So the USA will not be part of this year's Olympic soccer tournament. Well, big deal.

In case you haven't noticed, MLS -- which as novice leagues go, is doing pretty well -- has now decided that it wants to be one of the best soccer leagues going. Commissioner Don Garber has told us just that, speaking of "our ambition to be one of the top leagues in the world."

The expert. Defined as someone who knows more and more about less and less until he reaches perfection and knows everything about nothing.

Poor Seattle! Did they really deserve that 6-1 pounding that Santos Laguna inflicted on them on Wednesday? On the night, looking strictly at the way the Sounders played, yes they did. Poor Seattle indeed -- very poor.

Admittedly, it's a bit early in the season to be talking about this year's MLS Cup winner. But ... given that the Los Angeles Galaxy and the New York Red Bulls are the two MLS clubs that have spent the most money, the two that get the most publicity, that they have a total of five Designated Players between them, and that the Galaxy is the current MLS champion ... given all of that, plus their splendid stadiums, it seems a reasonable conjecture that one of these two will be the next MLS champion.

As with Fox and ESPN, now we have NBC insisting on a Brit voice for its soccer telecasts. Arlo White will be their man -- there's a nice American touch there, he was named Arlo for folk-singer Arlo Guthrie, but he's from Leicester in England.

Bear with me, I'll be getting round to soccer shortly -- after some comments on football and boxing and hockey.