Back when I posted about my 2012 Wishes, one of the wishes was wanting to get the 2000 MLS Cup back. For those that missed it, or don't know, the 2000 MLS Cup is not in Kansas City. The cup that teams get to keep after winning MLS Cup is in Dallas at the Hunt Sports Group Headquarters in Dallas.
Since that point, I've not said much about the the trophy or built off of that comment regarding getting the trophy back.

The Philadelphia Union are working on solidifying their 2012 friendly schedule by talking to Newcastle United about playing in Philadelphia during the summer, according to a report.

"I Wish I Was A Geordie," an American Newcastle blog, is reporting that Newcastle and the Union are discussing the two clubs playing an international friendly this year.

It's been rumored and speculated on since he pulled out of the re-entry draft, but today, Sporting KC finally made it official. Luke Sassano has signed a new contract with Sporting KC. Sassano had played in 9 league games last year in a season that was cut short by some injuries. Sassano had not had his contract picked up and had gone into the re-entry draft.

Greetings from sunny and cool Arizona, where I will be spending a few days in Phoenix. I'm here to visit some friends but also to check out some of the MLS training camps that are going on in metro Phoenix, Casa Grande, and Tucson. I believe that New England Revolution, Sporting Kansas City, Seattle Sounders, Real Salt Lake, and San José Earthquakes will be here, so I hope to catch a few glimpses, assuming that their sessions are open to the public, of course.

Alex Horwath (UW) was all set to go to training camp with Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City and compete for the No. 2 goalkeeper job.

But he couldn't get past one thought.

"In the back of my mind, I didn't really want to be a backup in the MLS right now," the 24-year-old said this week from his home in Maryland.

Today was Sporting KC's last training session in Kansas City before heading off to Arizona for a few weeks. A fairly light session for the most part, that involved two teams scrimmaging, and a third team working off to the side.
First game:
Orange team - Nielsen, Collin, Olum, Harrington, Warzycha, Thomas, Aiyegbusi, Dwyer, Kamara
Blue team - Kronberg, Myers, Cesar, Besler, Sinovic, Sassano, Joseph, Convey, Saad
Neutral - Zavagnin
Only one goal in this one, a Joseph Peterson and Luke Sassano worked a very nice 1-2 together finishing with Joseph flicking the ball past Nielsen and into the net.

Tonight I was watching Metro Sports Zone on Metro Sports, watching a feature that was being done on Kyle Miller and Matt Kuhn and their attempts to become the 5th and 6th local players on Sporting KC's current roster. It struck a thought in my head that I'd been thinking about yesterday after an announcement from the Seattle Sounders.

Preseason is heating up around the league, so we thought it would be worth checking to see if local papers are taking notice. We'll start in Salt Lake City, where the always excellent Michael Lewis offers up this detailed piece on the roster makeover for RSL. The piece includes interviews and a look at some of the team's injury problems for the coming year.

The worst kept secret managed to be confirmed ahead of its own public announcement. The Philadelphia Union will host the 2012 MLS All Star Game on July 25 according to multiple reports at Philadelphia's City Hall today.

Jonathan Tannenwald of Philly.com's soccer blog, the Goalkeeper, is reporting that the event has a start of 8 pm, with ESPN2 as the English telecast of the game in America.

Fans of the Philadelphia Union have had plenty to chear about in the club's brief two-year MLS existence. From the opening of PPL Park in 2010, to the team's MLS playoff debut in 2011. Now Union fans are ready to have a new experience to celebrate in 2012, the hosting of an MLS All-Star Game.

Taylor Twellman's efforts to create more awareness of how serious concussions can be are well documented. We've seen him on TV, Twitter, Facebook and other forms of media, but perhaps no action has more potential than the creation of ThinkTaylor.org.
ThinkTaylor is the culmination of Twellman's efforts.

When the Chicago Fire announced Quaker Oats as their new jersey sponsor earlier this week (I swear that one is growing on me by the day), the news left four clubs without a sponsor.

The Colorado Rapids, the Columbus Crew, FC Dallas and Sporting Kansas City all have holes in their jerseys well metaphorically speaking.

