It's making its rounds throughout the soccer media. But seven of the eight NASL teams are represented (by supporters groups) in this open letter to U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati, urging him to grant the league official Div. 2 status. The USSF meets next week. Two weeks ago, the USSF stripped the NASL of its provisional acceptance as the official Div. 2 of soccer in America, but the NASL has carried on with business as usual, and is confident it can win back the status. The league has stated that going down to Div. 3 is not an option.

Reading, currently sitting ninth in the English League Championship, announced Monday that it had agreed to terms with reigning Canadian U-20 player of the year Ethan Gage, who was out of contract with the Vancouver Whitecaps.

With the Red Bull Arena being awarded the MLS All-Star Game, not MLS Cup, there is plenty of food for thought about who is going to host the final game of the season. If MLS is to retain its system of awarding the game to a neutral site — something the league reviewed in 2009 but decided to continue on with after Seattle fans packed the house on a rainy Sunday November night to see Real Salt Lake take the title in penalty kicks over the Los Angeles Galaxy — New York is out for 2011. Commissioner Don Garber said the MLS Cup “could be at some point” awarded to the New York area, but he and the league are concerned about the cold November weather. That means the league may have learned something from holding a night game in Toronto last season, where there were thousands of empty seats. Temperatures near the freezing mark and bitter breezes off Lake Ontario made the game a chilly one. MLS Cup was held in cold-weather venues before, such as Foxboro, Mass. and Columbus, but those were day games. And that’s a massive difference.

Judging by his status as a trialist at Toronto FC’s training camp in Turkey, Dutch winger Bas Ent will need to start over in his quest to join the Reds.

Mississauga native Igor Pisanjuk has asked Hungarian side Ferencvaros to set him free. “I asked for my release from Ferencvaros, so, for now, I’m waiting on try outs.” Pisanjuk said via e-mail.

The Houston Dynamo will spend the next season in the East. MLS announced that, to keep the conferences balanced at nine teams apiece and, with two Pacific Coast teams, Vancouver and Portland, joining in 2011, the Dynamo will be the team on the move.

Major League Soccer and the Canadian Soccer Association will work together on a plan to develop Canadian talent. That announcement came Friday, at the same time the league announced it was dropping the number of Canadian players its Canadian-based teams would be required to carry to three each.

Christine Sinclair beat three Swedish defenders and then calmly scored her 115th career goal for Canada, as our women’s national team defeated Sweden 1-0 in each team’s final game Tuesday at the Yongchuan Cup in China. The win is Canada’s first triumph over a top-four ranked nation in women’s soccer in just over four years.

Canada beat the host Chinese 3-2 in the opening game of the Yongchuan Cup, but had to come from a 2-0 deficit to do it. Christine Sinclair’s winning goal in the 94th minute, just seconds before the final whistle was blown, topped Canada's three-goal comeback effort.

The Vancouver Whitecaps announced Friday that the club will have Canadian-born Swiss national-team defender Alain Rochat on the roster for the 2011 MLS season.