Hello folks. I am on a plane and about to take off for lovely Ft. Lauderdale, Florida ahead of this weekend's MLS Combine. It should be an interesting event and certainly a better Combine than last year, when Day 1 was the soccer equivalent of watching paint dry.
Before the Combine begins, you should check out my story for ESPN.com on the Generation adidas draft class. It gives a breakdown of all nine players.
For those of you wondering where the soccer TV schedule is, I will be posting it on Saturday morning. These are the early matches for those of you wondering:
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7:40am- Setanta USA- West Brom at Aston Villa
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10am- FSC- West Ham at Newcastle
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10am- Setanta USA- Bolton at Arsenal
In other news from the day, LA acquired Stefani Miglioranzi from Columbus for a conditional draft pick while the bigger story was Galaxy director of soccer Paul Bravo leaving LA to become technical director of the Colorado Rapids.
It was a busy day for the Galaxy as the club also announced the participants for the second Pan Pacific Championship. Suwon Samsung Bluewings (South Korea), Shandong Luneng Taishan FC (China) and Oita Trinita (Japan) will join the Galaxy in the tournament, set for Feb. 18 and 21 at the home Depot Center.
Lastly, Houston's Geoff Cameron was forced to leave U.S. national team camp with a hamstring injury that could sideline him for two to three weeks.
I will be anchoring ESPN.com's coverage of the Combine and both I and SBI correspondent Gianfranco Panizo will be in attendance to bring you all the action. I will also be working to give you all the off-field activity such as all the trade talk sure to take place.
For now, feel free to share your own thoughts on what you are hoping to happen this weekend at the Combine and this week before the 2009 MLS Draft.
Enjoy your weekends and all the soccer action.