Jimmy Conrad and Josh Wolff will certainly be protected in the upcoming expansion draft. (WVH Photo Correspondent Brian Stevens)

Staying with the two-a-day structure for the expansion draft lists, earlier in the day we looked at the Houston Dynamo now we turn our focus to the Kansas City Wizards.

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Peter Vermes is now the head coach of the Kansas City Wizards. (Getty Images)

I guess Peter Vermes liked coaching enough after all. Today the Kansas City Wizards are set to remove the interim tag from Vermes title and name him their full time head coach.

The Wizards will formally announce Vermes as the club's head coach at a press conference later today at the Wizards Swope Park Training Complex.

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As mentioned earlier on my Twitter feed today has been a slow day due to some bad headaches on my end. I won't go into it much but I am feeling a little better after some medicine kicked in here (thanks to the few who asked). I didn't have much planned for tonight but I did want to get into the coaching carousel that is going on in Major League Soccer.

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Jimmy Conrad and Josh Wolff lead the way in 2009 for Kansas City. (WVH Photo Correspondent Brian Stevens)

The bandwagon was getting bigger for this club going into 2009. Many folks had hoped this was the year the Kansas City Wizards would get over the hump and make a big splash in the eastern conference.

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Plenty of fans were saying last night that this match was like a microcosm of our season. I disagree. A microcosm of our season would have included DC United grabbing an early lead and taking it into halftime. It also would have included many chances to go even further ahead, but we would have had multiple goals disallowed and/or our opponent would have scored after some poor officiating. Click to continue reading...

Toronto FC needs another win to get into the playoffs for the first time. (Getty Images)

It all comes down to one final weekend in Major League Soccer. I don't believe the league front office could have even dreamed up this kind of weekend that puts a lot of meaning on the regular season as a whole.

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The playoffs are a week away but seven MLS clubs still remain in the running for three open spots, including one automatic birth from the eastern conference. This week's rankings saw a few shifts including FC Dallas' on-going run up the boards and possibly into the playoffs.

Elsewhere on the board we saw Toronto gain a little grown while Colorado and Chicago continue to slip.

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One of the final weeks of the regular season has come and gone but the goals were definitely spot on for week 31 in Major League Soccer. Below are some of the best.

Order: George John, Maykel Galindo, Brandon McDonald, Justin Braun, Josh Wolff, Nate Jaqua, Luciano Emilio, Jim Brennen, and Fabian Espindola.

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Three spots remain for the MLS playoffs and seven clubs are going for those spots. I think the most interesting part is that after this final week of the season we could actually see six clubs end up with 40 points. Yes six clubs.

See for yourself.

EASTERN CONFERENCE AUTOMATIC BERTHS
Columbus (29) 13-6-10, 49 points (vs.

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It's do or die for Toronto FC. (Getty Images)

Big time weekend ahead for Major League Soccer. Four clubs have punched their tickets to the post season dance with four remaining spots left open to possibly all get snatched up this weekend.

You can pretty much put a playoff implication on every game this weekend.

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First off, sorry for not getting these posted earlier this morning. I had ever intention to do so but somehow I just never hit publish on this post. Second of all this week's rankings come with very little change at the top six or seven. Most of the clubs stayed right where they were at after week 29.

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A short weekend in Major League Soccer saw a couple things take place. The Columbus Crew inched closer towards their second straight Supporter's Shield trophy (and another birth into the CONCACAF Champions League) and Toronto FC's stumble nearly towards elimination.

SUPPORTER'S SHIELD RACE
Columbus (28) 13-5-10, 49 points (at DC, vs.

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BMO Field will be rocking this weekend as the Reds host San Jose. (Getty Images)

Week 30 is a short one for Major League Soccer. Once again the international dates for World Cup qualifiers are taking over the majority of the weekend but three games were still scheduled during it. Not a bad thing as we gear towards the playoffs though as this weekend should gives us a better indication out of a couple clubs on whether or not they are playoff bound or will be staying home this fall.

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It has been quite a full day for some, others are left catching up on all the twitter messages that were lost today. There are plenty of good links to discuss so let's not waste any more time with the formalities.

First up is the lovely discussion that will be on going for the next 20 or 30 years with Major League Soccer.

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I'm back from the long weekend in Austin. I decided to go a head and catch up on this last night instead of just writing a bunch of posts about the weekend that I missed. Now that I am caught up on everything thanks to some highlights and some DVR I felt like starting with the weekly power rankings before I got into anything else.

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Landon Donovan and Blanco battle tonight in LA. (Getty Images)

This weeks previews fall into the shorter than normal bracket. As I mentioned the other day I am going to be in Austin for the weekend for the Austin City Limits Music Festival. This weekend gears to be another weekend that will let us know who will make it into the playoffs, we may even see another team clinch a playoff birth.

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First of all, let me say sorry for the lack of updates this week. I've gone into full site design mode here for this place and for another couple project that I am working on for other folks.

And on that note I will also be heading out of town early this weekend for a long weekend in Austin for the Austin City Limits music festival.

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As mentioned yesterday the playoff race has gotten pretty clear for me. Aside from two or three clubs I pretty much have a good understanding of who will be in the second season and who will not. The rankings sort of reflect that this week and there was some movement across the board.

