In case you missed it, it wasn't exactly the greatest debut for MLS in the inaugural CONCACAF Champions League. The league's two entries into the preliminary stage of the competition were beaten Tuesday night, with CD Chivas USA falling 2-0 to Panama's Tauro FC, while the first-place New England Revolution lost 2-1 at Trinidad & Tobago's amazingly-named Joe Public FC.

The MLS teams aren't out of the compeition, since they both get to host return legs matchs on Sept. 2. The Revolution are actually in decent shape, since they scored the coveted "away goal" meaning they can advance with a 1-0 victory. In fact the Revs missed numerous chances in the final five minutes to knot the score at 2-2, including Taylor Twellman over-running a great centering pass. Chivas, on the other hand, looked pretty lost on a bumpy field in Panama and have their work clearly cut out for them.

The Revoultion and Chivas USA are trying to join DC United and Houston Dynamo in the Group Stages of the event. The latter two clubs qualified by winning the 2007 MLS Supporters Shield (best regular season record) and MLS Cup, respectively.

The CONCACAF Champions League replaces the CONCACAF Champions Cup, which actually ran earlier this year. The Champions League conlcudes in April 2009. Interestingly, the Group Stage occurs mainly in October and November, the time when MLS is in playoffs, which could pose some problems.

Also, adding more competitions like this which run concurrently with the MLS season is another reason the league ought to increase its salary cap because teams will need more players simply for depth.

There's no easy way to put this, since their inception in 1996 as the awkwardly named New York/New Jersey MetroStars the MLS' New York metropolitan area offering has been bad. Not exactly 1899 Cleveland Spiders-level horrible, but thoroughly mediocre and instantly forgettable. (Last summer I ranted long and hard about the ill-fated franchise on my own site, if you're interested.)

In short form, the Red Bulls, which have never even played in an MLS Cup final and have lost in the quarterfinals (a.k.a. the first round) five straight seasons. Since 1996 they've employed 11 different coaches, including U.S. national team bosses Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena; current Portugal coach Carlos Quieroz and even 1994 World Cup winner Carlos Alberto Parreira of Brasil.

Now under Colombian Juan Carlos Osorio things might finally be turning the corner. Although the team sold teenage striker Jozy Altidore earlier this summer to Villareal in La Liga, the Red Bulls have won three straight games including a 3-0 thumping of defending league champ Houston. Overall the Red Bulls have outscored opponents 9-1 over this span, moving them to 31 points -- sixth best in the 14 team league. These wins were the first by the team since June 25.

It's ironic, because this stretch comes after the Red Bulls were smushed 6-2 by FC Barcelona in a friendly televised on ESPN2.

The David Beckham era in Los Angeles unveiled its third coach in less than two seasons Monday when former U.S. National Team boss Bruce Arena was introduced by the Galaxy. He replaces former Dutch star Ruud Gullitt, who lasted less than a year in La-La Land.

Arena will also take over the General Manager duties from Alexi Lalas and try to steer the Galaxy -- currently five places off first place in the Western Conference -- into the playoffs. Los Angeles hasn't won a game since June 14 in all competitions.

He'll have his work cut out for him. Though Arena's won multiple MLS Cups with DC United when the league began in 1996, things will be quite different with the current Galaxy team. The bulk of the Galaxy's salary cap space is chewed up by three players -- Beckham, Landon Donovan and Carlos Ruiz -- meanwhile nine players on the roster currently make less than $20,000. It's like building a bad fantasy team in a salary cap league.

Arena spent a thoroughly uneventful season with the New York Red Bulls in 2007, so at the very least he should know a little something about the current MLS makeup, but since the international transfer window is shut he'll have to make do with what he has either through tactics or more likely smoke-and-mirrors.

It's doubtful Arena took the job only for the money. He's a competitive guy and coaching Los Angeles -- MLS' most high-profile squad -- should scratch that competitive itch. Still, he'll have to deal with the circus that always surrounds Beckham.

Regardless of how the Galaxy experiment turns out, Arena's already cemented his legacy as the best American-born coach of this era. If he can turn the Galaxy from sideshow curiosities into champions, it'll be another notch on his belt -- something he'll be sure to talk about when he inevitably lands another television gig.

Greeting Soccer Fanhouse. I don't know you, and you don't know me. If you can hear me past the echo, my name's Mike and I'm a Sagittarius. No wait, I'm your new soccer blogger for this here slice of the Inter-nets. For the last couple years I've been blogging about soccer -- the Premier League, the U.S. national team, MLS and Champions League mainly -- and now I'll bring that to FanHouse.

The timing is probably right, with the main European Leagues kicking off this past weekend.
Fittingly on a day where I kind of materialize out of the ether, young U.S. international Maurice Edu -- last year's MLS rookie of the year at Toronto FC -- gets inked to a surprising transfer to Scotland's Glasgow Rangers for £2.6 (roughly $5 million). This move seemed to come out of nowhere and could still be held up by U.K. work permits. Edu -- the 'FIFA 09' coverboy -- joins current U.S. international DaMarcus Beasley at the storied club, which will not play in the Champions League -- or any European competition this season.

This comes on the heels of Jozy Altidore's move from RBNY to Villareal a few months ago. If I were to guess FC Dallas' Kenny Cooper -- the current MLS goal scoring leader -- would be next. At least MLS recently added ex-U.S. defender Corey Gibbs and ex-Bolton youngster Johann Smith.

