The Freezer for 11 April 2008

The US Soccer Fragility Index, known as the Freezer, is the anti-power poll. Each week, Oscar, Kinney, Bob and D have a frank discussion over email and chat to rank the most feeble, the most tenuous, and the overall weakest things in US Soccer, and we check our results with commenters in our pre-Freezer solicitation post. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Like MLS, the spirit is noble if the execution is occasionally weak.

After a hiatus for the off-season, the Freezer returns. Naturally, we had to clean it out and defrost sections with an icepick, throwing out everything past its sell-by date. Hey, who put these half eaten Icee Pops in here?

Anyways, that means it's time to acknowledge some left-over business from last season. First, congratulations to the U.S. Nats, Red Bull New York, Kasey Keller, U.S. Referees, the Chicago Fire, and ESPN, all of whom we bring out of the Freezer. The Nats put together some good showings against difficult teams, RBNY fires Bruce Arena for Osorio (good move) and gets rid of their technical director, Kasey Keller at least has a team now, the Fire made the East finals, and ESPN reworks its line-up to try something new. All good stuff.

Still, that just means we have to fill up the freezer with new less-than-appetizing dishes. And voila, here we go.