First up I think LA has finished climbing the charts for now.

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Eddie Gaven and Emilio Renteria are leading the charge for the Crew. (Getty Images)

And just with one weekend the playoff race really cleared up in my eyes. I may end up being wrong about a team or two but for the most part I have a pretty good feeling about six of the clubs that should be in the playoffs this season.

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I don't have too much going into tonight's Evening Links and Thoughts. I mainly wanted to touch base with the current coaching hot seat situation in Major League Soccer. I don't expect any coaching changes to take place until at least after the regular season finishes here. Something crazy would have to take place for any of these teams below to even think about making a switch with so few games left.

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Week 27 is down and in the books. Only a few weeks left to go and this regular season will be finished. This weeks rankings saw yet another shift around the middle of the order but for the most part a good chunk of clubs stayed put from last week's table.

Still, the top four and the bottom four are the same that we've seen for the last few months that's one thing that has remained consistent here.

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As the playoff race has heated up in Major League Soccer, so have the goals that have been scored. This week we saw plenty of good goals but only a select amount were above the rest.

The best goal for me was either Sainey Nyassi's run against New York or Brad Davis' strike against RSL.

(Note QuickKicks on the league site did not have the Columbus/Chicago goals)

Order of video: David Beckham, Edson Buddle, Brian Ching, Yura Movsisyan, Brad Davis, Dax McCarty, Jimmy Conrad, Sainey Nyassi, and John Wolyneic.

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Week 27 in Major League Soccer proved to be a good one for a couple clubs and another tough one for some others. One thing that is clear is the playoff race is still as tight as it was for the past few weeks.

One club that cashed in on a good weekend by not even playing was DC United.

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Seattle needs another big game out of Fredy Montero this weekend. (Getty Images)

There's not too many more weekends left in the 2009 regular season. Week 27 is a full one as we gear towards the playoffs in a few weeks. With so many clubs still in contention the action this weekend should promise to be very good.

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Luis Angel Landin is one of the new faces in MLS. (Getty Images)

I guess you could really say its just been a rather slow week in terms of news. Sure rosters were finalized on Tuesday night for the rest of the year and the league announced their big break next summer but other than that it's been rather calm in Major League Soccer this week.

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Well, well it looks like the Kansas City Wizards' stadium is going to turn out to be a real nice on after all. A couple months ago we got some photos of renderings of the stadium and today we got more up to date copies thanks to the wonderful work of The Back Post (a very good KC photo blog I must say).

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A late season trade is underway. The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the Houston Dynamo are set to trade forward Kei Kamara to Kansas City in exchange for Abe Thompson and possible allocation money.

The deal isn't totally finished but boy it is an interesting one to see. Thompson hasn't really done a thing in KC since being traded last season from Dallas.

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After a week off due to a low number of games (three), the power rankings return in full force. We have some change all around this week after a slew of games this past week. The top changes, as does some near the bottom.

Right now it appears that clubs 1-5 are pretty much set. After that 6-11 are a real mess each week with clubs moving all around that area left and right.

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Over the last week and a half I missed out on quite a bit of stuff so I felt tonight would be a good way to recap some things and give you all my opinion on each. We've had plenty of new players get signed this past week, including one Designated Player...which in Major League Soccer is always a big deal.

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Loads of goals this week in MLS. Some were good and others were so-so. Throw in a few PKs and it was a busy weekend in MLS.

There are plenty of goals this week, especially since we had a 6-3 game and a 3-2 game.

Order of video: Frankie Hejduk, Maicon Santos, Dave van den Burgh, Jeff Cunningham, A.

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One thing I like to do before I go on any trip is make sure my place is decently clean for my return. Well in the case of this past week for my wedding/honeymoon I was all prepared on that level except for when it came to getting back in the swing of things for soccer stuff. I came back into town this past weekend and saw a slew of random scores in Major League Soccer.

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That wasn't exactly how I wanted to see us play against one of the worst teams in the league, but a win is a win, and somehow I still feel like we earned this one. It definitely took this team 30 minutes or so to settle in, and gave up way too many chances during those first 30 minutes, but we looked like the better team in the second half, and ultimately we prevailed. Click to continue reading...

From the KC Star comes word of new discussions regarding the location of a KC Wizards soccer specific stadium

The Kansas Speedway area has emerged as the new choice for a long-sought Wizards soccer stadium in a sweeping proposal that would include at least 4,000 new Cerner Corp. jobs.

The developer working for OnGoal LLC, the owner of the Kansas City Wizards, has prepared a stadium plan for a site owned by Nebraska Furniture Mart.

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From the KC Star comes word of new discussions regarding the location of a KC Wizards soccer specific stadium

The Kansas Speedway area has emerged as the new choice for a long-sought Wizards soccer stadium in a sweeping proposal that would include at least 4,000 new Cerner Corp. jobs.

The developer working for OnGoal LLC, the owner of the Kansas City Wizards, has prepared a stadium plan for a site owned by Nebraska Furniture Mart.

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I may be on vacation getting ready for my wedding but I did spare a second to do some game pickings. Yes the previews are going to be kept mighty short but thankfully we only have three games to deal with. I guess the league decided three games would be enough of a break during an international window of World Cup qualifiers.

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