Photo: Paul Rudderow

The U.S. women's national team won 14-0 over the Dominican Republic on Friday. Yes, the women's soccer team won by that score. Amy Rodriguez scored five goals.

At halftime, Abby Wambach told her teammates to keep scoring in the Olympic qualifier, despite being up 7-0, because goal differential can impact Olympic qualifying qualifying.

The United States Soccer Federation announced on Friday its end of year awards, with the highest honors of Male Athlete of the Year and Female Athlete of the Year going to US nationals Clint Dempsey and Abby Wambach. Young Male Athlete of the Year and Young Female Athlete of the Year, which can only be [.

FC Dallas was an up-and-down team last season, getting off to a slow start (remember Brek Shea as a fullback) before surging in the summer then falling off a cliff in the fall. The team ended the season on a ...
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First, let us be among many, but hopefully not the last, to wish all our readers a Happy New Year. We wish you blessings, good fortune and health in 2012. We begin a comprehensive look at the Men's U-23 Olympic Team this week, and we're very excited about those pieces given our background as a [...]

First, we'd like to wish our own holiday wishes to our readers and new visitors. Thanks for making 2011 a special year at The Yanks Are Coming, and we hope to provide more solid coverage, analysis and unique perspectives on both the USMNT and USWNT in 2012. Soccer has always had a place at Christmas- [.

Philadelphia Union

Kerith Gabriel reports that the Philadelphia Union will announce a "blockbuster deal" with Panamanian international Gabriel Gomez. Gabriel says that Gomez is the "the same box-to-box defender/midfielder that was a beast in Panama's 2-0 win over the United States in the group stage of this summer's Gold Cup.

By Puck Ladies and Gents, welcome back into the Happy Hour. This week has been a series of disappointments for Puck and company. Both Manchester teams uneventfully crashed out of the UEFA Champions League, and Charlie Weis is leaving the Sunshine State to coach the woeful Kansas Jayhawks. Needless to say, many alcoholic libations are [.

Houston Dynamo fans will be a bit disappointed when they wake up this morning to discover that Brad Davis was not named the 2011 MLS MVP, but that disappointment will be tempered a bit since Dwayne De Rosario, once an important member of the Dynamo, is this season's MVP. In fact, the last time De Rosario won the MVP, in 2007, he was a member of the back-to-back MLS Cup winning Dynamo.

By Andrew Villegas So, MLS finally got what it wanted all along from this season: High ranking clubs, one from each conference Eastern and Western, fighting it out in the MLS Cup. They just had to move a traditionally "western" city – aren't they all western in Texas? into the eastern division to do [.

By Garrett McInnis Prior to the France match, I had completely unrealistic expectations. The same can be said of my expectations for Jurgen Klinsmann's first few months as manager of the National Team. I think it's safe to say that most American soccer fans got a little too excited by Klinsy's hire. Having said all [.

Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Union

Danny Califf and Sebastien Le Toux both agree that the hope among the players is that there will not be as much player movement in the closed season. Le Toux said, "I hope with the good result we got this year, we'll get most of the guys back and move on and continue.

Union

The Union has become well-known for its innovative use of social networking tools. The latest bit of cleverness is this: when their Facebook page gets 92,012 likes, they will unveil the new designs for the first and second kit. You can 'like' the Union by clicking here. As of this writing, there are only 6,500 'likes' to go.

Morning. Today's date is 11.11.11. Unless you live in the US in which case it's 11.11.11. Weirdos, putting the month and day in the wrong order.

And today is also kind of special because if you take the year you were born, add the number of the day you were born, then add 30, divide by 2, multiply it by your shoe size and then take away how long it's been since Sp*rs won the league then you get .

By Jon Levy The Yanks are over in Europe for a long weekend with their cool Uncle Jurgen; supposedly he's going to take them out to discotheques, let them drink and talk to girls, and really help them find themselves. Meanwhile, they're tasked with making some sort of progress as a national team in the [.

