Eric Wynalda returns to the pitch

Former US international and ESPN broadcaster Eric Wynalda is returning to the pitch after being cleared to play for the Premier Development League's Ventura County Fusion.

It has been seven years since he hung up his cleats, but Wynalda feels ready for this challenge thanks in large part to a fruit drink.

He credits this "comeback" to the fruit drink Monavie, which is based on the South American acai berry.

"My life since I retired was the managing pain from 11 surgeries," said Wynalda. "Ever since I've been drinking that stuff, I haven't taken one Advil.

"I've been playing all weekend for a year and a half now."

I smell a jersey sponsorship deal.

With the PDL three levels below MLS, Wynalda should still be able to shine, but I wonder how much juice he will need to drink in order to deal with the pain of playing on high school quality field turf?

So if you live in Southern California and want to see a US soccer legend playing meaningful matches, you now have a good, cheap option.

Landon Donovan becomes US's all-time goal scoring leader

Mark your calendar, on this leap day 2008, Landon Donovan became the official 'king of all US male goal scorers.' Although the US did not play a match today, Donovan gets this honor thanks to FIFA recognizing a match the US played against Denmark as an official 'A' international game.

During the 20 Jan 2007 game, which the US won 3-1, Donovan scored a goal from the penalty spot in the 44th minute. US Soccer has counted this game as official all along, however FIFA wasn't so sure.

Denmark said they did not play their A team so it should not count, however US Soccer pointed to contracts the FAs signed that recognize the match as an official game.

After much negotiations, Denmark decided to fess up to it being an official game, thus it is in the FIFA books, thus Landon Donovan has more goals then previous all-timer Eric Wynalda.

Congratulations to Donovan.

New broadcast team for US and MLS soccer - Dave O'Brien is out

ESPN and ABC have made the speculation official, Dave O'Brien and Eric Wynalda are no longer commentators for their soccer broadcasts. This includes MLS and US soccer matches.

Replacing them will be JP Dellacamera doing play by play and John Harkes with analyst. The rest of the team will be Allen Hopkins (sideline reporter), Julie Foudy (studio Analyst) and Rob Stone who will sub in for Dellacamera.

I really like this lineup. Dellacamera knows the game well and can call a fine match while Harkes should be able to explain why things are happening without looking to pick fights about every little thing.

One little bit of interest, Bruce Arena is nowhere on the list. Bruce has a lot of knowledge but his broadcast skills needed some serious work, so I'm happy about this.

Has Dave O'Brien called his last soccer match?

Dave O'Brien might be out of ESPN's booth if rumors from the MLS SuperDraft are to be believed. According to Soccer by Ives lead man, the buzz last night at the bar was a change a comin':

Another popular subject last night was word that Eric Wynalda and Dave O'Brien are being replaced as U.S. national team and major MLS game commentators for ESPN. A team of JP Dellacamera, Bruce Arena and John Harkes was being rumored to take over. Let me be the first to say that Dellacamera as national team play-by-play guy can't happen soon enough. He's the best in the business. Let me also say that the three-man booth model just doesn't work for soccer. Hopefully someone realizes this eventually. This hasn't been made official yet by ESPN though so stay tuned for confirmation.

Let me be as diplomatic about this as possible, 'it is about time.'

O'Brien is a talented sportscaster but his skills do not work well with soccer. As far as Eric Wynalda, he would do better as half-time host (or maybe his own show), because most of his call during games was more commentary on items not really related to the game in front of him.

What about the 'new' guys? JP Dellacamera is fantastic and will give the games the punch they need. John Harkes will bring a wonderful knowledge of the game to the booth. Bruce Arena, um, yeah.

I don't mean to hit Arena, but his time as a broadcaster has not been that spectacular. He does bring a huge amount of knowledge with him but he just doesn't have that great of a voice. Also, why is ESPN sticking with three in the booth? Have two in the booth, one on the pitch and a half-time analyst and everything is covered.

Still, if they go with Arena as the third, it will still be an improvement. As my wife said, "I can handle one million Arenas if it means no O'Brien!"