23: trade to Montreal); D Zarek Valentin (11/23: expansion draft); MPaulo Nagamura (11/29: trade to Sporting KC); D Andrew Boyens (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/LA Galaxy); F Chukwudi Chujindu (12/12: option declined); M Simon Elliott (12/12: out of contract); G Zach Thornton (12/12: option declined); D Mariano Trujillo (12/12: option declined)

Colorado Rapids

IN: M Baggio Husidic (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Chicago); D Hunter Freeman (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Houston)

OUT: M Sanna Nyassi (11/23: expansion draft); D Mike Holody (12/12: option declined); MBaggio Husidic (12/23: free/Hammarby)

Columbus Crew

IN: D Carlos Mendes (12/5: Re-Entry Stage 1/New York); G Matt Lampson (12/15: Home Grown)

OUT: D Josh Gardner (11/23: expansion draft); M Santiago Prim (11/23: waived); D Dejan Rusmir (11/23: waived); F Andrés Mendoza(12/6: option declined); M Kevin Burns (12/12: option declined); F Jeff Cunningham (12/12: option declined)

DC United

IN: D Robbie Russell (11/29: trade from RSL)

OUT: M Santino Quaranta (12/7: retired); DMarc Burch (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Seattle); MClyde Simms (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/New England); M Brandon Barklage (12/12: option declined); G Steve Cronin (12/12: option declined); F Joseph Ngwenya (12/12: option declined); D Jed Zayner (12/12: option declined); D Devon McTavish (12/22: retired)

FC Dallas

IN:

OUT: D Edson Edward (11/23: waived); DJeremy Hall (11/29: trade to Toronto); F Maykel Galindo (12/12: option declined); F Maicon Santos (12/12: option declined); M Marvin Chávez (12/16: trade to San Jose)

Houston Dynamo

IN: M Nathan Sturgis (12/29: trade from Toronto)

OUT: F Brian Ching (11/23: expansion draft); MFrancisco Navas Cobo (11/23: waived); G Evan Newton (11/23: waived); F Carlo Costly (11/24: option declined); D Hunter Freeman (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Colorado); F Jason Garey (12/12: option declined); D Eddie Robinson (12/12: option declined)

LA Galaxy

IN: D Andrew Boyens (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Chivas USA); D Chris Leitch (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/San Jose); F Pat Noonan (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Seattle); G Jon Conway (12/12: Re-Entry Stage 2/Chicago); M Marcelo Sarvas(12/13: free/Alajuelense); M Jose Villarreal(12/22: Home Grown)

OUT: D Gregg Berhalter (12/9: retired);G Donovan Ricketts (11/28: trade to Montreal Impact)

Montreal Impact

IN: D Nelson Rivas (10/3: free/Inter Milan, Italy); G Evan Bush (10/21: NASL Impact); D Sinisa Ubiparipovic (11/1: NASL Impact); M Hassoun Camara (11/3: NASL Impact); D Jeb Brovsky (11/23: expansion draft); D Bobby Burling (11/23: expansion draft); F Brian Ching (11/23: expansion draft); D Josh Gardner (11/23: expansion draft); M Justin Mapp (11/23: expansion draft); M Sanna Nyassi (11/23: expansion draft); D James Riley(11/23: expansion draft); D Seth Sinovic (11/23: expansion draft); M Collen Warner (11/23: expansion draft); D Zarek Valentin (11/23: expansion draft); F Justin Braun (11/23: trade from Chivas USA); M Gerson Mayen (11/23: trade from Chivas USA); D Tyson Wahl (11/23: trade from Seattle Sounders); M Bryan Arguez(11/25: free/Ft.

Photo by Michael Janosz/ISIphotos.com

For a team coming off of a championship run, the Los Angeles Galaxy have had plenty of major moving parts over recent weeks.

Between Landon Donovan going back to Everton on a short-term loan, Juninho returning to Sao Paulo, Donovan Ricketts being dealt to the Montreal Impact, Sean Franklin re-signing and David Beckham, well, still making a decision, the Galaxy remain the talk of MLS deep into the offseason.

By CALEB SONNELAND

The Philadelphia Union continue their busy offseason by adding Costa Rican defender Porfirio Lopez from Chinese side Dalian Haichang.

Lopez, a 26-year-old left back, was most recently on loan at Costa Rican side Alajuelense, where he was a part of the team's back-to-back Apertura and Clausura championship teams.

Photo by Jose L. Argueta/ISIphotos.com

Although the majority of teams passed on the opportunity to add players in the second stage of the MLS Re-Entry Draft, a few used Monday's exercise to stockpile depth ahead of the 2012 preseason.

