On Friday, the United States Soccer Federation announced that the US Soccer Developmental Academy will be playing a 10-month season starting in September and ending in June. The new schedule applies to the 2012-13 season. US Youth Soccer technical director Claudio Reyna "Going to a 10-month season is an important step in the evolution of elite player development.

One of Jurgen Klinsmann's goals upon becoming coach of the U.S. national team was to revamp the system from senior team to youth structure, and with Friday's announcement, he has certainly made a major change to the latter.

Starting in September, the U.S. Development Academy will operate on a 10-month schedule, mimicking the development systems of nations around the world.

Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Philadelphia Union

Sebastien Le Toux tweets, "Just got traded to Vancouver ! Saddest day for me in my Philadelphia Union story.... Still can't believe it"

The Union host Vancouver Whitecaps on March 31.

Take a look at Adam Cann's roundup of the evolution of Sebastien Le Toux to Vancouver rumors for links, but to summarize, the Union appear to be trading Le Toux to Vancouver for allocation money.

Returning home after Christmas, I opened my mailbox to find a wonderful surprise awaiting me – a copy of 'So Paddy Got Up', the Arsenal anthology edited by Andrew Mangan of Arseblog.com. How my brother had managed to be one of the few people to snag a hard-copy, I don't know, but it was, to quote Arseblog's famous slogan, ‘fuckin excellent' to discover that he had.

By Chris Wright

After busting his nose against Blackburn at the weekend, Petr Cech has been ferried over to Milan to have a personalised carbon fibre facemask added to his padded helmet in order for him to play for the Czech Republic against Montenegro on Friday...

All well and good, except the good folks over on the Chelsea Facebook page have noticed a worrying pattern in the evolution of Cech's headgear over the last few years.

Seen for the first time during Cesc F bregas' unveiling as a PUMA athlete and worn by the FC Barcelona player during Saturday's La Liga meeting with Sevilla, the PUMA PowerCat 1.12 soccer boot has been officially launched. According to PUMA: The evolution of pitch power makes its debut with the PowerCat 1.

2011 has been an impressive year for boot releases so far and 2012 looks to be an even more promising year for adidas with the evolution of two classics. Predator... Read more »

by Adam Bate

It was no surprise to hear Jon Champion use the term "Neanderthal" to describe the Stoke City experience on ESPN at the weekend. After all, this is a club that seems pre-occupied with the notion of evolution.

This time last year, the man often seen as the personification of Stoke's direct approach launched not a throw-in but a defence of his club's style.

by Adam Bate

It was no surprise to hear Jon Champion use the term "Neanderthal" to describe the Stoke experience on ESPN at the weekend. After all, when it comes to Stoke City, everyone seems to be pre-occupied with the notion of evolution.

This time last year, the man often seen as the personification of Stoke's direct approach launched not a throw-in but a defence of his club's style.

EXCLUSIVE: FIFA 12 review: The even more beautiful game

FIFA 12 (3+)PlayStation 3, Xbox 360RRP: £54.99Out: September 30Rating: 5/5 Perhaps recognising that recent FIFA installments often felt more like expansion packs than full games, EA Sports promised revolution not evolution with this season's update.

It seems as though football is pushing us in the direction of evolution recently, giving us the idea of what football could be, but is not yet. Much work to be done then.

Jimmy Bullard is offering his contribution to the future of football, and no, it does not involve rumblings of Slovenian prostitutes while on preseason tour.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By DogFace Referee: Andre Marriner Assistant 1: Gary Beswick Assistant 2: Scott Ledger 4th Official: Michael Oliver Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch... Today I unveil the latest evolution of the RefWatch series – but before we get into all that; please allow me to explain where I'm going.

In a game on big ESPN (hooray midday schedules) at 11:30 AM Pacific, the United States faces Belgium. This second international friendly of September will have a slightly different cast of characters, with Clint Dempsey and Kyle Beckerman being the notable players joining, while Landon Donovan stays behind.

Well, it's hard to refuse when a team like Chelsea comes knocking at your door. Even harder when possibly the best Portuguese coach in the business wants you. Extremely irresistible when Chelsea can offer you first team playing minutes and Champions League football. Thus, Raul Meireles weighed up his options and decided to join the Andre Villa-Boas Chelsea evolution.

The Biggest Manchester United Season Preview You'll Ever Read - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Imagine that you're appointed manager of Manchester United tomorrow morning. The world is at your feet. You have (statistically speaking) the best team in the world alongside Barcelona in club football and you have a phenomenally talented young squad that will win titles before it reaches it's full potential.

The NFL lockout is finally over. For football fans, this news is worthy of a celebration. And what better way to celebrate football news than to break out a touchdown dance! In the video below, check out legendary YouTube sensation Judson Laipply humorously (and accurately) illustrate the Evolution of the Touchdown Dance.

Football tactics is a matter of making choices. The very fact that you only have effectively 10 players to shuffle around means strengthening one area creates spaces in others. Long has the tacticians of Calcio obsessed over creating the most perfectly balanced sides, and one of their biggest quests has been to find the answer to question - Trequartista or Wingers?

