Former Wizards defender, Uche Okafor was found dead in his home on Thursday morning. The death is currently being investigated as a suicide as Okafor was found hanged in his home. A sad end to see for a player who was the anchor on the back line for the Wiz/Wizards with Sean Bowers in their first few years of existence.

With the United States preparing for the January 22nd friendly against Chile, it was announced on Wednesday that two players have been excused for medical reasons. FC Dallas defender Ugo Ihemelu has a nagging hip injury and has been released back to his club. Chivas USA's Justin Braun required stitches to close a cut on his ankle on Tuesday.

We're not quite sure of our French, but this picture looks as if the U.S. WNT goalkeepers are on some sort of a prisoner transfer for a chain gang. No, we just we caught them right after a tough drill. Nicole Barnhart (left) has 31 caps for the USA while Ashlyn Harris has yet to be capped at the full international level.

Alexi Lalas is a former U.S. National Team defender (96 caps), appearing in two World Cups and was U.S. Soccer's Male Player of the Year in 1995. Lalas was the first American to play in Italy in the modern-era and then returned to the United States to be a part of the group of high profile American soccer players to launch Major League Soccer.

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

Jermaine Jones needed to escape the doghouse at Schalke 04 quickly, and now he's heading to a place where he will be able to play as well as work on his English.

Jones has had his loan move to Premier League side Blackburn go through, meaning he will join fellow U.

Giuseppe Rossi has agreed an improved contract with Villarreal which ties him to the Spanish team until 2016.

Rossi, who joined Villarreal from Manchester United in 2007 has become he club's all-time top scorer in La Liga with 44 goals. His 11 goals in 19 La Liga appearances this season have helped the third-placed Yellow Submarine to their best ever start.

Champions, again.The United States Women's Nation Team took full honors at the Four Nations Tournament with a 2-0 defeat of the hosts in Chongquing, China. The USWNT suffered an early set up, losing 2-1 to Sweden, but then successive wins against Canada and China sealed the tournament win. It was their seventh title in eight trips to the tournament.

The Colorado Rapids announced their first roster move of the New Year on Monday by signing defender Tyrone Marshall. Per club and league policies, financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Marshall is officially added to the club's roster after being selected by Colorado with the 16th pick in Stage 2 of the 2010 Major League Soccer Re-Entry Process on Dec.

ROTTERDAM - Dutch football legend Coen Moulijn has passed away. The former player of Feyenoord and the Dutch national team was 73. Considered one of the best ever Dutch players, Moulijn played in the fifties, sixties and seventies as a left winger for Feyenoord. With the club from Rotterdam in 1970 he won as first [.

The one and only Kristine Lilly announced her retirement today after perhaps the most legendary career in U.S. Women's National Team history. ussoccer.com has it coveredwith a special tribute video, an interview with the Queen of Caps herself, a podcast, quotes, special Kristine Lilly Top-13 lists, a Lilly by the Numbers, a list of some of her most memorable moments and even a list of every one of her 352 caps and 130 goals.

Kristine Lilly, the most prolific and decorated female player in soccer history, announced her retirement Wednesday afternoon.

After a 24-year career that spanned five Women's World Cups and a record 352 caps with the U.S. Women's National Team, the legendary Lilly called it a career.

"I told myself I would take until the end of the year to make a decision after some time off so I wasn't just retiring because of the long year and the fact that I was tired," said Lilly, who will turn 40 this year, via a U.

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

BY ADAM SERRANO

For the United States National team, there are plenty of new faces in an old place.

The annual January camp kicked off on Wednesday at the Home Depot Center ahead of the January 23rd match-up with Chile.

Photo by Trent Davol/ISIPhotos.com

Kristine Lilly, one of the most accomplished players in women's soccer history, has retired.

The world record holder for international appearances with an amazing 352, Lilly has decided to step away from both the U.S. women's national team and her professional career with the WPS Boston Breakers after spending parts of four decades playing at the highest level.

Kristine Lilly, retires after 24 years. The most capped player in men's or women's soccer history with 352 caps. A feat of incredible durability. The most under rated player in her group of high flying compatriots like Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, and Michelle Akers who regularly stole the thunder.

