Count me among those who think this is dubious beyond dubious, but your friends at MLS Rumors (one of my fave sites, btw) say there’s possibly something to the talk of Thierry Henry coming to the Sounders next season. (More here.)

I know, I know. … Rumors.

But dude: Titi will be 31 in August, can’t get any love in Barcelona and certainly you’ve noticed he’s been getting some airtime on stateside commercials and print ads lately.

And for an Arsenal guy he’s not half bad.

The five-day voting period for determining the name of Seattle’s new Major League Soccer team has begun.

Fans can vote for Seattle FC, Seattle Alliance, Seattle Republic or write-in a name (Seattle Sounders, etc.) at the Seattle MLS Web site until the stroke of midnight Monday.

The Seattle Sounders — that is, the existing USL first division team — has released information for its soccer camps this summer.

Here’s the link to more information.

Seattle’s expansion MLS team is going to let fans have a say in picking the team nickname, as you probably know.

However, they have added a twist: In addition to letting fans pick between FC, Alliance and Republic, they also have added a twist: allowing write-in votes.

Here’s my story from today’s paper.

This seems to me to offer a clear path to this team becoming the Seattle Sounders after all. I assume there is some sentiment for FC, but I can’t imagine any real pulse for the other two suggestions. “Sounders” clearly seems to be

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Welcome to The News Tribune’s new soccer blog.

Actually, as you can see, the blog itself has been around for a while. But we’re finally letting folks know that it’s here with a sort of official announcement in our Wednesday paper.

From here on, we hope to make this a useful spot for Puget Sound soccer fans. We’ll be covering the MLS team, and some on the USL Sounders and the PDL Tide. But we also hope to be a useful resource for all levels of the soccer community.

If you’re looking for refs for your

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The MLS in Seattle people announced this morning in an e-mail to season-ticket depositors that they’ve got three names to vote on.

Sounders isn’t one of them.

Perhaps thinking that folks wouldn’t notice that, the press release arrives with the subject line, “MLS Seattle Takes Lead with Democracy in Sports.”

‘Wow,’ you think, ‘democracy good! That makes me feel really … empowered!‘

And then you read the reported offerings: Seattle FC, Seattle Alliance and Seattle Republic.

One is boring. One sounds like a rental car agency. And one is already taken by a

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Mexico v China April 16, 8 pm.

Figure on a big crowd. Mexico can pack ‘em in anywhere en los EE UU.

Best wishes to those five Cuban footballers who defected Wednesday in Tampa, Fla. Clearly the trail blazed by El Duque and others extends to the country’s soccer stars as well, as demonstrated by former Sounder Maykel Gallindo and now these guys.

Just one nit: Why couldn’t they have done it before helping the nation they would soon flee scratch out a 1-1 draw versus their new refuge?

UPDATE: But wait, there’s more: Two more, specifically.

And what does that mean for US chances in the Olympic qualifying tournament?