What You Missed in the World of Soccer

I was away last week due to a death in the family, and I cannot believe all that I missed.

To start with, Major League Soccer announced two new franchises in Vancouver and Portland. The Pacific Northwest is the new epicenter of soccer in the U.S., especially after the Seattle Sounders'  terrific home debut on Thursday.

Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, there was a great post on SoccerLens about how the Northwest will change MLS.

In anticipation of the new MLS season, we had the first MLS Power Rankings and 2009 Season Predictions .

Randall kicked off a new series on the best facial hair in soccer history, including a picture of himself all clean-shaven!

The Champions League draw was made and for the fifth consecutive year, Chelsea will meet Liverpool. Let's hope that this year's game will be more entertaining than the last couple.

Speaking of the Champions League, interesting post on MLS Talk about how FSC has wrestled the US rights to the Champions League away from ESPN.

Staying in Europe, Arsenal finally moved onto the FA Cup semi-final where they will play Chelsea.

On our sister site, Premier League Tickets, Randall has also been writing about the best fans in the Premier League.

The Inter Milan Fan Site had an interesting post of an interview with Inter chairman Massimo Moratt and his plans for Mourinho and Ibrahimovic.

I was watching the pre-game show on ESPN on Thursday and Alexi Lalas had some interesting things to say about David Beckham. Lalas made a great point, that the European media, especially the British tabloids, are always talking about how poor the quality in MLS is.

But as Lalas pointed out, after playing for two years in MLS, Beckham was able to walk into the team of one of the biggest teams in Europe.

It does not mean that MLS and Serie A are level, but it means that the level of competition in MLS is higher than many people think.