With the end of the 2012-13 season, various 2013-14 kits are being leaked or are officially being released by clubs.  If you have followed this site for a while, you know that we like to keep you updated with some of the teams that feature some Americans.  That all said, a bunch of different Bundesliga teams had some kits come out this weekend.

Mainz (Shawn Parker and Jared Jeffrey) will be wearing these in home games next season.

Jermaine Jones will be collecting yellow cards in away games in this white shirt.

And Fabian Hurzeler will likely be playing with Bayern Munich’s U-23 team in this home kit.

Lets get right to it.

Much like last year, it looks like AZ Alkmaar probably won’t release Jozy Altidore for the beginning of the upcoming USMNT camp.

It appears that Michael Bradley does know how to smile between this photo and this video.

Staying in the Bradley family, here is a trailer for the upcoming Bob Bradley/Egypt documentary.

Brek Shea made the travel roster, but did not dress in Stoke City’s 1-1 draw yesterday.  I guess Ian Darke talked about it more at halftime, but he also tweeted that they are working on getting him 100% match fit as he finally got over his foot injury.  Here is also a story from England where it mentions that Tony Pulis brought Shea to the club with next year in mind.

It is not quite the silly season just yet, but we have our first rumor on a possible Jonathan Spector move to newly promoted Cardiff City.

Jermaine Jones talked to Bundesliga.com about Schalke’s last couple of games.

Honefoss goalkeeper Steve Clark was fined for taunting opponents during the club’s Norwegian Cup match from last week.  He was fined 20,000 Norwegian crowns, which the internet tells me is about $3,500 or 1,000 Schrute bucks.

Jon-Paul Pittman was one of 12 players released by Oxford United this week.  Pittman scored two goals in 15 appearances in 2012-13.

I posted about Paul Arriola’s move to Tijuana last week and he recently talked to Tom Marshall about making the move.

Here is a photo of Junior Flores in his new Borussia Dortmund gear.

Finally, both Julian Green and Russell Canouse scored for their teams in German U-19 action and you can view the goals in this U-19 video recap of the weekend (their games are the first two games highlighted in the video).  Hell of a strike by Canouse.

Jermaine Jones went the full 90 minutes and picked up a yellow card (only his sixth of the season after collecting 14 last year) in Schalke’s 1-0 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach.  With the win, Schalke now only trail Bayer Leverkusen (who have a game in hand) by four points for the last Champions League group stage spot in the Bundesliga.  Here are the highlights.

A couple things to check out before the weekend.

Robbie Rogers is finally talking to the press since coming out as gay.  He spoke to Donald McRae of The Guardian and Sam Borden of The New York Times.

Chivas USA youth product Ben Spencer has signed with Molde FK.  He is now the fourth American at the club, along with Josh Gatt, Sean Cunningham and Ethan Horvath.

Apparently there were “Jermaine Jones to MLS” rumors, but his agent has hit the brakes on those rumors.

Tim Howard surprised a Everton fan with season tickets for next season.  That is pretty cool, but not as cool as Jonathan Bornstein and the Chivas goat coming to your door to give you Chivas USA tickets.

And if you need a podcast to pass the time at work today, the folks over at Total Soccer Show put up a bonus pod this week to talk about the US-Mexico match.

I was gone most of yesterday, but still playing a little catch up on things.  And, fingers crossed, the server seems to be working much better the last two days.

Moving on.

Jermaine Jones has been ruled out for tomorrow’s game against Mexico due to an injury he picked up during the Costa Rica game.  He did not even travel with the team to Mexico and is headed back to Germany.  He posted this photo of his leg (and Snow Fro) after the game.

The US U-20 team found out their draw for the U-20 World Cup today and they have been placed in Group A with Spain, France and an African team to be named later.  A pretty tough draw, but luckily four of the six third place teams advance out of the group stage in the U-20 World Cup format.

There really wasn’t many highlights to show from today, so here is an Every Touch Footy video of Jermaine Jones from Schalke’s 4-1 win over Wolfsburg.  Jones went the distance, picked up a yellow card and played pretty well from everything I have read (8.8 rating on whoscored.com).  He was also credited with an assist on some sites, but he mainly knocked down a ball to a teammate who did all the work.

So Jozy Altidore had himself a nice little game yesterday.  Here is a post-game interview with Altidore.  AZ Alkmaar is now headed to the final of the KNVB Cup on May 9 against PSV Eindhoven.  Jozy has scored seven goals in five KNVB Cup matches this year, including at least one in each of the five games, becoming the first AZ player to do that since Barry van Galen in 2000-01.

