Meanwhile, midfielder Sal Zizzo was jogging with Nagbe around the playing field during the game. Zizzo, who suffered a torn ligament in his left knee during the team's home game against Houston last season, is progressing quickly and will likely begin training sometime after the team returns to Portland.

The Oregonian's Geoffrey C Arnold has reported via Twitter that "Eddie Johnson sustained another concussion during training Monday and has returned 2 [sic] Portland."

Merritt Paulson has also tweeted: "eddie's out indefinitely. His health and well-being are the #1 priority for everyone in the organization"

This news is a huge setback for the team.

I posed some statements to the other writers of Stumptown Footy and asked them to buy or sell the statement with a brief explanation. Here are our answers:

Kris Boyd will score 10+ goals this season. Andrew:

Sell. I've held this opinion close to my chest. I want to believe that Boyd is going to be the goalscorer the Timbers organization has cast their lot in, but to me there are still just a few too many questions.

Goalkeeper Doug Herrick is no longer training with the club.

I just got confirmation that Timbers Supplemental Draft pick Doug Herrick is no longer training with the team. It seemed likely given that he was left off of the preseason roster, but this confirmation makes Joe Bendick the likely candidate to be the Timbers 3rd string keeper behind Troy Perkins and Jake Gleeson.

Interested in helping out a wonderful community project and possibly rub elbows with Timbers legends Mick Hoban or Scot Thompson? The Friends of Trees are holding their annual tree planting on Saturday, February 11, and is inviting Timbers fans and community volunteers to join in the fun. Timber Joey will be there, but he's helping put trees in the ground, not cutting them down to celebrate goals.

Jose Balcazar - No position announced (Deportivo Cali)
Joe Bendik - Goalkeeper (Sogndal)
Lance Davids - Midfielder (Lierse SK)
Miguel Ibarra - Midfielder
Ryan Kawulok - Defender
Brendan King - Midfielder
Sebastián Rincon - Forward (Santa Fe, Colombia)
Franck Songo'o - Midfielder (Albacete Balompie)

Per the Timbers site, here are the non-roster/trialists that are in California with the Timbers.

Most of the United States was focused on the "other football" this weekend, but there were still some soccer business stories coming out over the last few days. We'll start with FOX's broadcast of the Manchester United/Chelsea match over the weekend. Once again, the network offered an EPL match over network television via a live broadcast.

Ryan wrote yesterday about the formation likely to be the most common in 2012, based on John Spencer's almost exclusive use of the 4-4-2 in 2011. It's true, Spencer likes the direct approach to the attack, a strategy that uses lots of speed and doesn't require much in the way of possession.

But part of me wonders if Spencer felt limited in choosing his formation because of a lack of depth on the bench.

The season is just over a month away and the roster is almost completely set. Of course there is still the possibility of adding a few more pieces or dropping a few of the newer players. For the most part the Timbers have the core of their starting line-up signed. With all the changes to the roster will John Spencer go away from the 4-4-2 formation or will he go with a different formation?

"If you don't make the playoffs, you basically clean house at the end of the season," Perkins said. "There's a lot of pressure and there should be."

Not sure if Cleaning house is the answer if the Timbers don't make the playoffs this year. Especially if there are some injuries and the fact that the West is deeper than the East.

The international transfer window close a couple days ago. This doesn't mean too much, but it is a milestone in that MLS teams can no longer actively seek in-contract trades with other teams outside MLS. Still, the roster freeze date isn't until March 1st so we may yet still see more moves made, even if it isn't Juan David Duque (Franck Songo'o?

When I started this site back in 2009, I had expected the site to devote a significant amount of ink to the transfer market and the finances involved in buying and selling players. Over time the focus has shifted to marketing, promotions, broadcast and other business issues facing soccer in the United States.

So you guys might have seen the Fanpost here already, but I figured a full blown post was in order considering the weight of this rumor. According to Colombian site FutbolRed.com, the 20 year old Colombian national team player is apparently just waiting on a visa before he can be officially announced and brought into the team.

Despite being a closed session today without any tasty tidbits from John Spencer to chew on, today's Timbers practice was an interesting one none the less.

Although Kris Boyd was, not surprisingly, not yet practicing we were told that he would likely join the team in around ten days while they are in California.

A lot of thought/homework going into Valencia...earliest we will have detail will be Wednesday

Any player the Timbers sign is always subject to the player passing a full physical exam

The Player is our priority #1 and I am optimistic Valencia will still be a part of our future

Three Tweets concerning Valencia from Merritt Paulson

The Columbus Crew now has a home on SBNation

Some inter-network news this morning for you all. As you guys may very well know we here at Stumptown Footy are part of a much larger, bigger and all around fantastic sports network of blogs and sites. This works out great for you guys since it means we have more resources available and more clout with which to get us into sports events and the like.

The Timbers practice today was an uneventful one on the field but saw several developments on the sidelines. Once again Jose Adolfo Valencia was missing from practice which was yet again explained as being further fitness testing. John Spencer went on to say that as soon as he was done testing we would see him back on the field.

By DAVE MARTINEZ

Though the New York Red Bulls were once considered clear-cut favorites to win the 2011 MLS Eastern Conference crown, the team imploded with a host of problems on the field, and in the locker room.

The defense became a porous mess that forced head coach Hans Backe to retool tactically in the final quarter of the season with a crude system he dubbed "cynical soccer" in order to stay competitive.

The Timbers begin training camp this week in Portland at JELD-WEN Field in preparation for the 2012 season. Optimism is in high supply, as many players showed up to camp in excellent fitness for training. The Timbers just missed out on the playoffs in 2011, and have aspirations to be one of the five participants from the MLS Western Conference in 2012.

