Trades: No Go for Guzano! Can Twellman Find Relief?! Polish Rumors!

Taking them briefly and in turn:
- Still-Chivas USA goalkeeper Brad Guzan’s move to Aston Villa died this morning at the hands of a work permit denial (hat-tip, for me anyway, My Soccer Blog). That sucks for Guzano, to be sure, but at least Chivas USA has a goalkeeper, right? (As their roster shows, [...]

Crew TSII: More Tufts of Grass to Trip Over in Zurawski Chase & More

Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney turned his pre-season maneuver series to the Columbus Crew this morning. While the piece focused on Guillermo Barros Schelotto – who seems both a wily one and happy to be in Columbus – some of what happened with the Argentine legend impacts the Crew’s surprisingly tricky pursuit of Celtic FC’s [...]

Editorial Business: “TSII” Posts for Rapids, Crew

With the calendar turning from January to February tomorrow – which, if you adopt a really broad definition of time, puts the kickoff to the 2008 Major League Soccer (MLS) season just one month away – now seems the time to organize myself for what’s ahead. And this all needs to fit within the [...]

US v. Mexico: Of Jugglers, Knights..and amending earlier statements

As the hype builds around next Wednesday’s U.S./Mexico friendly (that’s February 6 on ESPN2), the underlying frustrations that produced the over-bold statement of a couple days ago comes into clearer focus. And, mea culpa, the wrong verb came to me in that one: it’s not so much that I “hope” the U.S. loses as I’m [...]

Shock Deadline Moves: Benjani, Guzan’s Work Permit status

Benjani to Manchester City (very close at least)! Portsmouth’s best forward move has made Harry Redknapp’s life a living hell now, unless he’s got transfers lined up today. Benjani’s exit, Utaka and Kanu at the ANC, and Dave Nugent out with an injury leaves Portsmouth rather thin at the forward line. Milan Baros has arrived [...]

The CBA: Can MLS Wait Until…um…Till…um…Then?

…is it 2009 that Major League Soccer (MLS) keeps saying they’ll re-work the collective bargaining agreement with the MLS Players’ Union? 2010? Does it matter? It’s like Jon from the DC United Offside said in his post about DC-draftee Andrew Jacobson bypassing MLS to sign with France’s Lorient:
“Eddie Pope, take notice. [...]

The Nut of the Crew’s Striker Search

The Columbus Dispatch’s Shawn Mithcell takes the Columbus Crew’s quest for Maciej Zurawski to the “real” newspaper today, providing impressive detail on where things stand. The apparent pivot point in this deal shows in the following:
“How much Celtic is asking for the transfer and how much Zurawski is asking to be paid has not [...]

MLS PHILLY MOVES CLOSER!! Still not certain, but we’ll see Thursday!

Don Garber, sign us up! All signs are pointing to us getting the $45 million now… Sons of Ben – I want to hear from you on this – any info on Thursday’s event?
NOTHING IS CERTAIN. But unfortunately, my hopes are now officially up.

Gomez to Colorado: “It’s Going to Happen” (and Houston gets a ‘keeper…)

Tucked in a bunch of other player movement items, Goff effectively buries the lead…at least so far as Colorado Rapids fans are concerned. Citing a “source with knowledge of a possible trade” Goff reports now-former DC United midfielder Christian Gomez’s move to the Colorado Rapids only waits on the blessing.
So, what will this do [...]

Can anyone stop Adebayor? Fulham sputters…

1. Newcastle’s defense certainly couldn’t – they almost looked like they needed Oguchi Onyewu who played pretty poorly on loan with them about a year ago.
2. Not even his own teammates can stop him – and as you saw, Nicklas Bendtner tried.
What many people forget is that Adebayor was not a high-profile signing. Sure he [...]