By Dr. Raf Crowley As I wrote a couple weeks ago, Chad Ocho Cinco was going to tryout with MLS' Sporting KC. Numerous media outlets have reported that he has managed to "make" the reserve squad. Briefly, I wanted to follow-up on that story. Many have argued that Chad's tryout was another publicity stunt.

I wasn't going to bother with the "news" that the New York Cosmos organization paraded a virtual Eric Cantona as Director of Soccer, but enough people have asked for my take that I agreed to discuss it. Specifically I was asked, if Seattle fans are supposed to be plastic, than what does that make Cosmos fans?

The Ashley Young rumours are gaining more momentum and it looks as though the player could sign today. Last week RoM briefly discussed the pros and cons of signing Young, given that at turning 26, he's hardly set the world alight.

My thinking is that Antonio Valencia had done much less when we brought him in for £16m a couple of summers ago and look how important he's turned out to be.

Join the guys after an extend break as they look back at United's unbeaten streak and the dreadful loss to the San Jose Earthquakes in RFK Stadium, Th boys also look at the rest of the MLS and briefly talk about the US Mens national team disappointing performance in the 2011 Gold Cup. Photo: Matt Mathai.

Perhaps the most shocking relegation of this past season in Europe was Sampdoria, which went from the Champions League to Serie B in the snap of a year-long, clear-out-the-best-players finger. Over the past few years? Possibly Corinthians, which bounced rightback with a Real Ronaldo Revolution.

By Alan Duffy

Ronaldinho having some 'me time' whilst training with the Brazilian national team

One of football's more colourful characters, Brazilian legend Ronaldinho, must be feeling rather embarrassed right now, after an x-rated webcam video of the star erm, giving himself a 'helping hand', was leaked on the internet, in true Dirty Den/Leslie Grantham style.

LONDON, England Ben Foster handed under-pressure Avram Grant a lifeline with a huge error to gift 10-man West Ham a narrow 2-1 lead going into the second leg of their Carling Cup semi-final against Birmingham. The England stopper, who produced a series of stunning saves in the first half, failed to control Carlton Cole's [.

Some quick news to get you started on just a Suuuuper Draft sort of day.

• Just Super

Only a little from TSG...

MLS SuperDraft day today. Unfortunately, we're not your best resource today....but I am hearing that "there is a lot of speculation as to the 1st pick.

Alan Pardew has given a long interview to ex England defender, Danny Mills for the BBC's "Late Kick Off". Mills played for Pardew briefly (on loan) during the Newcastle manager's troubled spell at Charlton Athletic. In the interview, Pardew speaks on how he had to take the job, but only after making sure that it [.

In which we talk at length, briefly, about Torres, Carroll, Liverpool, Chelsea, and... West Ham? Neal Thurman: Carroll for 35M? Really? Jeremy Spitzberg: seems a bit desperate, doesn't it? Neal Thurman: really does Jeremy Spitzberg: how did it get to the point where LIV have no strikers other than Torres Jeremy Spitzberg: when they've been without Torres for such long stretches?

With Paul Scholes retirement we are invited again to confront the nature of footballing greatness. Over on TiFF someone has made the point that Best and Charlton are legends, not Scholes. But surely this is incorrect.

Footballing history as we know it is based on 120 or so years of competitive play.

Something that the Seattle Sounders do has been percolating in the background. It is a thing for which I have been quite involved. Democracy in Sports is part of the core of this organization, but has been a very nebulous term. The Alliance Council is looking to change that. Last Saturday we met with many representatives from ownership, briefly discussed the proposed Constitution, ratified both unanimously and now await the club to vet it legally as well as provide some clear direction as to what exactly we can do.

With Jared off identifying the various aromas present in whatever wine he's drinking somewhere in California, Timm Davis (aka Prixfixeonline) steps in to fill the void. Jason and Timm start with Klinsmann's first USMNT roster, talk to Elliott Turner, author of the e-book An Illustrated Guide to Soccer and Spanish, cover a bunch of MLS happpenings while digressing about young American talent, touch briefly on the "return" of the Cosmos, then close out with talk of Kitsap, Jozy, and Josh Gatt.

