Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Several Union players talk about preseason training at YSC SPorts last week. The team landed in Orlando on Sunday.

Danny Califf, acknowledging that only he and Brian Carroll are the only players remaining on the Union who are older than 27, tells MLSsoccer.

Neymar and Brazil struggled to get by a tough Mexico defense. (PRESSWIRE)

If you follow my tweets you probably realized something yesterday afternoon, I was at Cowboys Stadium to see Mexico take on Brazil. A massive pro-Mexico crowd was on hand (the largest soccer crowd in the Texas history) to see El Tri down Brazil 2-0 thanks to two first half goals by Giovanni dos Santos and Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez.

Will Jones sport the armband again? Will he have a better first touch?

When we last met out protagonist the USMNT it was doing battle north of the border, putting out a tiny skirmish, so to speak, that was attempting to be kindled by Venezuela.

The States controlled "the battle" and at the death put the South American foe to the proverbial sword, 1-0 after a dominating display especially in midfield against an overmatched opponent.

What a game in store for us this afternoon. As was said earlier this week a barometer game. A resurgent Sunderland looking to continue their very surprising run against an Arsenal team confident as a result of last week's big win.

And yet, in my opinion both appear to be skating on thin ice.

On the twelfth of June 1980, England played Belgium in the finals of the European Championships their first match in the finals of a major tournament for ten years. It turned out to be a match that acted as a barometer for the state of the game in England in several different respects, and none of them were particularly positive.

Undeniably the scorer of the greatest goal against Newcastle

What gap? A win tonight will take us to within a point of them and it won't be a gap in between. It would just be an ant hill or maybe 2 pile of rubbish. Well within our (Arsenal's) civic duty to clear out the thrash in between and not forgetting the thrash that are currently sitting in third.

Santos Laguna showed all the quality expected of them prior to last week's first leg performance. Wednesday night's performance by the best of Mexico was a reminder to all of Major League Soccer that there's a bit of improvement left here in the United States. One game is not a solid barometer, but as good as the Seattle Sounders can be, the performance in their elimination game is one clearly told by the numbers.