After a two-week break, which I know was two weeks too long to bear, it’s time for the triumphant return of Saturday Superlatives. In case you’ve already forgotten, this is the feature in which we highlight all the best from any and all Saturday action.

Six games today. Here’s the best from May 12:

Best Goal: Lee Nguyen, New England Revolution, 4-1 72′

I mean, are you kidding me? The Vietnamese-American midfielder was waved by the Whitecaps in preseason and apparently didn’t take the chance to exact some revenge on his (kind of) former team lightly. He followed up his first MLS goal with this stunner, an audacious attempt off a throw-in that seems to have eyes for the net.

Perhaps even more entertaining than the goal is Caps keeper Joe Cannon’s look of disgust after this, the fourth and final goal, crosses the line. (more…)

Time for another edition of the ever-popular USA10Kit power rankings. If you’re just joining us, our extra fun gimmick is that we rank 10 teams because that’s the number that’s in the name of the blog.

We have a new leader this week, though it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock if you’ve been watching closely.

1- Seattle Sounders – Five straight wins mean the Sounders are our new leaders. Fredy Montero seems to be fully back, they’ve only allowed three goals all season and even an injury to regular goalkeeper Michael Gspurning can’t seem to slow the club.

2- San Jose Earthquakes – The Quakes suffered their first loss in weeks on Saturday, but Wondolowski and crew stay in the number two slot. Why? They’ve earned it with their consistent play and really should’ve pulled out a draw before some stoppage time heroics did them in on the road.

3- Sporting Kansas City – It’s not panic time yet for Sporting Kansas City, but a loss to the expansion Montreal Impact is certainly enough to knock them from their perch.

4- Vancouver Whitecaps – The Whitecaps picked up a big win over the weekend and have a golden opportunity to vault themselves to the top of the heap with a victory against New England this weekend and a defeat of current leaders Seattle next weekend.

5- Real Salt Lake – What to make of Real Salt Lake? Who knows? They’ve been trudging along lately, barely beating two bottom feeders and drawing a Chicago Fire side who they probably should’ve beat. Still, they’ve managed to stay near the top of the conference.

6-New York Red Bulls – No Henry, no problem for the Red Bulls who were able to put together a strong enough attack to vex the LA Galaxy defense. It’s their third win in a row, and, with Kansas City’s struggles, they’re in striking distance of the Eastern Conference lead.

7- DC United – Nothing cures a loss like a league match with Toronto FC. Coach Ben Olsen was forced to play a strange lineup in the Great White North because of injuries to key players, but the patchwork back line had no problems and the midfield, which is looking increasingly deep, had a strong showing as usual. Beat some better teams and they’ll be on the way up again.

8- Colorado Rapids– The Rapids had a little help from both their opposition and the official as they drubbed a FC Dallas squad that was reduced to nine men for the majority of the 2-0 result. Their offense was firing on all cylinders and playing in a way that’s sure to put a smile on Oscar Pareja’s face if it continues. The defense? It wasn’t exactly tested.

9-LA Galaxy – One step forward, two steps back. Maybe it’s just stubbornness on my part, but I keep expecting the Galaxy to go on a huge winning streak and be the team they were projected to be. But they just don’t seem to be able to stop other teams from scoring more goals than them, and that’s kind of a major problem.

10- Chicago Fire– A win and a draw is good enough to qualify as a hot streak for the Fire who could make some moves in the Eastern Conference.

Last weekend the state of Texas crowned its new high school soccer champions including Sharyland High School from Mission in the Rio Grande Valley area who overcame all odds to take the coveted 5A crown.

It was a great victory for a largely Hispanic community that saw a senior forward, Jesus Olivares, claim tournament MVP honors while freshman goalkeeper Jorge Medina had the poise and composure to emerge victorious from a nerve-wracking shootout.

Sharyland was a team that came together at the right time with players ranging from ages 15-18 who all grew up wanting to play for their high school team. But as the team boarded their bus to head from the tournament site in Georgetown back down to Mission, there was a sense that maybe an era was coming to an end.

With the US Soccer’s new mandate that young players must decide between playing for their club or high school team, the days of high school and college soccer feel threatened. Two of the four teams competing at the Texas state tournament were in fact victims of this mandate, having lost star players in the offseason. The question has now arisen whether or not the Sharylands or colleges like last year’s NCAA soccer champion, North Carolina, will still be relevant in the near future.

Claudio Reyna, the Youth Technical Director of US Soccer, who recently outlined his vision in an ESPN.com article, is himself a product of high school and college soccer, but is on a mission preaching that an alternative approach is better not only for young players but also for the US national team.

“Our decisions are not thought out to say, ‘Hey, how do we end high school soccer or how do we end college soccer, how do we steer kids away…’ It’s the bigger picture,” Reyna told 10 Kit. “Around the world, kids at these ages are training and playing 10 months out of the year. It’s a fact. That’s something that high school and college doesn’t provide.”

For college soccer coaches, it is an inconvenient truth that they really only receive four months in which to work with players. Add to the fact that most colleges play two games a week, it leaves little room for technical development each Fall. On top of everything else, there is of course the expectation within a school’s athletic department that its college soccer team actually has a winning program, development be darned.

