Fresh off a round of 16 exit in the World Cup at the helm of Chilé, a source with ties to Bielsa's native Argentina has informed me that the USSF is pursuing Marcelo Bielsa to take over as manager of the U.S. National Team. Bielsa has also received interest from other countries, including Japan, Mexico, and an extension offer from Chilé.

Wizards fans finally got to see the exciting, attractive, and attacking soccer that was promised by Curt Onalfo when he was named coach before the 2007 season. Who knew it wouldn't appear until Onalfo was actually on the opposite sideline for KC. For the first time since August of 2006, the Wizards won a match by more than 3 goals as they took out Onalfo's new team, DC United 4-0 at CAB to open the 2010 season.

When Stuart Holden and Ricardo Clark both made the jump to Europe over the offseason, Dominic Kinnear's job became infinitely more difficult.

In Thursday night's 2-1 win against Real Salt Lake, Houston showed they remain a work in progress -- something that most clubs are dealing with.

It was a bittersweet moment watching Eddie Gavin of the Columbus Crew score the first goal in the 6th minute of their away game against the San Jose Earthquakes. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio and my family were season ticket holders from the inaugural MLS season in 1996 to last year when they moved to Phoenix, AZ.

France improbably seems the epicenter of U.S. World Cup news today.

U.S. striker Charlie Davies endured his first tackle and scored his first goal today as he trained with French team Souchaux.

(AP Photo)

And UCLA product and defender Carlos Bocanegra of Alta Loma, right, had this to say about the chances of the U.

Onalfo was all about his commitment to attacking soccer when he started in KC. The offensive production went down each season he was there.
He was all about keeping United's tradition alive at DCU. The team went out and signed a big Australian striker, Danny Allsopp, who was recently described as "absolutely hopeless" and had his biggest success at Notts County.

Fernando Rossi loved the game of soccer.

From his playing days to his decades of service as a high school soccer coach, to his years as the father who molded his son into an international caliber talent, Rossi embraced the beautiful game throughout his life and countless people are better off because of it.

With J Hutcherson -- It's too much of a stretch to say that sorry defense will be the story of Major League Soccer in 2010, but it was certainly the story of Week Three. Pick a game, and it's likely that the result had as much to do with the losing defense as it did with overwhelming attacking soccer.

Friend of the blog Max Zeger dropped a fairly large bombshell on Twitter today: per an Argentinian source, Chile head man Marcelo Bielsa is a candidate to take over for Bob Bradley. The Argentinian's resume, which includes a stint as Argentina manager, makes him an intriguing possibility.
The news comes with more than a handful of salt.

Just published another article on the USA 10 Kit: my overview of the averages for shots, APT, and fouls committed for teams that win, lose, or draw. Check it out here.

While I was working on that article, I found a post on Attacking Soccer from last month that had a number of interesting quick-hit statistics about the World Cup.

While we're clearly late in joining this discussion, we feel this news is too significant to pass up.

After a successful World Cup, in many regards, rumors swirled about big moves for our biggest players. Landon Donovan was headed to Europe, Benny Feilhaber was going to escape the Danish Second Division, and Michael Bradley, for the third year in a row, was an absolute certainty to move to England.

For 106 minutes, the Regis Rangers and Metro State Roadrunners played evenly on Wednesday afternoon.

In the 107th, freshman Rachel McMahon separated the two sides.

Her golden goal with 3:59 remaining in the second overtime period gave Regis a 3-2 win and signalled that the Roadrunners no longer occupy the roost in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

As most of us have been wondering or hoping that these playoffs are going to be fun, exciting and worth watching, I believe right now we haven't been disappointed at all. There has been some exciting and attacking soccer that most of us never thought would happen till the conference finals.

So yesterday evening I had a brief conversation with someone in MLS who tends to know things. He said that while he doesn't think anything is brewing quite yet, it would be wrong of DC United supporters to think that Marco Etcheverry has no chance of ending up as the team's head coach in 2011.