This should be the first of many noteworthy transfers this week before the European window closes at the end of the month. I'll stay on top of these, and whatever else seems pertinent to the soccer world as time goes by.

What happens when the punishment someone gets is pretty much what they wanted in the first place? We can ask Chicago Fire midfielder Cuauhtemoc Blanco -- or, as MLS commissioner Don Garber called him, the "Mexican David Beckham" (Stay classy, Don!) -- about that, now that he's been banned from the U.S. Open Cup for a minimum of two years and six matches for punching Clyde Simms in the gut during Chicago's quarterfinal loss to D.C. United. The incident is shown toward the end of that video.

I suspect MLS is pleased as, uh, punch that Blanco has gotten out of Open Cup duty, thus allowing the league to save one of its biggest assets for league matches only. Besides, it's not like MLS wants anyone to watch the Open Cup, right?

(H/T: Unprofessional Foul)

So far, we've learned two things from Superliga:

1.) When they care, the New England Revolution and the Houston Dynamo are the two best knockout competition sides in MLS.

2.) If you can read lips, you can see that Mexican players know at least two words in English, and they aren't very nice.

More than words were thrown, however, at the end of the Revolution's 1-0 win over Atlante tonight. Atlante ended up getting five, count 'em, five red cards, including three in post-match scuffle with Revs players. Jay Heaps was shown a red for retaliation -- try to contain your glee, Duke haters -- seconds before he was shoved to the ground by Atlante goalkeeper Federico Vilar, whom cameras spotted throwing punches the fracas after he got his red.

After order was mostly restored, Vilar allegedly told a Telefutura reporter something to the effect of, "This is a country where you can buy everything, even a game and the refs." As if it were the refs who magically guided Shalrie Joseph's clinical header into the net in the 30th minute, or the refs who made Matt Reis so dominant in front of goal. This is a country where Federico Vilar is now Spanish for douchebag.

Last week at the Major League Soccer All-Star Game festivities in Toronto, MLS commissioner Don Garber suggested that the league might expand further into Canada. Steve Nash is putting together a bid to launch an MLS club in Vancouver, while Liverpool co-owner George Gillett, who also owns the Montreal Canadiens, is teaming up with Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo to lift the Impact from USL to MLS.

There's a subtext, however, to this northern expansion talk. Montreal and Vancouver both have fairly successful clubs in the USL First Division. In fact, the inaugural Canadian Championship featured both the Montreal Impact and the Vancouver Whitecaps, as well as Toronto FC. The winner of that six-game home-and-away series would get a CONCACAF Champions League bid.

Guess what? That bid went to the Impact, who clinched the Canadian Championship with a 1-1 draw at Toronto last Tuesday. Then, just one day after MLS loses the Canadian bid to the Champions League to a USL club, Garber is talking about bringing both of Canada's USL cities into MLS.

Convenient, eh?

Last week, when MLS threatened to step in and broker a deal that would allow former Fulham striker Brian McBride to finish his career with the Chicago Fire, I said that either Chicago or Toronto FC was about to get the shaft.

Well, last night during the MLS All-Star Game, commissioner Don Garber said that the deal was done, and Soccer By Ives is reporting that Toronto will get forward Chad Barrett, a superdraft pick and allocation cash.

So yeah, TFC got the shaft.

Chad Barrett might have five goals in 16 MLS games so far this season, but judging by his performance in Olympic qualifying last March -- when he couldn't score in a brothel with a back pocket full of Benjamins -- Barrett probably isn't the long-term answer for TFC's scoring woes. It's a wonder that Toronto didn't even try to convince McBride to come play for them this season.

I still think the rules that made this deal necessary are ridiculous and that McBride should have been considered a free agent, but at least he will get his wish to finish his career in his hometown. The Fire won't get McBride, though, until after the Olympics.

The MLS All-Stars pulled out a 3-2 victory over West Ham United last night in Toronto, but the real highlight of ESPN's otherwise annoying coverage of this game -- who else misses Andy Gray? -- might have been Rob Stone's encounter with Bitchy the Hawk, who keeps the seagulls away from BMO Field. For a man who fearlessly throws streamers back at Toronto FC fans and bites into the world's hottest peppers, he's awfully skittish about a bird. Then again, they must have named that hawk after Didier Drogba for a reason.

Actual highlights of the game itself, including two goals from Dean Ashton and an MVP performance from Cuauhtemoc Blanco, are after the jump.

(H/T: Awful Announcing)

The Major League Soccer All-Star Game kicks off tonight in Toronto, and the best players in MLS, all of whom are in mid-season form, will face a mid-table Premier League club (West Ham United) just starting its preseason. The All-Stars will probably win -- just as they did against Celtic, Chelsea and Fulham in the last three All-Star Games -- and MLS will hold it up as an example of how their players can compete in any league in Europe.

Of course, this is nonsense. No MLS club could survive the Premier League season, because no club is deep enough or talented enough to handle it. (I could explain why, but I'd be repeating myself.) Plus, playing a team still in preseason mode is much easier than playing team in midseason form. That's why MLS hasn't won a CONCACAF trophy in eight years.

It does bring up an interesting question, though, which I will pose to you, FanHouse readers -- if this All-Star team was its own club, how would it fare in Europe?