It’s become obligatory for every sports journalist to provide season previews for the league he or she covers. It’s automatic, and a great space killer! In that vein, The 11 presents its “waited until the last possible second before the regular season” season preview! Why the wait? Because it’s hard to figure out the East. The West? Wow, a lot of power and depth there. As for the East? Last season, New York and Columbus and six other mediocre to bad to awful clubs were in the conference. New York and Columbus left them all in the dust.

The Vancouver Whitecaps were beaten 2-0 by the Los Angeles Galaxy in a closed-door training game Monday in Arizona.

Columbus hosts Real Salt Lake Tuesday night in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final. Tuesday’s weather forecast for Columbus? A chilly -2 C with a chance of snow — maybe just a tad colder than it was for last year’s MLS Cup in Toronto.

Eleven of the 32 players available, just more than a third, were selected in phase two of the MLS Re-Entry Draft Wednesday afternoon. If all of the 11 players chosen today come to terms, that means a grand total of 13 out-of-contract players were able to find work. Only two — and both were minor deals — were taken in the first round, where players are guaranteed to make in 2011 at least what they did in 2010. The other 11 will likely all go for less money than they did in 2010.