News and Notes: Dec. 4, 2008

According to Steve Goff of the Washington Post, Bobby Convey’s career at Reading is about to be over. It couldn’t happen soon enough. Since arriving at Reading after he wad denied a work permit to play for Spurs, we’ve seen Convey’s confidence erode and eventually his attitude go south. In addition he has almost constantly been injured. With young left footed options like Jose Francisco Torres and Colin Clarke emerging in the midfield Convey’s time to even be considered for the national team is running out unless he moves.
Joe Cannon’s saga for me is fascinating. He left San Jose once already to go to Europe because MLS would not pay him his market value. That appears to be about to happen again. If I am not mistaken, Cannon would be the first player to leave MLS once, eventually come back to the same club (albeit under different ownership) and then leave again. Talk about being a nomad!
I will wait until the final MLS Schedule is released before commenting completely, but I am troubled that the league has scheduled a full slate of games the same weekend as a US qualifier. Now not only does this create logistic and scheduling problems for players, but MLS TV ratings already poor I assume are even poorer when competing with US National Team games.
My friend Brian Quarstad has penned an outstanding piece on the current issues facing the USL.