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QUARANTINE THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM EDITION

As the likes of Goff and Galarcep do the dirty work of uncovering and reporting on the increased outbreak of signings as we edge closer to the start of the 2008 MLS season, lets ask a few questions. It’s arguably been the biggest off-season ever. After the jump, some things to think about as we tread the pre-season waters before putting MLS back under the microscope.

Forwards. New York is stocking up to protect against the impending loss of Altidore to national team camps and potential transfers (not that anyone is wrong in saying so, but seriously, can we get one more article christening him The Future?). Chicago is loading up with fire power as well, yet Houston is hurting. A lot of offensive talent has come, gone, and in Twellman’s case begrudgingly stayed. How will it translate on the field? Should we be worrying about defenders now? I mean, other than Ty Harden?

Will more powerful frontlines affect midfield playmakers? Ian Plenderleith at ussocerplayers.com thinks midfield masterminds once able to rule the league are extinct. Not the players so much as their ability to take over a game. MLS is catching up, he says, to the increased speed of play found the world over. He writes, “in the past, when soccer was slower, the lazy geniuses were allowed some leeway when it came to tracking back or hunting down the ball for the full 90 minutes. Increasingly, there is no longer the space to accommodate such luxurious talent.” He says its neither good or bad, just a fact of life. I say it’s a good thing, but could the world’s best still control a MLS game, you know, if they played here?

Will the continued success and influx of South Americans mean North American fans will begin to pay more attention to southern leagues like MLS scouts are? I’d love to see more televised games of those leagues, especially games from the only foreign stadium I’ve ever been to, Internacional’s Estádio Beira-Rio in Porto Alegre. My only trip to Brazil was in 2003, and I spent most of my time in slaughterhouses. It should have been with soccer, but I digress. There is so much more than European soccer out there to entertain. But then again, I can’t even get Setanta or GOL TV.

Blogs, blogs and more blogs. The newest blog awards over at Soccer Lens has brought to my attention the forever building rash of soccer blogs. I love it! It’s made me rethink my reading priorities, (re)discover some great work, and realize that du Nord has been officially (albeit partially, intermittently) integrated into usssocer.com.

Here are a few of my new favorites:

The Original Winger
-other than The Offside Rules, this new blog from the boys at Bumpy Pitch is a great downtime filler with almost constant updates of sometime random but always entertaining news and notes.

The Soccer Reporters
-Not to be confused with the once-cool-but-now-lame-as-most-everything-else-on-ESPN Sunday morning news show The Sports Reporters, the “soccer reporters” is a new group of soccer journalists – I’m a member – aiming to create a better atmosphere for writers as well as better content for readers. Check out the daily links page for all the stories from member writers. It’s a who’s who of American soccer writing and makes du Nord’s job just a little easier.

Pitch Invasion
-Thomas Dunmore wrote a Diary Project for TIAS a while back. How far we have come: his Pitch Invasion site is one of the more professional soccer sites to come online. Not your average stuff here; lots of contributors dealing with many previously out of focus and niche stories. This my kind of stuff.

Not my kind of stuff: this list-as-journalism crap seemingly every editor forces from their writers; here is one from Yahoo: 20 best players in MLS. Ugh, seems like a waste of time, but in the long run maybe it could work as a barometer for MLS talent. But thank god people are still hitting the streets and putting out stuff like this gem from the LA Times. The City of Angels is destroying the nation in the soccer wars.

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banner photo of a never-used-prior-to-abandonment ferris wheel in Chernobyl courtesy of Wormwood Forest’s natural history of the most famous nuclear meltdown site. Did you know the ecosystem is thriving without people? Alan Weisman must.