“From a technical side, I do think college soccer needs to improve in how they play,” Reyna said. “A lot of times you hear that [the coach’s] job is on the line and they have to play this way and that’s disappointing to me. I think in college soccer if it was a better game and a better style, you might have more players. This [opinion] is coming from the players. They say that college soccer or high school soccer holds back my development.”

For years college soccer was essentially the only choice for young players but now with the advent of the US Development Academies, including those academies affiliated with MLS teams, there is a path to a professional career that for the first time mirrors what is done in soccer-rich countries all around the world.

“College soccer is always going to be there,” Reyna said. “I think it’s great in what it provides a kid and it still is a stepping stone for professionals. But I think you start to see that players have decisions to make and I think that’s good. There’s competition. But we don’t go around telling players not to go to college. We just feel because there is more training and more quality games spread out over a long period that it is better for the body physically. In speaking to experts around the world, it doesn’t take me a long time to have them tell me, ‘Yeah, that’s the way to do it.’”

Whether Reyna’s vision is fulfilled remains to be seen. However one thing is for certain is that soccer on high school and college campuses has forever been affected, for better or for worse.

It looks like USMNT prodigy Omar Salgado may finally be getting the break through he’s been waiting for in Vancouver.

Reports say that the forward-cum-winger will start a second straight match for coach Martin Rennie this weekend, after a successful run-out on the left flank last week versus KC.

This is a good sign for Salgado, whose travels have taken him far and wide in search of a place he’ll fit in, is that it looks it he may be doing just that under Rennie.

Salgado has been heralded as a top prospect since abandoning Chivas and Mexico to come to the U.S. U-20 team a couple years ago a lanky 17-year-old.

Since then, he’s probably underachieved and been a little overhyped given his production. In the meantime, he’s whined quite a bit about PT in Vancouver, and been called out by his teammates. (more…)

1- Sporting Kansas City – Sporting Kansas City doesn’t drop just because they were given their first loss of the season on the weekend. If anything, SKC proved that while it’s possible to defend them, you still have to hope the defense beats itself.
2- San Jose Earthquakes – As Western Conference leaders, the Earthquakes continue to answer any questions about their legitimacy as a contender in the affirmative. They continue to defend well and are potent enough from both set pieces and open play to get goals.
3- Real Salt Lake – Rough loss this weekend, but losing in the last few minutes with only nine men left on the pitch isn’t enough to knock RSL out of the top three. A third-straight loss, however, most certainly would send them tumbling.
4- DC United – The boys in black get a big bump after a big victory against New York Red Bulls. Coach Ben Olsen has United firing on all cylinders with a mix of old – Chris Pontius, Dwayne De Rosario – and new – Nick DeLeon, Danny Cruz.
5- Vancouver Whitecaps – Vancouver’s defense continues to look really solid. As Sporting KC has shown, if you can’t
6-Seattle Sounders – The Sounders had the week off, but with their impending schedule could run off some wins and prove they belong in with the big boys.
7- New York Red Bulls – A pathetic performance at a rainy RFK knocks the Red Bulls down a few slots. This team has shown some Jekyll and Hyde characteristics. Right now it’s the Hyde side that’s showing and who knows if Red Bull is the potion needed.
8- Portland Timbers – A victory over the number one team is enough to vault the Timbers into our rankings. It wasn’t the prettiest way to get a result, but if this is the one that rights the ship, we’ll see them climb.
9-LA Galaxy – Perhaps they’re just a bit tardy for the run we all figured they’d start making, but it’s still early in the season. Many forgot all about the Galaxy as quickly as they had anointed them 2012 champs. The truth, as of right now, lies in between.
10- FC Dallas – Dallas can’t get a break. As soon as one player gets back from rehabbing an injury, another key component goes down.

 A few weeks back, JP Ocegueda had a choice to make. Mexico and the U.S. came calling at the same time for U-20 camps, and it was time to decide.

Ocegueda chose to stick with the U.S., and he’ll be a key part of Tab Ramos’ team this cycle. Right after the decision, we caught up with him for a little 10Kit Q&A:

10Kit: How are things at Tigres?

JP: Everything with Tigres is good, I feel comfortable with the team and just waiting for the opportunity with the first team to come. We had the Copa Libertadores, (more…)

Just the rankings this week. Just because.

1- Sporting Kansas City
2- Real Salt Lake
3- San Jose Earthquakes
4- New York Red Bulls
5- Seattle Sounders
6-Vancouver Whitecaps
7- DC United
8- Colorado Rapids
9-FC Dallas
10- Chivas USA

It seems the past few weeks our Saturday Superlatives feature has focused on the unpredictable nature of MLS and how topsy-turvy everything was. In contrast, this week solidified much of what we already believed. This is including, but not limited to, our belief that Sporting Kansas City is the league’s best team, that New York can score goals, that San Jose is apparently legitimately going to be a contender, the Los Angeles Galaxy aren’t as horrible a team as they’ve portrayed themselves to be and Toronto FC are, indeed, as bad as they’ve seemed.

Keeping all those things in mind, here is all the best from a day that didn’t really surprise us…too much: (more…)