The Singapore media, led by the football loathing, draught excluding, tree destroying Straits Times, continues to take aim at certain players in the national team.
Following on from the story that five cards were caught playing cards after lights out, only Singapore could make a story out of this nonsense, comes news in the ST, and therefore unlinkable unless you pay which I won't, that one of the players, angry at being caught/being fined asked for his ticket back to Singapore.

With Sunil Chhetri still technically a member of Sporting KC and India getting ready to kick off their AFC Asian Cup campaign tomorrow against Australia, I figured it was a good time to update the list of most capped players in a Wizards uniform. There's been no change at the top of the list, as Josh Wolff and Jimmy Conrad are the top players on the list.

U.S. goalkeeper Jill Loyden will be out from up to 6-8 weeks after suffering a broken hand during training on Jan. 9. The 5-foot-10 goalkeeper suffered a fracture to the 3rd metacarpal in her left hand while reaching for a shot. Loyden, who played in inaugural WPS season in St. Louis as a back-up to Hope Solo and started for the Chicago Red Stars in 2010, was the back-up goalkeeper for the USA during the 2010 CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament, but did not see action.

The strongest transfer story involving Spurs today links us with a ‘shock' move for Everton captain Phil Neville. Both The Mail and The Sun carry the story which has been picked up by Football365 and they all are adamant that talks are at an advanced stage.

The ‘younger' Neville will be 34 by the end of this transfer window.

Continuing some of my stat updating before tomorrow's opener for India in the Asian Cup, here's an updated list of Wizards/Sporting KC players and the number of caps they have for their national teams.
USA
Tony Meola - 100
Alexi Lalas - 96 - 9
Chris Henderson - 79 - 3
Mike Burns - 75
Peter Vermes - 67 - 11
Mike Sorber - 67 - 2
Josh Wolff - 52 - 9
Brian Bliss - 44 - 2
Eddie Johnson - 42 - 12
Frank Klopas - 40 - 12
Roy Lassister - 30 - 4
Eric Eichman - 29 - 4
Preki - 28 - 4
Jimmy Conrad - 28 - 1
Mark Chung - 24 - 2
Chris Klein - 22 - 5
Kerry Zavagnin - 21
Mark Santel - 8 - 1
Herculez Gomez - 8 - 2
Davy Arnaud - 7 - 1
John Diffley - 7
John DeBrito - 6
Nick Garcia - 6
Yari Allnut - 5 - 2
Kevin Hartman - 5
Sasha Victorine - 4 - 1
Steve Pittman - 3
Matt McKeon - 2
Alan Prampin - 2
Ken Snow - 2
Diego Gutierrez - 1
Curt Onalfo - 1
Teal Bunbury - 1
Argentina
Claudio Lopez - 58 - 10
Armenia
Yura Movsisyan - 5 - 3
Cameroon
Samuel Ekeme - 32
Canada
Alex Bunbury - 64 - 16
Pat Harrington - 1
Denmark
Miklos Molnar - 18 - 2
Finland
Antti Sumiala - 36 - 9
Grenada
Craig Rocastle - 5
Guadeloupe
Stephane Auvray - 20 - 2
Haiti
Josué Mayard - 17 - 2
Holland
Dave van den Bergh - 2
Honduras
Roger Espinoza - 15 - 3
Hungary
Zoltan Hercegfalvi - 3
India
Sunil Chhetri - 40 - 19
Jamaica
Onandi Lowe - 65 - 27
Shavar Thomas - 35
Jermaine Hue - 30 - 11
Wolde Harris - 28 - 7
Khari Stephenson - 26 - 3
Peter Isaacs - 15 - 4
Akeem Priestley - 3
Liberia
Dionysius Sebwe - 7
Mexico
Omar Bravo - 63 - 15
Nigeria
Uche Okafor - 34 - 1
Puerto Rico
Taylor Graham - 3 - 1
Russia
Igor Simutenkov - 20 - 9
Scotland
Richard Gough - 61 - 6
Mo Johnston - 38 - 14
Serbia and Montenegro
Vuk Rasovic - 5
Sierra Leone
Kei Kamara - 6
Trinidad and Tobago
Gary Glasgow - 53 -11
Scott Sealy - 25 - 2
Anthony Noriega - 5
Yugoslavia
Refik Sabanadzovic - 8
Zimbabwe
Vitalis Takawira - 26 - 12

The big news out of the American soccer Inter-Net-Blogo-Sphere yesterday was the former USMNT and Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder, more recently of LA's coaching staff, was named the Associate Directior for Soccer for the New York Cosmos.
This is, of course, a bit of a surprise, given that the Cosmos do not have a soccer team.