Now's not a particularly good time to be a Palmeiras fan. Turns out it's not a particularly good time to be a Palmeiras player, either. Combine the two and you get the inevitable: news reports.

Displeased with the current state of affairs in Palmeirasland, some undoubtedly wonderful fans decided to attack a player as he left the official store.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored his fourth La Liga hat-trick of the season as Real Madrid easily swept aside ten-man Osasuna 7-1 to move three points clear of Barcelona, who drew 2-2 at Athletic Club.

Ángel Di María set up goals for Ronaldo, Pepe and Gonzalo Higuaín in the first half, with Ibrahima briefly levelling the scores at 1-1 for the visitors.

By Chris Wright

In which Marcelo Sarmiento of Union de Santa Fe (Southampton fans may recognise the name, Sarmiento briefly didn't play for Saints back in 2006) goes in for a challenge with Newells Old Boy's Fabian Munoz, only to look down and find his foot pointing in what can only be described as 'the wrong direction' if you'll excuse the medical jargon.

By Phil Gregory

Before I kick off the preview proper, I thought I'd briefly mention the Commons Inquiry into Football Governance. As long-term readers will know, about a year ago I put together a submission for it, and wrote it up in a series of articles for Untold. What was great though was the recognition [.

I've been banging the drum about the need for new signings for a while now, so I suppose it's time for me to actually come up with a few suggestions. I'm going to stick to players I've actually seen play - a revolutionary concept on the internet, I know.
* Gary Cahill
I suppose this is just worthy mentioning briefly, if nothing else because it's not going to happen.

LONDON, England — Soccer clubs have enough trouble keeping their players in line. Now they must contend with disruptive mascots. An English league match was briefly delayed Monday by a mascot staging a sit-down protest in support of a feathered rival, Sky Sports reported. Preston's Deepdale Duck caused a flap on Saturday by reportedly trying [.

DOHA, Qatar The 15th Asian Cup kicked off Friday with a brief, colourful opening ceremony in the Khalifa Stadium in Doha Friday. Flag bearers representing the 16 participating nations performed a dance routine that was accompanied by a spectacular light show that had the capacity crowd in the 40,000 seater-stadium cheering.

COLUMBUS, Ohio Columbus Crew signed forward Tom Heinemann to a multi-year contract Friday. Heinemann joins the Crew after spending the last two years with the Charleston Battery of the United Soccer Leagues and Carolina RailHawks of the NASL. He trained with the Crew briefly early in the 2009 preseason.

Tottenham, or should I say revolving door hotspur if rumours ever came to fruition have been linked with yet another player. But this time it's an even more stupid one, which, in true ITS fashion, we will mock...

From the mouth of Moyes:

"I spoke with Harry Redknapp briefly before the transfer window opened.

Join the guys and special guest Joe Mauceri on the first podcast of 2011 as they look back at all of the off-season moves by the Black-adn-Red, including United's draft picks and player moves. The guys also go over some other league news and briefly talk about the US Men's National team draw with Chile at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA.

By Chris Wright

After several weeks of mounting conjecture, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has finally confirmed that he is indeed interested in striking a deal with Southampton over prodigious 17-year-old forward Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who is currently valued by the League One side at a whopping £10 million.

LONDON, England Holders Chelsea needed a late equalizer by Salomon Kalou to snatch a 1-1 draw that kept it in the FA Cup after a Louis Saha header had put Everton on course for a fourth-round upset at Goodison Park. In another of the weekend's five all-Premier League ties Aston Villa beat Blackburn Rovers [.

ANTALYA, Turkey Nana Attakora scored the team's lone goal Wednesday as Toronto FC played Partizan Belgrade to a 1-1 draw to open the Major League Soccer pre-season. The Canadian defender connected on a corner kick in the sixth minute, but Toronto couldn't hold onto its lead as Nemanja Tomic tied the game for the [.

