With the International Transfer Deadline producing a flurry of player movement and even more rumors and speculation, MLS witnessed a prominent striker of their own swap jerseys.

The Vancouver Whitecaps announced Tuesday afternoon that they have acquired All-Star Sebastien Le Toux from the Philadelphia Union in exchange for allocation money.

Another episode of From the Byline to the Back Post is available for your listening. This week Thad and I discussed the supplemental draft, more player movement, the US national team, and the Missouri Comets. Enjoy on both Posterous and iTunes.

The MLS 101 series will be a "living/breathing document" in that I will continue to edit and update these post to keep up to date with the inevitable changes that MLS will make. I encourage you to bookmark the post so you can use them as a reference going forward.

In this edition of MLS 101, it's time to tie up some lose ends about MLS roster rules, along with player movement and acquisition.

Bye bye Timmy?Good morning! With MLS preseason training beginning in just three weeks and the MLS Combine complete, there should be a lot of player movement and a ton of new signings announced in the coming days. The 2012 MLS SuperDraft kicks off tomorrow, and though the New York Red Bulls only have one selection (the 31st overall pick in round two), it's not inconceivable that we could see a trade or two happen while the general managers and coaches are assembled in Kansas City.

The MLS incarnation of the Seattle Sounders is a very young franchise with only three seasons under its belt. That combined with the relative lack of player movement in the single-entity MLS means that there really aren't that many ex-Sounders. But I thought it'd be nice to take a look back at some Sounders of yore and see what they're up to now.

Amsterdam-based Greg Seltzer is certainly a unique cat.

Seltzer

Greg decided long ago to make his name and career in soccer reporting and found himself relocated over to the Netherlands reporting for Soccer America.

With the re-vamp, or re-start if you prefer, of MLSSoccer.com and the need for a qualitative reporter on player movement became clear, Seltzer fit the bill.

Another former SKC Wizards Update, plenty of player movement this week. Jonathan Leathers, Rauwshan McKenzie, and Ryan Pore are now without clubs after not being selected in the second stage of the re-entry draft. They're joined by Shavar Thomas who also wasn't selected. Also looking for a new club, is Stephane Auvray whose was let go by the Red Bulls.

Photo by Jose L. Argueta/ISIphotos.com

Although the majority of teams passed on the opportunity to add players in the second stage of the MLS Re-Entry Draft, a few used Monday's exercise to stockpile depth ahead of the 2012 preseason.

Three teams took multiple players, spearheaded by the defending champion Los Angeles Galaxy, who made four selections: defenders Andrew Boyens and Chris Leitch, veteran forward Pat Noonan and veteran goalkeeper Jon Conway.

Women's soccer in America has encountered another setback. The top-tier female league in the United States, Women's Professional Soccer, is facing a loss of sanctioning by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a Division I league. Entering its fourth season, WPS "terminated" its Florida franchise, magicJack, bringing the number of teams down from six to five in early November.

Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Union

Danny Califf and Sebastien Le Toux both agree that the hope among the players is that there will not be as much player movement in the closed season. Le Toux said, "I hope with the good result we got this year, we'll get most of the guys back and move on and continue.

Frank Klopas -- APBy Charlie Corr
ESPNChicago.com
BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- The Chicago Fire capped off their final training session on Thursday, and now the focus squarely shifts toward head coach Frank Klopas' club making the necessary moves to improve their fate for 2012.
The Fire, who posted a 9-9-16 record and put together a winning record in the final third of the season, anticipate that a bulk of this year's team will be retained for next season.

PES 12 Review - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Visually stunning and superbly realistic, Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 is a welcome upgrade and like last year, PES is finally moving in the right direction again to be the best football playing experience around.

No discussion of PES 12 can even start before it's compared to FIFA 12 as a benchmark, similar to how Championship Manager keeps being held up to the light to be compared against Football Manager.

What an informative photograph! Thanks, Leo. Image via sochuteiras.com.

Clearly, the most exciting thing about this photograph for most of the Kickette staff is that it not only offers a far more expansive view of Leo Messi's 'action' than we're used to, but we also get to speculate on how he achieves such smooth and supple skin on his calves and thighs.

Okay, suspension of disbelief for just a second here.

Not sure why he's pointing at the sky here.....he's the deity on the pitch.

Also, let's forget about a little thing called the Champion's League.

