Call it luck or destiny, one thing is for sure Alexandre Pato's 100th minute winner for AC Milan against Novara in the Coppa Italia yesterday definitely left Milan VP Adriano Galliani red in the face.

After trying to sell Pato against his wishes to French club PSG in order to sign Man City want away striker Carlos Tevez failed, the 67 year old has taken a rather low key approach to the club's functions in the past couple of days.

This coming March and April, the US U23 team will attempt to qualify for the 2012 summer Olympics in London. And if Caleb Porter, the team's coach is to be believed, the semifinals and finals would seem to be in KC. On The Best Soccer Show, Porter said that the tournament would start in Tennessee before moving to KC, with the semifinals being on April 2nd.

I'm certainly not the first one to look at possible replacements for Steve Nicol since his departure two days ago. Several of our fellow Revs outlets (most of which are listed on our blogroll to the left) have already put some names out there, some good, some bad, and some baffling.

I'll get to that.

On the road tonight, so we thought we would revisit an interview we did from the start of the 2011 MLS season. Back then, Emigidio Gamboa of the Chicago Fire was kind enough to answer a few questions about the Fire's promotional efforts for 2011, the team's use of social media and more. Now as the season comes to a close, it makes sense to take a look back to see how some of these efforts succeeded.

FIFA's case against some 15 Caribbean countries began yesterday in the whole bin Hammam/Warner bribery for votes. Caribbean Football Union VP Klass has already been banned for 26mo and slapped on the wrist and been told he was naughty. And by naughty, I mean fined $5000, but when you receive nearly $40,000 in bribes that you never account for, what is $5000?

photo courtesy of Jarred Donalson
Last week when Sporting KC announced that 5 players would be representing their respective national teams in games this coming weekend, one name was absent from the list of players, Sierra Leone striker, Kei Kamara. Sierra Leone play a must win qualifier in South Africa against the Bafana Bafana on Saturday.

Ozzie Guillen wrote a blog post for MLB.com that was supposed to be published after he was officially hired by the Florida Marlins. However, MLB.com posted it right away.

Why?

Call it a baseball error.

Said Dinn Mann, the VP of MLB: "[Ozzie Guillen] put something together and submitted it, but it wasn't supposed to go up.

Liverpool's buying mode in this summer transfer market apparently isn't done yet as latest reports suggested that they are very close to sign another Uruguayan talent, Sebastian Coates from Nacional.

The young defender, who was part of the national team that won the Copa America this year along with Luis Suarez, reportedly is set to join his colleague at Anfield after the player and his current club's vice president hinted at the deal.

• MLSSoccer.com Team of the Week...Brian Ching Makes the Team! [MLS Soccer]
• Dynamo aim for first road win tonight [MLS Soccer]
• Dynamo gearing up for final 10 games [MLS Soccer]
• For Dynamo, it's time to put up or shut up [Houston Chronicle]
• Spark lacking in Revolution game [Boston.

Fabian Castillo
This week brought about a plethora of talking points. The new Designated Player rules for 2012 and what that might mean for the league's future, the impending arrival of Robbie Keane and of course what that means for Juan Pablo Angel. Both the Sounders and the Galaxy made statements in the CONCACAF Champion's League as well.

Their Words This is an iconic group of players who all passionately play our game, and we are excited to have them speak to fans around the world about their own personal experiences playing the best sports game on the planet. EA Sports VP and GM of soccer Matt Bilbey, on announcing the cover for FIFA 12 that will feature Wayne Rooney on the North American cover.

Despite on and off field struggles that are frustrating New England Revolution fans, players and administrators alike, there's a belief that one ray of hope exists in that the team has MLS stalwart coach Steve Nicol.

Steve Nicol is the MLS coach with the most storied playing career and has become the longest tenured MLS coach around with this time in New England, most of which was rather successful.

The big news of the day is that Ashley Young has left Aston Villa for Manchester United for the hearty sum of £15-17M. The English winger has signed a five-year deal at Old Trafford in a move that had been expected over recent days.

What shocked me most about the move of Young, who scored just nine goals in 39 appearances this past season for Villa, was the lacking of anger and bitterness from Villa fans.

The infighting within CONCACAF headquarters continued this morning with the news that interim president Lisle Austin has been suspended indefinitely by the confederation's Executive Committee. The charge is that Austin violated CONCACAF Statutes by attempting to fire general secretary Chuck Blazer early this week.

Although I'm mellow when it comes to attendance, I want to take a brief look at what's going on in Columbus. Crappy weather, too many early home dates, and season ticket holder base in revolt over the Championship Purge have undoubtedly played a big role in some miserable announced attendances and even worse turnouts.

The CONCACAF Congress has been taking place in Miami this week, and the proceedings have been dominated by the CONCACAF executive elections and the impending FIFA elections. To the surprise of no one, Jack Warner ran unopposed for a sixth term as CONCACAF President, and he was elected unaminously. The other positions on the executive committee were contested, and here are the results: CONCACAF VP North America: Justino Compeán (Mexico) CONCACAF VP Central America: Ariel Alvarado (Panama) CONCACAF VP Caribbean: Lisle Austin (Barbados) FIFA Executive Committee, Central American region: Rafael Salguero (Guatemala) The Executive Committee also approved its own expansion.

With rumors that the New England Revolution planned on trading US National Team midfielder Benny Feilhaber after picking him up through the allocation process, Feilhaber will be joining the Revolution the club announced on Wednesday. "We're very pleased that Benny was available to us through the Allocation Process," VP of player personnel Michael Burns said.

Following on from yesterday's article looking at Barcelona's hypocrisy, it's worth looking at Arsene Wenger's reply to comments made by Barcelona's ex-president Joan Laporta and current VP Javier Faus about Cesc Fabregas.

While Faus was only talking about how much money they have available for transfers, Laporta went a step further, talking about a sense of 'entitlement' with Fabregas "It's an issue of justice, we now want to recover them," he said.

You may have already seen that Deloitte has just published the annual Football Money League report and, as I speculated might happen in a post on last year's report, Villa have just snuck back into the top 20 for the first time in several years.

The report is always an interesting read, but lately I've found that it gives us an early glimpse of Aston Villa's revenue ahead of the official accounts being filed.

Earlier this week, we posted our Q&A with Timbers VP of Marketing Cory Dolich. Today, we were fortunate to have Revs COO Brian Bilello answer some questions about the Revs marketing strategies and efforts. The Revs have really amped up their online presence in the last couple of years and have started to aggressively use Twitter as a marketing tool.

That comes straight from a press release the Chicago Fire just sent out. I knew Becky before I started editing Hot Time In Old Town. Obviously I have gotten to know her more in covering the team. I have found her efforts in the Communication department to be fantastic and any organization that works with her in the future is getting a real winner.

Robin Van Persie put on a finishing clinic at the Emirates yesterday. Fortunately, Wigan obliged. Although Wigan goalkeeper Al-Habsi was putting on a clinic of his own in reactionary saves. Arsenal's play was just too good and one goalkeeper alone was never going to save the day.

I can't tell you how happy I was with yesterday's match.

The MLS offseason is a little long, but that doesn't mean it has been boring. In Sounders-land We've had the re-signing of two of our most popular players, the signing of an interesting international addition, the coming and going of several MLS veterans, a new jersey to fawn/fret/fawn/fret over and, of course, the still not entirely unsettled matter of Cascadia Cup tickets.