Philadelphia Union

Jonathan Tannenwald has extended quotes from John Hackworth’s press conference on Tuesday and video from the morning training session. Among the players Hackworth discussed were Alex Mendoza, Conor Casey, Amobi Okugo, Roger Torres, Chandler Hoffman, Eric Schoenle, and Sebastien Le Toux.

Hackworth also discussed the large number of players in this year’s camp. “[W]e need to do that because we need to give guys a look. We want to make sure the competition is truly at a very high level at this time of the year to try to win spots. There are a number of guys here and we will trim that down as we go. It’s hard to really evaluate guys unless you see them in this environment.”

Hackworth said that Bakary Soumare not participating in Tuesday’s session was merely precautionary. “When we play so many consecutive days on a hard surface like the turf, some of the older guys in particular you just don’t want them get them hurt. But ‘Baky’ was precautionary more than anything to leave him out of today’s session.”

More from the Daily Doop and the Inquirer.

Eric Schoenle says not being selected in the SuperDraft just “gives me a little bit of a chip on my shoulder now.” Schoenle says of Raymon Gaddis, with whom he played for three years at West Virginia, is “one of the fastest, if not the fastest person I’ve ever seen run.”

JP Dellacamera certainly seems down with the Hackworth era.

And then there’s this bit of the bizarre.

MLS

Preseason play is underway in Arizona, with Portland topping Colorado 2-1, San Jose defeating Houston 2-0, Kansas City drawing 1-1 with FC Tucson, and a Darren Mattocks hat trick powering a 4-1 win over New England.

SBI reports that former Chivas UA coach Robin Fraser has joined New York Red Bulls as an assistant coach.

MLS will be the featured company in an episode of the CBS reality show “The Job” that will air on Friday, March 1. Marc Torriero of West Chester will be one of the candidates on the show.

NWSL

Amy Rodriguez, the US international and former Philadelphia Independence forward, will miss the season with Seattle Reign after becoming pregnant with her first child.

US

After three weeks of quotes of praise for how well the January camp was going, Tuesday night’s drab, dull, dour, and damned disappointing draw against an inferior Canada side has to rank as one of the ugliest, most awful and inept games I can recall watching in a great while.

The game was billed as an opportunity for player’s who might be on the fringe of  the national team picture to shine. When asked if the game produced any surprises, Jurgen Klinsmann said, “No, no surprises.”

Klinsmann said after the game, “You just hope that after those three weeks of work, you get that moment to shine, and we wished for the strikers to score a goal and midfielders to do the final pass…It was missing kind of the last little piece to it. Creating final chances, playing the killer ball into the box, finishing things off and unfortunately, we didn’t do that tonight against a very, very defensive-minded Canada.”

Match reports from US Soccer, MLSsoccer.com, ASN, Soccer America, Goal.com, SI, Sporting News, ProSoccerTalk, SBI, the Shin Guardian, AP,  plus this post-game quote sheet.

Player ratings from MLSsoccer.com, Soccer America, Goal.com, ESPN, SI, and the New York Times.

At Goal.com, Kyle Mccarthy says its agood thing Klinsmann had three weeks to watch the team in training because Tuesday night’s game wouldn’t have shown him much.

Tom Dunmore takes a look back at the history of encounters between the US and Canada, which began in 1885 in what was the first international held outside of Britain.

Soccer Nation chats with USWNT coach Tom Sermani.

At Soccer America, Paul Gardner likes to poke sticks into things.

Elsewhere

After being subjected to racial abuse during AZ Akmaar’s 5-0 win over second division FC Den Bosch in Dutch Cup play, Jozy Altidore responded with admirable fortitude and grace. (He also scored from a PK.)

Altidore is not the first US player to suffer such abuse in Europe.

http://www.aljazeera.com/sport/football/2013/01/20131291829259993.html?utm_content=automate&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=NewSocialFlow&utm_term=plustweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says FIFA and UEFA are considering moving European football to a calendar that looks more like the one MLS uses. “Everywhere, be it Germany, France or England, summer is the best period of the year. And that is the season we don’t play. In deepest winter, when it is very cold and snowing, we play nearly all the time in conditions that are disagreeable for both players and spectators. It is not logical…My sense is that we are heading straight in this direction…It’s completely possible, even if this idea does not thrill our friends in South America.”

UEFA president Michel Platini’s response to the France Football expose on corruption allegations surrounding the 2022 World Cup vote: “I reserve the right to sue anyone who questions my integrity in this vote.”

It looks like Shanghai Shenhua will try to block Didier Drogba’s move to Galatasaray.

Don’t forget today it’s Real Madrid hosting Barcelona in the semifinals of the Copa del Rey (3pm: beIN Sport USA, beIN Sport en Español).