Photo: Courtesy of Philadelphia Union

It didn't end the way we wanted, but, oh, what a season. As Adam Cann wrote in our match report for Thurday night's loss in Houston, "After ten months, the Union ended their season where it began. In their wake they leave every reasonable expectation, and in the city they represent they will find nothing but love.

Arsenal disregards all conventional wisdom and messes with Texas. For a month, at least.

Brek Shea's season may have ended when the New York Red Bulls knocked FC Dallas out of playoff contention last week, but the 6'3" winger will spend a month training with Arsenal after the upcoming international friendlies in France and Slovenia (November 11 and 15).

The silly season seems to have started a little earlier this year, and there are numerous Arsenal rumours going around even though there are still two months until the mid-season transfer window. The first bit of official Arsenal transfer news is that the very promising American international Brek Shea has been booked in to train [.

American standout Brek Shea has secured an offseason training arrangement with Premier League champions, exciting fans who have followed the 21 year old's quick rise to fame.

Shea currently plies his trade in Major League Soccer for FC Dallas, and has already found himself in Jurgen Klinsmann's United States national team squad.

Photo: Earl Gardner

Union v Houston playoff watch

So, what time exactly will Sunday's game be kicking off? Marc Narducci reports, "If the Los Angeles Galaxy face the Colorado Rapids in the Western Conference semifinal, Sunday's Union game will start at 4. If the Galaxy play the New York Red Bulls or Columbus Crew, game time for the Union will be 5 p.

Tonight MLS shifts from the regular season to the postseason as two teams that could have entries in the DSM-IV face off on Fox Soccer Channel at 9 PM ET. The New York Red Bulls will try to advance to face ...
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Playoff update

If the playoffs started today, the Philadelphia Union would be the second seed in the Eastern Conference, level on 48 points with Kansas City but with an inferior win-loss-draw record. Kansas City defeated New York 2–0 on Saturday to draw level with the Union, which means New York has the last wild card spot with 43 points going into Thursday's game with the Union.

I saw this quote over on Buzz's site (3rdDegree.net) about the whole Brek Shea rumor situation. I'm like most down here in Dallas that cover the team, you know Shea will get sold eventually to a club overseas but it won't be anytime in the immediate future. Yes, he's doing well on the National team level, which only drives his price up more.

1. Much like the Project 2010 Blog, Oguchi Onyewu will rise from the ashes today, getting a rare start. He won't quite look like his old self (see: Oguchi Onyewu, Confederations Cup 2009), but it will be promising. He'll get beat where he shouldn't on a couple of occasions, but he'll show some ability to recover, which he's been lacking for a while.

1. Much like the Project 2010 Blog, Oguchi Onyewu will rise from the ashes today, getting a rare start. He won't quite look like his old self (see: Oguchi Onyewu, Confederations Cup 2009), but it will be promising. He'll get beat where he shouldn't on a couple of occasions, but he'll show some ability to recover, which he's been lacking for a while.

Anyone who watches MLS knows Brek Shea is having a breakout season. And as much as the British media may want to dismiss MLS and its talent, it is now beginning to it pay attention. Sky Sports is reporting that ...
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Apparently Brek Shea has a mess of foreign suitors; they go by the names Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Manchester City.* I once had foreign suitors, English women with names like Lucy and Karen. Now? It's just the Pakistani woman from the credit card call center who calls to tell me my payment is late.

1. Much like the Project 2010 Blog, Oguchi Onyewu will rise from the ashes today, getting a rare start. He won't quite look like his old self (see: Oguchi Onyewu, Confederations Cup 2009), but it will be promising. He'll get beat where he shouldn't on a couple of occasions, but he'll show some ability to recover, which he's been lacking for a while.

