Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Adu Overshadows Other News

With all the press the Adu deal got, it's overshadowed a lot of other important soccer news here in the states. Before touching on that, I still have one lingering question about that trade. Did Real Salt Lake have to take Rimando as part of the price for getting Adu? Or did DC have to give up Rimando in order to move a player that wasn't happy playing for them? The night before the big trade was announced, it was reported by 3rd Degree that FC Dallas would be naming ex-Arsenal player Steve Morrow as their new head coach. I don't think anyone was surprised. FC Dallas has a good squad. They don't need to make major changes. And the word on the street was that Morrow was the decision maker on player moves before the announcement such as placing Simo Valekari on waivers. Morrow has said he'll take a more aggressive approach to the game. On the same day they announced their biggest signing ever, Real Salt Lake opened their books to Salt Lake County. Probably the most surprising thing to come out of that was to find out that an investment group of Goldman Sachs owns 1/2 of the team. That is, the 1/2 of the 1/2 that the MLS doesn't own. It's unfortunate that more teams don't have to do this to secure public funding for their stadium projects. Lastly, Lamar Hunt is very sick. As many of you know, he's been battling cancer for a few years. He was hospitalized before Thanksgiving and things don't look. This news is even more sad as I awoke this morning to an early hour phone call. My great uncle Joseph passed away in the night after a long struggle with cancer. And now the US soccer family is about to lose one it's patriarchs to the same disease.

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