Rafael Cox is part of a very prestigious list of college soccer players across the U.S.A. Cox, a former Tacoma Tide FC standout & University of Washington star, is one of 65 college seniors from 45 Division 1 schools that has been invited to participate in the 2009 adidas MLS Player Combine.

Cox, a midfielder from Tacoma, Wash., culminated his collegiate career at UW this past fall and was a first-team All-Pac-10 honoree. The annual player combine will be held at Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. on Jan. 9-13th of 2009.



For the

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Seattle Sounders FC confirms it is working on bringing a few international club opponents to Qwest Field and should be ready to announce those next month.

However, there is no indication yet that one of those dates will involve FC Barcelona – as mentioned this week in a Barca blog (which, in fairness, identifies itself as a site for both fact and rumor).

Whether fact or rumor, the post says FCB, which toured the U.S. in 2003, 2006 and 2008, will return in 2009 with friendlies in Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle.

However, there’s no

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Seattle Sounders FC has announced the hiring of Tom Dutra as goalkeeper coach, the second assistant named to Sigi Schmid’s staff.



"He is a respected goalkeeper coach with great local connections,” Schmid said through a news repease. “He has developed young keepers and also worked with experienced keepers like Kasey Keller."



Dutra, 36, served two seasons as keeper coach under Brian Schmetzer for the USL Sounders. Schmetzer was named as Schmid’s top assistant Dec. 22. Schmid became head coach of Sounders FC Dec. 16.



He is a native of Olympia

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The Toronto Sun runs a story of soccer wishes for 2009.

Writer Gareth Wheeler seems pretty down on an expansion team for Vancouver, and even more down on the Sounders’ designated player signing of Freddie Ljungberg.

Here are those grumpy wishes:

- For Major League Soccer to refuse to give Vancouver a team until it builds a soccer specific stadium.

- For the expansion Seattle Sounders FC’s Freddie Ljungberg to play at least half of the season after being ruled out the next 12 weeks because of injury. The signing already looks like a bust.

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As part of coach Sigi Schmid’s welcoming ceremonies last week, executive Tod Leiweke also gave a quick checklist of accomplishments for Seattle Sounders FC so far.

I thought it was an interesting list, that kind of got lost in the Schmid coverage. So here’s the entire text. So in today’s News Tribune we have included our own analysis of each of the moves mentioned below:

Leiweke: "I brought my to-do list, which was sort of put together a year and a half ago. So, I’ll be brief, but I want to recount everything. And in

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Sounders FC has provided a few quotes from midfieder Freddie Ljungberg (via his agent) regarding his hip surgery on Friday (see post below):

“I am so happy we (me and SSFC) jointly took the decision to do this surgery.”

“I feel I am in the best hands here in Vail with Dr. Philippon and his medical staff. Sounders FC is also backing me up tremendously well.”

“My way back to play is already starting. I had my first ‘work out’18 hours after the surgery, here in the hospital. We are doing rehab training twice a day.

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Longtime USL Sounders’ head coach Brian Schmetzer will be Sigi Schmid’s first assistant with Seattle Sounders FC, the club announced this afternoon.

No big surprise — there are some telling quotes on the topic a few blog posts down — but probably good news for a lot of Sounders fans, and certainly for Schmetzer.

Here’s the FC news release:

Brian Schmetzer has been named the top assistant coach for the Seattle Sounders FC staff, head coach Sigi Schmid announced today.



Schmetzer, 46, joins Sounders FC following seven seasons as the head coach

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The MLS champion Columbus Crew has promoted former Sigi Schmid assistant Robert Warsycha to the top job that came open when Schmid bolted for Sounders FC.

Warsucha is also a former standout player with the Crew.

Here’s the story from the MLS Web site.