I'm taking a fleeting glance here at another Lionel Messi Master Class here as Barca digs a heal into the necks of the Yellow Submarine's fans Yesterday it was Manchester United with a clinical dismantling of Arsenal and Manchester City running rampant over the Rednapps.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Attempting to bolster the New England Revolution's still struggling attack, the Revs today announced the signing of French-born Moroccan striker Monsef Zerka. Zerka will be officially added to the Revolution's roster pending P1 Visa approval.

"We are looking forward to Monsef's arrival," said Revolution Vice President of Player Personnel Mike Burns.

I knew this would be a busy week in terms of player movement but I think its safe to say it could be a real busy week. Anyways, I just wrote a little article about how the New England Revolution are set to sign their first DP, 22-year old Argentine forward Milton Caraglio.

I can't say whether or not this is a good pickup or not.

photo courtesy of Jarred Donalson
Sporting Kansas City's two month long home stand starts tomorrow when the Wizards take on Toronto FC at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. It's also the end of a five week stretch of Kansas City playing two games a week. Next week the team only has one game against New England on Saturday.

If Real Madrid were a deck of cards, new signing Fabio Coentrao would be the Joker. There has been much speculation on what Mourinho's Madrid was going to look like for the 2011-2012 season. Many had speculated that Mourinho was just about to return to the use of the Trivote (the 4-3-3) at Real Madrid.

What does the transfer window opening mean?

July 15 marks the first day that teams can 'officially' agree to terms over the transferring of players from one side to another. That doesn't mean that teams haven't already made deals and players haven't already moved. Their deals are just official worldwide come July 15.

Philadelphia Union manager Piotr Nowak is one of the best coaching minds in Major League Soccer. The former Polish international knows what is needed to achieve success in MLS. Nowak knows how to recognize talent and make players fit into his system.
After a tough inaugural season, the Union is right up with the best clubs in the Eastern Conference.

This piece below written by US National, World Cup veteran and current Estudiantes Tecos player Herculez Gomez.

The fire to play. More important than the building view...

Editor's Note: An appropriate segue out of the July 4th weekend, Herculez Gomez tries his hand at his first written piece.

Photo by Daniel Studio Photo

Philadelphia Union manager Piotr Nowak is one of the best coaching minds in Major League Soccer. The former Polish international knows what is needed to achieve success in MLS. Nowak knows how to recognize talent and make players fit into his system.

Written by Wigan Gooner

I'll not muck about – it's Pat Rice.

My reasoning for this statement is as follows, Arsene is facing a summer of upheaval like he has never known at Arsenal. There could be more player movement at Arsenal that I have ever seen in all of my years.

Tom Soehn is still converting the Vancouver Whitecaps to be the team he always wanted it to be, he did pick the talent after all. Reports from up North were that practices went back to fundamentals, simple movements, simple passes. Which practically screams that the ‘Caps will be back at the beginning, even though the season is a third over at this point.

In a heady stretch of six matches between January 16th and February 12th, Raul Meireles scored all five of his Liverpool goals. When the goals started to dry up, some began to wonder just how important he was to the team's continued success—especially given the way everybody else in the side seemed to be clicking as Liverpool flourished with an up-tempo pass and move game and the goals poured in against everyone from City to Fulham to Birmingham to Newcastle.

Well, it's finally here. After a crazed offseason including lots of player movement and two new teams entering the league, the 2011 season kicks off tonight at 9:30 PM ET at Qwest Field as Seattle Sounders FC take on the Los Angeles Galaxy.

The Galaxy come into the game having retooled their attack, adding Juan Pablo Angel, Chad Barrett, Adam Cristman, and homegrown signing Jack McBean to their striker corps in response to Edson Buddle's move to the German second division.

There's a tradition in American sports to fret and argue over which team a player's legacy is most correctly attached to. Even in the era of free agency, in which players migrate from coast to coast with some regularity, a player will engineer a symbolic trade back to a favored team for one day to finish a career there or agonize in the decision over which cap or jersey to wear into a Hall of Fame.

The other day we had an interesting discussion about why it is that teams find it so hard to identify and bring through young talent.

Ken Arneson has another take, and it's very persuasive.

I've often thought that half the key to successful sport is the ability to not think.

It may have been a bit slow in starting, but the New England Revolution offseason transformation (we hope it will eventually be qualified as such) has begun. Today's announcement that the team has waived Emmanuel Osei follows a week player movement and news.

The changes started with the addition of Didier Domi, an experienced, left-sided, French fullback that has played in many of the top European leagues.

It's that time of year again. While winter may be bringing a healthy helping of snow to Foxboro, it's covering the rest of the world with a myriad of transfer rumors and this time New England isn't being left in the cold.

New Year's Day marks the opening of the midseason transfer window in most European leagues.