Some New Year’s Thoughts

• Reports out of Europe indicate that Luis Figo has signed a contract with AEG. This is interesting because unless I read MLS rules incorrectly the Galaxy cannot sign another designated player. That would mean Figo is headed to Houston and my understanding is that Dom Kinnear wasn’t really entertaining the thought of a DP. Of course AEG could rearrange the deck and force Houston to trade its DP slot to the Galaxy for a “future allocation” before AEG sells the team? But that would happen, would it?
• Bob Bradley announced the training camp roster list for this January’s camp at the Home Depot Center which will culminate in a friendly versus Sweden who is preparing for Euro 2008.

The selections I found interesting were:

Ramiro Corrales: It’s been a long time since he got a call up, partly due to Bruce Arena’s snobbishness which allowed him to ignore any American playing in Scandinavia.

Marvell Wynne: I thought Wynne played an outstanding first half in the Copa America against Argentina. Unfortunately he was terrible in the 2nd half and was fearful he wasn’t going to get another look.

Jeremiah White : It’s about time he was called in.

Eddie Johnson and Taylor Twellman: Bradley is in his own way adopting the peter principle to striker selections. These two do not deserve another call up unless the replacements cannot perform on an adequate level.

I was surprised not to see Charlie Davies on the list. Perhaps it is because of his U-23 commitments?

•  Charlie Davies was called into the U-23 camp along with several other players. Interestingly enough Johann Smith has returned from injury and is listed as a midfielder on the camp list. Nice to see Greg Dalby getting a shot with the U-23s ahead of Olympic qualifying.
• It is a bad sign for US Soccer in general vis a vis the competition that Nery Castillio whom I consider to be potentially the best player in CONCACAF is headed to Manchester City and rumors are abound that Arsenal has interest in Carlos Vela. Americans invaded Europe in mass before Mexico did, however it seems bigger clubs have greater interest in young Mexican players, probably because they are more finished article at 20 or 21 than Americans are.