Let's see now. Matt Miazga -- we can define him, at age 20, as one of the most promising of the American youngsters -- is leaving the Red Bulls, going to England to join Chelsea. At the same time, Ashley Cole, who, as it happens, once played for Chelsea but is now a 35-year-old who is coming off being a flop at Roma, will be joining the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Right now, I'm thinking that IFAB -- you know, the soccer rule-making guys -- have really done it this time. In the past, I've relentlessly criticized them for being a virtually useless group that does very little, and is composed of the wrong people anyway.

Time for another MLS SuperDraft. It would be better called the MLS PseudoDraft. It might also be known as the Slim Pickings Draft. Most of those involved are college players, and the day has long since passed when a bumper crop, or even an ordinary crop, of pro-ready players might be expected from that source.

Keeping up with the changes and additions to the English language -- I'm talking now about demotic usage, the every-day words that we speak and read -- is a topic of much fascination to me.

You hear it often enough: a team should rest assured that, over the course of a season, luck will more or less even out. In particular, hostile (and therefore wrong) referee decisions will be compensated by favorable ones. The accompanying wry grin will wordlessly convey that some of those will be "acceptably dodgy."