Let's dip into the playoff poll again, this time with one of the fallen favorites. We corralled Houston radio man Brian Zygo to tackle our Dynamo answers.NSC: What went wrong?BZ: In simple terms, a lack a finishing, the Houston Dynamo were having trouble putting the ball in the net. It took over 180 minutes of playing time in the first round of the MLS playoffs before the Dynamo scored a goal. Click to continue reading...

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The U.S. men's national team had plenty of bright spots and highlights in 2009, but the final game of the year had few moments worth remembering.

With most of the team's top stars unavailable, Bob Bradley handed opportunities to several players to show that they deserve more playing time.

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The U.S. men's national team had plenty of bright spots and highlights in 2009, but the final game of the year had few moments worth remembering.

With most of the team's top stars unavailable, Bob Bradley handed opportunities to several players to show that they deserve more playing time.

Click to continue reading...

Eduardo's most common move, the ankle breaker
This is the most obvious Funny Feeling Friday selection in history - but the selection completely fits the award for the week - an unpopular, out of form, or underrated player who we think will perform over the next few weeks.
Couldn't be more obvious: it's Eduardo (7. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday we learned the rules for this year's expansion draft, where the Philadelphia Union will select 10 players from the 15 current MLS teams to help to begin their process for building their roster. The Wizards are allowed to protect 11 players and 3 of the team's 4 international players will have to be protected. Click to continue reading...

The less said about this match, the better. It was painful to watch at moments. I think that this is one of those matches that we're supposed to learn from. So, what did we learn?

-Landon Donovan is even more integral to this team than we could have imagined. We knew he was the driving force, but the team looks completely lost without him.

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I've just heard the news that Russia have failed to qualify for the World Cup.
I suppose it's our fault for not giving Roman Pavlyuchenko enough playing time? I do wonder what 'the world's greatest manager', Hiddink, will do now (Chelsea anyone)?
Didn't it bug you the way the Dutchman went on last season, telling us all just how good Pavlyuchenko was? Click to continue reading...

Rafael Benítez may be forced to part with as many as four senior international squad members in the January transfer window as he attempts to trim Liverpool's wage bill and balance the Anfield books.
Ryan Babel, Andrea Dossena, Andriy Voronin and Philipp Degen will all be sacrificed should suitable offers arrive, even though there are currently no guarantees that Benítez will be granted the revenue generated by their departures to reinvest into the Liverpool team. Click to continue reading...

The Sin: According to Gordon Gekko (the fictional junk bond king played by Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone's inimitable Wall Street), "Greed is good." Well, according to the Bible (and common sense), it ain't very good at all. In fact, Proverbs 15:27 states that "he that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house.

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photo by ISIphotos.com

Kenny Cooper has been struggling for playing time with TSV 1860 Munich lately, and now it appears he will have to wait even longer to get on the field.

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photo by ISIphotos.com

Kenny Cooper has been struggling for playing time with TSV 1860 Munich lately, and now it appears he will have to wait even longer to get on the field.

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Why is this man not in the All XI?

Its the numbers you produce and not the little things that you do on the pitch to improve your team which seems to drive the MLS All XI. Even when you factor in stats it does not seem to add up to why Cuauhtemoc Blanco was left out.

Blanco played 21 matches, started in 15 of them and in 1452 minutes of playing time he scored 5 goals and 8 assists.

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Just how serious is this mini-crisis at United?

Manchester United currently sit third in the Barclays Premier League table level on points with Arsenal (who have a game in hand) and 5 points behind league leaders Chelsea. But how much is Sir Alex relishing this most recent International break?

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Apologies about the lack of posting recently. I've slipped into an euphoria-induced coma at the sight of Tom Huddlestone and Peter Crouch both coming on for England in Doha on Saturday. The prognosis? I'll be okay in the long run but Jermaine Jenas definitely won't go to the World Cup.
I promise normal service will be resumed shortly, once the deluge of Uni work is eased a little bit. Click to continue reading...

Now we start entering the realm of players with playing time. Of guys that may have value to other clubs in trade, and quite possibly seeing the guy that Philadelphia takes in the Expansion Draft later this month. This collection of players are in two sets.

The first set are two USL Sounders, and the second two players are young talents with promise, but who have lacked the playing time to showcase their reputations in competitive matches.

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The FIFA U-17 World Cup finished on Sunday, November 15, 2009 with the championship and third place match. In the finals, host country Nigeria played Switzerland while Spain took on Colombia for third place. Here's a recap of both matches along with video highlights.

Switzerland beats Nigeria 1-0 to win U-17 World Cup Video Highlights

The match was scoreless through the first half despite a strong start from Nigeria, who were the host country of the tournament.

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A Slovakian team that was (apparently)Â good in European qualifying, but not well ranked by FIFA, Â played a defensive, counter-attacking game against the USA in a partially filled stadium, on a pretty ugly field and won 1-0 on a weak penalty call. Â Â Not what you call must-see-TV, so it is probably good that not many people saw it.

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So we are facing Real Salt Lake for the Eastern Conference Semis, even though RSL isn't from the East! I know it is kinda oxymoronic, but the system has worked for the MLS in the past when one Conference (cough cough, the East last year) is completely dominant over the other. Either way, both teams got here in dramatic fashion.

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For much more on this subject, see the original MLS team ages post. It includes the average age of every MLS team in league history.
Age Breakdown
First, I wanted to look at the leaguewide distribution of ages. The percentages here are based on the total number of minutes played in MLS history by every player, using on the age of players on July 1st of each season (the midway point). Click to continue reading...

