Normally, MLS is about as leaky as the Lusitania.
Usually by the time they make any official announcement everyone who gives a hoot is already tired of hearing about it.
Which makes it even more obvious that the league has threatened everyone in the place with summary execution (or, even worse, sending them to work for USSF 2) if they breathe a single word about – well, about anything.
Thus, yesterday's announcement that a negotiating session scheduled in Washington DC had to be postponed because of the weather came as such a surprise and raised more questions than it answered
Washington? Haven't they been meeting in New York? Does this mean there's now a mediator involved? Who can say?
And of course the most obvious question is: does this mean the deadline – now a mere 12 hours away – has been pushed back?
Don't bother asking. Everybody and their cheapass brother in law already has. Soccer writers and blabbers have been pounding away at their super-secret sources for weeks now, and the more they ask the less they get.
Now I grant you that I've been in touch with a couple guys who claim to have the skinny on all of this but I don't believe them. There are guys out here in the soccersphere who make their living milking league sources, and if any of them have clue one they're keeping it close to the vest.
So since MLS employees are all selfishly more worried about losing their livelihoods than they are about letting the Great Unwashed in on the latest poop, we're forced to look around for other soccer stuff going on.
Courtesy of Steven "We're Not Worthy" Goff comes LINKS TO LANDON MANIA after Everton beat Chelsea for the first time in a decade.
I just want to ask – and this is a real question, not just rhetorical snark – what in the problem was with the Germans? Here's guy who's supposedly slaying dragons in the EPL and they couldn't find something for him to do in the Bundesliga? What am I missing?
However that may be, David Moyes is already DOWNPLAYING THE POSSIBILITY that Donovan will make a permanent move to Goodison Park, saying that he's likely to be out of their price range. Whether this is just a tactic, hoping to jimmy the price down a notch or two, or if he really means it only he can say.
What we do know is that we were right all along: Donovan really can play. It wasn't our imaginations.
An early report today had Raul DEFINITELY HEADED FOR NYRB which was going to be the blockbuster of the day.
Sadly for BigSoccer's traffic numbers, THE RED BULLS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY CALLED IS BUNK
I hate it when perfectly good mindless hysteria gets nipped in the bud.
Poor Dan. No sooner does he opine about the inanity of teams in US leagues using the "FC" moniker than Edmonton announces their newst DIvision 2 entry: Edmonton FC.
It's a shame they chose not to use "Drillers" which is of course a storied NASL club which was owned by Peter Pocklington, the same guy who owned the Oilers back then.
It's interesting that they didn't immediately hop on the MLS bandwagon. In their heyday around 1980 they out drew the Toronto Blizzard by a significant margin and one would think that, like every other sports entrepreneur up there, they'd look at TFC and see dollar signs of their own.
So let's see: take Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Edmonton, toss in Calgary (home of the NASL Boomers) and, gosh, some people might consider starting a league.
Interestingly enough, at the press conference introducing the new Canadian National team coach back in December, he told the assembled media that he thinks what Canada needs is their own professional league.
Sure. He says it, everyone smiles and nods in agreement. I say the same thing and everyone's head explodes.
Go figure.