O’Brien to San Jose: A good move for the Quakes, but does Toronto FC have a clue about this league?

The LA Galaxy dumping Kyle Martino

Martino’s fall is unfortunate. Once the golden child of American soccer and MLS along with none other than Santino Quaranta, you realize how often times we get national team prospects all wrong at a young age. Martino was traded a year and a half ago for Joseph Ngwenya. While Columbus only got so much out of Ngwenya, the reality is the Galaxy had the super talented attacking player they sorely need on their squad and they dumped him for Martino!

Demo Kovalenko to Real Salt Lake

As I learned last week RSL has done such a good job of building a technical possession oriented side. Why would they then introduce a hacker like Kovalenko into the mix? This is a bad idea from my vantage point.

Ronnie O’Brien to San Jose

After being concerned about San Jose, this move makes me think perhaps their is some hope after all. O’Brien has always been under appreciated: not by Irish fans who tried to make him Time Magazine’s Man of Century almost a decade ago with online voting, but by MLS fans. This is a superb move for the Quakes, although his salary is steep. O’Brien’s time at Juventus showed his limited football skill for Serie A, but he’s been one of the best we’ve had in the lower standard adolescent MLS for many years now. As the MLS standard returns in 2008 to the higher one exhibited in the league’s initial years, O’Brien becomes less of a star but is still a useful player for any serious MLS side. I sometimes wonder if Toronto FC despite their legions of supporters is a serious side with a serious plan going forward.

Nico Hernandez to Columbus

A good move for the Crew who really need to make a move this season.

Tim Ward to Colorado

Ward hasn’t developed into the kind of player I had hoped he would but this frees cap room for the Rapids to potentially bring in Reinaldo.

Santino Quaranta on trial with DC 

The sooner Quaranta is out of MLS the better I will feel about the league’s standard. I’ll leave it at that.