Life has been busy, and so I haven't yet commented on the major news of the last couple days - stories emerging that not only could Amado Guevara be finding a new home in Dallas (with Eddie Johnson coming back the other way), and Eddie Gaven dosey-doing with NY homeboy Edson Buddle to Columbus, but also that Ante Razov is being linked with a move over to Chivas USA, and a reunion with his favorite coach, for a lil' bit of wampum (and who among us didn't see that coming?)

But just as well, since none of that has come to pass as of yet.

Let's start with the one deal that has gone down: last season's minutes leader and message-boards-whipping-boy, Michael Bradley is off to Heerenveen. Yes, Heerenveen - the "club with tradition", as their website oh-so-distinctively puts it (nb: I love continental clubs that provide English versions of their websites, even if they're pretty bare-bones, and the Dutch are especially good about this.) He'll be part of a club that's just outside the traditional troika of Ajax PSV and Feyenoord, is still competing in the UEFA Cup this season, and has built a reputation for nursing prospects into stars and selling them on. It's going to be a lot of fun to see just how much PT he can pull down, and how quickly. I've never seen Heerenveen play, so your guess is as good as mine there.















(come on, this or Yurcak Field on a Wednesday night in August?)

Not bad for a kid who only ever got to play in NJ because Daddy was the coach. Yep, if it wasn't for Mrs. Bradley acting the part of the youth soccer mom from hell, and waving the rolling pin threateningly at Coach Bob when he walked in the door each evening, Junior Bradley (or Mini Bob, another clever nickname there) wouldn't have been playing a major role for the Metrostars - hell, he would have been hard-pressed to walk-on at Ramapo Community College. At least, that's what some of the finer (and more prolific) minds of the Metro message board worlds would have you believe. There is caustic internet rhetoric, of which we're all guilty at some point (for further examples, refer here,) and then there is outright lazy, unthinking crap, bordering on the slanderous but definitely bathed in stupidity and cynicism. Through the previous season, we saw enough of the latter, surrounding a talented kid trying to do his job and acquitting himself pretty well, to last us another ten. It pissed me off to no end then, and months later I still have a hard time letting it go. If nothing else, it drove my opinion of (some of) my fellow Metro fans miles into the earth's mantle; that's hard to square with a feeling built up through following Metro for 10 years, that we have the most intelligent, critical, savvy, funny, human supporters in the American game. Those feelings may be mostly gone - as have a lot of the folks that inspired them, unfortunately.

But, enough. I couldn't be happier for Michael Bradley. He gets out of a situation that was going to go nowhere for him - and that's not even supposed to sound pessimistic about the '06 Metros already. Where there is smoke wafting up around the wispy form of Eddie Gaven, there is probably fire, and I bet that Mike Magee is not making any dates to go out in Manhattan next weekend, either. The Bob Bradley-driven youth movement appears to be coughing up blood before gasping its last and keeling over - not that that's a terrible omen per se, just that it leaves him out in the cold.

It will be a crime, however, if the Metros don't pull down some sort of allocation in return.

UPDATE:

On second thought, I'm a little concerned with the thought of our Metro progeny playing on that radioactive Dutch grass.

















(I know, there are so many directions to go with the phrase "radioactive Dutch grass", it boggles the mind.)

Then again, he's a Jersey kid, right? Radioactive grass? Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.