Today was a big day in OT history as Howie made a radio appearance on 90.7 WXIN’s Sports with Neds radio show in Rhode Island to talk some US Soccer.  We are moving up in the world.

Now for today’s slightly scary news of the day.  Stuart Holden had to leave a reserve game today after receiving a harsh tackle, although he told one fan at the ground that he is OK.

Terrence Boyd and Rapid Vienna defeated Silkeborg, 2-1, in some friendly called the Atlantic Cup and Boyd scored the winner in the 89th minute.  And here is a photo of Boyd with a large trophy.

Jozy Altidore was named to league Team of the Month honors for January.  It is his third time making it this season according to Greg Seltzer.

Brian Sciaretta introduces us to Duane Holmes.  Holmes is an 18-year-old American midfielder currently at English League Championship side Huddersfield Town, who grew up in their youth academy.

Clarence Goodson and the Brøndby players already took a 75% salary cut in January and if they are not paid by Monday then the players will file for bankruptcy.  If the club can’t pay the wages after that, then the players will be declared free agents.  A messy situation.

I missed some of the twitter talk on this earlier today and I guess it started out as a joke, but Mix Diskerud will play in a friendly for Norwegian sixth tier side Sjetne and possibly as a goalie.  But from everything I have read so far, Mix is waiting to re-sign with Rosenborg.

And something to keep in your back pocket (or bookmarked), but David found this link to this site that is going to stream Belgian Pro League games in the future.  So something to keep an eye on when wanting to watch Sacha Kljestan play.

And finally, the US roster for the Honduras qualifier won’t be officially announced until Monday morning, but there is already some speculation going on online.  We know Timothy Chandler has been selected and I guess Sigi Schmid hinted that Eddie Johnson and Brad Evans won’t be in the Sounders camp for the next couple of days.  And I posted earlier this week that Josh Gatt and Mix Diskerud flew back to Norway, so I doubt they would fly back to Miami on Monday unless they are trying to rack up enough miles to join Ryan Bingham in the 10-million miles club.  But I am sure some other names will start to slip up once the players start tweeting and posting photos on instagram from the airport.

Links and whatnot from the last couple of days.

Leander Schaerlaeckens has a nice little write-up on Sacha Kljestan finding his spot at Anderlecht.  Anderlecht have won their last 10 league games, tied with Barcelona for the longest active streak in Europe (or whatever European leagues whoscored.com follows).  Only Shakhtar Donetsk (15 straight earlier this season) have had a longer winning streak in league play in 2012-13.

Another (not) fun fact.  Sacha left Belgium to return to LA a few hours after I left Dallas on Thursday (according to twitter) and I think he beat me back to LA on Friday.  Lets just say that I hated life last Thursday/Friday.

Some good news.  Stuart Holden returned to the field this weekend in a closed-door scrimmage against Wigan.  Looks like he played about 60 minutes.

There is some twitter speculation that Eddie Johnson got called into the January USMNT camp.  Or it all could be some hogwash.  Yay social media!  I haven’t done a shameless plug in a while, but you can follow me or Howie (or even Jon Arnold) on twitter.

Brian Straus gives us his [insert something] of the Year awards.  He thinks it was the year of the Bradleys.

Despite getting roughed up lately (while also making some nice saves), Martin Keown selected Brad Guzan to his team of the half-season.  Guzan is also a backer of Paul Lambert (likely since Lambert gave him a chance to start).

Jon-Paul Pittman will be out at least three months after having surgery on his shoulder.

I don’t remember if I already posted this or not, but Brad Friedel has signed a one-year extension with Tottenham.

The guys over at Yanks Abroad have an interview up with American Dennis Lukens.  He is currently coaching at Ukranian team Krystal Kherson.

And Fulham no longer have any Americans at the club, but Jimmy Conrad did a tour of Craven Cottage, including a stop at McBride’s bar inside the stadium.

Some of these are a couple days old, but between life and the USMNT, I was saving them up for one big link drop.

Speaking of the USMNT, Greg Seltzer gives us a pre-Hex to-do list for Jurgen Klinsmann.

These were written before Tuesday’s game, but here are some interviews by Brian Sciaretta with Joe Corona and Geoff Cameron.

Sciaretta also informs us that Bolivian-American center back Alejandro Melean became cap tied to Bolivia this week.

Back to the US’ 3-1 win over Guatemala.  Jon Arnold got some post-game quotes from various USMNT players.  And if you missed this, ESPN/Julie Foudy did a great video piece on Herculez Gomez.

And Grant Wahl talks about Eddie Johnson’s comeback.  I will admit that I was skeptical about Johnson’s call-up, but he looked very good in both games and looks to be playing with a lot of confidence right now.

I got e-mailed this over the weekend, but here are two radio interviews with Stoke City’s Geoff Cameron and Maurice Edu.

