A few things to start your week.

You may have noticed in The OT Report that Clarence Goodson came off the bench for Brøndby IF this weekend.  Goodson has sort of fallen out of the lineup for the club and has voluntarily given up the captain’s armband as well.

I am still looking for highlights of Alejandro Bedoya’s goal from the weekend and this is the best I can do for now.  Someone forgot to zoom in.

Staying in Sweden, Paul Torres and Ryan Gracia helped Nyköping (Swedish third tier) upset Kalmar FF (Allsvenskan) in the Swedish Cup.  Torres assisted on the first goal of these highlights.

The New York Times has a story up on US U-20 head coach Tab Ramos playing in the 1983 FIFA World Youth Championship.

Dual-citizen Maki Tall has been called into the France U-18 camp/team that will be playing the US and Germany this month.

Devann Yao is continuing his trialing ways, now at English League Two side Chesterfield.

Bundesliga Fanatic has an interview up with Michael Parkhurst.

And finally, Bolton manager Dougie Freedman hopes Stuart Holden re-signs with Bolton when his contract ends this summer.

If the World Cup was decided after one game of the Hex (sounds like a reasonable qualification process!), both the US and Mexico would be sitting on the outside.  While the US lost 2-1 in a pretty flat and depressing effort, Mexico tied Jamaica, 0-0, at Azteca, while Costa Rica needed a late goal from Bryan Ruiz to draw with Panama 2-2.  Here are the Hex standings after one game.

I don’t want to link to every depressing recap, but Noah Davis got a quote from Tim Howard which pretty much sums everything up from today.

“They were a much better team than us today. We looked flat.”

Sunil Gulati spoke to some reporters before the game to talk about future qualifier venues and some other things.

Moving on to some other links.

After leaving a reserve game last week after a rough tackle, Stuart Holden went 90 minutes in a closed-doors scrimmage at Euxton on Tuesday.

Brondby has avoided bankruptcy, so Clarence Goodson will get a paycheck for the rest of this season.

Fresh off a Jemal Johnson sighting at Arlesey Town last week, he will trial with the NASL’s Tampa Bay Rowdies.

US Soccer Development Academy product Cameron Thomas is headed to Germany to play with VfL Osnabruck’s U-19 team for the rest of the season.

In the dual citizens currently playing for other countries department, French-American Maki Tall scored two goals for France’s U-18 team.  And American–born Salvadoran Dustin Corea has signed with Skive IK in Denmark, the same club that signed American RJ Allen last week.

I am headed out of town this weekend, so the posting might be a little light on my end, but David should have the Weekend Commentary thread going.

So Landon Donovan scored a big goal for the Galaxy tonight.  He recently talked to Julie Foudy about the uncertainty that is his future with the USMNT and soccer in general.  And someone started a funny Sad Landon twitter account.

Jurgen Klinsmann had a pre-Russia friendly teleconference today in which he talked about a variety of topics including Donovan and Jozy Altidore.  You can check out the questions/quotes right here.

Donovan’s Galaxy teammate Omar Gonzalez talked to Ives Galarecp this week about returning from injury and working towards a spot with the USMNT.

A report out of Mexico has Jose Torres headed to Tigres UANL come December.

Greg Seltzer talked to Conor O’Brien earlier this week about his ambitions beyond playing in Denmark.

Brian Sciaretta got some quotes from Anthony Brooks about his season so far at Hertha Berlin.

Here is a video interview with Sacha Kljestan.

And I first posted about Maki Tall last week, but it looks like he has been called into a camp with France’s U-18 team.

A few things to catch up on from the weekend.

Tim Howard’s performance over the weekend against QPR earned him Team of the Week honors over at ESPN.  He made a couple nice diving saves.

I missed this goal, but Alfredo Morales scored a goal in Hertha Berlin II’s 4-1 win over Torgelower SV Greif in German Regionalliga action.

A few things regarding the USMNT and the Hex.  CONCACAF will have a draw for the Hex within the next 30 days.  Steven Goff lists out all the fixture dates.  Jurgen Klinsmann told Alexi Lalas that Camp Cupcake (RIP?) should be shorter, fewer players and mainly players who will be participating in February’s qualifiers.  And here are some field-level highlights of the US’ win over Guatemala.

The last USMNT game of 2012 will be November 14 in Russia and Brian Sciaretta lists some “new” players he wouldn’t mind seeing getting a chance in that game.

Michael Adubato recently talked to Oguchi Onyewu about being patient at Malaga.

And this article is a few weeks old, but J.R. Eskilson introduces us to Maki Tall.  Tall is a 16-year-old French-American forward who is scoring goals for Le Mans’ U-19 team.