Towering US defender Oguchi Onyewu has signed for Dutch club Twente on a loan deal for the remainder of the season.

The AC Milan defender has only made one appearance for the club in 18 months which has been Plaqued with Injuries.

Twente manager Michel Preud'Homme is no stranger to Onyewu having previously endured great success with the defender when at Standard Liege before his big move to Italy.

Midfielder Lindsay Tarpley (Madison) is one of 23 players named to the U.S. Women's National Team roster for the Four Nations Tournament, which starts next Friday in Chongqing, China.

Tarpley, who has 30 goals in 120 career caps, played only one match for the national team after returning from a torn ACL in her right knee suffered in August 2009.

Anthony Gardner... Anthony Gardner?!!! 10. Julian Dicks Stuart Pearce sort of had the hard, passionate England left-back spot covered during the early nineties (to the extent that Nigel Winterburn gained only two caps). But Dicks, who was West Ham Player of the Year for four years out of seven, must have deserved to transfer his [.

Jorsling in action

Orlando City made its first signing since moving to town as the club signed Trinidadian striker Devorn Jorsling.

The 27-year-old has picked up 27 caps for the Trinidad and Tobago National Team. Jorsling has scored 11 times in the last 13 national team games he's played.

After retiring at the end of the 2010 Major League Soccer season with the Chicago Fire, former US National Team defender CJ Brown has been named as an assistant coach with Real Salt Lake. Brown spent his entire MLS career in Chicago, winning the double in their first season in 1998. He had 15 caps with the National Team.

Tomorrow night (or evening for those on the West Coast) the United States January camp team will take the pitch against Chile in a friendly where both sides are lacking all of their biggest stars. Chile is a good South American squad, normally second-tier behind countries like Brazil and Argentina, but with their former coach leading the team and not bringing many starters, this is a tough match to judge how far the U.

The P2010 Index is a ranking system based on player ratings assigned by some of the country's top soccer sites and journalist. These ratings are then weighted by strength of opponent, match significance, venue, and recent form. (It's all explained here.)

It took us a little while to get to this (when was that South Africa game?

First of all we have Official Confirmation that the Sounders will be hosting a preseason Cascadia Summit which includes matches between the three teams. The matches are as follows:

Fri. March 4th: Sounders vs Timbers @ 7:30 pm

Sat. March 5th: Timbers vs. Whitecaps @ 5 pm

Sun.

Tobin Heath and Yael Averbuch do some ground juggling. They are pretty good at it.
Almost all the players attended the training today, although a few stayed behind to rest and do treatments. The day between games training is always a bit tricky as some players played a lot of minutes and others played none, so a few players had lighter sessions than others.

Liverpool is being linked with a January move for Fernando Llorente as their efforts to sign Luis Suarez falter.
The Reds have reportedly been in negotiations with Ajax to bring the Uruguayan international striker to Anfield, but with Liverpool still struggling to agree a fee with the Dutch giants they could turn their attentions to Llorente.

By Clemente Lisi – NEW YORK, NY (Jan 24, 2011) US Soccer Players -- There is little one can gauge from the annual January friendly. The USA's 1-1 draw Saturday night at The Home Depot Center against Chile was a meeting of reserve teams with no bold names and nothing on the line. On a night when seven players earned their first caps for the USA, the game was more of an audition for future.

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

BY ADAM SERRANO

Often when a new player joins the national team program, their performance is ripe with expectation. Each move is scrutinized and each pass dissected. For Mixx Diskerud, the story is no different.

More photos » Otto Greule Jr - Getty Images

Brad Evans is a ball winner, distributor, coach on the field, and essentially a new player who returns to the Sounders.

Mexico coach José Manuel de la Torre has announced his first list of call-ups since his appointment as national team coach this summer. It is an entirely domestic-based list, but more players from Europe will be called up next week. There aren't any players from Jaguares de Chiapas, San Luís, or América because of their clubs' participation in Copa Libertadores, but it's possible that they would appear in the friendlies against Venezuela and Paraguay.