Adu had some moments.The U.S. Men's National Team opened up 2012 with some very interesting talking points. Certain call ups, certain omissions, scrimmages and of course the obvious questions that accompany such things. First up would be the scrimmage between the full team and the Under 23's.
The senior squad paid a lesson to the U23 Olympic team with a 4-0 dismantling of their younger brothers.

Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

It seems someone has made a PSP app. Who knew?

Philadelphia Union

Look for PSP's Chicago Fire vs. Philadelphia Union match preview later today.

While Danny Califf and Peter Nowak told reporters that they had put the "miscommunication" flap behind them at a meeting earlier in the week, Nowak indicated at Wednesday's press conference that Califf's status for Saturday's game in Chicago was still uncertain.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

Philadelphia Union

Jack McInerney scored in the US U-23 team's 1–1 draw with the USMNT. McInerney, Amobi Okugo, and Freddy Adu started the first half. Zac MacMath and Sheanon Williams started the second half.

John Hackworth says of Tom Brandt, the Union's first pick in the Supplemental Draft, "We wanted to get a quality player in the back and we feel like we did that with Tom Brandt.

Brian Ching is back. It took months for the deal to happen, but the Montreal Impact and Houston Dynamo have finally come to terms that will allow league legend Brian Ching to return home to Houston. This allows the veteran to play with the Orange in the opening of their new stadium. It is a story that has been talked to death, but finally has a resolution.

U.S. Under-23 Men's National Team head coach Caleb Porter has named a 20-player training camp roster to convene March 13 to begin final preparations for the CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying tournament.

The 19-player roster will be finalized March 20, the due date for all participating teams to submit their rosters to CONCACAF.

Of late, there have been many talking points regarding United States Soccer. The senior team has turned in three straight wins, but they've been largely inconsistent in each of these past performances. Prior to those three matches, Jurgen Klinsmann's teams have been hard to describe. We've yet to see a distinctive style out of the senior team and that might prove worrisome.

On Monday, U.S. Olympic Team Head Coach Caleb Porter announced his roster for the upcoming CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying tournament, taking place later this month.

Of the 19 players named to the roster, 13 are currently playing in Major League Soccer.

On Tuesday the 13th, the team will assemble in Nashville to begin training camp.

Photo courtesy of Ethan Erickson/Portland Timbers

Philadelphia Union

Is it power rankings roundup time already? Soccer America has the Union at No. 17. The Union are No. 15 at the Toronto Sun and The Sports Network. At ESPN and ProSoccerTalk the Union is at 14th. SI has the Union at No.

It's looking more and more like something special is going on with the U-23 US Men's National Team. Led by a prodigy-turned-elder-statesman, a team of prodigious talent is turning in to the most exciting group of players to come through the American system in a long time.

Fast start

It took eleven minutes of poking and prodding for the US to take the lead over Cuba on Nashville's LP Field.

Jon Levy You'll have to forgive all of us here at The Yanks Are Coming for getting into a more-than-healthy amount of self-referencing in the coming months. We're coming up on the blog's fourth birthday this summer, TYAC having been created in the wake of a very talented 2008 Olympic soccer team's early and unexpected exit from the Beijing [.

Connor Walsh Caleb Porter has just wrapped up the second of what will be four U-23 training camps ahead of 2012 Olympics Qualifying which begins for the United States this coming March. The teams' first camp, this past November, was held in Duisberg, Germany and due to Porter's commitment to the University of Akron, the [.

The roster for the U.S. U-23 team that will train from Jan. 8-18 at the Home Depot Center was released this afternoon by U.S. Soccer. Head coach Caleb Porter named 22 players for a training camp that will take place in two locations. Carson, California and San Jose, Costa Rica. The team will travel to [.

Neil W. Blackmon Caleb Porter's U-23 side, the January camp edition, fell 4-0 to the Klinsmann Camp Cupcake edition of the USMNT this weekend, and while conceding four goals to the senior side may cause some alarm among those anxiously monitoring this group's progress, it's the lack of goals that was somewhat surprising to those [.

Philadelphia Union

The Goalkeeper has a transcript of Wednesday's press conference with Peter Nowak. Among the highlights:

On Pajoy: "He's a guy who brings not only character but also a mentality to the game. He's very physical, and very fast as well. He can change the game, because he's a different option.

USA! USA! USA!

It started with the USWNT's 5–0 demolition of Denmark in their opening game in the Algarve Cup. It continued with the USMNT's historic 1–0 win over Italy in Italy. It ended with the USMNT U-23s convincing 2–0 win over Mexico's U-23s. Three-for-three with three shutouts in one day—surely that's never happened before in US Soccer.