Jozy wasn’t the only American who scored yesterday.  Zach Pfeffer scored for Hoffenheim’s U-19 team in a 3-0 win over SC Freiburg.  Russell Canouse also went the full 90 minutes for Hoffenheim.

Sticking with Hoffenheim, the team’s website has an interview up with Fabian Johnson.  On a slight Johnson tangent, what if Edgar Castillo continues to play well?  Maybe start Castillo at left back for the USMNT and bump Johnson up to midfield on the left side to create some width?  Just spitballing here.

Sacha Kljestan and Anderlecht lost in league play yesterday, the team’s first since October 27.  The team was 13-0-2 in league play over that stretch before yesterday’s loss.  And Kljestan talked to Greg Seltzer about a few things as well as the possibility of becoming a captain at Anderlecht in the future.

Thanks to Armando for e-mailing this in, but here is a video on Jermaine Jones.  It looks to be from last September, but I had not seen it before.

Our goal tracker has been a lot busier this month, especially in the last week.  So check that out.

Yesterday was a slightly crazy one with stuff happening all day long.  We had the US U-20 team qualifying for the U-20 World Cup, Stuart Holden made his first league appearance since March 19, 2011 and Joe Corona/Edgar Castillo scored for Tijuana in Copa Libertadores action.

As for some links.

The US U-20 team is headed to Turkey this summer for the U-20 World Cup after beating Canada 4-2 yesterday.  The U-20 World Cup starts up on June 21, while the draw will be held on March 25.  While they did qualify yesterday, there are still potentially two more games left in the CONCACAF U-20 Championship.  The US will play Cuba in the semifinals on Friday and will be without the services of Cody Cropper, Jerome Kiesewetter, Luis Gil and Caleb Stanko the rest of the way as they return to their club teams.

One player who could potentially be on that U-20 team come June is Anthony Brooks.  And Every Touch Footy decided to do a video of Brooks’ performance against Kaiserslautern from this past weekend.

As I stated above, Stuart Holden made his first league appearance in 711 days yesterday.  It sounds like he did alright and was “neat and tidy”.

Edgar Castillo and Joe Corona scored in Copa Libertadores action last night, becoming the first Americans to score in that competition since Nicky Torres in 2011.  And here is a photo of them celebrating after Castillo’s goal.

Sebastian Lletget scored a goal yesterday in U-21 action as West Ham lost to Wolverhampton 2-1.

Kenneth Di Vita Jensen also scored a goal, but in a friendly for Hønefoss.

Stoke City’s Robert Huth could be missing some time in the future.  Does this mean some playing time at centerback for Geoff Cameron?

Clint Dempsey is expected to miss one to two weeks with a calf strain.

Jermaine Jones did an interview with Bundesliga.com after his good performances last week.

USMNT assistant coach Martin Vasquez has been in Mexico checking in on DaMarcus Beasley and Michael Orozco Fiscal.

Will Parchman tries to answer some questions about Jozy Altidore.

The US U-17 team is down in Panama and tied them 1-1 yesterday with Junior Flores scoring the lone goal for the US.

Greg Seltzer recently talked to Conor O’Brien about his move to FC Nordsjælland.

And finally, Jamel Johnson (not to be confused with Arlesey Town’s Jemal Johnson) is now in Austria at SV Gersthof.  Gersthof play in the Austrian Landesliga (fourth tier).

Howie’s Pick – N/A

Howie might be missing, running from the law or still on vacation.

Matt’s Pick – Jermaine Jones (FC Schalke – German Bundesliga)

Jermaine Jones became the second American ever to score in a Champions League knockout stage match (highlights here) mid-week then followed that up with a nice little assist over the weekend (highlights here).  Not bad.

Jon’s Pick – Jermaine Jones (FC Schalke – German Bundesliga)

Schalke had a great week and Jones played a huge part, making headlines by scoring the equalizer in their away draw with Galatasaray in the Champions League that has the Royal Blues eying the quarterfinals. Jones followed up his midweek Man of the Match performance by heading a free kick across the box to Joel Matip, assisting opener in a 2-1 Bundesliga win against Fortuna Dusseldorf. And – in typical Jermaine Jones fashion – he was booked in both contests.

Jermaine Jones provided an assist (and picked up a yellow card, shocker!) in Schalke’s 2-1 win over Fortuna Düsseldorf.  Here is his assist.