Last week was as good as any the Sounders have had in quite some time; a huge come from behind (twice!) win against the Timbers and a dominant win over a fairly strong LA Galaxy side in the US Open Cup quarterfinals have people buzzing, and being massive Pollyannas we're no different.

Today we spend a good deal of time talking about that win over the Timbers and we also spend some time on the impressive USOC win over the Galaxy, the #ClassyMullanHate meme and about theColorado Rapids.

Last week was as good as any the Sounders have had in quite some time; a huge come from behind (twice!) win against the Timbers and a dominant win over a fairly strong LA Galaxy side in the US Open Cup quarterfinals have people buzzing, and being massive Pollyannas we're no different.

Today we spend a good deal of time talking about that win over the Timbers and we also spend some time on the impressive USOC win over the Galaxy, the #ClassyMullanHate meme and about the Colorado Rapids.

The World Football Challenge is a series of 14 games — 5 involving M.L.S. clubs — that begin Wednesday when Manchester United opens the tournament against the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA. The games continue until Aug. 6 when Barcelona plays Club América of Mexico at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX.

Juliano Belletti spent just under three years at Chelsea. Today he announced his retirement from the game. It's safe to say he will be greatly missed.

Persistent injuries ravaged Belletti late in his career, particularly during his return to Brazil after his contract wasn't renewed by us in June 2010.

Site readership continues to grow, and we continue to evolve, so maybe some readers haven't caught on to what the gamethread looks like these days, particularly during a longish home stretch. Here is an introduction to what we do for every Seattle Sounders game at the senior level (meaning not Reserves or Academy, but yes for MLS, USOC, CCL).

Sad news for the Rossoneri as Andrea Pirlo who served their club so brilliantly for ten seasons is moving on to Juventus. His Milan contract expires on June 30th and he's accepted a three year contract to play for the Bianconeri.

Pirlo was one of the catalysts of the Milan attack who could change the outcome in a stroke with a deceptively struck pile driver, wickedly curling free kick, or a perfectly timed long ball.

(apologies for the plain old URL. Despite me FINALLY (praise the Lord) being given an account, the speed of the accounts is still successfully matching evolution as the slowest thing in existence, so slow that some folks (and that goes for evolution too) can't see it moving and so don't believe that it moves at all.

MLSsoccer.com BETA (now with Opta)

Project Ramos represents the continuing evolution of MLSsoccer.com with improvements in many areas, including:

1) Improved homepage navigation, with direct links to our most popular content sections at the bottom of every page and new content sections so that you can see all articles in a particular series on one page.

It always gladdens our hearts when we learn that the Kickette ideology has infiltrated unexpected territory. But even we had to rub our eyes in disbelief when this image of a German police officer accosting Hamburg striker Mladen Petric for an autograph emerged on his club's Twitter account.

When the Hamburg team coach was travelling to a match and was pulled over by a police car, sirens were-a-blaring.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Spotted on ontd_football

For busy journalist types like us, a typical work day will inevitably involve a lot of internet surfing. At Kickette, we tend to favour videos of cute animals doing amusing things, but occasionally a piece of film finds it's way to our desktops that stops us in our tracks and makes us appreciate the majesty of the human form, rejoice in the thousands of years of evolution it took to hone it to such perfection and speculate excitedly at what can be contained in a pair of stylish briefs.

Back to join us during this international week of Euro 2012 qualifers is Giancarlo Rinaldi. The panel discuss the Prandelli revolution or evolution, depending how you see things. Topics include, Born in Brazil but with roots in Rovigo What are Oriundi, Giancarlo? Midfield footing Age of the ‘destroyer' is over New partnerships Players of interest include, Stefano Mauri, Giampaolo Pazzini,.

The early indications are that the Seattle Sounders are at least getting close to full health. Steve Zakuani is talking about this being the start of his season, Nate Jaqua is apparently going to make his gameday roster debut and Brad Evans looks to have made it through a week of practice unscathed.

New Jersey product Giuseppe Rossi, who plays for the Italian national and Spanish club Villarreal, says Italian soccer is stuck in the past, and that's why Spanish and English clubs have been dominating European competition in recent years.
Since leaving New Jersey at age 13 for Parma's youth program, Rossi has played in English Premier League, Italian Serie A and the Spanish La Liga.

By Tony Edwards - SAN JOSE, CA (Feb 7, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Combine a cosmopolitan metropolitan area, an educated population that has shown it willingness come out for good soccer, and a soccer specific facility in a good location, and you might have the makings of Major League Soccer's latest expansion success.

Edin Dzeko is a man certainly better at making new friends than Antonio Cassano, if we're comparing big January purchases. Sitting in his press conference, he made several digs at United with one fell swoop.

It's sort of the modern evolution of "I want to win trophies and I also want to score goals against [insert hated rival here].

Depressingly, if this was an opponent, he would've done a triple lutz with barrel roll on his way to ground.

• A Spanish holiday. (EFW)
• English ex-patriates. (The Best Eleven)
• Spanish Quotables: Part Dos. (LLL)
• United's team outside Manchester. (Left Back In The Changing Room)
• Hungary: Not quite the 50's.