LONDON, England Last August, at the start of the most eagerly-awaited Manchester season in years, the respective strengths of dominant United and big-spending City were personalised in the talents of one-time Old Trafford team-mates Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez. Since then both icons of their respective clubs have endured the turbulence of contract disputes [.

I wasn't going to explain my absence since the weekend, but I may as well now. I've been lying low for a few because of an incident with a garbage truck pulling out on wet cobblestone and a kicked up small rock that made a beeline for my eyeball. I never saw it coming, was sitting on my bike looking a bit the other way (which probably helped it not be too bad in the end).

NUREMBERG, Germany — Nuremberg extended its winning run in the Bundesliga to four games on Friday, when goals from Julian Schieber, Robert Mak and Almog Cohen earned a 3-0 home win over Eintracht Frankfurt. Frankfurt has yet to win in the Bundesliga in 2011, and has been outscored by 11 goals to none since the [.

There was a point not too long ago where we had every reason to worry about United's depth and how far it'd be able to carry us this season.

It can still be said that our depth isn't what we'd like it to be, or what it will hopefully be come the start of next season, but Saturday's 2-0 win over Fulham certainly offered up plenty of reason to feel confident about how our squad can see us through to a successful stretch run.

For the time being at least, transfer gossip is turning away from Spurs' need for new strikers and looking at the issues in our defence. Injuries to Kaboul, Corluka and briefly Gallas have highlighted the problems in having two long term victims such as King and Woodgate in the squad. Irrespective of the club's plans for those two, it seems likely that Harry will move for at least one new defender in the summer.

via www.chicago-fire.com

Right now, the Fire's hottest position battle is at Center Back. It was widely anticipated that opening day starters Josip Mikulic and Cory Gibbs would start once Gibbs had recovered from a hamstring injury. Instead, Carlos de los Cobos felt that Cuesta had earned a place in the lineup and started him over Mikulic.

The Ivory Coast defender Guy Demel was at Arsenal briefly as a 20 year-old, but couldn't settle in London and was very quickly allowed to move on to Germany, playing for ten years in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund and Hamburg. But now, according to ESPN, he is now available on a free transfer and [.

The Ivory Coast defender Guy Demel was at Arsenal briefly as a 20 year-old, but couldn't settle in London and was very quickly allowed to move on to Germany, playing for ten years in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund and Hamburg. But now, according to ESPN, he is now available on a free transfer and [.

From the official site:

Liverpool Football Club today announced they have reached agreement with Blackpool for the transfer of Charlie Adam.

The player will now travel to Merseyside for a medical and to discuss personal terms.

And with that, as well as a fee rumored to be in the range of £8 million, it seems that one of the summer's longest running transfer sagas is finally at an end.

Bravo taking it on the chin... The latest podcast is up. It is actually in two separate parts this week. We missed three weeks because of games, vacations and not so fun life events but we are back. Part 1 - a little long but we talk about a bunch of games, quickly review the matches since the Portland game up through the Newcastle game.

The 5-1
Briefly, because I want to dwell on it as much as you do. But I'll give you one reason for each goal conceded, why I think we were so roundly battered on Sunday:
-Not playing defensive midfielders against such a skillful attacking team.
-Playing instead lazy Croatians in the midfield, one of which can't be arsed to assist the defence and one of which has never assisted the defence.

For our very last Non-League Day related story, David Bauckham travelled up to Middlesex for the Ryman League Premier Division match between Wealdstone and Bury Town.

I was once asked by someone to explain this "football pyramid thing" that I kept banging on about and it was only then, as a follower of non-League football for many years, that it dawned on me that there are many football fans out there who have little or no idea that the Pyramid even exists, let alone what it is all about.

Sheanon Williams has come a long way since he signed with the Union in late August of 2010. Williams is in the midst of a stellar year and he's a player Union fans are glad to have. His physicality and prowess going forward have proven to be both threatening and impressive against opposing teams. We spoke to Sheanon briefly about his season so far and his thoughts on the future.

Mostly for archival purposes. Good to hear the man speak, albeit briefly here, nevertheless.