Union

The signing of Carlos Ruiz is buzzing all over the interweb. Once you get past the signing announcement pieces you can find some things of interest, notably, possible tactical formations now that Ruiz is in the mix. First out of the gate is the Offside’s Union affiliate, with the Goalkeeper offering several possibilities. I have a feeling our own thoughts on the subject will soon be available.

Excited as we all are about the signing of Ruiz, with the team off to Greece today the important question at the moment is “Who’s next?” Ruiz brings the roster number up to 25 which means the Union have five open spots. Assuming a third keeper (Thorne Holder) takes one of those spots means that there are four field player spots to be filled.

The Sons of Ben were at the Wachovia, I mean Wells Fargo Center last night for the Flyers overtime loss to the Coyotes. Apparently some Flyers fans dug their style, others didn’t.

Some readers have contacted the PSP about the broadcast schedule for the Union in 2011. Union press officer Aimee Cicero told the PSP, “Our full broadcast schedule will be released at a later date and will include all times and channels both local and national.” With the season set to begin in little more than three weeks, you can expect the broadcast schedule to be available soon.

MLS

DC United held off UC Santa Barbara 1–0. Seattle came from behind to draw 2–2 with Houston. Vancouver lost 2–0 to LA Galaxy. In England, San Jose crushed Birmingham City reserves 4–0.

If you watched Tuesday night’s CONCACAF Champions League match between Columbus Crew and Real Salt Lake you saw a snow dusted and frozen looking pitch, lots of empty seats, four yellow cards, three red cards and no goals. In last night’s other CONCACAF match, Cruz Azul topped Santos 2–0.

Soccer America has a list of the 26 players who have joined MLS from abroad so far for the 2011 season.

MLSSoccer.com will have live streams of some of the games at next week’s Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic which will include Houston Dynamo, FC Dallas, Toronto FC and USL PRO side Orlando City (Booo!).

Seattle Sounders will field a team at the 2011 Beach Soccer World Cup, to be held in March in Sao Paolo, Brazil. They are the only US team in the competition, which also includes Corinthians, Flamengo and Vasco de Gama from Brazil, FC Barcelona, AC Milan, Boca Juniors, Portugal’s Sporting and Lokimotiv Moscow.

The horror...

Here’s a very interesting read on the 2011 home and away jerseys of every team in MLS that includes an interview with adidas Director of Soccer Antonio Zea. The basic premise is that the clubs and adidas are so fearful of repeating the garish horrors that were the league’s early kit designs that “they that wind up sacrificing almost all originality, flourish and color. They claim to be going after a ‘clean and classic’ look. But what we’re left with is, largely, a collection of plain, monochrome jerseys and uniforms that render many clubs nearly indistinguishable from each other.” The verdict on the Union’s 2011 uniform? “[T]here must have been a better way to integrate the logo. It’s the first and second thing we see when looking at Philly’s jerseys. Good for Bimbo, bad for those who appreciate a truly distinctive uniform that fulfills Zea’s goal of tying a look into a club and its city.”

US

Substitutes Mario Rodriguez and Marc Pelosi gave the US U-17 team a 3–1 lead over El Salvador in overtime but not before two US players were ejected and El Salvador scored a penalty kick in a match that ended 3–2. With the win the US has qualified for its 14th consecutive U-17 World Cup and continues its record as the only country to have qualified for every U-17 World Cup. You can see full highlights from the match here.

Elsewhere

At next week’s two-day executive committee meeting, FIFA will release its 2010 financial report, which will give details on the organization’s profits from the 2010 World Cup. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said today that the 2010 World Cup was more profitable than the 2006 World Cup. Also, next week’s meeting will determine how many countries from each continent will qualify for the 2014 World cup and which country will host the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

In today’s Champions League action you can watch Marseille v Manchester United live on FSC from 2:30pm followed by the delayed broadcast of Inter v Bayern Munich.