Pseudo Corner Kick

Portuguese star midfielder Luis Figo will join Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad on a 17 month long contract. Why do we, as American soccer fans, care, did you say? You should care because Figo was one of the many international superstars rumored to be coming to MLS under the new “Beckham Rule” allowing owners to use their own money over the salary cap to acquire big-name talent. While the Figo rumors may just have been that, his deal with Al-Ittihad could start/resume a trend, which would be unfortunate for MLS: players choosing middle Eastern clubs with big pockets, especially clubs from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, over other markets. For the David Beckhams of the world, who might be attracted by Hollywood or the American lifestyle, MLS is an attractive option. However, we are sure to lose out on the players who are only in it for the dollar signs.

D.C. United is full of surprising moves this off-season. A week after the young superstar he often clashed with was traded, reports suggest Peter Nowak will also not return to United next season. Nowak will be replaced by assistant Tom Soehn.

I’m somewhat surprised to see Nowak go, as I thought Adu’s departure meant United was picking Nowak over Adu. Now, United has neither of them. I wonder if Soehn will change United’s system and formation, and if so, couldn’t they have tried to keep Adu to fit him into the new system? And what has happened behind the scenes that noone knows about yet?

Also, let the rumors of Nowak filling the USMNT coaching position full-time begin!

Interim coach Bob Bradley has named his first roster, picking 29 players to join him for a January training camp. The players will start camp January 4th in L.A., and will play Denmark in an international friendly on January 20th.

10 uncapped players are in camp: Kyle Beckerman, Jonathan Bornstein, Kenny Cooper, Josh Gros, Sacha Kljestan, Bryan Namoff, Michael Parkhurst, Troy Perkins, Dasan Robinson, and Eddie Robinson.

I’m happy to see guys like Bornstein, Bobby Boswell, Ricardo Clark, Cooper, Kljestan, Justin Mapp, Parkhurst, E. Robinson, and Chris Rolfe called up, and will be very interested to see how they perform.

Wait, did I write Dasan Robinson before? Who??

And where is Jeff Cunningham? And Eddie Johnson? I know EJ is rumored to be going Abroad, but so is Clint Dempsey, and he’s on the roster.

Edit: Add Brian Ching and a guy like Todd Dunivant to the snub list.

I can’t really get my mind around this right now so instead of trying to compose a coherent post I’ll just throw together some random thoughts:

• Wow
• Wow
• Never in a million years would I have guessed this. If you had asked me who I thought would possibly would me moved by DC United this off season, Adu would not even have been on my list. I had a nervous, gut feeling about Josh Gros and Alecko Eskandarian, but not Adu.
• Wow
• Did United go with Piotr Nowak over Freddy Adu? Nowak is in need of a new contract with United, but is still scouting players for DC United. With Adu gone, is it more likely that Nowak will resign (to be fair, it seemed pretty likely he would anyway). No more Nowak v. Adu bitchfests?
• I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Donnet will be returning.
• Wow
• Does DC United have a player in mind for their ‘major allocation’? They must.
• I would personally like to thank Kevin Payne for distracting me from the depressing US National Team coaching debacle. As someone on BigSoccer noted, Payne is a USSF board member, so perhaps this was timed to draw attention away from that mess. There is also speculation that RSL intentionally timed the announcement to coincide with the release of their financial numbers in their ongoing stadium mess.
• Seriously I think this is a pretty good move for all parties involved. One concern that I do have is loss of marketing potential for DC United due to the loss of Adu. Will all those little kids screaming ‘Freddyyyyyyy’ at RFK still show up next season?
• Finally, as DC United fan I would like to thank both Nick Rimando and Freddy Adu. While not my favorite players, I think they were both classy guys (giving Adu some leeway on account of his age) and good players. I wish them both success in all things except matches against United. I hope Freddy continues to develop as a player to the point where he can figure prominently in South Africa 2010, be that at DCU, RSL, ManU or anywhere else. I’m a country over club guy, so even if this hurts DC in the short run (I don’t think it will), it will be worth it if it aids the National Team in the long run (not sure about that).

(P.S. to Freddy: You’d better not pull any of that Santino Quaranta bullshit when you come back to RFK with RSL.)

ESPN/ABC will televise every game of the 2008 European Championships. With FOX Soccer Channel picking up the Gold Cup, the increased television exposure can only mean good things for the sport in the United States.

I know you are not supposed to believe everything you read, but all the previous reports and speculation had me fooled. I thought this was shoe-in, but apparently not! Former German National Team coach Juergen Klinsmann has withdrawn his name from the US National Team head coach running!

I, personally, am shocked. Unless Sunil Gulati expected this, who knows how long it will be until we name a coach. I will not be happy with Jose Pekerman, by the way. Who’s our next best candidate? I don’t know…discuss…

It’s been awhile since I’ve taken French, but I think this means no contract for Carroll with OM.

EDIT: Here is the pathetic Babel Fish translation:

The three players put at the test these last days with Olympic of Marseilles were not preserved. The medium of international ground American Brian Caroll, the medium Malian Makan Dembélé and the attacker Malian Lassine Diarra set out again.

Test without continuation for Brian Carroll, Makan Dembelé and Lassine Diarra. The three players took part in the friendly match vis-a-vis in Martigues this week but will not sign a contract with the OM.

I don’t know about the bona fides of this site, but there you have it.

In what could be a busy summer of Americans signing deals to go abroad, Josh Wolff is the first major signing of the MLS off-season. Wolff will be joining fellow American Gregg Berhalter at 1860 Munich in 2. Bundesliga.

Wolff signed a year and a half deal, ending in the summer of 2008. He will counted on to score goals and generate offense as 1860 looks towards promotion into Germany’s top flight.

Other Americans rumored to go abroad sooner rather than later include Clint Dempsey, Eddie Johnson, Taylor Twellman, Edson Buddle, Kyle Martino, Nate Jaqua, Brian Carroll, and even Freddy Adu. And let’s not forget about the long rumored move for Oguchi Onyewu…to anywhere outside of Belgium.

Before you break out the champagne to celebrate our new coach, notic that it is a Jamie Trecker article, and I once had a source at USSF tell me that “almost everything written by that particular reporter is wrong”. Something to keep in mind.