Red Bulls Reportedly Sign Nesta

While the Union are set to trade their captain and starting CB, the Red Bulls reportedly acquire Alessandro Nesta.

The Fire have had a tremendous offseason so far. We have fortified our midfield, improved our defense in the SuperDraft, and even added some forwards to the mix. The Fire midfield is certainly the most populated on the team, and one I would definitely consider it a strength. It's credit to the front office for taking what was considered a big weakness last year and turning it into one of our strong points.

Aceval in the hole?The rumours are boiling out of Chile today that The Reds are about to add a new defender to their ranks. If the Santiago media are to be trusted, then 28-year old centre-left back Miguel Aceval has already agreed on a contract with TFC and the paperwork is in the midst of being finalized by Major League Soccer.

Featured image: Nicolae Stoian

We'll have updates of today's SuperDraft throughout the day as well as reaction to the Union's selection. On to the news...

Philadelphia Union

Ives Galarcep's mock draft at Fox Soccer has this to say: "The Union are believed to be shopping forward Danny Mwanga, and even with the recent addition of young Costa Rican forward Josue Martinez, Philadelphia can use some depth up top.

Tom Cruise on trial with Revs in AZ

Sky Sports is reporting today that the Arsenal product will be joining the Revs in Arizona this week and is "expected to feature in two friendly matches... as they assess his fitness before securing a deal for the player." Cruise primarily plays LB, but can also play CB and LM according to Wikipedia.

Breaking News: Chicago Fire sign German defender Arne Friedrich

Confirmed by Arne's own official site, the Fire have signed the German defender to a 1 year deal. There is a bit of risk as Arne has battled some injuries in the past year. I am sure Frank and co. have done their homework on Arne and that he is ready to go though.

What a couple of days of football! Who could have predicted such calamity for the top 4 teams? Can we take advantage tonight?

Fulham showed how good they can be a few weeks ago at THOF, a game we dominated but were relieved to get a point. Of course, the man who scored both goals will be missing and he leaves a big hole.

Part 3 of the review, coming right at you.

Aaron Ramsey
Stats: 22 appearances (3 sub appearances), 6.71 average rating, 2 goals, 6 assists, 2 yellow cards.

On his first full season since coming back from the Shawcross Special, Ramsey found himself as our main playmaker with Wilshere's injury and Cesc's and Nasri's exits.

With the 15th pick in the MLS SuperDraft Seattle Sounders FC went with Creighton University's Andrew Duran. Duran a versatile defender played at the Combine as a rightback, centerback and right midfield. The senior player was rated as a top 10 defender by Maureci.

Duran is one of three Creighton players at the MLS Combine.

With the 30th pick, KC selected defender, Cyprian Hedrick. Hedrick is a 6 foot center back from Costal Carolina University. Like Dom Dwyer, he is a junior college transfer to CCU. He is the CB depth that I thought we needed.

Thursday morning marks the beginning of training camp for the Seattle Sounders. Training camp is the MLS version of musical chairs. While the music is playing every one at the party gets to play. But once the music stops, some of these men are going to find themselves without a seat. The current roster of 28 players will be augmented in camp by 7 draftees and a collection of trialists.

Surprised? No. Disappointed? Of course.

Watching that match was painful, and I'm sure most of you caught the match. I will describe the match in laconic detail, in order to spare us the pain:

First Half: We were dire. Really, really dire. We couldn't get out of own half for most of the half, as United, who weren't so hot themselves, probed for an opener.

The massive clash at Stamford Bridge this weekend could see Chelsea put out a back-four with two new starters Ryan Bertrand at LB and Gary Cahill at CB. They could be joined by two of Luiz, Ivanovic, and/or Bosingwa ... Continue reading →

Daneil Cyrus is not in camp with Sporting KC due to "personal reasons" and it doesn't look like he'll be joining the team soon. Word out of Trinidad (h/t The Daily Wiz) is that Cyrus will be joining the Trinidad and Tobago U-23 for a camp. The camp will be capped off by two friendlies again the full national team of Guyana.

With the Desert Diamond Cup less than two weeks away and representing the Revs first true test against MLS competition, it's time to introduce a feature I'll be running with all season long: The Cyber Manager (name pending, I'm picky). Think of it as along the lines of those old Monday Morning Quarterback themes in football: each week I'll outline what I would do personally with the club, from lineups to subs and tactics.

On the whole Senderos Hughes thing, I decided to look at all the games Philippe has played in and compare them to the games Aaron has played in. Except I couldn't do that because Hughes has barely played CB in league games this year.

Instead I looked at the games Senderos has played in this year versus the equivalent games from last year:

I don't know really.

As usual it is past midnight and I am finding it hard to sleep so I boot-up my computer and start looking at all the soccer related websites I frequent the most and stumbled across this thread. The thread talks about the offseason moves of each team and how many minutes each player who is no longer on the team contributed during the 2011 season.

It's time for another Wednesday hat trick and QOTD. With the MLS season fast approaching, excitement is building for the 2012 Fire campaign. It is likely the most of the players on the team right now will be on the opening day roster, but there could be an interesting development or two before the season starts.

Tottenham CB Michael Dawson has been ruled out for the rest of the season with knee and ankle ligament injuries. That's terrible news for Tottenham's Top 4 hopes, while Chelsea and Arsenal fans won't mind one bit... That leaves Tottenham ... Continue reading →

@Timbersinsider Mosquera's ITC not in. Look for Baptiste to start

Trying to get confirmation of this but this would be a little bit of a blow. The Timbers supposed CB depth is gone.