Three teams took multiple players, spearheaded by the defending champion Los Angeles Galaxy, who made four selections: defenders Andrew Boyens and Chris Leitch, veteran forward Pat Noonan and veteran goalkeeper Jon Conway.

Round 2 of the MLS Re-Entry Draft will conclude shortly around 1:00 PM CST today. All four of the top targets in Gregg Mixdorf's original article are off the board. Bobby Convey was traded to Sporting Kansas City. Chivas USA selected Arturo Alvarez and his ridiculous salary in Round 1 of the Re-Entry Draft.

Photo by Brad Smith/ISIPhotos.com

By THOMAS FLOYD

Fans expecting their team to nab that missing piece of the MLS Cup puzzle in the Re-entry Draft on Monday shouldn't get their hopes up.

Last year, clubs used the mechanism to bolster their rosters with the likes of Juan Pablo Angel, Josh Wolff, Jimmy Conrad and Cory Gibbs.

Today was the first stage of the MLS Re-Entry draft. Like last year it was a fairly quiet round, with most teams choosing to pass instead of taking a player at their current salary or at a bona fide offer. Only 3 players were selected in the draft. Arturo Alvarez was picked up by Chivas USA, Columbus picked up Carlos Mendes, and New England grabbed Danleigh Borman.

Three Picks Made in Stage 1 of the Re-Entry Draft

Portland passed.

Arturo Alvarez to Chivas USA
Carlos Mendes to Columbus Crew
Danleigh Borman to New England Revolution

The Houston Dynamo did not select a player during today's first stage of the Re-Entry Draft. The 2nd stage will be held next Monday.

While 16 teams passed with their picks, three did make moves. Chivas USA selected forward Arturo Alvarez from Real Salt Lake, defender Carlos Mendes moves from the New York Red Bulls to the Columbus Crew and Danleigh Borman was selected by the New England Revolution from Toronto FC.

Mendes: Le Dernier MetroCarlos Mendes, the last squad member to have played for the New York MLS franchise as a MetroStar, was selected by Columbus Crew in phase one of the MLS Re-entry draft this afternoon. Mendes, Arturo Alvarez and former Red Bull Danleigh Borman were the only three players taken in the first round, when teams are on the hook for the full amount of players' contract options.

Chivas USA made the biggest move in Monday's short first stage of the 2011 MLS Re-Entry Draft by using its fourth overall selection to pick former Real Salt Lake midfielder Arturo Alvarez.

Two other teams made selections, as the New England Revolution used the second overall pick on former Toronto FC fullback Danleigh Borman, and the Columbus Crew used the ninth overall pick to add former New York Red Bulls defender Carlos Mendes.

Arturo Alvarez was picked up by Chivas USA. (Getty Images)

The first stage of the 2011 MLS Re-Entry Draft has come and gone with a bang. Only three players were selected in the first stage today as 16 clubs passed on their selection.

The terms of the first stage mean the three players selected today, their new teams will have honor their current contracts or offer them a 5 percent raise over what they made last year if they are currently out of contract.

By AVI CREDITOR

Don't expect to be wowed by the second edition of the MLS Re-Entry Draft now that most of the big names initially available are off the table.

Between Bobby Convey being traded to Sporting Kansas City, Bobby Boswell re-signing with the Houston Dynamo, Ante Jazic re-signing with Chivas USA and Santino Quaranta retiring, the quality of the draft pool has dropped immensely.

By Andrew Villegas The problem with the MLS expansion draft candy dish is that you have to wade through a hundred stale Tootsie Rolls (some of which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, go figure) to get to that proverbial Snickers bar. This is the worst kept secret in American soccer. Teams stack the unprotected [.

It really doesn't get much worse than that folks. And, yet, as Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said in postgame comments, they were lucky they didn't lost 6-0. The Sounders were outplayed every bit as bad as their 3-0 scoreline suggests, and probably even worse than that.

Just going through the stats, there are signs of Real Salt Lake domination everywhere.

It may not make up for the loss last night between the first teams, but the Swope Park Rangers earn a bit of revenge today defeating the Salt Lake reserves 1-0 thanks to an 88th minute penalty by Davy Arnaud. Both teams created some chances in the first half, the best was probably CJ Sapong hitting the post.

By Andrew Villegas A column about promotion and relegation should come with a warning label. "Write about promotion and relegation at your own peril. Side effects may include loathsome comments from all sides, headaches, nausea, and gratuitous feigning of vomiting." So it's with some hesitation that I should take on writing about the Orlando City [.

Philadelphia and RSL battle this weekend at Rio Tinto Stadium. (Getty Images)

This was suppose to be an off weekend in Major League Soccer. One of those rare weekends that the league decided to take off so players could be with their countries for important FIFA-related games or friendlies.