Geoff Cameron has been a standout for the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer, and has not only lead the Dynamo into the MLS Cup this past season, but also received a recent call-up to the US National team.
His play is worthy of national team consideration, but it's his presence and positive attitude that have been key components in his success.

Yesterday's rumors about KC announcing the signing of Jacob Peterson turned from rumor to fact today as Sporting KC announced the signing of the 6 year MLS veteran. Peterson had been without a team since he was allowed to entry the re-entry draft by the San Jose Earthquakes. Peterson becomes the third player with a fairly long MLS career to join Kansas City this offseason, joining Bobby Convey and Pablo Nagamura.

At last weeks NSCAA Convention in Kansas City, Kan., Allen Hopkins interviewed the head coach for the U.S. National Team Juergen Klinsmann, asking him questions that had been proposed from fans who used tweets and Facebook messages. The result was a video shown at the convention that was really quite remarkable and in my opinion the most [.

The dream always starts the same. I'm riding in a car through the heartland, and somewhere west of Kansas City we arrive at a giant mountain which requires us to go through a tunnel. On the other end of the tunnel is a wasteland - a charred, blackened landscape with no clouds or animals, and plenty of shattered trees.

Major League Soccer's Supplemental Draft is not televised, but only streamed. The teams have retreated from Kansas City to their hometowns as many already opened training camps. This draft is held via conference call and can be followed via MLSSoccer.com's live stream.

For the real draftniks there are a few known players left.

The full gallery from the draft Sporting KC's first round pick. @DDwyer14

Hours before the start of today's Major League Soccer supplemental draft, Sporting Kansas City announced that they've traded their Fourth Round pick (73rd overall) to San Jose for the rights to midfielder Michael Thomas. San Jose originally drafted Thomas in 2010, but he opted to sign with Sweden's Halmstads.

Manny Lagos, former MLS player turned coach, has won the 2011 NASL Coach of the Year award presented by FieldTurf. The award was announced at this years NSCAA Convention in Kansas City which took place last week. With the Stars being a league-owned-team and operating on a shoe string budget, Lagos who was in his [.

Paul Riley thinks very highly of Sarah Hagen (Appleton North/UW-Milwaukee).

So much so that even though Hagen signed with Bayern Munich through June and joined up with the German club this week, Riley still wanted to make sure his team had the rights to the high-scoring forward if she chooses to play in Women's Professional Soccer.

Episode 04: Wynalda is Even Crazier Than We Thought

On this special edition, I react to Eric Wynalda's free form comedy show at today's NSCAA Convention in Kansas City. The details of which were brought to us via Twitter thanks to Jonathan Tannenwald. More importantly, I'm joined by Sarah Wilson who was there in person for the entire speech and offers her reactions.

Night in Kansas City. A heavy rain falls. A limousine with darkened windows and an MLS sticker on the bumper pulls up to a corner in a remote, destitute section of the city. Fake Sigi steps out of the shadows in a trench coat and hat pulled low. The window in the back seat goes down.

"Kill him.

Photo: Courtesy of the Philadelphia Union

It's the MLS Superdraft/WPS Draft edition of the KYW Philly Soccer Show!

In part one, KYW's Greg Orlandini, along with Philly Soccer Page writers Eli Pearlman-Storch and Mike Servedio, are joined by Philadelphia Daily News writer Kerith Gabriel from the SuperDraft in Kansas City to discuss the Philadelphia Union's newest members, forward Chandler Hoffman, midfielder Greg Jordan, and defender Raymon Gaddis.

Image via MLS on Facebook.

Kickettes, give a pageant queen wave hello to Dom Dwyer, Sporting Kansas City's first round draft pick at yesterday's 2012 MLS SuperDraft. There's a lot to learn about Dom, but because he's still so box fresh, we're only sticking to the need-to-know facts for today.

The most intriguing pick-up in the 2012 MLS Superdraft was the one not made in Kansas City. The Portland Timbers traded forward Kenny Cooper to the New York Red Bulls for the team's 2013 first round Superdraft pick and conditional ...
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With neither of Seattle Sounders FC's MLS SuperDraft picks being from Generation Adidas nor pre-signed seniors or internationals the two players are going to have to fight to make the tight roster. A roster than may get even tighter before they report as General Manager Adrian Hanauer said during today's conference call there are "other deals that are possibly pending or getting close.