After taking a day of rest to think about everything, I guess the match Saturday night wasn't that bad. After all, that's what we do here at The Bent Musket--find the positives whenever and wherever we can. And if you're going to get the positive juices flowing out of me, then the start of the season is prime-time for it.

Fire fans, welcome to the very first 2012 edition of Three Questions. I will be carrying on the tradition this year for each and every MLS game. It's a fun way to find out about the other team because many times the questions center around current events of said opposing team. Normally the Three Questions will be a bit shorter than this inaugural 2012 edition.

A total of thirteen players from the 2011 New England Revolution are not back for the 2012 season. If you just awoke from your off-season soccer hibernation you must be wondering where they all went. Many have moved on to other clubs, some are currently unemployed. Using the world wide web I did some light research to figure out where our friends are now and how they're doing.

After a week off, Pitch Pass is back with a fresh episode featuring Sporting Kansas City play by play man, Callum Williams. Cal gives us some insight on what it's like for an English broadcaster calling MLS matches, what to expect from Soony Saad, and the bright outlook for SKC.

Then, Houston Dynamo CB Geoff Cameron calls in to discuss Geoff's with a G, his transition to CB, and his hairstyles.

Quick Recap: The Portland Timbers looked terrible in the first and were very lucky to only give up 1 goal. Portland responded well to whatever John Spencer said at half time and looked like a different team in the 2nd half but only got the equalizer. 1 to 1 on the road.

First Half:

It was as if Portland decided to remind the fans what they were like on the road during the 2011 season.

The Portland Timbers travel to a once storied franchise that recently has fallen on hard times. Attendance is down, the fans have felt like the red-headed step child of the Patriots and last season was the worst season in New England Revolution history. Portland must not take this game lightly as no game is a gimme in any professional sport.

I don't know about you guys, but I am still buzzing from Saturday. The image of the team coming onto the field after the match and applauding the fans still lingers blissfully at the front of my mind. I can still see the ball bouncing between the ground and the crossbar from Saer Sene's goal. It was really a game to remember, for me at least, not because it was particularly exciting or eventful, but because I needed this win--we needed it.

Ianni's Tough Step Pays Off

From Matt Gaschk, Ianni reports that a major part of his offseason regimen was... seeing a sports psychologist?

It has indeed paid off so far, as Ianni has been an integral part of the Sounders' last two wins. This is the flip-side to Parke's frustration, and the three-way CB battle this year looks like it will be even more heated than last year.

Barca Day 5

Day five commenced much the same as the previous day with Barca B training. Rondos for 10 minutes then some warm up exercises and straight to 11 v 11 action to prepare this weekends game against Nastic. Coach would pause and rehearse certain scenarios of what to expect on defense and offense.

Portland has a 2 game losing streak and this game is crucial to regain their early season momentum. With a Trip to LA to play the Galaxy and Sporting Kansas City coming to Portland winning this game will be a huge boost. As usual we will take a look at what exactly Portland needs to do to earn that win and will do so by breaking it down by position, Defense/Goalkeeper, Midfield and Forwards.

Sporting KC got an early goal from Soony Saad off an assist from Luke Sassano, and that was all the Swope Park Rangers needed to get the 1-0 win. Things got testy towards the end, as two Chicago Fire players, Daniel Paladini and Kwame Watson-Sirboe both picked up red cards in the 87th minute as the Fire finished with 9 men.

Rather than doing my regular hat trick today, I thought I would throw out a few thoughts heading into the Dynamo game Sunday. It is a big game for the Fire, coming off a tough loss in Colorado when we played pretty poorly. Understandably, confidence has taken a blow in Fire land since the Rapids match.

Quick Recap:

The Portland Timbers got the first goal again but failed to keep LA Galaxy from getting the equalizer in the first half. The game then opened up with end to end action but neither team scored until, you guessed it, the 80th minute passed. As you probably know it was not the Timbers who scored.

Let's play a little game, since it's a bye week. Imagine for a moment that it's July and the Sounders are healthy and their new players have been integrated into the fold. One way of gauging the strength of a team is to look at its potential for growth and improvement using just the players it currently has on the roster.

Arsenal has benefited from a strong increase of togetherness and collective purposefulness this season, and without any doubt this has been one of the main reasons for our recent super-recovery that led us into the top-three again.

In this blog, I zoom in on a number of partnerships within our team, as they have been big contributing components of Arsenal's collective togetherness this season.

Arsenal has benefited from a strong increase of togetherness and collective purposefulness this season, and without any doubt this has been one of the main reasons for our recent super-recovery that led us into the top-three again.

In this blog, I zoom in on a number of partnerships within our team, as they have been big contributing components of Arsenal's collective togetherness this season.

After two crazy weeks of movement, sexism and generally craziness it is time again to focus on the pitch. The Columbus Crew are coming into the game with a 4 match losing streak and we all know the Portland Timbers recent run of form. Either way it could be an ugly game but if Portland does win it would be a big step in the right direction for them.

This week I chatted with Dave Clark of Sounder at Heart, SB Nation's Seattle Sounders site. Clark and I discussed various things about the teams, including broadcasters. Some very good tactical information about how the Philadelphia Union can exploit the Sounders' defense this afternoon.

[Editor's note: Promoted to front page for eye witness analysis. Good stuff]

Sticking with recent tradition, here's my thoughts on the Philadelphia Union friendly game versus FC Schalke 04. In honor of the game being a friendly, I'm going to keep my comments friendly - or, at least, as friendly as possible.

NOTE: Click on each of the charts below for bigger (more readable) versions.

Thanks to all who followed the survey link and submitted player ratings for the Houston match. We had another week with over 100 responses. Here is the distribution of your player ratings...

The rest of the charts are after the jump.