Some good news on the Stuart Holden front.  He will be returning to training with Bolton this week.

ESPN’s Ravi Ubha has a story up on Oguchi Onyewu about his move to Malaga.

We already told you about Christian Eissele scoring 20 goals for Kemi Kings in Finland this season, but it looks like he won the Golden Boot for the season.

St. Pauli played some friendlies during the international break and it looks like Joe Gyau scored a goal in 6-1 win over SC Wiener Viktoria on Saturday.  Here are highlights of the goals, including Gyau’s goal.

It looks like Kenneth Di Vita Jensen has moved on to Ullensaker / Kisa in the Norwegian First Division (second tier) and scored a goal this past weekend.

We told you last week about Babajide Ogunbiyi training at Hammarby.  It doesn’t look like Hammarby is going to sign him and he apparently failed his medical with the New York Red Bulls because of some heart condition.

The Portland Timbers-Seattle Sounders rivalry will be the first in the history of soccer* to feature a clash of Eddie Johnsons, as well-traveled American striker and World Cup veteran Eddie Johnson has been acquired by the Sounders via a trade with Montreal, who had claimed him in the allocation process. Johnson was acquired in exchange for forward Mike Fucito and winger (and one-time OT favorite) Lamar Neagle.

Per Steve Goff, Johnson will earn somewhere between $100-$150k for the Sounders with a club option for 2013. Johnson made $875,000 with the Kansas City Sporting-Wizards in 2007. To put that into perspective for the 99 percenters, that’s like going from the U.S. median household income of $50,233 to a salary between $5,741 and $8,611. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

We needn’t rehash the rough ride that Johnson has gone in since 2008 (Fulham-Cardiff City-Aris-Preston North End-MLS-not MLS-Puebla). He has shown to be a useful player when he is comfortable and confident (15 goals in 24 matches in 2007, 5 goals in 16 matches on loan to Aris Thessaloniki in 2010) and a maddening, frustrating player the rest of the time.

Elsewhere, the previously-discussed potential move of Luis Robles has fallen through. After having previously said that Robles was eligible to be acquired via a discovery signing, MLS decided instead that Robles would be subject to the allocation order. It leaves the Red Bulls scrambling with just two unproven keepers in camp three weeks before the MLS season kicks off, and it will undoubtedly launch a new wave of theories that MLS just makes up its player rules as it goes along.

*- I have no clue if this is actually true, but you can’t deny that it’s a fun trivia fact that you can’t wait to use at cocktail parties.

If you are like me, you are probably being lazy on the couch and watching 2343254 different bowl games after a nice morning of soccer.  Here are a few links from the last couple days.

We already know the Camp Cupcake roster, but Tab Ramos has called in 36 guys for the U-20′s January camp.  Some of the “bigger” names consist of Sean Cunningham, Luis Gil, Tyrone McCargo, Caleb Stanko, Villyan Bijev and Omar Salgado.

Just when we thought Eddie Johnson had found a home, he has already been let go at Puebla.  The club is claiming that he is out of shape/lacking pace.

Steven Goff has has a couple goodies over the last week.  He has one post with a bunch of stuff that has been covered here already, but also has a bunch of new information like Diego Restrepo moving to Venezuela plus some little tidbits on Charlie Davies.  He also introduces us to Gedion Zelalem.  Zelalem is a 14-year-old who is a German citizen of Ethiopian descent who has lived in the States for more than five years.  Just someone to keep an eye on as he gets older and gets closer to US citizenship.

Yanks Abroad’s David Smith recently caught up with Benny Feilhaber about returning to the USMNT picture with January’s camp.

Landon Donovan recently did an interview with Colin Murray of the BBC.  You can listen to it right here.  Here are some photos of Donovan back in training with Everton.  I am eager to see him playing again on Wednesday.

Not that we needed it, but here is video proof that Freddy Adu is training in Spain with Rayo Vallecano.

And finally, nothing is official, but it looks like the USMNT will be headed to Genoa in February to take on Italy in a friendly.

Doing a lot of family stuff today, so here a few quick things.

Brad Friedel and Tottenham played to a 1-1 draw against Chelsea.

Oguchi Onyewu and Sporting CP won 3-0 over Marítimo in the Taça de Portugal.

Much like the rumor from the other day, Eddie Johnson is headed to Puebla.

After a successful trial, Greg Garza is headed to Club Tijuana.

And most of you know that we like numbers and statistical stuff and here a few things done by Greg Seltzer.

Finally made it to my parents after a day at the airport.  Now they are asleep and I am stuck on West Coast time, although it allowed me to catch up on all the news and notes from the day.

Howie just posted about Brian Span heading to Sweden.  With the MLS SuperDraft coming up, it is that time of year where a bunch of newer guys will start to pop up in smaller leagues across Europe.

