What we’re thinking, what we’re watching, what’s coming on the blog today and the RASNoD (Random American Soccer Name of the Day). Setting up your day in soccer …
Birthdays of note: We hinted at it yesterday, but if the message didn’t come through loud and clear, now’s the time for the big reveal. David Beckham turns 37 on Wednesday, and while he may end up skipping LA Galaxy’s trip to Seattle, the old man might deserve a day off. It’s pretty remarkable that a man can still be playing at this level, at that position, at that age. After all, it was only a few months back that has was arguably the most important player in LA’s win over Houston at MLS Cup.
Big mportant story of the day: Oh, there’s so many to choose from. We could go with the mid-week matches overseas (where Juventus looks to maintain their unbeaten run in Italy), or we can look to Mexico’s playoffs, but with two big matchups in MLS, we can also stay home. Expect a lot of talk about San Jose-D.C. United as well as Seattle-LA.
Ahead on the blog today*: Don’t panic, but our MLS Panic Quotient is coming. Well take another pass at the rock-and-hard-place position Roy Hodgson’s punged himself into, and we’ll focus on the day at hand in Major League Soccer as well as taking that promised look into some USMNT scouting details.
RASNoD (Random American Soccer Name of the Day): Alyssa Naeher
PST background noise while blogging today: Season 5, Episode 7 of Lost. Blame Netflix. The episode title is “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” any ironic title in like of fans’ wish to reserve a space for series creators in a panopticon after the finale.
Twitter dap: Herc is ready. National team hopeful Herculez Gomez is going all NHL as Santos Laguna tries to protect their number one seed in the Mexican Clausura playoffs:
“The start of the #PlayoffBeard ... Well.. More like scruff right now.” [link]
We’ll leave you with this: Slowly but surely, we’re creeping up on the time when club soccer fades and the first round of World Cup qualifying comes into focus. At what point do the statements start: "[X Player] did [Y] this year. He deserves to be in the team.”
*Always subject to change; you know how it is