I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas with their friends and family.  I am slowly waking up from a food/beer coma from the last couple of days.

Now for some links.

Andre Villas-Boas is a fan of Clint Dempsey.

We told you about Bryan Meredith signing with IK Brage last week, but here are some more quotes from Meredith about the move.

The US U-20 team finished up camp last week with a 4-0 win over Venezuela.  There have been a bunch of stories/interviews coming out from the camp, including stuff from Tab Ramos, Benji Joya, Cody Cropper, Marc Pelosi, Caleb Stanko and Brandon Allen.

As for another player part of the U-20 group who was not at the camp, Anthony Brooks did an interview with Hertha Berlin’s website.

Jozy Altidore spoke to Dave Martinez over at Ives.  Jozy also made one Dutch paper’s team of the midseason.

Speaking of midseason-type rankings, Aron Johannsson was ranked the sixth best player in Denmark so far in 2012-13.

In the caring is creepy part of the links, here is a Spanish report on Barcelona youth product Ben Lederman.

This is from last week, but Seattle is apparently in the mix for a possible game during the Hex.

ESPN Insider gives us their hot list among American players.

And finally, here is a video of Tim Ream and Stuart Holden having some Christmas fun.

There is a joke on one of the college football sites that Howie and I read that when it comes to recruiting (and following the lives of 16-18 year old kids), “caring is creepy”.  That said, who doesn’t want to see video highlights of some 11-year-old American scoring a goal for one of Barcelona’s youth teams?!

Thanks to Dave for e-mailing this in, but Ben Lederman scored a goal for Barcelona’s Alevín A team as they participated in some U-12 tournament in Spain recently.

Cap him now!

Since I am in a good mood (and actually have time), I am going to drop some more links on you guys.

Robbie Rogers recently had his surgery on his ankle (photographic proof!) and he recently did a Q&A with ESPN.com.

Conor O’Brien and SønderjyskE were knocked out of the semifinals of the Danish Cup.  They beat FC Copenhagen, 4-3, today in the second leg, but the aggregate score was 4-4 and they lost out on the away goals rule.

Greg Seltzer talked to Sean Cunningham about his loan move to Stabæk.

While we have been complaining about the PFA Team of the Year, the folks over at The Shin Guardian came up with their own XI of the Year for the Premier League.

Speaking of teams of the year, Howie and I are slowly putting the final touches on this year’s OT XI.  It should hopefully be up in the next two weeks.  We have a base lineup, but want to see how the final weeks play out.

And finally, Top Drawer Soccer quickly updates us with a couple of really young Americans in youth academies in Europe, including Barcelona’s Ben Lederman.

A bunch of little things to get to while I watch the end of this highly entertaining Lakers-Clippers game.

Jurgen Klinsmann had a teleconference today to talk about a bunch of different things like Caleb Porter, Olympic qualifying and Herculez Gomez among other things.  You can listen to it here or read the transcript here.

Hopefully [Gomez] continues that goal scoring period, and the more he scores, the more he makes a positive notes out there, the bigger his chances to get the call. It’s as simple as that. That’s our message to all of the players all of the time – keep proving your point.

Gomez got that message by adding another two goals to his portfolio tonight.

Speaking of Gomez, Christopher McCollum has a two-part interview with the forward:  Part 1 | Part 2

Greg Seltzer recently talked to Jozy Altidore about learning the game in Holland.

What’s better than one article on Stuart Holden returning to Bolton to finish up his rehab?  How about a second article?

“A lot of people have asked when I’m going to be back playing and I don’t have a definitive answer. I’m not really worried about that because my focus is all about making sure I’m fully fit once I do get back on the pitch.”

Here is an interview with Hammarby’s manager Gregg Berhalter.  Hammarby kick off the Superettan season next Monday against Halmstad.

Did you know that there is a young American in Barcelona’s youth academy?  I sort of remember hearing about this in the past, but it got brought back to my attention today.

Brian Sciaretta has an interview up with Kenneth Di Vita Jensen.