Peter Nowak, the former Chicago Fire captain, has been named DC United's new head coach. He will be in charge of DC's newest player, 14 year old Freddy Adu.

Nowak has no prior coaching experience, but was considered a consummate leader during his years (1998-2002) as the Fire's captain.

Considering the news of Joe Gibbs returning to the Redskins, Peter Nowak's hiring got really overshadowed here in DC. ...typical bad timing for DC United.

Finally! The offseason continues to heat up.

Carlos Bocanegra has been granted a work permit to play for Fulham.

Article @ US Soccer

Plus, another new coach. The defending MLS champ SJ Earthquakes have named Dominic Kinnear as their new coach. Previous coach Frank Yallop left after last season, choosing to coach the Canadian national team.

Kinnear to Lead San Jose

Both Nowak and Kinnear have a tight schedule, as the MLS draft is one week from tomorrow.

More MLS news...

The LA Galaxy's Simon Elliot has been traded to the Columbus Crew in exchange for the Crew's 2005 draft pick.

Interestingly, San Jose's GM, Johnny Moore, has resigned from his position. Next thing you know, LD is going to be leaving and the Quakes will be "in trouble" again, just like they were at this time last year.

And more news for the Crewzers....they land Manny Lagos from San Jose for another draft pick. It looks like Columbus is trying to put together a team that can actually perform regularly.....not like I should talk, since the Metros don't do too well there either...

[ January 13, 2004, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: metromathis13 ]

DC United added hunky assistant coach, Tom Soehn, who has been an assistant with the Chicago Fire over the past few years. Hopefully, with all of the coaching changes that have occurred during the off-season, DC United will be finally ready for a fresh start.

Really overshadowed, as in one story on an inside page while Gibbs got front page in the A section of the Washington Post, huge lead story placements in the sports section, and mention practically everywhere else in the paper.

Someone wrote that if 1) Major League Baseball announced that the Montreal Expos would move to Washington fulltime for 2004, 2) we captured Osama bin Laden, and 3) they found a cure for cancer the same day as Gibbs being named head coach again, all three stories would get a tenth of the press that Gibbs's return had gotten.

There is news and there is Joe Gibbs. Not necessarily in that order.

Another big trade for Columbus. This time however, it's US national team veteran Brian McBride on his way out. He has joined English Premiership side Fulham. Earlier reports had him rejoining former Crew goalkeeper Brad Freidel at Blackburn.