West Ham have been priced out of a move to London's 2012 Olympic Stadium after it was revealed the plan could cost as much as £400million. The club had hoped that they could move to the Stratford-based stadium after the Games but they have been told that it would cost far too much for that to [...] Click to continue reading...

For the record, here are my player ratings from the two matches I missed while on vacation, based only on descriptions of the games given by Fullback, BDR, and Goff.

8/10/08: 4-1 loss at NYRB
Top shelf: Jaime Moreno
Call: Fred
Rail: Zach Wells, Pat Carroll, Marc Burch, Devon McTavish

8/12/08: 3-1 win in USOC Semi-finals vs NE:
Top shelf: Jaime Moreno, Luciano Emilio, Santino Quaranta
Call: Brian Namoff, Zach Wells, Ivan Guerrero
Rail: None

The other big thing that I missed while I was out was the formal acquisition of new starting goalkeeper Louis Crayton, and the other transactions surrounding that move. Click to continue reading...

I considered making the hour drive to RFK on Sunday morning to see the DC Reserves in action, but decided to play an impromptu game of tennis for the first time in 8 years against by brother-in-law. The good news: I still got it. The bad news: The Reserves lost.

But just in reading the summary of the match, there are several juicy tidbits that could have an impact on the first team:

1. Click to continue reading...

Below is the official game summary from the reserves 4-2 loss to the Wizards this morning. Of note, Ben Olsen's older brother Jeremy did see the field, coming on at half and playing 25 minutes. Additionally, after being out for a number of weeks, both Jeff Carroll and Dan Stratford made their returns today coming on as second half substitutes.

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We bring you this brief interruption to the MSR with the news that DC United has acquired Ivan Guerrero from the Earthquakes. The best endorsement of Guerrero has to be this one (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2008/07/greetings_from_rfk_1.html) from Bryan Namoff: "He took us apart in the playoffs [with Chicago].

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Given the focus that this blog has given to United's roster this year, I thought it would be appropriate to base our Mid-Season Review specifically on the roster moves that the team has made. In part 1, we will look at United's acquisitions, meaning the players that the team added since the end of last season that they didn't have to give up anything for. Click to continue reading...

You may remember that last year Will Chang (United's Co-Managing Partner) and Jorge Vergara (Chivas de Guadalajara's owner) made a friendly wager prior to the second leg of the Copa Sudamericana series between the Black-and-Red and Chivas. The bet was that whichever owner's team lost would have to have their hair cut immediately following the game.

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We're about an hour from kickoff and both teams are getting ready for tonight's match. With Santino Quaranta, Marcelo Gallardo, Dan Stratford and Domenic Mediate all nursing injuries or getting rest, Tom Soehn has made a few changes to tonight's lineup. The guys will run out in a 4-5-1 in the following set-up:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Pat Carroll, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Fred, Ryan Cordeiro; Luciano Emilio.

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Quick injury update:

Dan Stratford had successful surgery on his left knee this morning by Dr. Kevin Sumida of Commonwealth Orthopeadics at the Virginia Hospital Center. He is expected to miss 3-4 weeks.

Ben Olsen is also having surgery today in Baltimore on his left ankle. After playing last week against the Galaxy and finding the pain to be significant, the midfielder opted to have a few things done to try and get closer to full strength.

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An hour from kick-off and United coach Tommy Soehn has announced his line-up. Playing for the second time in three days, the Black-and-Red will field some reserves tonight, but there are some big names in the line-up as well. United is clearly taking this competition seriously. Here are the guys charged with advancing the Black-and-Red to the quarterfinals of the U.

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With the July 1st salary guarantee date looming just a week away, that is the question that we ask about two players: Jose Carvallo and Franco Niell. Both were brought to this country in the offseason that saw the additions of five new South American players. Three of those players (Gallardo and los Gonzalos) have earned regular roles in the starting XI. Click to continue reading...

Haircuts featuring a favorite among the 36% of readers of this site who are female, DC United's Englishman and man of edgy haircuts, Dan Stratford on ABC 7.
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You can read all about what's going above at Dan Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog, but the quick story is that today was the inaugural "Haircut-Off '08" between rookie Dan Stratford and season ticker holder Karen Hennessee (who also happens to be a professional haircutter/stylist/barber/hairdresser).

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On an ugly rainy day, the DC United reserves suffered their first loss of the season to a Chicago team that was able to keep the ball in United's half for probably about 65% of what I saw. I only caught the last 30 minutes or so. Better turn out of fans than I was expecting with all the rain and the lack of confidence in the first team. Click to continue reading...

I was really surprised to see United's players so happy after this match. Earlier in the year, the team was knocked out in the home leg of the Champions Cup after a victory that wasn't enough to earn them the aggregrate win. And the same thing happened tonight, as United falls 5-4 on aggregrate goals in the 2008 Ben Cup. Click to continue reading...

The MLS Players Union just released the annual salary figures for the league. For easy reference, below are the guaranteed salaries for each DC United player currently under contract as of 3/31/08:

DC Barlow Jeremy D $ 12,900.00
DC Burch Marc D $ 33,000.00
DC Carreiro da Silva Fred M-F $ 242,000. Click to continue reading...

At least it appears that way as far as I see. Goff told us this morning that David Blumer and Josh Gardner would not be offered contracts by the club. So if you look back at this post, you'd realize that there are only 18 players left who I've considered as being in competition for the 18 senior roster spots. Click to continue reading...

Gasp! And here we were thinking that MLS only made rule changes in order to benefit the Galaxy!

Maybe this was announced earlier and I missed it, but a change to the MLS roster rules has come up today only because of Goff's latest post announcing the signing of Justin Moose to a Developmental contract, and the news that Kpene and Dyachenko are still eligible for Developmental contracts. Click to continue reading...

I came up with most of this while standing in line outside in 20 degree weather for two hours to see Barack Obama speak in College Park yesterday (well worth it).

Major League Soccer is probably unlike any other league in the world that I can think of in its limitation of foreign players and players over the age of 25. Click to continue reading...

United's second pick in the Supplemental Draft went to a British player from WVU (a Britaineer??) named Dan Stratford.

Big question for DC United fans is... Does he have a green card? Because all of a sudden we're getting pretty low on foreign player slots. From the little I've read on Stratford so far, I'm thinking he does not. Click to continue reading...