Sporting Kansas City's Kei Kamara and Teal Bunbury have been called up by their respective national teams. (Getty Images)

It will be a fairly slow week around these parts, seeing how MLS is pretty much off this weekend (except for two games). With a FIFA fixture on the calendar this weekend there are a full slew of MLSers involved in friendlies and even some World Cup qualifiers.

Mais um jogo da Copa Ouro, foi realizado no dia 12/06/2011, na cidade de Chicago-USA, no Soldier´s Field, onde jogaram as seleções de El Salvador (87º no ranking da FIFA) e a seleção de Cuba (81º no ranking da FIFA).
Antes desse jogo, as 2 seleções jogaram:
Eliminatórias Copa do Mundo
1998San Salvador 01/12/1996 SLV3:0 (2:0)CUB Semi-finals1998San Salvador 08/09/1996 CUB0:5 (0:1)SLV Semi-finals1982Tegucigalpa 11/11/1981 CUB0:0SLV Final round
Eliminatórias Continentais
2000Los Angeles 10/10/1999 CUB3:1SLV
Amistosos
Havana 24/03/2011 CUB0:1 (0:0)SLV 1966San Juan 20/06/1966 CUB0:0SLV 1955Tegucigalpa 20/08/1955 SLV2:1CUB 1954Mexico City 14/03/1954 SLV3:1CUB 1935San Salvador 24/03/1935 SLV4:1CUB
O árbitro desse jogo, foi: Neal Brizan-TTO
O primeiro gol do jogo, foi de Rodolfo Zelaya, aos 13 minutos do primeiro tempo, ele que é jogador do Alania-RUS, e marcou seu 9º gol pela seleção nacional.

The Chicago Fire have now played all four of their scheduled games against the 2011 MLS Expansion teams. Their final record against the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps is 0 wins, 1 draw, and 3 losses while getting outscored 9-5. Each expansion team even defeated the Fire 4-2 at one point.

After losing to Monterrey at home in the final leg of the CONCACAF Champion's League Final on April 27 Real Salt Lake has not looked like the same team that was considered to be the class of MLS by many observers at the beginning of the season, myself included. A bit of a let down could be expected after the loss to Monterrey and it did come in the form of a 1-0 loss to the Portland Timbers on the road.

When Real Salt Lake forward Jean Alexandre came in for a studs-up challenge on D.C. United defender Jed Zayner in the 49th minute of Saturday's draw at Rio Tinto Stadium no foul was called, and no card was handed out. That hardly means that Alexandre escaped punishment from the league.

Denz, of SB Nation's Real Salt Lake blog RSL Soap Box, and I exchanged three questions a piece ahead of tomorrow's Philadelphia Union-RSL match at PPL Park.

SK: After starting the season off undefeated, Real Salt Lake has fallen off a bit, but still sits near the top of the Western Conference with games in hand.

By Sean McElroy If there is such a thing as a CONCACAF group of death, I think Group A is it, with three strong teams vying for...oh yeah, probably three spots. But, alas, Group A shall (hopefully) yield some excellent soccer. Off we go! Mexico Nickname: El Tricolor Manager: José Manuel de la Torre Current [.

Getty Images

By CALEB SONNELAND

In another week of unlikely goal-scorers, center back Patrick Ianni and midfielder Lamar Neagle got on the score sheet for the travelling Seattle Sounders to deal Real Salt Lake its second home loss in over two years.

To be quite honest, we don't know who's going to start for the Seattle Sounders when they try to end Real Salt Lake's 29-match home unbeaten streak. An already confusing set of circumstances is made worse by the fact that this is the third match in eight days. Rather than give you a projected starting lineup, we're going with more of a preferred starting lineup.

(Note: Again, I've been trying to get this up for a while, but technical glitches have stopped me)

There's really two ways to look at the Gold Cup Callups: as an MLS fan, or as a USA fan.

For MLS fans, it's good and bad. The league saw 36 total callups, seven of which were for the US.

Here is a list of Major League Soccer players selected to participate in the 2011 Gold Cup. The Gold Cup begins on June 5th and ends on June 25th.

