MLS relaxes Canadian-content rule, but agrees to work with CSA 28 Jan 2011 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.
No surprise: Whitecaps add Rochat to MLS roster 21 Jan 2011 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.
Alderson’s honour another endorsement for Whitecaps’ Residency 14 Dec 2010 The Vancouver Whitecaps might only be joining MLS in 2011, but the club’s youth development programs is still miles ahead of TFC Academy. The Whitecaps Residency got another feather in its cap Monday when the Canadian Soccer Association named Bryce Alderson the country’s male U-17 player of the year.
Canadian Championship will change for the better 27 Nov 2010 While we are months away from finalizing the format for the 2011 Nutrilite Canadian Championship, we know this much; the chance of the Canadian Soccer Association going with a four-team full round-robin is nil. Under that system, each of the four clubs would need to play six games. There’s no time in either the MLS or NASL schedule to make that happen. Remember that a winner needs to be crowned before the summer, when CONCACAF needs the entrant for Champions League qualifying-round play. So, what is the likely course — and that is what is on the table at the moment — is a simple knockout Cup tourney. The four teams would be seeded; TFC would get the No. 1 slot, and would play the newbies, FC Edmonton. Vancouver and Montreal would play in the other series. The winners would face off in a true Cup final.
Whitecaps, Timbers stay away from high-priced players 24 Nov 2010 The shop window featured a heck of a lot of high-priced talent. The Vancouver Whitecaps weren’t buying.
Impact, Whitecaps to retain their NASL status after they make MLS moves 24 Nov 2010 Even though both the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps are moving to MLS, both are retaining their memberships in the second-division NASL. NASL chief executive officer Aaron Davidson confirmed that MLS is aware that both the Impact and Whitecaps are retaining their memberships in NASL, even though Vancouver makes its debut as an MLS city in 2011 and Montreal makes the move in 2012. “They can still have teams in NASL; those teams can have synergies with the MLS franchises or they can be standalone teams,” said Davidson Tuesday, over the phone from Paraguay.