Major Link Soccer: What is Frank Lampard doing

Seattle

You may remember Joe Jarzynka for his "dazzling punt returns" with the Huskies, but nowadays he's up to something totally different: playing indoor soccer with the Tacoma Stars. He did an interview about his transition to indoor soccer here.

MLS

Yesterday brought some bad news for New York City FC and perhaps all of MLS. Frank Lampard is going to be staying with Manchester City through the end of the Premier League season. One of NYCFC's supporters groups, the Third Rail, has denounced this move, and is supporting "any course of action [fans] take to voice their discontent over this decision." Our sister blog Hudson River Blue is not too happy with this either, saying that "extending Frank Lampard’s loan is a desperate gamble; a startling admission of weakness. More than that: it is madness."

This is assuming that Lampard was in fact loaned in the first place, which has come into question lately. A few sources are now saying Lampard had two contracts, one with Manchester City until the end of the premier league season (which could have been broken now if Lampard wasn't playing well) and a later contract with New York City FC and MLS.

Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl thinks that the Lampard move shows how little City Football Group cares about NYCFC, and that in return fans who already bought season tickets should demand their money back.

Omar Salgado was picked first overall by the Vancouver Whitecaps in the 2011 SuperDraft. But unlike many other first overall picks he did not go on to excel in MLS, and apparently he's pretty mad at the Whitecaps about that. He describes his four years with the team as "a nightmare."

The Chicago Fire made another move to bolster their back line yesterday, signing Brazilian defender Adailton. Adailton is coming over from Bahia in Brazil.

Big changes are coming around to Houston. No it's not just that the Dynamo are shifting west (into the Western Conference that is), they're also undergoing a plethora of coaching changes. They hired former Premier League coach Owen Coyle a few weeks ago, but were apparently hoping to hold on to goalkeeping coach Tim Hanley and assistant coach Steve Ralston. Well both Hanley and Ralston just resigned and Coyle brought in someone he'd worked with before, Paul Caffrey. I get the feeling that Houston hasn't seen the last of its changes.

World

2014 is dead and gone, so let's look ahead to the great soccer events of 2015. These include the Women's World Cup, the beginning of Qualifying for the 2018 Men's World Cup in Russia, and of course the Beach Soccer World Cup.

Apparently the Russian Football Union hasn't paid their national team's coach some $11 million dollars that he's due.

The USMNT will be playing a friendly against Netherlands on June 5th. The location was unknown until yesterday, when Ajax's Amsterdam ArenA listed the event on their website.

A few days ago we linked to an article detailing a soccer player who was looking for a new club via LinkedIn, but in today's edition of Soccer Player Uses Social Media Like a Normal Person, it turns out that Liverpool midfielder Adam Lallana's old MySpace is still active.

The FA announced yesterday that Dave Wheelan (Chairman of Wigan Athletic) has been banned from soccer-related activities for six weeks and fined $78,000 for racially insensitive comments. Say what you will about MLS, but at least we keep the racism to a minimum.