WPS

Unwelcome news for WPS: The CEO is stepping down after less than a year on the job.

Paul Riley spoke about the future of WPS in a conference call yesterday. Any time Paul Riley speaks, everyone should listen. Two people should be allowed to call a joint session of congress: The President of the United States of America and Paul Riley, President of the Awesome Quotes.

Union

September 7 will be Dollar Dog night at PPL Park. More importantly, the team will be collecting school supplies for Chester students. Bring your new or unused supplies to the park.

RSL manager Jason Kreis thanked Jurgen Klinsmann for allowing Kyle Beckerman to stay behind and face the Union on Saturday. He also thanked the ref in advance for any egregious fouls he happens to let slide that lead to RSL goals.

The Brotherly Game reports that Jimmy McLaughlin is yesterday, McLaughlin scored the game winner in his college debut against Syracuse and earned Partiot League Rookie of the Week honors. On Wednesday evening McLaughlin played into extra time as Colgate topped Hartwick College. McLaughlin will be with Colgate when they play Villanova on Sunday at 1pm.

When Freddy Adu was trying to get his career back on track, who did he hang out with? Jaleel White, of course.

Kevin Kinkead reports that Peter Nowak doesn’t want his inexperienced team talking about the playoff race in the locker room.

Tony Tchani, drafted second behind Danny Mwanga in 2010, is going to be out for a while after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery. Tchani was picked by New York, traded to Toronto, then dealt to Columbus just before the 2011 deadline. Just a little reminder to thank your lucky stars that Mwanga has turned out as good as he has.

US/MLS

The great part about this story on MLSsoccer.com announcing the USMNT will play Ecuador on October 11th is that US Soccer declined to comment. MLS: “Hey, are you going to try and take a bunch of our players for a midweek game in the middle of our league’s stretch run?” US Soccer: “…Um, nobody is here right now so, like, leave a message.”

Mark Zeigler has a very interesting story about Joe Corona and the increasingly blurry lines that define which countries a player can represent.

SI’s Steve Davis says the positive attitude around the USMNT is a good change.

Amazingly, the Chicago Fire are going to the US Open Cup final, where they will face Seattle. This is a team that has been on the rise ever since their comeback tie against the Union.

Eric Lichaj has a hip tear and will be out until the new year. I guess that means he will miss the mysterious October friendly.

Stu Holden finally returned after six months out and played 80 minutes for Bolton’s reserves.

The rest

Fox will televise the Manchester United vs Chelsea match on February 5th, aka Super Bowl Sunday. It is the first live EPL match to be broadcast on network TV in the US.

Michael Cox of ZonalMarking.net turns in some uncharacteristically sloppy work on the EPL transfer window. Then again, he is freelancing for ESPN and they still think Alexi Lalas is a fount of reliable information.

Yesterday was the final day of the European transfer window. Clint Dempsey was on Arsenal’s radar, but in the end the American was too important to release and the Gunners turned to Everton’s Mikael Arteta. He’s the kind of guy you sign if you think Cesc Fabregas hasn’t spent quite enough time injured over the past few years.

In a great example of how British players are overvalued in the EPL, Birmingham’s defender Scott Dann went to to Blackburn for about 1 million pounds less than Liverpool paid for Uruguayan defender and Best Young Player of Copa America Sebastian Coates. Was anybody outside of the EPL scrambling for Dann? (No). If Scott Dann is worth 6 million (and if Gary Cahill, another young British back) is worth the 13 million that Bolton was asking for him, we have to assume that Carlos Valdes is worth the GDP of Scotland.

Fine, fine. I’ll give two more examples of overvalued Brits. Joe Cole went on loan to Lille but Liverpool will still pay 60% of his salary. That’s how much they didn’t want him. And David “The Next Beckham” Bentley was loaned to West Ham as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge part of the deal that brought Scott Parker to Tottenham.

Also, a talented Liverpool player handed in a transfer request in order to force a move to Chelsea minutes before the deadline for the second straight window.