Apologies for the late blogging since I am somewhat under the weather today (and, no, that's not because of all the soccer on TV).

Still, there is a lot.

First up at noon on Fox Soccer Channel is David Beckham and England taking on the Czech Republic in London.

Then at 7 p.

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It appears that Brian McBride will play his first game back in MLS for the Chicago Fire this weekend and even at the advanced age of 36 he is still a welcome addition to the league. Brian has been a warrior throughout his career with the U.S National Team, for clubs in Germany and England, and also during the start of MLS. Click to continue reading...

First of all, Rob Hues, it's Grahame, not Graeme. Also, I'd like to offer my own thoughts on what California offers soccer.
I mean, I'm not sure that I even understand the point of the recent article - is it that California allowed Jurgen to relax and Beckham to smile? That's all one can put together about the state and soccer? Click to continue reading...

In case you read Eric Wynalda's comments on Claudio Reyna in today's notebook and wondering what the former U.S. forward and ESPN commentator is doing these days, the answer is he's in business with Joe-Max Moore. See the clip.

Wynalda says he doesn't miss TV at all, and he's watching more games than ever while spending time with his kids and occasionally playing with the PDL's Bakersfield Brigade.

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Apologies for not mentioning this earlier, but you surely knew already -- we have two SuperLiga games tonight. D.C. United hosts Atlante (NOT Atlanta!!) and Houston takes on Chivas (Guadalajara, not USA). Doubleheader on TeleFutura and superliga2008.com starts at 8 p.m. ET. Might also check some regional broadcasters and see what you find.

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MLS Magazine has made a bold move and hired Eric Wynalda as a regular columnist and in his latest article he makes a very interesting point about MLS being a league where American coaches are more likely to have success then their foreign counterparts. For the most part I agree with him, I think that there are enough skilled American coaches available and that they do have an advantage in that they have a better ability to relate to the American players. Click to continue reading...

Well, this wouldn't be a proper blog without some "celebrity" stuff now would it? So this is Gruffgoat's first installment of what might become a fun diversion from the normally serious world of football. If tons of celebs start showing up at matches - ahem - then we could turn this in to a weekly sightings post. Click to continue reading...

There really is no idea here about what General Manager Michael Hitchcock will do with the open coaching position with FC Dallas. By now most agree that he fired Steve Morrow a couple weeks back due to the teams terrible performance in front of a sold-out crowd. When Hitchcock was hired by the Hunts (FCD owners) [. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards have announced that Bruce Arena, Bob Gansler, and Eric Wynalda will be joining Wizards play-by-play man, Sean Wheelock in the booth at different times over the rest of the season. The three will work any Wizards game that is not exclusive to ESPN, FSC, or HDNet.

Arena will be in the booth, May 17, June 21, Aug 2, Aug 16, Sept 7, & Oct 25. Click to continue reading...

Former US international and ESPN broadcaster Eric Wynalda is returning to the pitch after being cleared to play for the Premier Development League's Ventura County Fusion.

It has been seven years since he hung up his cleats, but Wynalda feels ready for this challenge thanks in large part to a fruit drink. Click to continue reading...

Bradley brings his tally for the season up to 18 overall, 16 in the Eredivisie. His goals started and finished Heerenveen's scoring and provided Heerenveen with a huge 3 points as the season begins to wind down. The win gives the Frisians momentum heading into next week's clash versus Ajax and possession of a three [. Click to continue reading...

Photo by ISI Photos

The U.S. national team is about to embark on a grueling series of road games in the coming weeks and months that should go a long way toward testing and improving the current national team pool.

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Photo by ISI Photos

The U.S. national team is about to embark on a grueling series of road games in the coming weeks and months that should go a long way toward testing and improving the current national team pool.

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Mark your calendar, on this leap day 2008, Landon Donovan became the official 'king of all US male goal scorers.' Although the US did not play a match today, Donovan gets this honor thanks to FIFA recognizing a match the US played against Denmark as an official 'A' international game.

During the 20 Jan 2007 game, which the US won 3-1, Donovan scored a goal from the penalty spot in the 44th minute. Click to continue reading...

*For those of you who watched last night's US-Mexico match, you just witnessed a star being born.

Thrown into the wolf den known as the fiercest rivalry in North America, the much-heralded Jozy Altidore shined. Even without the deft header he scored to put the States up 2-1, the 18-year-old looked like a man amongst boys many times. Click to continue reading...

First on SBI

Photo by ISI Photos

Just weeks after ESPN made the decision to remove Eric Wynalda from its broadcast team for MLS and U.S. national team games, the network has completely severed ties with the controversial analyst.

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First on SBI

Photo by ISI Photos

Just weeks after ESPN made the decision to remove Eric Wynalda from its broadcast team for MLS and U.S. national team games, the network has completely severed ties with the controversial analyst.

Click to continue reading...

ESPN and ABC have made the speculation official, Dave O'Brien and Eric Wynalda are no longer commentators for their soccer broadcasts. This includes MLS and US soccer matches.

Replacing them will be JP Dellacamera doing play by play and John Harkes with analyst. The rest of the team will be Allen Hopkins (sideline reporter), Julie Foudy (studio Analyst) and Rob Stone who will sub in for Dellacamera. Click to continue reading...

Over at Main St. USA, they note with glee: Confirmed: Dave O'Brien and Eric Wynalda are out as MLS' #1 broadcast team and will be replaced by JP Dellacamera and John Harkes. Please, please, please, let them be out as the USSoccer announcers, too. If I ever have to hear Dave O'Brien reveal his sketchy [. Click to continue reading...

Dave O'Brien might be out of ESPN's booth if rumors from the MLS SuperDraft are to be believed. According to Soccer by Ives lead man, the buzz last night at the bar was a change a comin':

Another popular subject last night was word that Eric Wynalda and Dave O'Brien are being replaced as U.

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For much of the championship game, the player I raved about from the semifinals, Wake Forest's Marcus Tracy, looked to be a one-game wonder, shackled and shut down by a physical, organized Ohio State back line. But then he did what all good strikers do and showed up--with the dagger, in the conservatory--to snatch at the chance presented to him, equalizing to cancel out Roger Mendoza's Click to continue reading...

I haven't really been following the college game this year, but I'm taking a look at the closing stages of the Final Four to have a look at the potential level of the draft pool going into the 2008 MLS Superdraft. With that said . . . Wake Forest 2 : 0 Virginia Tech Wake was on the ball early and often, playing a possession game in direct opposition to Tech's "boot it up to Nyarko and wait for Click to continue reading...

Dan Loney has some fun here trashing Tommy Smyth and company for their commentary the other night I can't say that I blame him. I've caught Smyth saying some pretty stupid things even when he's had time to think about them. But naming your children after Eric "Waldo" Wynaldo? Calling for him to be president? Please calm down Dan before you do something rash. Click to continue reading...

TOP STORIES

The Tipping Point
Please tell me that someone got a picture of Don Garber around 11PM EST on Saturday. At that point, the smallest crowd of the four MLS games played Saturday was 18,913 in Salt Lake City. Columbus had drawn nearly 22k and UFC sold-out BMO (pronounced Bee-Mo, Rob Stone) field again.

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I'm going to attempt to comment on something involving race, a subject that can blow up in one's face so, so easily. But I also can't shake the weird sensation left by Eric Wynalda's Red Card/Yellow Card halftime segment for last night's game.

Here goes....

I believe it was the first "yellow card" Wynalda dished and he gave it to the Chicago Fire's John Guppy for not giving current Fire assistant head coach Denis Hamlett the head coach's job. Click to continue reading...