There were some interesting quotes in the Washington Post today regarding some of the doubts supporters likely have regarding Onalfo's previous head coaching record at Kansas City. Steve Goff reports:

"I know people will question that, but situations are different everywhere," United President Kevin Payne said.

President & CEO Kevin Payne said in a press release - "Our first priority was to find someone who shares the club's long-standing philosophy of attacking soccer – and Curt absolutely does."
Curt Onalfo told the Washington Post - "D.C. set the standard in this league and the goal has got to be to return to that level.

All in all the 2-2 draw was probably a fair result. After an uninspiring first half the Fire rebounded to outplay Colorado in the second half although it wasn't exactly attractive attacking soccer by any means. Of major concern is the gaping hole of non productivity currently being provided in the middle of the pitch by the Fire central midfielders.

Saturday was the biggest day in Major League Soccer history with 16 teams involved in 8 games for the first time. The weather around the country was fairly good ensuring sizable crowds in most venues. There were only two nationally televised games (ESPN did not have a game this week) making for a busy (and generally successful) weekend for Direct Kick and Matchday Live.

Chivas USA 3 San Jose Earthquakes 2

Phil Collin filed the game story.

"You got to win to get love," someone named RB had scrawled on the Chivas USA locker room chalkboard.

The quote from "Talledega Nights" by Ricky Bobby was actually written by SK - Sacha Kljestan.

Union/Independence/Local/MLS

Reason 83 for why I love Peter Nowak: He gives his former club shit for employing defensive tactics against the Union. "We were surprised from the minute the game started that the team that's supposed to play attacking soccer played with 10 guys in the back, behind the ball.

Photo by Tracy Allen/ISIphotos.com

By ANTHONY ZILIS

Practice was a little different this week for the Chicago Fire than it had been in previous weeks.

No longer do the Fire have a 42-day winless streak hanging over their heads after defeating Philadelphia on Saturday at Toyota Park, and a more chipper feeling was the result.

Photo by Tracy Allen/ISIphotos.com

By ANTHONY ZILIS

Practice was a little different this week for the Chicago Fire than it had been in previous weeks.

No longer do the Fire have a 42-day winless streak hanging over their heads after defeating Philadelphia on Saturday at Toyota Park, and a more chipper feeling was the result.

Steve Ralston is back with the New England Revolution. Revs fans are rejoicing the return of one of their favorite, most dependable and talented players.

As one of those fans, I should be screaming, "Thank god, the Ralston-forcements are here!" And to a degree I am, but only to a degree.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The U.S. was robbed.

In the books, it will go down as a 2-2 draw to Slovenia, but we know better.

A Malian referee named Koman Coulibaly has stolen the greatest comeback in U.S. soccer history.

After going down 2-0 to Slovenia, the U.

The 2010 World Cup keeps rolling on, but for U.S. national team fans, the reality is still sinking in that the United States' exciting World Cup run is over.

Success or failure? Tournament to remember or tournament to forget? While the disappointment of Saturday's loss to Ghana is sure to leave the lingering tinge of failure, we have to ask ourselves if the tournament the team did play was memorable and whether it exceeded or surpassed our expectations.

The Quarter- Finals are nearly upon us and it has thrown up some fantastic match-ups. Their are only three Continents left in the World Cup, Africa, Europe and the mighty South Americans. Here's a look at my predictions for this the final eight of the 2010 World Cup.

BRAZIL v HOLLAND

Brazil have looked unstoppable since they narrowly defeated the North Koreans 2-1 in their opening match, with that goal the only one conceded by the Brazilians thus far.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sebastien Le Toux is great, and referee Jason Anno is not.

Philadelphia Union walked away Saturday afternoon with a 1-1 draw against the New England Revolution in a match decided by one of the most bizarre sequences seen at PPL Park. Up 1-0, thanks to a Sebastien Le Toux, the Union saw the game decided by two questionable calls and a strange bounce.

