One of the more potential-filled midfielders in the U.S. youth pipeline is coming to MLS.

The Portland Timbers have acquired U.S. Under-20 midfielder Charles Renken through the MLS waiver process, according to a team release, bringing the 18-year-old to the Pacific Northwest from TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.

When you think of the best teams in the Western Conference, the Houston Rockets don't come to mind right away. But the Texas team has now won nine of their last ten games after dropping the New York Knicks by a final score of 97-84.

The Rockets, now 12-8 on the season, were led by Chase Budinger's 19 points off the bench.

Perhaps all the Boston Celtics needed was their best player. Losers of their first three games this season, the Celtics welcomed back Paul Pierce and then welcomed themselves to the win column with a 96-85 victory over the Detroit Pistons.

In his debut, Pierce had 12 points, five assists and four rebounds.

Scott Kessler: Hi everyone, I'm hoping we get some questions on such short notice.

Comment From Jared
I'm sure you will. I'll start it off. Have you heard any rumors on further moves the Union is planning?

Scott Kessler: Jared, I've been looking around without much success of late.

The Vancouver Whitecaps have won the lottery to acquire winger/forward Lee Nguyen, who most recently played professional football in Vietnam.

The Whitecaps beat out FC Dallas, Toronto FC, LA Galaxy, the Houston Dynamo, and Real Salt Lake to Nguyen's services.

Vancouver had a 47.6 percent chance of landing Nguyen in the lottery, the best odds of all of the teams who participated.

The lottery to allocation Lee Nguyen to an MLS team is set to talk place tomorrow. Rumor is that all the teams in the league have applied to be in the lottery. For those that don't know, the lottery is based off of a team's record over the last season. That being said, with Sporting KC finishing 5th in the regular season last year, their chances are not great.

Lee Nguyen To Join MLS Via Weighted Lottery

Notably the Seattle Sounders (you've heard of them?) tried to sign him as a free at one point. Seattle wouldn't have a strong chance, but another creative player capable of scoring is not a bad thing.

Of all the topics upon which MLS fans love to bicker, nothing can touch the Playoffs. Some of us hate the dependence on conferences, some of us hate the amount of clubs that are admitted in, and some of us hate them all together. Me? I like the idea of a playoff, and I think the current model is okay, but just okay.

Real Salt Lake has signed trialist Chris Agorsor to a professional deal, according to our friends over at the Salt Lake Tribune.

Michael C. Lewis, the SLTribune's Real Salt Lake beat reporter, reached out to the Real Salt Lake brass and came back with the following response from the team's General manager:

The former Philadelphia Union forward has signed a contract with RSL, general manager Garth Lagerwey confirmed Wednesday, potentially providing some reinforcement for the team's attacking corps.

Brazil and Argentina crashed out of the Copa America over the weekend, continuing the trend of the 2011 tournament being one of the most unpredictable of its kind.

Both teams had performed inconsistently in the group stages, but appeared to have found their form ahead of the quarter-final stage.

In Hope we trust!

The US women played their hearts out against Japan and they were in long spells the better team. They lost to a cruel lottery of penalty kicks.

Post match they showed their class. No grumbling. No wasted tears. As Hope Solo put it:

"We lost to a great team, we really did.

Sporting Kansas City has won the rights to 2007-08 U-15/16 Development Academy Player of the Year Soony Saad in an allocation lottery. The 18-year-old signed with Major League Soccer last week and was placed into a weighted lottery, which Sporting KC won. Saad, who played for Vardar and then Derby County Wolves, spent one year at the University of Michigan and helped the Wolverines to their first-ever NCAA College Cup appearance in 2010 while setting the school's single-season scoring record with 19 goals and five assists.

Today MLS held a weighted lottery after the league signed Michigan University standout, Soony Saad to a contract. Sporting KC was one of only 4 teams available for the draft that chose to participate. Along with KC, Chicago, Chivas, and Portland participated in the draft. Real Salt Lake, San Jose, Philadelphia, and Columbus were unable to participate due to winning previous lotteries.

Sporting Kansas City has one of the deepest and strongest collection of forwards in MLS, but will now have yet another forward after winning the weighted lottery for the rights to former Michigan striker Soony Saad.

Sporting KC beat out Chivas USA and the Chicago Fire, which had the best chances of landing Saad in the weighted lottery, held at MLS headquarters on Tuesday.

The Philly Soccer Page " Stat chat: Union at DC
For the second game in a row, the Union entered the second half down a goal and battled back with multiple goals-against DC one of their two goals was a Perry Kitchen own goal- to secure points.

D.C. United 2, Philadelphia Union 2 - Match Review & Player Ratings - Black And Red United

As AMT pointed out immediately following the 2-2 tie between D.

Soony Saad signs with MLS.

Former Michigan standout and the 2010 NCAA leading scorer Soony Saad has signed a contract with Major League Soccer this past weekend.

Saad will be made available in a weighted lottery on Tuesday. Four teams will not be available for this lottery as they won previous lotteries this season.

Former University of Michigan striker Soony Saad was the leading goal scorer in college soccer in 2010, and that track record was enough to lead Major League Soccer to sign him to a contract over the weekend.

Saad completed a deal with MLS and now the 18-year-old Michigan native will be made available in a weighted lottery on Tuesday.

Goal.com learns Soony Saad signs with MLS

The NCAA scoring threat would have been a solid draft pick last SuperDraft, and probably a top 5 this coming year. He left Michigan to pursue a professional deal and now signed with MLS.

He will be assigned via Lottery. The order to be determined.

For Seattle it makes sense to try and win the player, who is likely on a GA deal, but in no way should this effect their other efforts.

