Preseason Notes, 02.07.07

Word from around Major League Soccer as it comes to me:

Houston Dynamo
The Houston Chronicle, whose preseason coverage is just bully, ran a story today about the balance between roster depth and Houston's busy 2007. This one's a prettty good road-map for their year to come. The more I think about it, the more I think Houston is going to be hard to unseat in '07. They just look strong...again.

LA Galaxy/Chivas USA
It seems cheap on some levels, but I can't fault the Daily Breeze for squeezing preseason chatter for both Los Angeles teams into the same article. It looks like Chivas USA's preseason is well under way with Preki demanding effort from all concerned, while LA still seems preoccupied with mooning over Beckham.

Toronto FC
Looks like the squad is coming together, even if a number of key players are taking a pass on the earlier portions of training camp. It's going to be fun checking out the new kids this year.

FC Dallas
This turned out to be one of the better of today's preseason check-ups. There's a good deal of talk about a new, positive attitude in Dallas, talk can be fairly readily interpreted as pointing fingers at departed coaches and teammates (see: Clarke, Colin; O'Brien, Robbie; Vanney, Greg). But the more interesting talk revolves around continuing search for new blood:

" Morrow said FC Dallas is in talks to bring in a South American player, whom he wouldn't identify, and is also targeting another piece to the puzzle after failing to land Dutch forward Edgar Davids."

Real Salt Lake
Even if USSoccerplayers.com ran one of the tidiest wraps on the Salt Lake City stadium situation/debacle, anything you read directly concerned with the team reveals a squad determined to stay focused on the field. A lot of this stuff talks about Freddie Adu and how he's fitting in (answer: pretty well), but there's also a good deal of optimism about the Salt Lake team - and it's not unjustified, either. It's hard not to get excited about your chances when you've got Jeff Cunningham and Jason Kreis supported by Chris Klein, Freddie Adu, and Mehdi Ballouchy; the only concern there is depth.

Another interesting piece of trivia was some fitness drill called the "beep test." Here's the passage on that:

"For every player, the most dreaded part of the first day of training camp is the beep test. It's a fitness drill in which the players are required to run for upwards of 10 minutes, increasing their pace ever so slightly every 10 seconds. The players push themselves as long as they can and then stop."

Based on that description, I don't even think this exercise is possible. How does a human being increase his pace "ever so slightly" every 10 seconds for 10 minutes? Sounds like hokum.

All for now.

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