MLS Gold Cup Invites

Chicago Fire
Marco Pappa Guatemala

Colorado Rapids
Omar Cummings Jamaica
Tyrone Marshall -

Columbus Crew
Robbie Rogers USA

DC United
Dejan Jakovic Canada

Houston Dynamo
Andre Hainault Canada
Jermaine Taylor Jamaica
Je-Vaughn Watson Jamaica

New England Revolution
Shalrie Joseph Grenada
Benny Feilhaber USA

New York Red Bulls
Dwayne De Rosario Canada
Dane Richards Jamaica
Rafa Márquez Mexico
Juan Agudelo USA
Tim Ream USA

Los Angeles Galaxy
Donovan Ricketts Jamaica
Landon Donovan USA

Philadelphia Union
Carlos Ruiz Guatemala

Portland Timbers
Steve Purdy El Salvador

Real Salt Lake
Will Johnson Canada
Alvaro Saborio Costa Rica
Arturo Alvarez El Salvador
Nick Rimando USA

San Jose Earthquakes
Ryan Johnson Jamaica
Chris Wondolowski USA

Sporting Kansas City
Craig Rocastle Grenada
Stéphane Auvray Guadeloupe
Roger Espinoza Honduras
Shavar Thomas Jamaica

Toronro FC
Julian de Guzman Canada
Dicoy Williams Jamaica

Vancouver Whitecaps
Terry Dunfield Canada

I saw this list over at MLSSoccer.com and felt it was worth re-posting here for you all. I know after yesterday's call-up news for the Gold Cup a few of you were wanting a list of all MLS players called into action this summer.

So far it looks like New York, Kansas City, Salt Lake and even New England getting hammered by the call-ups.

EL SALVADOR
1 Miguel Angel Montes 02/12/80 GK2 Moises Xavier Garcia 26/06/90 DF3 Marvin Rene Gonzalez 17/04/82 DF4 Steve Purdy 02/05/85 MD5 Victor Samuel Turcios 04/13/88 MD6 Shawn Martin 15/02/87 MD7 Ramon Sanchez 25/05/82 MD8 William Osael Romero 18/04/86 MD9 Rudis Corrales 11/06/79 AT10 Eliseo Quintanilla 02/05/83 MD11 Rodolfo Zelaya 07/03/88 AT12 Arturo Alvarez 28/06/85 MD13 Deris Areil Umanzor 01/07/80 DF14 Dennis Jonathan Alas 01/10/85 MD15 Edwin Sanchez 02/21/90 MD16 Jaime Enrique Alas 07/30/89 MD17 Mark Lester Blanco 01/17/89 AT18 Dagoberto Portillo 16/11/79 GK19 Reynaldo Hernandez 09/11/84 DF20 Andres Flores 31.

With today's announcement of the United States Gold Cup roster the region's most important edition (the winner goes to the Confederations Cup), it becomes apparent that the Seattle Sounders are poised to be an MLS side that can take advantage of weakened rosters throughout the league for nearly a month.

By Andrew Villegas Every year, we working stiffs await with eager anticipation the day when MLS salaries are released. We crunch numbers and either feel good or bad about how much money professional soccer players in America make. Also we feel better or worse about how much money we make ourselves. With that in mind, below [.

RSL were good. They sold their joint out on a weeknight for a competition that's only just registered on the lay MLS fan's radar. They got a fantastic result away in Mexico. They went toe to toe with an opponent of superior quality over two legs. And that quality told in one moment that undid RSL. A late flurry couldn't find them the solitary goal they needed to take the next step on the world stage.

RSL were good. They sold their joint out on a weeknight for a competition that's only just registered on the lay MLS fan's radar. They got a fantastic result away in Mexico. They went toe to toe with an opponent of superior quality over two legs. And that quality told in one moment that undid RSL. A late flurry couldn't find them the solitary goal they needed to take the next step on the world stage.

Recently, I looked at every team from the past five years in my April 1 column on the subject. I've since gone back and done it for every year and every team, though I'm still not 100% sure that I got every single nationality change. At least those from American to foreign, and vice versa.
There's Arturo Alvarez, Jeff Cunningham, Taylor Graham, Pablo Mastroeni, and Preki.

When Real Salt Lake hosts the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions League final next week, it will do so sitting in the driver's seat.

Javier Morales scored an equalizer in the 89th minute to give RSL a 2-2 draw with Monterrey in the first leg of their final matchup in Mexico.

Photo by Rick Ostentoski/ISIphotos.com

By AVI CREDITOR

The first full week of action is in the books, and some of the heavy hitters have left us a little disappointed.

Last season's fantasy darlings David Ferreira, Chris Wondolowski, Landon Donovan, Steve Zakuani, Fredy Montero and Alvaro Saborio have a combined -4 points, with Donovan, Zakuani and Montero each already playing two games.

After a season-opening victory, Real Salt Lake maintained its spot atop the SBI MLS Power Rankings, although change could potentially be in the air after this weekend's matches.

RSL and the Los Angeles Galaxy, who held firm at No. 2, do battle in the marquee matchup of the weekend, even though some of the bigger names (Landon Donovan, Alvaro Saborio) won't be there because of international duty.