A close up of the Timbers youngest Colombian striker in his new Timbers training kit: Jose Adolfo Valencia.

I've got some pictures of Hanyer Mosquera as well that I'll show off later.

So it's been quite a while since anybody here at Stumptown Footy convened at Jeld-Wen Field for a training session. It was good to get back out there and, more importantly, it was good to get back out into the stadium. Forgot how much I missed that place!

Anyway, today's Quotes and Notes edition might be a tad shorter than usual.

Now that the Timbers have a compliment of 30 players total we can sort of assume that the team is going to settle down a bit and look towards building for their starting 11 in March. I know, I know the hot rumor is that a third DP will be coming soon as a true #9 striker. But even without him we can sort of piece together how the squad will look in this upcoming season as compared to last year.

Don't forget, the Timbers have Robbie Findley's rights if he decides to come back to Major League Soccer.

Timbers sign Colombian defender Hanyer Mosquera

Mosquera, 24, joins the Timbers after playing the past six seasons in Colombia, including the last two with first-division side Club Deportivo La Equidad Seguros. Last season, he helped lead La Equidad to the finals of the Liga Postobón's Apertura campaign and competed in the 2011 Copa Sudamericana.

Portland's Draft Did Not Impress Everyone

I really don't think the writer knows all the comings and goings of the Timbers or he would know a defensive signing is in the works. Still don't know how Vancouver is a winner.

The 2012 MLS Superdraft will start at 9:00 am on ESPN2/ESPN3 and we will be live blogging the whole thing. Feel free to join in and add your thoughts as we test out the Cover It Live live blogging software.

The Timbers have the 8th and 27th picks in the draft. The full draft order can be found here.

So you guys all saw how I picked in SB Nation's mock SuperDraft. If you didn't then, well, I chose GA cetnral defenders Andrew Jean-Baptiste for my 8th pick and then Aldo Paniagua for my 27th. Why? Well you can read all about it right over here!

In any case, what probably isn't as well known about the mock draft is that we aren't allowed to trade picks for anything.

This is kind of one of those good news-bad news posts. The good news is that David Horst has finally gotten the surgery he needed all last season. According to Merritt Paulson, via Twitter, Horst suffered from issues all last season with regards to this specific injury and it needed to get taken care of.

Monday MLS Breakdown: Application Of Home Grown Player Rule - Goal.com

The most complete look at the current state of the HGP rule and the exceptions to the rule that have been granting. Yes, Brent Richards was an exception, but there have been a few others.

There's also a nugget that now seems to incentivize a club operating an amateur PDL team in order to main their connections to former U18 players who are then at colleges.

In case you're not a regular visitor to the SBNation Soccer hub, today we held our annual mock MLS SuperDraft wherein each one of us blog managers takes on the role of our respective club's General Manager/Head Coach and picks in the same order as they would. It's quite fun, even though I'm usually wrong (2011 mock SuperDraft).

The MLS Player Combine continues today with a second round of games available to stream on the MLS website. With the first games out of the way and two more days of practice together for the teams, expect today's games to be much more interesting as the invitees get to know each other.

The first game of the day, adiPower vs adiZero at 11:30 am, will feature several names that the Timbers will want to keep an eye on.

With the MLS Superdraft looming, I was curious about what the people here think the Timbers should do. Not so much about whether they should draft a specific player, but about how the team should approach the draft, and what strategy they should follow when acquiring young American talent.

The Timbers draft eighth in the draft this year, and as many people have noted are looking to make the leap into the playoffs and general Cup contention.

Our first Home Grown Player?

Looks like the new year is going to start off well as Brent Richards is reportedly signing a HGP contract with the Timbers.

Direct quote from UW Head Coach Jaime Clark "Brent Richards will sign a homegrown contract with the Timbers this week."

So we announced it on Twitter yesterday, but I figured the man at least deserved a bit of recognition in today's Timbers Tid Bits.

If you didn't ehar, JohnS trong won MLS's "Broadcast Call of the Year" for his decidedly epic announcement of Darlington Nagbe's "Goal of the Year." I didn't get a chance to watch every single game, but I can't think of another, more passionate announcer and I was very happy to see John get the recognition he deserves.

We're still working our way back into the news cycle here at SF, but in the meantime check out this amazing gingerbread Jeld-Wen Field found on the Timbers Facebook page.

[Timbers Facebook]

You know your Mom loves you when she gives you this as your present this year and your brothers get Timbers Beanies.

While doing some research into the team and thinking about possible holiday gifts for the Timbers, all Timbers fans got a huge gift courtesy of the team. The Timbers announced they were hosting a four team pre-season tournament at JELD-WEN Field between February 27 and March 4 featuring the Timbers, fellow MLS clubs Chivas USA and San Jose, and famed Swedish first division side AIK.

With 2011 closing out here in the next couple weeks, all eyes on MLS are pointing towards the SuperDraft and, with that, we have a couple mock drafts that have Portland selecting defender Matt Hedges as their pick. My personal favorite mocki draft so far is WVHooligan.com's where Drew picked Hedges for Portland:

Portland was hurt by their defense one time too many in their expansion season.

Preseason tourney @ JWF. 2 MLS sides plus us and AIK (Swedish 1st division). for STHs all games count as exhib.game A. Details today #RCTID

Via @MerrittPaulson.

He goes on to say the Timbers are looking to build a solid relationship with AIK. Very exciting.

The Timbers finally landed the long rumoured young forward from Colombia, Jose Adolfo Valencia, as the club officially signed him to a Designated Player contract last week. The Timbers now have an impressive group of Colombians on their roster which could pay dividends and goals in their run for the playoffs in 2012.