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

Welcome to the latest installment of Your October Questions Answered, where we take your reader-submitted questions and try to offer up our best responses and opinions to those questions.

This batch of questions covers everything from Brian McBride's potential return to the U.

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The U.S. men's national team takes on Slovakia on Saturday and the match is one of the last remaining opportunities this year for head coach Bob Bradley to take a look at different players and positional pairings before the end of the year.

With standouts Landon Donovan and Tim Howard not called in, and with key injuries to Oguchi Onyewu and Jay Demerit, the squad Bradley will turn to to face the Slovakians will be a much different-looking group than the ones that helped the team qualify for the 2010 World Cup.

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The Galaxy are one victory from reaching MLS Cup 2009 thanks to 2009 Coach of the Year Bruce Arena

The Los Angeles Galaxy began the 2009 season at best as a team in transition, at worst as a team in turmoil. Despite initial problems, the Galaxy now stands only one game from winning the Western Conference.

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Apparently feeling nostalgic for the year 2004 and all those Campbell's soup ads, the Beeb got all Tweet-stalker and tracked down The Biggest Midget in the Gameâ„¢. It's servicable piece but that's probably all you can get when your "interview" is conducted via fax. Still, it's worth a read if only to remind you that Freddy is A) still talented and that B) his lack of playing time may not be entirely his fault. Click to continue reading...

These are the young gentleman who saw time against Chelsea and Barcelona, and sparse minutes during the Open Cup, but did not see time in league play. Impressions of these players are strongest for those that have the opportunity to see practice, or have talked to those that have. As Developmental Players their small contracts don't count against the cap, but they also tend to have second jobs as well.

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AC Milan weren't the busiest in the summer transfer window with many of their targets not getting released from their clubs. After Kaka left the club it was expected that Milan would use the money received to reinvest in players and strengthen the squad but the biggest name player to sign was Klass-Jan Huntelar who has failed to score for the club and has received very little playing time since his move from Real Madrid in the summer.

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Landon Donovan has been regarded the best USA outfield player in the last few years. He's the all-time leading goalscorer for the national team and has been one of the top players in MLS for several years. While there are many who criticize Donovan, there's no denying that he has the ability to play in one of the top leagues in Europe.

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Wizards defender and captain, Jimmy Conrad has been called up by the US national team for their upcoming game against Slovakia. Conrad is one of 22 players that were called up by Bob Bradley for the first of two friendlies next week in Europe. While the US will play Dennmark only a few days after playing Slovakia, Bradley has said he's going to consider making changes to the roster before the game in Denmark. Click to continue reading...

We've covered the forwards, and we've covered the front office. Heck, our front office results actually have been 100% correct so far, with Tom Soehn leaving the team and Kasper and Payne set to return. We'll have to wait a while to find out if our forward results are correct, but in the meantime, let's see what everyone has to say about our attacking midfielders. Click to continue reading...

It was a busy Saturday for Americans Abroad with several players in matches. In England, Brad Friedel was goalkeeper for Aston Villa who won convincingly while Mike Grella scored for Leeds United in their FA Cup win. Up north in Scotland, DaMarcus Beasley come on a sub for Rangers while Jeremiah White and Benny Feilhaber continue to play significant minutes for AGF Aarhus in the Danish League.

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The US Under-17s are out of the Fifa U-17 World Cup after a tough loss to Italy.  I saw less of their World Cup play than I wanted, but a few thoughts remain hard to shake.

Maturity is over-rated at least in soccer.  The game against the UAE reminded me most why watching the occasional youth game is so refreshing: even in a pressure situation the 'kids' tend to play with an offense-first mindset and a penchant for flair that will very likely (and sadly) be taught out of them in the pro ranks.

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Wayne Rooney

This parenting stuff is already harder than I thought. ... Meat. ... The kid doesn't like to play with fireworks nearly as much as I do and he doesn't even know how to use a toilet. ... Meat. ... I think he might be broken. Can you fix a broken kid with a screwdriver and a nail gun?

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Will we see more of Conor Casey with the US National Team? (Getty Images)

Good evening folks, I hope everyone is having a good day. Now that we are in the evening it is time once again for some links and thoughts. I only have two items tonight and really only one link.

My first thought of the night centers around the US Men's National team and their upcoming friendlies this month in Europe.

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The first round of River or Life with the DC United front office has gone pretty much as expected so far, with Tom Soehn just 0% Life, Dave Kasper over 50% but not convincingly, and Kevin Payne somewhere between 50 and 100. Now let's see where the forwards on the roster stand.
The thing about playing River or Life is that its somewhat up to the voter's discretion how you want to interpret the two choices, and I think that's going to come into play for a lot of us with some of these forwards. Click to continue reading...

Beckham learned a thing or two from Pato and Ronaldinho in Milan

• Theo Walcott's girlfriend Mel has "shunned the WAG lifestyle" to continue her university studies, yet still drives around London in a Ferrari. The winger is out for a month with knee ligament damage [The Sun]

• Walcott's young teammate Nicklas Bendtner is also facing a month long spell on the sidelines after picking up a groin injury against Tottenham.

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This may seem like an odd departure during the Playoffs, but if the team does it why shouldn't we. Coach Schmid found a way to get his Reserves and Subs more playing time by getting together with the Seattle Wolves. He did this even while his senior side is smarting from the nil-nil [...] Click to continue reading...