Lost amid all the hubub about the Union’s “season” and “players” is the fact that Real Salt Lake has a flipping JET painted in their flipping COLORS and we DON’T!!! How is this possible!? I want a Union jet. I want it called Air Force (Le) Toux. And I want it flipping yesterday!

Goal.com has a preview of the Union’s season. All the usual stuff here, with a few good chuckles mixed in.

Arsenal received a big boost ahead of their Champions League matchup with Barcelona yesterday when Robin van Persie was cleared to play. While RVP can be extremely frustrating and wasteful, he’s miles (kilometers?) ahead of Bendtner when it comes to finishing. In fact, the only thing Bendtner could finish is Arsenal’s title challenge. Boom! Cesc Fabregas also seems likely to take the field against Barca. And if Arsenal survive their Nou Camp visit, he might as well just stay behind and pick out a locker.

Charlie Davies talks to USA Today about his rehabilitation process and how it will feel to get trounced by the Union get back on the field for DC United this season.

Bayern Munich manager Louis van Gaal will leave at the end of the season. Essentially, he has been fired for doing a bad job but will continue to perform his duties poorly for another few months. Because… what? Also, why the short leash? Bayern won the double last season and went to the Champions League final all without Franck Ribery healthy (although he was healthy enough to sleep with an underage prostitute). Soon all managers will be hired on a per-game basis, like gunslingers in the old west.

In an example of weird story choices, the Boston Globe has an article on the growing French influence on American soccer. This would be a pretty cool story, but it’s made awesome by a link to MLS-news.fr, where you can read “Philly, l’age de la maturite?” (if you can read French). But if you can’t read French, you can just pretend that Sebastien Le Toux is single-handedly reviving the French soccer scene. (Deal with it, France).

MLS is only three letters long. So is CNN. There is a good chance CNN Features Producer Dean Irvine has been mixing up the two Ns for quite a while. In his story on the New York Cosmos, Irvine repeatedly calls MLS, “MSL.” He also leaves us with this gem, “If they can cultivate an international fanbase over the next couple of years before their team has even kicked a ball and then add some much needed swagger to the staid and average quality of MSL, the club’s goals and revenue could be world-beating.” Wow. Is that financial analysis or a D-grade on a sports economics assignment in high school?

Yanks Abroad has a fantastic rundown of the young players likely to see time with the USMNT this year. Check this list out now so you can tell everybody you heard about Bobby Wood before Bayern Munich grabbed him.

Jeremiah Oshan gives a preview of Zach Pfeffer. This is cool, but with so many new faces on the Union, and Pfeffer likely to spend all but the briefest amount of time in the reserves… maybe someone more likely to play would be a nice profile?

Independence manager Paul Riley was named the Charlotte Moran Award winner as the Philly Soccer News Person of the Year. Union exec Nick Sakiewicz won the award in 2009.

Dorchester Town player/manager Ashley Vickers was sent off after he tackled a streaker this weekend. Ashley Vickers: Your PSP Man of the Week!