Major Link Soccer: Garber reveals MLS expansion plans

Major League Soccer

Never be not expanding. Don Garber revealed details of the expansion plan over the next several years, but there weren't any big surprises. It's still pretty likely that Sacramento and St. Louis take the next two spots after the mythical Miami Beckhams, with $150 million expansion fees. After that, they'll set a timeline for 27 and 28 in the following few years. Garber said 10 cities have formally expressed interest in making bids for those expansion slots. Here's a full transcript of the commish's words.

Uh oh! Remember when the Seattle Sounders were linked to Oscar Romero, and then he ended up doing a deal with Atlanta United, and we were a little sad? Well it seems the Chinese Super League could potentially steal another jewel from MLS' crown and swoop in with the big dollars.

The Brotherly Game has a proposal to make the MLS SuperDraft more talent-rich and also more helpful for young players who want to leave college early. The Generation Adidas program skips over a lot of good young players.

D.C. United will be joining in on the fun and adding a USL team in 2018.

Seattle

Sounders FC 2 assistant coach Junior Gonzalez was hired as head coach of the Houston Dynamo's USL affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros.

This Toronto FC supporter showed all kinds of class after his team's MLS Cup loss, standing at the bottom of the stairs to personally congratulate Sounders fans as they left their section.

Looking for the best 'winter warmer' beers, and perhaps getting ready to participate in our offseason discussion posts? Fremont Brewing and Silver City Brewery took some high scores in Paste Magazine's ranking of seasonal offerings.

This piece from Fox Soccer outlines the financial difficulties of making a career out of playing soccer for women, focusing on a few high-profile 'early' retirements, like Keelin Winters'.

NASL

One complication that is probably barely holding the NASL together by the seams is that jumping ship to the USL will incur fees to the clubs that do it ranging into the low millions of dollars. Time will tell if many of the more successful clubs are just waiting to see who flinches first before a mass exodus.

Still, the official line is that the NASL is looking at an 8-10 team season next year, followed by expansion (?) to 12-14 teams after that.

International

If you thought your 2016 was wild, check out Bjorn Johnsen, the Norwegian-American USMNT hopeful, who landed at Hearts after some harrowing experiences with organized crime in Bulgarian soccer.

Europe's leading clubs don't want FIFA to expand the World Cup finals to 48 teams, citing an already unacceptable number of games played in a given year.

FIFPro's interactive map of players all over the globe lets you explore the wages and conditions for footballers in leagues and countries everywhere.

Barcelona's home kit is one of the most recognizable in soccer, at least when the designers don't screw it up, like they appear to be trying to do for next season.