Friday, Freday

INTERNATIONAL FREDLY: The big news is the signing of Fred. But I think the hidden story reported over at the Australian version of FourFourTwo is that he came without a fee. Which means, as far as I know, that United has yet to use ANY of their allocation money. Let me think: Emilio - No fee, Casal - No Fee, Wilis - No Fee, Fred - No Fee. We still are sitting on a boatload of money. Potentially very cool.

CLUB OVER COUNTRY, EVEN IF THE COUNTRY IS BOLIVIA?: Interesting report here regarding the Captain:

The team was minus some of their better players who are plying their trade outside their country because of a club-versus-country debacle. These include Juan Carlos Arce (Corinthians-Brazil) and Jaime Moreno (DC United USA) who, according to reports from Bolivia, were only prepared to play in the Copa America match against Venezuela.

I'm guessing that this was a situation where Moreno wasn't saying he was outright refusing, just that the Venezuela match will be easier for him to tailor into his schedule. I, for one, would love to see Jamie get a few more caps for his national side, even if he misses a few MLS regular season games. He was overlooked far too often.

MLSNET PREVIEW - EVEN THEY KINDA BUY INTO THE LEGEND: MLSNet's Charles Boehm writes the DC United Season Preview, which is now up. I would write about the content, but I'm still amused by the headline, which even though it portrays the concept of "rightful place" (ie MLS Champions) as a viewpoint belonging to D.C. United, you kind of get the sense that the author may, in some small way, agree with the idea. Consider the headline for the FC Dallas preview is "'Change' the byword for FC Dallas" -- I think we got the better hype.

COYS: Spurs Odyssey looks at the upcoming match against Reading to think about once upon a time transfer target Bobby Convey, and the match that brought him to their attention. You might want to remember as well.