The Free Beer Movement has a good analysis of overexcited fans going to far. Pong is by no means the only fan who has crossed a line, but it's a shame to see so much defense of his actions by may Portland fans.

It is important to keep a distinction between banter and hate. I love our friendly rivalry with Portland, but there must be emphasis on the word friendly. There are supporters that get to the point that they blur the line between Soccer and life. Allowing those individuals positions of power causes legitimate danger as they gain the possibility of starting a mob.

I understand the unspoken rules of protecting your own, Pong is the one who broke that covenant last night by attacking (verbally) the players on the pitch. If the reports of his actions are accurate, this is a big test for the Timbers Army to maintain the respect that they otherwise deserve.

Central Winger presents an interesting (if oversimplified) analysis of passing reliability by field position. I think we all feel that our rotating forwards have yet to really mesh together in the way that we want them to. These passing graphs provide some backup for that view based on just statistical data.

I would be interested in being able to see graphs like these for individual games or comparing our wins and losses. The year as a whole just isn't as informative as it could be.

The Sounders Women are looking to add some additional seating and sell "standing room only" tickets at the gate. It's great to see the continued support in a week that has 2 men's games.

Mere hours after the US Women reaffirm their dominance in the CONCACAF Olympics Qualifying tournament, WPS has announced the cancellation of their 2012 season.

This is not entirely surprising considering the well publicized struggles with the owners of MagicJack reducing the league to only 5 teams (FIFA guidelines specify a minimum of 8 teams to be considered a league). Expected or not, it is a sad confirmation.

Yesterday we watched Alex Morgan run circles around the Canadian defense. We watched Abby Wambach use brilliant positioning to create open goals. We watched Hope Solo stand her ground against a world class Canadian offense.

Today, they are all unemployed.

They seem unable to decide themselves whether their David Beckham worship is ironic or not, but there are at least a few Sounders mentioned in the Guardian 2011 MLS awards.

I know that we are inevitably going to lose somebody valuable in the expansion draft, but I don't know how I'm going to stand it when we do.

With Schmid openly discussing even the possibility that this is a career ender, this makes our need for another keeper even greater than it has been. If we want to fill the role before the roster freeze (and I have to assume that we do), then we have only slightly over a week to do so.

It's a rare thing to recommend that anybody read an article from the Daily Mail, but Jake Hughs does a good job of explaining why the international friendlies do more harm to MLS than good.