Soccer Extraordinaire!

The U.S. Men's national soccer team has an absolutely glorious month of soccer coming up. Between tomorrow and June 22nd, the team will play three friendlies against international superpowers England, Spain and Argentina (with only the Argentina game coming at home) and two 2010 world cup qualifying matches against Barbados (the first and second legs of a home-away series.) The three matches against the world's top clubs will test this team in a manner they've never experienced, even in first rounds of prior world cups. There could hardly be a more challenging and exciting opening to world cup qualification season, and I can't wait to catch the games (all of which are televised.)

Tomorrow is a good day for us local fans of soccer as well, as we'll have the match-up against England early in the day, and another session of the heated inter-state rivalry between FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo in the evening. Dallas recorded a victory against Real Salt Lake on Saturday night, on the back of two late-game goals by Dominic Oduro. But it's likely they were also motivated by the unexpected firing of coach Steve Morrow, a casualty of FC Dallas' 5-1 collapse against L.A. and underwhelming performances in the three games leading up to the debacle. Whether the replacement of Morrow with interim head coach Marco Feruzzi.