This Thursday, January 12 will feature the Chicago Fire's 5th MLS SuperDraft with Frank Klopas as the team's technical director. In order to establish how Klopas has stacked up to his competition over this time period, we will take a look at the highlights and lowlights of the draft histories of the other MLS teams.

This Thursday, January 12 will feature the Chicago Fire's 5th MLS SuperDraft with Frank Klopas as the team's technical director. In order to establish how Klopas has stacked up to his competition over this time period, we will take a look at the highlights and lowlights of the draft histories of the other MLS teams.

I watched FC Barcelona in the wee smalls on Sunday, mesmerized as always by the side's peerless ability to hold possession and work nimbly out of pressure, as Pep Guardiola's men operated in Asia. It took me back a couple of weeks to my trip into that stylish and splendid Catalan city.

Just after sunset, my girlfriend and I sat in a coffee shop not far from the Barcelona's main port.

In the absence of real news, as the Interlull takes hold rather more quickly than we might have liked, I am very grateful of the chance I got yesterday to visit Arsenal.

I took a CattleAir flight, was very kindly picked up and dropped off at the training ground by Lewis Hamilton's driving instructor where I met Tom (from Arsenal).

For the record, the scene at CenturyLink Field on Wednesday was everything you'd want, a cauldron of mean green, awash in Open Cup frenzy. And also for the record, Seattle is a deserving Open Cup champ, a club that takes the competition seriously and now has solid historical evidence to prove it. (The Sounders won their third consecutive Open Cup crown, the first side in 40 years to do so.

Map of birthplaces for players currently in La Liga (excluding Spain)

This is our second post in our series on the origins of players previously we looked at the Premier League. La Liga is little different from the Premier League, both in terms of infrastructure ("B" squads can compete in lower divisions) and culturally (Athletic Bilbao has a policy to only sign players from the Basque region).

The BBC published a survey this week on the cost of watching football in Britain. An interesting exercise, the challenge was to find the cheapest day out at football grounds across the country.
(Note: Twohundredpercent has a cautionary tale about the BBC's methodology and, of course, the survey ignored the Scottish Football League.

The monthly meeting for the Seattle Sounders Alliance Council was prior to the Colorado Rapids match. This regular scheduled meeting was originally intended as a Council only meeting with the club invited to observe, but wound up with some special guests from the Football Association who are visiting with Manchester United.

And we'll finish out the week with cold pizza: two revamps of old infographics.
The first barely counts as a graphic, so we'll get it out of the way quickly. As I explained last year, I don't always agree with how Opta/BBC/ESPN/whomever classifies assists. So, just to be pedantic, I call it "Goal Creation" in the graphic's headline.

Unbelievable.

Outro.

Classless.

I can't emphasize that enough. Sure, many of us figured the end was nigh for Carlo. After months of speculation, the double losses to United in the CL and PL essentially sealed his fate some weeks ago, with the remaining matches on our schedule an overall exercise in futility.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since presenting, "Social Media for Coaches," at the 2011 NSCAA Convention in Baltimore with the one and only Ryan Knapp. A huge thank you to the NSCAA Convention Committee for inviting us to give this session, my fellow association members and convention attendees who came to watch, and all of the folks who offered insight and ideas ahead of time.

Seattle Sounders Forwards tools as rated by writers for Sounder at Heart

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The headline gives a strong indication of what our goal is, but I should remind you all that these tools look at PAST PERFORMANCE.