Ives Forgets About 2007 MLS Season Already

So Ives, which team was it that Chivas USA played in the play-offs?

From Soccernet:

KANSAS CITY WIZARDS
Will the revamped defense work? Wizards coach Curt Onalfo was giddy at the MLS draft as he looked at the list of defenders he had scored. After unloading veterans Nick Garcia and Jose Burciaga, Onalfo knew that his youngsters would be key to the Wizards making the playoffs for the first time in three seasons. Onalfo will spend much of the offseason trying to fit the pieces around defensive leader Jimmy Conrad. The process of retooling a defense is never easy and it gets even tougher when rookies are involved.

Looking back at 2006 predictions

The season of predictions for it's the season of predictions again for the 2008 MLS season. On of the things we don't see to do enough is look back at those predictions made after the season. Here are some for 2006. How close were they to being right?

MLS 2006 Predictions
	Carlisle	Canales	Chang	Dell'Apa	Galarcep
1.	New England	Los Angeles	D.C. United	Los Angeles	New England
2.	Los Angeles	New England	Los Angeles	New England	D.C. United
3.	FC Dallas	Chicago	New England	D.C. United	Chicago
4.	Houston	Colorado	Houston	Chicago	Houston
5.	D.C. United	FC Dallas	Kansas City	FC Dallas	Los Angeles
6.	Kansas City	D.C. United	New York Red Bull	Colorado	FC Dallas
7.	New York Red Bull	Houston	Chicago	Columbus	Chivas USA
8.	Columbus	New York Red Bull	Columbus	New York Red Bull	Kansas City
9.	Chicago	Kansas City	FC Dallas	Kansas City	New York Red Bull
10.	Chivas USA	Columbus	Chivas USA	Chivas USA	Columbus
11.	Real Salt Lake	Real Salt Lake	Colorado	Houston	Colorado
12.	Colorado	Chivas USA	Real Salt Lake	Real Salt Lake	Real Salt Lake
MLS Cup Champion	New England	Los Angeles	D.C. United	Los Angeles	New England
MVP	Carlos Ruiz	Shalrie Joseph	Youri Djorkaeff	Landon Donovan	Shalrie Joseph
Rookie of the Year	Mehdi Ballouchy	Yura Movsisyan	Yura Movsisyan	Willie Sims	Sacha Kljestan
Scoring Leader	Carlos Ruiz	Carlos Ruiz	Herculez Gomez	Carlos Ruiz	Carlos Ruiz
Breakout Player	Marcos Gonzalez	Juan Pablo Garcia	Ryan Cochrane	Marcelo Saragosa	Edson Buddle

That Pesky Plush Quote

I was feeling optimistic about the Colorado Rapids in 2008. Then in cleaning up some drafts for blog posts I ran across this quote from Rapids VP Jeff Plush. It was made going into the 2007 season. McDonald was dropped before mother's day if I remember correctly. Vanney was in, looked like he might have been giving the back line some leadership and then promptly shipped off to DC United. Roberto Brown didn't have a butt-ton of skills but he did seem to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. So the Rapids traded away a major allocation to bring in Conor Casey, who's salary is higher. Roberto Brown was waived and Conor Casey took the rest of the season to produce was Roberto Brown did in his short time with the club.

Now why am I feeling optimistic again?

"Look at the holes we had in our team last year, even though we made it to the conference finals for the second (consecutive) year," Plush said, pointing out the club's offseason moves. "Left back, we now have Greg Vanney, a former national team player. Left side at midfield we've got a kid out of Holland, Yherland McDonald. And at striker, we just signed Roberto Brown, a Panamanian player. So we think we've addressed every issue we have, all within the cap. We didn't have to do anything crazy to get any of those done." -Jeff Plush

Chivas USA Coach Joins Bayern Munich

I missed this one from a couple weeks ago. It's nice to see that the league has the sort of coaching talent that someone like Klinsmann would be interested in. The MLS Zone:

Chivas USA assistant coach Martin Vasquez has accepted a position as assistant to Jurgen Klinsmann with German giant Bayern Munich and will be leaving the MLS club immediately, according to a press release put out by the club today.

Beckham Going To Alberta

It looks like Mr. Posh, David Beckham, will be traveling to Edmonton in late April or early May along with his Los Angeles Cosmos Galaxy teammates. The Vancouver Sun is reporting that the Vancouver Whitecaps are negotiating a game between the teams to be held at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. The two teams played last November with the match drawing over 48,000 fans.

Can Southampton Avoid The Drop Again?

Matt Brennan over at FootballFanCast asks the question in the title, can Southampton avoid the drop. Although the way he puts it is more unnerving to me:

Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, Manchester City, Leeds United and Southampton? Could we be the next in line of collapsed Premier League clubs who have found their way down to the third tier in English football?

I don't blame him for asking. With yesterday's 3-2 loss to QPR at home, Southampton are 5-7 points from the drop zone (depends on how Wednesday does with their game in hand). That doesn't give them a lot of wiggle room over the next 11 matches. Worse, they are 8-10 points from a play off spot. In their 4 games in charge, interm managers Dodd and Gorman have brought the club a win in the FA Cup over Bury and..... well, that's it. They've lost twice at St. Mary's and pulled off a tie at Palace in the last minutes of the game. It's not the sort of thing that installs a lot of hope in the supporters. Can the Saints still get the results they need with Rasiak off at Bolton and Skacel at Hertha Berlin? Can Bradley Wright-Philips manage to look like he's interested in playing? Can Saganowski show the form he had at the end of last year? More importantly can a defense that is still plagued with injuries (Claus' career may be over; Thomas limped off injured in the last match, et al.) start to tighten up and stop bleeding goals? And do this at the very time Gorman and Dodd have been espousing attractive soccer? The squad still has the talent to avoid the drop. But they haven't shown much when it comes to getting clean sheets. And with another takeover bid looming and temporary managers in charge can they actually get the job done and avoid going down to the third division (League One)?