Photo: AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

For nearly 45 minutes, the United States under-23 national team forgot who they were.

US soccer has been making up for a shortage of on-the-ball talent by developing tough, athletic, and hard-working players for a long, long time. The defining moment of the 2010 World Cup was Landon Donovan's lung-bursting downfield run to score the winner over Algeria.

Philadelphia Union

The Union announced on Friday morning the signing of goalkeeper Chris Konopka.

From the Department of Is It March 12 Yet, handbags in Costa Rica between the Union and Belen resulted in the abandonment of team's final scrimmage game with them down 2–0 in the first half.

Piotr Nowak knows more about Olympic Qualifying than most. The Union head coach worked as an assistant to then USMNT boss Bob Bradley, and was in charge of the Olympic team for qualifying & the Beijing games back in 2008. Coach Nowak was kind enough to take a few minutes to discuss Caleb Porter's selections & the challenges of qualifying process last night at the FanFest at Chickie's & Pete's.

We here at MLS Talk are guilty of one thing: we like to try new things. We've had some successes and failures over the years, but we are trying new ways to not only provide important information about the matches ...
Visit http://www.majorleaguesoccertalk.com for the rest of the story.

Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Philadelphia Union

Danny Califf and Peter Nowak were at Wednesday's press conference to put the Califf Controversy to bed.

Said Califf, "We had a good talk yesterday. I think we resolved some issues, so I think things are going to be much better going forward.

By Garrett McInnis As I was throwing clothes into a suitcase, I was left thinking about the next few days and what they will be like. I'm heading to Nashville today before the US Under-23's opening match of Olympic Qualifying. This will be my first foray into covering the United States as a live, in-person, [.

(Note: we were unable to do a post-game chat for this game at the last minute; however, please join us Monday for the critical last group stage match and post-game analysis) All of the warm fuzzies after Thursday's thrashing of ...
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There's a moment in most sports films where the plucky underdogs, having overcome the odds and hung in with their dominant, vaguely oppressive opponents, come up with a miracle play to win the big game, the music plays and everyone goes home happy. Americans love this story. Saturday we got to live the flip side.

1-2-0 record not acceptable, especially at home. The U.S. went down in flames to El Salvador in Nashville Tennessee on Monday night. The US shockingly drew El Salvador 3-3 after a goal from the Central American team in the final minute of added time. That goal drew tears of joy for El Salvador who celebrated [.

Photo: Courtesy of AP/Sporting News

Well, on the bright side, the Union will have Freddy Adu, Amobi Okugo and Sheanon Williams back ahead of Saturday's match against Vancouver...Nah, not working, too soon. This still sucks.

US

In need of a win against El Salvador on Monday night in order to advance to the semifinals in CONCACAF Olympic qualifying, US U-23 coach Caleb Porter said, "There is no doubt in my mind that we are going to get the result.

Brek Shea and the US crashed out last night to El Salvador. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Soccer is a cruel sport sometimes. Make no mistake about it.

Yes it was a total collapse in a way by the US U-23 team last night against El Salvador in Nashville. Having a 3-2 lead late into extra time, with just seconds away from being able to move on to the semifinals, the unthinkable happened as El Salvador found a way to get by keeper Sean Johnson for the 3-3 draw.

Photo: Courtesy of Sporting News/AP Photo

Just over one minute into their final group stage match, the United States had wiped the taste of a 2-0 loss to Canada from their memories. Brek Shea fought off two defenders on the left touch line before beating a third man and whipping a waist-high cross into the box.

The United States Under-23 National Team entered their final match of Group A play in need of a victory to advance in the qualifying for the Summer Olympics.

Standing in their way, however, was a resilient El Salvador squad that gave the Americans every thing they could handle, right up until the 90th minute.

"That's the problem with the 4-3-3," says O'Brien, who played 32 times for the United States and spent more than a decade in Dutch soccer. "You're pretty exposed and so if you don't keep the ball, you're definitely very open for counters. Part of the 4-3-3 is getting used to knowing that when you're possessing the ball, you're ready in case the guy turns it over.

I own scarves representing two pro soccer teams.

One is Philadelphia Union.

The other is Turkish club MKE Ankaragücü.

Do you know what else they have in common? They're the only two teams in the "worst team in the world" conversation with Toronto FC, who had lost nine straight league matches to open the season before beating the Union on Saturday.