The Nick Rimando of Months

February is the Nick Rimando of months. Months like January, or March, even classless April mock February for its short length of only 28 days. They dismiss its leaping ability by pointing out its poor positioning in the middle of winter. Posts on BigCalendar long for the replacement of February with another month, like Pluviôse (currently in the French Division 2 calendar). But for me, February is my favorite month. A little different, a little funky, a little, um, well, little. But February gets the job done. Glad you're here, old friend. Onto the morning briefing of DC news:

HEY-NOW, HEY-NOW, ALECKO'S BACK! Alecko Eskandarian is back in practice with DC United according to John Haydon of the Washington Times. He's wearing headgear, but is running around and not getting headaches. For those that caught the brunch with DC United where they reshowed the 2004 Eastern Conference Championship, you could see how dynamic Alecko was on the field before the thug attacked him last season. Now, admittedly, he was snakebitten before that game, but I'm happy that he might be back.

OH, YOU MEAN THAT DISTRACTION... Stop the presses! Freddy Adu's comments last year were a distraction to the team. Really? Stunning! The only thing I question is bringing this up again, but since the media is in a "For those of you that were busy watching Alias, here's what happened on DC United last year, now please watch our new season" mode, I guess the questions were bound to come. Of course Freddy was a distraction. But he wasn't a four goal distraction -- something I think both Jaime and Piotr will agree with. I also question saying this now when Freddy isn't at practice, but...

FREDDY COMES HOME The DCenters has believed that Freddy wasn't going to Germany as part of Arena's squad, but both Haydon and the AP indicate that Freddy is coming back from camp to train with United. Carroll, Quaranta, Boswell, and Olsen remain in camp. This doesn't necessarily mean the World Cup is out of reach for Freddy this year, but it does strongly suggest it. Your revised DCU World Cup Roster Odds:

1. Ben Olsen (Odds - 5:1, unchanged)
2. Santino Quaranta (Odds - 6:1, prevously 5:1)
3. Brian Carroll (Odds - 10:1, unchanged)
4. Bobby Boswell (Odds - 45:1, unchanged)
5. Freddy Adu (Odds - 50:1, previously 30:1)

MLS NO LONGER GK RICH Ives Galarcep says the old days of plenty are gone when it comes to quality domestic keepers. And he takes a shot at my boy Nick "February" Rimando. I think that while he has a point now, there are two potentially mitigating factors: 1 - There was a time when the only thing the US could produce were keepers. Now, some of more talented players are midfielders, which makes me think that some of this is that talented young players see a future for themselves in positions other than goal, so perhaps the improvement in other positions is thinning out the keeper depth a bit. 2 - This could be a temporary valley, as Garlcep notes that there are young keepers out there that could be an impact very early in their careers, such as Chris Seitz of Maryland.

And my apologies for wading into politics yesteday. SotU days do that to me.