A few guys saw the field on Tuesday.  Zak Whitbread went the full 90 minutes in Norwich City’s 2-2 draw to Wolves.  It is nice to see him logging these minutes again.  In the DFB Pokal, Timothy Chandler went the full 90 minutes in Nurnberg’s 1-0 loss to Greuther Fürth.  And Fabian Johnson (90 minutes) and Danny Williams (seven minutes) both played in Hoffenheim’s 2-1 victory over Augsburg.

Amobi Okugo recently told Brent Latham that his training stint at Freiburg could turn out to be something more than just a training stint.

The US Soccer YNT blog has a bunch a little things up on the U-23 camp.

SI’s Steve Davis spoke to Jurgen Klinsmann about Klinsi’s desire for the US players to train year round.

One of those players following that plan is Landon Donovan.  Mark Lawrenson of the Liverpool Daily Post gives his thoughts on the move.  And Everton manager David Moyes spoke to MLSsoccer.com about Donovan.

Some of you might have already saw Tony Taylor’s goal from this past weekend.  Now here is your chance to meet his teammate and Atletico CP’s starting goalkeeper Caleb Patterson-Sewell.

Now for some fun rumorville time with the January transfer window quickly approaching us.  First up is Robbie Rogers to Leeds, while the second name of the day is Eddie Johnson to Puebla.

I went to get my car serviced and run a bunch of errands this morning and apparently a bunch of stuff went down while I was gone.  I should have known better with the transfer deadline approaching.  Anyways, here is the gist of things.

Michael Bradley is set to make a move from Borussia Mönchengladbach’s bench/dog house/we-don’t-need-you-anymore to the Serie A with Chievo Verona.  Chievo finished 11th in last year’s Serie A table (out of 20 teams) and are owned by a cake company.

As for some transfer deadline rumors, Sky Sports is reporting that Spanish side Sevilla have made a serious inquiry about Clint Dempsey.  Maybe it is the Fulham fan in me that doesn’t want him to go, but I think Dempsey will be staying at Craven Cottage this season (hopefully that is not the kiss of death).

And Eddie Johnson reportedly has a new suitor in Scotland after his deal with MLS fell through.  I personally like the headline “Aberdeen FC open talks with USA hitman”.

Brian Sciaretta recently talked to Timothy Chandler about the new Jurgen Klinsmann era with US Soccer.  We learn in the interview that Jurgen has sent Chandler a few text messages (I doubt Bob texted much, but I could be completely wrong.  He just doesn’t seem like a text-er).

Some good news on the Stuart Holden front.  He is going to make his return tomorrow in a reserves match for Bolton and hopes to return to the senior team for their September 10 match against Manchester United.

And finally, Jozy Altidore has the Bieber fever.

If you have been living under a rock or don’t have internet, Alejandro Bedoya and Carlos Bocanegra both made moves to Rangers today.  The Team America torch has been passed from Fulham to Aston Villa and now to Rangers.

As for a bunch of interviews, Soccer Banter recently had a Q&A with SønderjyskE midfielder Conor O’Brien.

Brian Sciaretta caught up with Lester Dewee to talk about his recent move to Swedish side Angelholm.

Walsall midfilder Anton Peterlin talked to Yanks Abroad’s Rich Filder about finding a home with the League One club.

And Greg Seltzer talked to Jonathan Spector about his decision to sign with Birmingham City.

Remember how Eddie Johnson was returning to MLS?  Yeah, that is not happening now.

YA’s Rich Fidler also finds out that the rumors about Dutch club FC Utrecht having interest in Michael Bradley are not true.

And finally, it doesn’t look like Örebro SK will be offering Greg Garza a contract after his recent trial.

Actually, one last thing, I might be doing a t-shirt giveaway in the next two days so be on the look out for that.

MLS announced that former Fulham striker and World Cup veteran Eddie Johnson had signed with the league and would enter the allocation process (first rights belong to Chivas USA). We now know that this deal fell through. Johnson would have followed former Aris teammate Freddy Adu as the latest Yank-in-Europe who returned to the domestic league after his club fortunes turned sour. The year 2011 has seen several others make the return, including 2010 World Cup veteran Benny Feilhaber as well as lesser-known names such as Cody Arnoux.

I’m generally in favor of MLS spending on American talent as opposed to pricy foreign players with mediocre resumes, so I consider this a positive trend. It does lead to the question of whether any other Americans will seek out the MLS option.

Greg Garza, currently on trial in Sweden, may be one possibility. Former minor Nats Kamani Hill and Lee Nguyen have expressed interest, although Nguyen’s asking price is unlikely to be met and Hill is more likely to be a trialist (in the vein of unsuccessful attempts by Jeremiah White and Jemal Johnson). Marcus Hanehman’s name frequently comes up as well, particularly given his Pacific Northwest roots and Kasey Keller’s pending retirement.

Who do you think will leave the Old World and try his puck in MLS next?