The Philadelphia Independence will be in the WPS playoffs.

Though they dropped their third straight match last night, the Independence's strong start to the year is going to be enough to see them into the postseason thanks to Sky Blue FC's 1-1 tie with first place FC Gold Pride.

The Chicago Red Stars, already eliminated from playoff contention, came into last night's match determined to defend their home turf.

The Fire head into Philadelphia facing another must win situation. After consecutive draws that felt like losses the team should realize that time is quickly running out if they are to make a run for one of the remaining possible playoff spots. The first contest between the two sides resulted in a 2-1 Fire victory that Union manager Peter Nowak was not happy with.

Commerce City, Colo. Omar Cummings and Conor Casey powered a potent attack as the Colorado Rapids claimed a 3-0 victory over a listless New England Revolution Saturday night at Dick's Sporting Goods Stadium.

Cummings put the Rapids on the board early with a 5th minute goal while Casey followed up in the 35th minute to give Colorado a commanding lead before the half.

Scott Lorenz managed to get a shot off despite being held. Lorenz had the best chance of the evening for the Stars by fired high over the net. - All photos by Jeremy Olson - www.digitalgopher.net

The score line of last nights 0-0 draw between the Carolina Railhawks and the NSC Minnesota Stars certainly didn't tell the whole story.

The rivalry continues. The Blue Jays lost 1-3 to Catholic back on September 16th in a game that flowed well and featured attacking soccer.

#1 Springfield Catholic -
#3 Greenwood Blue Jays -

Class 1 District 9 title game is 4:00 pm today at Richland.

#1 Crocker Lions (21-3) -
#3 Laquey Hornets (7-11)

The winners will play Tuesday in the Sectional match in Springfield.

So, Richard at Pitchinvasion waxed epic on the growing relationships between major media outlets and the accursed, insurrectionist bloggers. However, he left out one very real possibility and one very simmering critique: how many newspapers merely recycle the bland stories from the Associated Press in place of original content?

By Tony Edwards – SAN JOSE, CA (Nov 8, 2010) US Soccer Players -- Two teams, separated by thousands of miles, that consider themselves more than just organizations, but institutions. Coincidentally, two teams that wear red and white. Two multilingual coaches taking their first steps into club management expected to succeed immediately.

Post season training will wrap up at Toyota Park next Friday ahead of the MLS expansion draft and an offseason chock full of big decisions to be made. The next few months will provide an interesting stretch before players return for training camp in late January. A lot of questions have been raised and few answers have been provided so far.

Colorado 2-1 FC Dallas

There may not have been many star players in the MLS Cup final and the teams were not the first choices to make it this far, but this year's game made up for it with quick pace, physical play and attacking soccer that lasted the full 120+ minutes needed to decide a champion.

That's right! We have secured a brand new pair of Nike CR7 Safari soccer boots for one lucky AttackingSoccer winner. This is something we had been intending to do for a while but now seems to be a great time for a giveaway, right before the holiday season.

The pair up for grabs come in a size 10, but we are willing to try trade them in for the a size of the winners choosing.

This is part 4 of an ongoing series. Parts 1-3 reviewed the first two seasons, and now I'm going to explore some ideas in a little more depth. I start with a look at the issue that simply won't go away among segments of the Sounders fan/supporter community.

The playmaker, the #10, the CAM, it is widely believed that this is the role that drives attacking soccer.

2010 just keeps getting better and better for South Korean football and it could end on a real high if Seongnam Ilwha Chunma defeat European champions Inter Milan in the Club World Cup semi-final in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
It is a rare chance for a team from the K-League to mix it with the best in the world and fans back in East Asia will be eagerly tuning in to see if the seven-time champions can shock one of the biggest names in the world of football.

2010 was one of the great years in the history of soccer in the Philadelphia region with a bounty of riches across all levels of the game. Some of the reasons why this was such a great year for Philly soccer are obvious, some less so. Let's start with the obvious.

Professional Soccer

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Big duh, right?