1. Much like the Project 2010 Blog, Oguchi Onyewu will rise from the ashes today, getting a rare start. He won't quite look like his old self (see: Oguchi Onyewu, Confederations Cup 2009), but it will be promising. He'll get beat where he shouldn't on a couple of occasions, but he'll show some ability to recover, which he's been lacking for a while.

By Jon Levy A month ago it looked like we were in for what could pass for a marquee CONCACAF friendly. Now that's wrong for a couple reasons. Aside from the fact that no "marquee CONCACAF friendly" outside of U.S./Mexico exists, both the U.S. and Honduras have now both been hit with the injury bug. [.

Por snedecor
Igual que los Cleveland Cavaliers apostaron por LeBron Raymond James por, entre otras cosas, ser de Ohio, puede que la condición de texano de Dane Brekken Shea pesara mucho para que fuera elegido en segunda posición del Draft 2008 por FC Dallas. Como King James, Brek Shea fue directo a la liga profesional sin pisar el campus: tenía 17 años cuando firmó con Adidas y la MLS un contrato garantizado por 3 temporadas, con un sueldo creciente que llegaría hasta los 100.

Last night I laid out the pros and cons of Dwayne De Rosario winning the MLS MVP award. Everyone on each side of the argument can agree that a De Ro MVP would be unprecedented, as he would be the ...
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Brek Shea has racked up minutes this year for FC Dallas. His team has played in MLS, the US Open Cup and the CONCACAF Champions League. Additionally, he's put in impressive minutes for the US National Team. This has turned into a career year for the winger. We caught up with Brek to discuss his recent success.

Brek Shea sits atop the MVP race, can he hold on to it? (Getty Images)

With only a few weeks left in the season the awards race in Major League Soccer is pretty dang hot. The MVP race alone is very interesting this season. In my book if I had to vote today for the top three in the MVP race would be fairly simple but there are a few dark horse candidates to keep a watch on.

The US National Team walked away from friendlies against Costa Rica and Belgium with two 1-0 losses, but with Jurgen Klinsmann still kicking the tires of the program he inherited, it is the individual performances that are of greatest importance for US fans as the red, white and blue builds toward qualification for the 2014 World Cup.

Jurgen has some work to do.When the US Men's National Team took on Belgium, it was yet another learning experience. The team was coming off a 1-0 loss against Costa Rica and was hoping to improve on the performance. They did not. The Americans fell 1-0 to a remarkably powerful Belgium side. Still, there were several things I noticed throughout this match and really over the past two matches.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Union

The Union are still playing coy about whether or not Faryd Mondragon left the game because of a broken finger.

Reaction to the Union's dispiriting loss on Saturday to Real Salt Lake from MLSsoccer.com, the Inquirer, the Salt Lake Tribune, RSL Soapbox, SB Nation, the Brotherly Game, the IllegitimateS, Buzz on Broad, SBI.

I know it was just a friendly. I know it wasn't the full team. I know it doesn't mean anything. Yet I still found myself feeling a bit like Wesley in the Pit of Despair, torture device and all.

The real agony is not in losing 1-0 to Costa Rica in a friendly. Nor is it Ian Darke's insistence on referring to them as Honduras.

By Jon Levy Jurgen Klinsmann welcomes most of the important European-based pieces of his new national team as he looks to build on the Mexico draw in matches two and three of his USMNT regime. But before we get into the Costa Rica match, some news and notes are in order. Clint Dempsey did not [...]

Hurricanes, goals and a new record holder. It was a pretty solid week in Major League Soccer when the dust all settled. My weekly recap is posted over at SBNation.com. Feel free to give it a look.

Jeff Cunningham is now the all-time goal scoring king in MLS. His PK against Seattle was number 134.

1. With a new coach in place, there's an awful lot of uncertainty about what's to come. I think it's best if we just get the obvious, can't-miss prediction out of the way: Our coach will wear slacks for the first time in nearly five years.

Slacks it was. Klinsmann elected to go with the business-casual, polo-and-slacks combo.