All of us at PSP hope you and yours had a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Philadelphia Union

This post from MLSsoccer.com makes an interesting point: six of the eight MLS players who are currently or have been training overseas in the offseason are from the Union.

John Hackworth, who described the need for offseason rest and the desire among young US players to train abroad as “a delicate balance,” said of the overseas training stints, “We’ve set some parameters for all of our players and a time frame of when we allow them to seek out these opportunities and when we want them to shut it down and recover and regenerate from a very long season. They’ll all be back soon and then they’ll be on lockdown. Their job then is to recover mentally and physically, so we can really go after it in the start of the preseason.”

Both Zach Pfeffer and Union academy goalkeeper Zack Steffen tweeted celebratory messages after the USMNT U-18’s 3–1 win over the Canada U-18s on Wednesday. Pfeffer also tweeted a cool picture of himself with Steffen’s after the game. The team plays Canada again today at 6pm ET.

Former Union defender Michael Orozco Fiscal is on San Luis’ transfer list.

The Union website has a piece on last weekend’s open tryout. One of the players who participated was Birnis Adames, the local player who won Sueño MLS 2011. Following that, Adames had spent time in Spain playing for the reserve teams of Atletico Madrid and Getafe. “I am back in the States and I am trying to play at least in a reserve league or some sort of academy situation. I am just here to play, I don’t want to stop. I know I have what it takes to be a professional, so I am glad there are tryouts like this for me to showcase my skills.”

Local

The USL’s end of the year club awards nominees have been announced. Reading United is up for the PDL’s Marketing and Media awards while Harrisburg City Islanders have been nominated for USL PROS’s Media and Progress awards. The City Islander’s John Gregg has been nominated for the USL’s Betsy McAdam’s Key Grip Award.

MLS

Chinese clubs are downplaying links to David Beckham.

Branko Boskovic and DC United have parted ways.

Women’s soccer

You can read a transcript of Wednesday’s conference call from US Soccer president Sunil Gulati in which it was announced that US Soccer would operate the front office of the new women’s professional league and would also, along with the Canadian and Mexican soccer federations, subsidize the salaries of some national team players in the league, here.

Portland Timbers will “operate” the women’s team in Portland. Reports suggest that the new league will be sponsored by Nike (the image on the quote sheet post on the US Soccer website features a ball with a Nike logo prominently displayed) which means that the Timbers name cannot be used by the women’s team because MLS is sponsored by adidas. The same is also true of the DC team, which last season played in the W-League as DC United Women.

Bill Predmore, owner of the as yet unnamed Seattle team, says, “I think the specifics of the allocation process are still being worked out. The players themselves are obviously going to have a significant role in deciding where they want to play. Geography may play a role in that or it may not, depending on the player.”

More on news from the conference call from The Goalkeeper, ESPN, Fox Soccer, The Equalizer, ProSoccerTalk, The Seattle Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, The New York Times, The LA Times, New England Soccer Today, Goal.com, Soccer 365, The Canadian Press,

The Equalizer hosts a roundtable discussion on the news while Sports Myriad rounds up announcements from teams that will be, or wanted to be, part of the new league. The Equalizer also has reaction from a few players.

Elsewhere

Ten Tottenham fans were injured after they were attacked by Lazio “supporters” ahead of Thursday’s Europa League game between Spurs and Lazio in Rome. One of the Tottenham fans was seriously injured after being stabbed. Italian police have arrested two men in connection with the attack. During the match, which ended in a scoreless draw, Tottenham fans were subjected to antisemitic chants from Lazio fans.

Luiz Adriano has apologized for his unsporting goal in Tuesday’s Champions League game between Nordsjaelland and Shakhtar Donetsk.

FIFA has denied Didier Drogba’s request to be able to go on loan before the January transfer window opens.

Check out the latest Footy on the Telly post for the week’s upcoming live soccer matches on TV and online.