Released only two weeks ago by the Philadelphia Union, forward Chris Agorsor is on trial with Real Salt Lake. The former University of Virginia player was spotted with two other trialists at today's Salt Lake practice, as reported by Michael C. Lewis of The Salt Lake Tribune on Twitter.

The 21-year-old Agorsor joins Haitian midfielder Sony Norde and Bulgarian full back Samir Bengelloun.

Despite not making a single appearance with the first team, Chris Agorsor's time with the Philadelphia Union is at an end. The team waived him Thursday in a surprising move.

Agorsor was acquired back in February via a weighted lottery after spending most of the preseason with Philadelphia. He played in a reserve match against New York in April but still had not debuted with the first team.

I've attempted to write the usual The Good, The Bad & The Ugly recap for this past Saturday's game against the San Jose Earthquakes but I get stuck every time. A couple of other things threw me off this weekend. It might be that. Primarily I think it's because I saw the same script I've seen before this year.

The Oakland native was waived by Dallas May 5 and picked up by the Galaxy the next day.

He is eligible to play Saturday against Chivas USA after agreeing contract terms.

The 22-year-old started his pro career with England's Southampton in 2007, was selected by Real Salt Lake in a weighted lottery in 2009 and was traded to Dallas less than two weeks later.

The New York Knicks and their fans thought they hit the lottery when they acquired Carmelo Anthony from the Denver Nuggets. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the Knicks dynasty. Instead of getting better, the Knicks have gotten a lot worse. They've lost six straight games and the team looks totally lost.

Kenneth Faried might play for tiny Morehead State but he's a big name in the college basketball world. That name got even bigger on Thursday when Kenneth helped lead Morehead State over Louisville with 12 points, 17 rebounds and one game-saving block at the end to preserve the 62-61 victory. Get used to watching Kenneth Faried play because he's headed to the NBA.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Every week during the 2010-11 season, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché for learners of English who love the sport. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript below that.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Every week during the 2010-11 season, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché for learners of English who love the sport. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript below that.

Chivas USA continues to make deals. Today, they traded midfielder Sal Zizzo to the Portland Timbers in exchange for allocation money.

The 23-year old played in 10 games last season with Chivas while contributing one assist. He was acquired by Chivas USA in a weighted lottery after signing with MLS in July 2010.

To MLS expansion team Portland for allocation money, the team announced this afternoon.

Midfielder Sal Zizzo, 23, made all of 10 appearances - including one start - for Chivas USA after joining the club last July from Germany's Hannover 96. Chivas USA won his rights by lottery.
The San Diego native played two years at UCLA and has one cap with the USMNT.

Okay, one final lottery. Today marked what hopefully is the final player lottery/draft of the 2011 offseason with the weighted player lottery for 19-year-old Korey Veeder.

Four clubs went into the draft, Toronto FC (45.52 percent) had the best chance at acquiring the US Under-20 prospect followed by the Seattle Sounders (24.

Okay, one final lottery. Today marked what hopefully is the final player lottery/draft of the 2011 offseason with the weighted player lottery for 19-year-old Korey Veeder.

Four clubs went into the draft, Toronto FC (45.52 percent) had the best chance at acquiring the US Under-20 prospect followed by the Seattle Sounders (24.

In 2008, Chris Agorsor was one of the most sought after high school seniors in US soccer.

Now he is the new speed demon on the Union roster.

Philadelphia had a 96.3% chance of landing the striker, and he has trained with the team during their preseason indoor session at YSC Sports.

Agorsor planned on spending a season at Virginia before leaving for Europe, but a major knee injury curtailed his big dreams.

Chris Agorsor trained with Philadelphia earlier this year. (Photo via Philadelphia Union)

Another day, another Major League Soccer lottery.

Today's lottery was a fairly quick one as only three clubs participated for the rights to land former US U-18 striker Chris Agorsor. The Philadelphia Union beat out the two expansion clubs, the Portland Timbers and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Chris Agorsor got his wish. He will embark on his professional career in Philadelphia.

The Union won the weighted lottery to Agorsor's rights Monday afternoon, competing against only the expansion Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps with the odds in its favor. The Union had a 96.

Cody Arnoux, the former Wake Forest star who left school early to join Everton's reserve team, has landed at Real Salt Lake after it won a weighted lottery for the 22-year-old forward held on Friday afternoon.
RSL had the fourth best odds of landing Arnoux among the six teams that took part in the lottery.

This could be a very nice pickup for Jason Kreis. Today striker Cody Arnoux was placed in a weighted lottery and Real Salt Lake came out on top. RSL only had to beat out five other clubs as only Houston, Columbus, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver participated in the lottery with them.

RSL had the forth best odds to win the lottery at only 5.

California goalkeeper a David Bingham won't have to go far to his new home. Today he was picked up via a weighted lottery by the San Jose Earthquakes.

San Jose had a 8.8% chance of winning (5th best). I don't mean to toot my own horn but I said I'd put money on the Quakes winning earlier this afternoon.

Photos by ISIphotos.com

And then there were 13.

Sporting Kansas City, Chivas USA, D.C. United, the Houston Dynamo and Philadelphia Union have all opted out of Wednesday afternoon's lottery for the rights to Generation adidas goalkeeper David Bingham, leaving 13 teams vying for his services.

Adrian Hanauer really sounded like someone who just won the lottery. You know that one birthday where it seemed like every present you opened was exactly what you wanted? Where you started actually getting embarrassed that people actually listened to you this time? That's the best way I could describe my conversation with the Sounders' general manager and part owner.

Attention brothers, sisters and fellow members of the congregation of the Church of American Soccer: it's time to pass around the collection plate.
The creators of the independent film Gringos at the Gate need our help to get their movie out of the edit bay and into theaters/DVD players so it's time to put up (cash) or shut up; watch the clip above to find out how you can help make this bit of celluloid soccer magic happen.