The US U-18ers kicked off the 2011 Milk Cup with a 2-0 victory over Israel.  Goals were scored by Omar Salgado and Jerome Kiesewetter.  I still can’t find any highlights, but here are some photos on the Milk Cup’s facebook page, including some from the US-Israel game (the US decided to break out the 2008 charcoal away jerseys).

The next game will be on Wednesday against Mexico, who lost 2-1 to Georgia today.  The other game in the Elite bracket saw Denmark and Northern Ireland end up in a 1-1 draw.  So a good start to the tournament for the US.  There was also some chatter on Twitter that Bob Bradley was there in attendance (getting a look at potential 2012 Olympic squad players?).

It looks like Anton Peterlin impressed enough during his trial at Walsall as he has accepted a one-year deal with the League One club, who are nicknamed the Saddlers.

While one American impressed during his trial, goalkeeper Chris Konopka did not do enough during his trial with Oxford United as they have decided to not keep him on a permanent basis.

Thanks to Armando for sending this one in, but here is a video interview with Jozy Altidore up on AZ’s official site.

There is a chance Quentin Westberg will be Evian TG’s starting goalkeeper come August 6 when they travel to Brest for the first game of the Ligue 1 season.  Just like the end of last year, starting goalkeeper Bertrand Laquait has picked up an injury and manager Bernard Casoni will have to decide between Westberg and Johann Durand if thigh injury is that bad.  Westberg got the call last year and Evian TG won its last three games with the French-born American between the sticks.

Here are some more friendlies from the last two days involving some Americans.

Eric Lichaj came off the bench for 25 minutes in Aston Villa’s 3-1 victory over Walsall.  Anton Peterlin is currently on trial with Walsall and saw 30 minutes of action in the game.

Alfredo Morales played one whole minute in Hertha Berlin’s 2-1 victory over Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Clarence Goodson got the start in Brøndby’s 3-0 loss to Ajax.

Stefan Jerome went the full 90 minutes in Sigma Olomouc’s 2-1 victory over Maccabi Petach Tikva.

Preston Zimmerman scored two goals in SV Darmstadt 98′s 6-1 victory over SC Opel 06 Russelsheim.

Andrew Wooten scored four goals(!) in Kaiserslautern II’s 7-2 victory over SG Bruchweiler.

As for some other random news.

US U-20 defender Greg Garza might have found a home in Finland.

Maura Gladys caught up with Brad Rusin to talk about his journey from the Carolina Railhawks to Denmark.

Carlos Bocanegra is back in France training with Saint-Etienne.

He had a number of tryouts while playing out the second half of his contract with Everton (many of them with fellow Merseyside Yank Cody Arnoux) before spending last year playing sparingly (14 league appearances) with Plymouth Argyle of League One. Argyle was relegated (a second consecutive relegation) in large part due to a ten-point deduction for financial insolvency, and Peterlin was not retained for the season in League Two.

Ironically, he’s now on trial with Walsall, the club that avoided relegation due to the deduction handed to Plymouth Argyle; without it, the Pilgrims would have had 52 points (instead of the 42 they finished with) and in 19th place. Walsall’s 48 points would have only been good enough for 21st place.

Walsall has a pretty unremarkable history. Most notably, despite being a founding member of the Second Division in 1892 (officially known as League One now although the equivalent of the current Football League Championship), they have never played in the top flight of England.

Some random tidbits that have nothing to do with who Bob did or did not select.

Seb Harris was one of eight players released by Northampton Town last week.  The 23-year-old forward/defender appeared in 17 games over two seasons with the Cobblers, but also had loan stints with Stafford Rangers and Nuneaton Town this past season.

Since being let go, he has signed with the Michigan Bucks of the PDL, a team he played with before heading to England in 2009.

Continuing with the players let go theme, Anton Peterlin was one of a few players not offered a new deal with Plymouth Argyle.  Peterlin appeared in 12 games for the Pilgrims in 2010-11 as they got relegated to League Two.

Tom Tomsk’s website has a little story up on their site (google translate to the rescue!) about Eugene Starikov.

Hopefully that will get your mind off the Gold Cup roster.  Probably not.

The Mike Grella ordeal continues to worsen for the American forward. Swindon Town manager Paul Hart has vowed to fight “tooth and nail” to prevent the club from owing him any further wages for his time on loan.

But Hart, who was disgusted with the attitude of the player he had handed five starts from seven games since being named manager in early March, will do all he can to ensure Town do not pay him any more wages.

“Mike Grella came to me to ask to leave Swindon, when we are involved in a relegation fight,” he said. “After deliberation I acceded to his request and it is good riddance to bad rubbish.

“As far as I am concerned we are not paying him and as long as I am here I will fight tooth and nail to make sure this remains the case.

“He has gone and I am only interested in players who want to fight for Swindon.”

This further extends my belief that Grella will not be returning to Leeds this summer. His reputation is rather sullied. He might be able to find himself a job in League One or League Two, but if I were Grella I’d be ready to start making some trial arrangements back in MLS.

I’m not doing a full OT Report, but I’ll note that Anton Peterlin did get a rare start for Plymouth Argyle in a 1-0 win over Dagenham & Redbridge. Argyle has already clinched relegation and Peterlin’s contract is up this summmer, so I am guessing that he’s another player that might be looking to return stateside this summer. Also, Preston Zimmerman scored another goal for Mainz II, his sixth of the season. He’s having a nice season.

Two notes on some now-former site subjects. You might recall JC Banks, the former Wisconsin-Green Bay midfielder who had spent some time with Hammarby in Sweden. He wound up signing with the Rochester Rhinos here (3rd division USL-Pro), where he scored on Saturday. Meanwhile, Benny Feilhaber made his debut with the New England Revolution, going 90 minutes and collecting an assist in the 12th minute to help defeat Sporting Kansas City. As a Sporting fan, boo to that.

