The News of the Day

Three big news stories in the past 24 hours or so as we ready for a couple CONCACAF Champions League games tonight.

1. Red Bulls trade Mac Kandji for Mehdi Ballouchy

NYRB seems like HUGE winners here given that Kandji was clearly not in the good graces of management. Ballouchy gives them the playmaker in the middle of the field that they had been lacking all year, and really fills in the one tiny hole they may have had in their attack.

A fun game to play now is "how will NYRB line up?" Their biggest weakness is at center back, so do they move Rafa Marquez back there in place of Carlos Mendez and let Ballouchy line up in front of Tony Tchani? Do they keep their backline the same and bring Ballouchy in for Tchani, even though he's been playing great lately?

Or what if something crazy happens? What if NY moves to a 3-5-2 that looks something like:

----Henry----------Angel----
---------Ballouchy----------
-Lindpere--Tchani--Richards-
----------Marquez-----------
--Miller---Ream---Albright--

Rafa can provide cover to a 3 man back line and still help distribute the ball up into the midfield.

Now this is not to say that Colorado lost, necessarily. If Kandji plays like he can then adding him on the wing to an already potent Casey and Cummings pairing makes for one nasty attack.

2. Preki and Mo Johnston fired by Toronto FC

In a move that most TFC fans seem somewhere between giddy and euphoric over, Preki and Mo Johnston will no longer be on the Toronto FC payroll. I think most people are more surprised that Mo managed to cash a paycheck for this long given how little progress they seem to have made in 5 years.

As for Preki, even after his great season at Chivas last year I wasn't too thrilled with him from after one of his early moves was to get rid of Sam Cronin. I understand that he and de Guzman play pretty much the same position, but you think you could find a way to put two of you best midfielders on the pitch. No, nevermind, we'll just stick with guys like Nick LaBrocca, Martin Saric, and Amadou Sanyang. That's working well.

3. MLS to move to 34 game schedule next year

This is the least surprising story, but a welcome one to see. With two more teams coming into the league MLS maintains an even number of team and can still operate under a full home-and-away season.