October 4, 2006
Clint Dempsey beat out Kasey Keller and Brian McBride in being named the US Soccer Men's Honda Player of the Year.
Dempsey was the lone US player to score in the 2006 World Cup and has been pushing for a move to Europe ever since he returned from Germany.
Clint also has 7 goals and 3 assists in 19 MLS games with the New England Revolution.
Not much new on the US Men's National Team coaching front
Everyone is expecting Sunil Gulati to make a decision in the next 60 to 90 days. Perhaps the only nugget of new information was Gulati saying that the next US Men's National Team coach will speak Spanish whether it's through hiring someone who already speaks the language, or through taking lessons after being hired.
US to be invited to take part in Copa America
Sunil Gulati also mentioned that the US is expected to receive an invitation to participate in the 2007 Copa America which is scheduled to take place from June 26th through July 15th in Venezuela.
MLS is expected to frown on the idea given that the CONCACAF Gold Cup is scheduled to take place from June 6th through June 24th and MLS doesn't want to lose marquee US players for another sizable portion of their regular season one year after a World Cup did the same thing.
Gulati expects the US to make a decision by the end of the month on whether they will accept the invitation or not.
Personally, I think it would be a solid move to up the level of non-World Cup competition that the US National team is exposed to. And that should be US Soccer's first priority ahead of what MLS might want.
Altidore is starting to make serious noise for the Red Bulls
Josmer Altidore might just turn into the steal of the 2006 MLS SuperDraft. The 16 year old Newark, NJ native fell out of the first round and to the MetroStars with the 17th overall pick.
Altidore had been a scoring sensation with the US U-17 Men's National team scoring 19 goals in 25 games in 2005. But, given that he was only 16 and was still in high school at Boca Prep in Florida, it was expected that the pick of Altidore wouldn't lead to on field results for at least another year.
But, the Red Bulls and Altidore had other ideas. While Altidore has only played in 5 games and started once for the Red Bulls, he has scored 3 goals in his 159 minutes of action. And did I mention that two of those goals were game winners in 1-0 home wins over the Crew (September 16th) and the Fire (September 30th)?
But, the most amazing part about Altidore's 3 goals in 159 minutes of action is that it is one more goal than Youri Djorkaeff has scored this season for the Red Bulls in 1735 minutes of action.
People love to project where players like Freddy Adu will be in 2010. It won't be long before Altidore is entering in to those conversations if he keeps up this pace.
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not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to
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