While I noted Anton Peterlin played in Plymouth Argyle’s 1-1 draw yesterday, it looks like he had an assist and Pilgrims boss Peter Reid had some nice words on Peterlin.

“Anton has been unlucky,” said Peter. “He played well on Saturday and he came on and played well here.

“He was unlucky to get left out and I was delighted he knocked the ball in [for the goal]. It was a great free-kick.

“There was pace on the ball and it was in the right area so Yala could get on the end of it.

“He also took care of the ball when he came on. All credit to the lad.”

Peterlin is starting to get some playing time in the last week.  He came off the bench on Tuesday and started this past weekend after playing only twice since the beginning of September (a FA Cup match in November and a league game in September).

Moving over to Germany, if you thought an assist while coming off the bench was nice, how about three goals and a yellow card in 26 minutes?  Andrew Wooten, a 21-year-old forward, did this on Tuesday for Kaiserslautern’s reserve squad in their 3-1 victory over Verl.  Wooten now has 10 goals in 20 games with Kaiserslautern’s reserve team this season in the German Regionalliga.

According to this old profile on Wormatia Worms’ website (he played there for the 2008-09 season), they list him as a German-American (he was born in Germany), but he could be someone to keep an eye on.

Reports out Germany today that Nurnberg has extended Timothy Chandler’s contract through 2013.  The 20-year-old midfielder has been impressing since being called up to the first team (Nurnberg is 5-0-1 in its last six games that Chandler has appeared in).  The next question becomes, will Bob Bradley cap him sometime in the near future?

Michael Bradley made his first start with Aston Villa today in their 3-0 loss to Manchester City in the FA Cup.  Bradley lasted 71 minutes in a pretty “blah” outing (The Guardian’s readers rated him a 5.3 out of 10).  Bradley recently told the Birmingham Mail that he would be interested in turning his loan deal into a permanent move.

Two interviews/stories to check out from today.  Brian Sciaretta talks to Jermaine Jones about his move to Blackburn, while Greg Seltzer talked to Sacha Kljestan about playing in Europa League.

And I talked about Anton Peterlin’s Plymouth Argyle having financial troubles last week and getting a 10-point deduction for filing for bankruptcy, but now it looks like the club could be closing up shop unless it finds a lot of money in the next five days.

I didn’t do The OT Report today since Maurice Edu, Brad Friedel and Michael Bradley were the main guys playing and I posted their highlights already.  But Alfredo Morales and Terrence Boyd both played in Hertha Berlin’s reserve team’s 3-0 loss to Eintracht Braunschweig.  Morales picked up a yellow card and Boyd was subbed out after 71 minutes.

Lets start off the links with some injury updates.

While it looked like Jozy Altidore was pulled from Saturday’s game with an ankle injury, the club is saying that Jozy was sick and worn out, but the team’s spokesperson thinks Jozy should be good to go for Bursaspor’s next game.

German club Mainz 05 has two Americans on their roster, Preston Zimmerman and Jared Jeffrey, but I haven’t seen Jeffrey’s name in the game recaps for the reserve squad the last couple months and now we know why.  The club was finally able to figure out what is wrong with him and he is set to have a hernia operation this week.  Looks like he will return sometime around mid-April if all goes well.

The New York Times has two things worth checking out.  First off is an article on Jonathan Spector.  And John Godfrey looks at the midfield depth for the USMNT.

The US U-17 team takes on El Salvador tomorrow in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF U-17 Championship.  The game will be at 3 PM Eastern and you can watch live on ESPN3.com.  The winner of this match earns a spot in the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup.  US Soccer has an official game preview up on their site, plus the U-17 blog has some other goodies and videos to check out.

Former St Patrick’s Athletic winger Ryan Guy apparently picked up an injury during his trial with the Portland Timbers, but he is healthy again and will now be trialing with Chivas USA.

And finally, some bad news for Anton Peterlin and Plymouth Argyle fans.  The English League One side were in 18th place and two points above the relegation zone after this weekend, but the club’s owners have filed for bankruptcy protection.  What does this mean?  League rules state that the club will be deducted 10 points, dropping them to last place and five points below Dagenham & Redbridge (the team that was in last place).  Fighting off relegation just became a lot harder.

Former Wake Forest forward Cody Arnoux had trouble in his one-year run with Everton, never making a first-time appearance and spending most of the latter part of the year going on various trials (often with fellow American Toffee Anton Peterlin). While Peterlin landed a spot with Plymouth Argyle of League One, Arnoux has signed with the Vancouver Whitecaps of USSF Division 2.

The Whitecaps, as you may know, are actually moving up to Major League Soccer next season. This is where things for Arnoux (along with U-20 forward Omar Salgado) get complicated:

He could play for his new club as soon as Thursday’s USSF D-2 tilt at Tampa Bay. Next season, when the Whitecaps jump from the second division to the top-tier Major League Soccer, it gets a little more complicated.

MLS courted Arnoux before he left for Everton in 2009, and league sources said Tuesday that he’d have to go into either January’s MLS SuperDraft or a weighted lottery to play in the league next season.

For Vancouver, Arnoux, like 16-year-old American forward Omar Salgado, could be a case of try-before-you-buy.

Salgado arrived here last week on a three-month loan from MLS, who had signed the U.S. youth international as a Generation adidas player — a partnership with U.S. Soccer that encourages top young talent to play in MLS.

so it seems likely that Arnoux will join MLS in some format next year.

Frank Simek (Carlisle United) and Anton Peterlin (Plymouth Argyle) squared off on Saturday, ending in a 1-1 tie.

h/t – YA Video Highlights