No. 1 selection Andrew WengerU.S. Soccer Communications
U.S. Under-23 defender and U.S. Soccer Development Academy alum Andrew Wenger out of Duke was the top selection by the Montreal Impact during Thursday's MLS SuperDraft held at the NSCAA Convention in Kansas City. Three of the first five selections in the draft had Development Academy ties.

The Philadelphia Union select Raymon Gaddis with the 35th overall pick in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft. This pick was originally acquired from Sporting Kansas City in 2010 in the Shavar Thomas trade.

Gaddis was considered by some to be the best right back in the draft, even ahead of Aubrey Perry.

The Philadelphia Union select Greg Jordan with the 32nd overall pick in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft.

Jordan is a defensive type of midfielder, making him the fourth player on the Union that can play in a central defensive midfield role (Brian Carroll, Gabriel Gomez and Amobi Okugo, as well). He is a good passer of the ball and works hard throughout the midfield, a lot like Carroll.

The last time the Revs had a top 3 pick in the draft, they took a 21-year-old named Taylor Twellman in 2002.

Ten years later, Jay Heaps and Co. hope that they landed a similar talent in Kelyn Rowe, who was selected with the third pick in Thursday's SuperDraft in Kansas City.

Rowe, a creative midfielder out of UCLA, will be be counted upon to revitalize an attack that was nearly non-existent for many stretches last season.

The 2012 MLS SuperDraft starts at 12 pm EST today, with television coverage starting at that time on ESPN2 (also available through ESPN's web service ESPN3). The Philadelphia Union have two natural SuperDraft selections, the 13th overall pick (13th in the first round) and the 32nd overall pick (13th in the second round), plus the 35th overall pick (16th in the second round) from Sporting Kansas City, received as part of the Shavar Thomas trade in 2010.

The 2012 MLS Draft is set to kick off in a few hours as teams from across the league look to add those missing pieces to the puzzle.

The 2012 draft class is a strong one, with depth at a variety of positions, such as centerback and attacking midfielder. There are quality prospects available that have teams trying to trade up into the top four, where the likes of Luis Silva, Kelyn Rowe, Enzo Martinez and Sam Garza have drawn considerable interest.

Great production value. Strong story line. If this doesn't get you pumped about an event you normally might not get pumped about then check your pulse.
But seriously, the SuperDraft, silly name and all, is where dreams start for a lot of players in our domestic league. Each one has the chance to make American soccer even greater.

The MLS SuperDraft is Thursday, Jan. 12 and for a few players in camp, it's the day they could finally realize a childhood dream of turning professional. Two players in camp have had their name tossed around in the various mock drafts building up to tomorrow's big event in Kansas City. Defender Andrew Wenger out of Duke traveled to the Midwest to be a part of the proceedings and forward Kelyn Rowe out of UCLA will be watching events unfold from his hotel room here in Southern California.

We aren't even done with the SuperDraft this week and already some rumors are flying around about this year's MLS All-Star game. No word yet on who the club MLS will be playing, but one has to figure it won't be a three-peat of Manchester United.

No, the talk today is all about the location of the game.

A few weeks ago, comments were made publicly about Michael Thomas coming to Kansas City. As mentioned previously, the Notre Dame grad has played with multiple members of Sporting KC, including Matt Besler and Seth Sinovic. Word out of Sweden is that Thomas will definitely not be returning to club, Ljungskile SK.

If Sporting Kansas City's season had a title, it would be "Night and Day". A tough start to the season, no doubt spurred on by the never-ending road trip, saw the team open Livestrong Park and use its great atmosphere ...
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2012 Portland Timbers Schedule

Date Opponent Kickoff (Pacific) Television Monday, March 12 PHILADELPHIA UNION 6:30 p.m. ESPN2 Saturday, March 17 @FC Dallas 5:30 p.

By: Brandon Arendt
Rivals clash for the third time this season when the Milwaukee Wave play host to the Missouri Comets at the US Cellular Arena at 7:00 PM. Milwaukee is looking to extend their division lead over their Central Division rivals. All the while Missouri will be looking to simultaneously extend their lead over Wichita and draw closer to Milwaukee in the mid-season standings.