Soccer by Ives is reporting that Freddy Adu has been loaned to AS Monaco of the French Ligue 1. Rumors of the move, which also linked Michael Bradley to the French outfit, had surfaced in early July. Adu's loan comes with an option for Monaco to buy the young American if he impresses. The move is a good one for Adu, who would have been hard-pressed for playing time after Benfica's capture of Argentine playmaker Pablo Aimar. Despite a strong start at Benfica, Adu's playing time withered as both the manager who signed him and the replacement manager left the club. Benfica's new coaches proved hesitant to grant Adu time with the first-team. At Monaco, Adu will see much more significant time on the pitch as the French side looks to rebuild following a disappointing 2007-2008 campaign. Adu's would-be main rival for minutes at AS Monaco, Jeremy Menez, looks set to leave the club this summer, clearing the way for Adu.

In what could hardly be considered a surprising move, Manchester United have bid £20 million pounds for Tottenham Hotspur striker Dimitar Berbatov. Sir Alex Ferguson has long been reported to be an admirer of Berbatov's, and really, who isn't? United will be looking to cover their bases in the event Cristiano Ronaldo is sold to Real Madrid. Berbatov would certainly help to recover a good portion of Ronaldo's forty goals should the winger leave. The Bulgarian striker would fill the currently absent role of target forward for the Premier League champions. His arrival would be of great benefit to forwards Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez. Both players prefer to play from deep positions, in similar fashion to Berbatov's current strike partner Robbie Keane. Berbatov could form a partnership with either player that could prove just as effective as the one he enjoys with Keane.

However, Tottenham will certainly reject the current offer, putting the transfer on hold for a little while longer. Spurs value Berbatov at around £30 million and will be determined to get full value for their talismanic striker if forced to sell. A factor that will also be at the forefront of Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy's mind will be the status of Cristiano Ronaldo. If Ronaldo is sold to Real Madrid for the extraordinary prices being bandied about in the papers, Spurs will smell blood in the water. The influx of cash at United from the Ronaldo deal will drive the Berbatov's price up even higher. Which is why United have placed their bid now. They'll hope that Berbatov pushes for the transfer to be completed, meaning that United will get him at closer to the £30 million price Tottenham have placed on him then in an inflated post-Ronaldo sale. Spurs, for their part, will try to hold out for a Ronaldo transfer.

Berbatov's departure could also speed the departure of Robbie Keane to Liverpool. The Irishman will be more likely to leave if the player with whom he has been described as having a 'telepathic' relationship has left for greener pastures. While the club will be hesitant to let both players leave, Keane's value to Juande Ramos will certainly be diminished if Berbatov leaves. Darren Bent has also been linked with a move to Roy Keane's Sunderland. Indeed, Tottenham's forward stable, formerly the club's strongest asset , could look strangely empty in the near future.

A Football League tribunal has settled the dispute between Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace over the transfer fee of sixteen-year-old John Bostock. The dispute began when Tottenham announced the signing of Bostock on the club's official website. Crystal Palace quickly issued a statement denying that any deal had been reached. Palace valued Bostock at around £2 million with the fee rising a further £2.5 million based on appearances for Tottenham. Basically, Crystal Palace were looking for £4.5 million for the player. Tottenham obviously disagreed with the Palace's valuation and the matter was brought before a Football League Tribunal.

Well, the matter has been resolved and Crystal Palace's chairman, Simon Jordan, is rightfully upset. The tribunal has set the fee for Bostock at just £700,000 which could rise to £1.25 million based on appearances. Simon Jordan has described the decision as 'scandalous' and who could blame him? I mean, Chelsea offered Crystal Palace £900,000 for Bostock when the player was 14 and the offer was turned down. Bostock went on to captain England's U-17 team and become the youngest player ever to appear for Crystal Palace. After these accomplishments his value somehow went down? What? That's absolute lunacy.

The most important aspect of this decision, though, is the dangerous precedent it sets for English football as a whole. England currently has a team that failed to qualify for the European Championships and the English Premier League is only made up of something like 35% English players. The teams in the lower leagues develop players like Bostock from scratch only to see them picked off by Premiership sides for bargain basement fees. The players are then put in Premiership reserve sides or loaned out if they're lucky while they could be seeing first-team minutes for their former club. Eventually, English teams are just going to say, "Why bother?" and stop investing in academy systems. I'd be absolutely livid if I were in Simon Jordan's shoes. He and Crystal Palace have been totally hard done by. The English Football Association is always talking about how it's such a problem that the Premier League is so dominated by foreign talent, suggesting ludicrous 'solutions' like English quotas, and then they turn around and make a decision like this. How about they do something productive and make it more difficult for Premiership sides like Tottenham to cherry-pick young, talented players like Bostock only to have them waste away on the reserve side before selling them back to a Championship side a couple years later for a marginal profit.

Generally, when young people do stupid things it's blamed on their youth. But, revealing a potential transfer involving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds on Facebook is just monumentally stupid. His club, Crystal Palace, can't be happy with one of their players broadcasting on the internet that he wants to leave. It's probably a little embarrassing. I'm the same age as the player in question and I have to ask: what on earth was he thinking? Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock didn't take the situation particularly lightly, saying, "We feel it's probably better that he looks elsewhere to further his career." Harsh.

Does anybody else find this unnecessary? If you want to raise the profile of Europe's other tournament, advertise it in the same way the Champions League is advertised. It's not surprising that the action taken targets the presentation of the tournament, rather than its inherent flaws. You don't think the fact that Champions League teams who place third in their groups get an automatic place in the knockout rounds contributes to it's perception as a second-rate tournament? I do. The proposed name is hardly an improvement, either: the UEFA Europa League. Why do they call these European tournaments 'leagues', anyway? The Champions League is not a league. It follows the same format as every major international tournament: Group Stage --> Knockout Stage. Baffling.

My experience with Carlos Queiroz is limited to a mediocre stint in charge of the Metrostars way back in 1996, Major League Soccer's first season. Queiroz inherited the team from Eddie Firmani, who resigned after the first eight games of the season. The Portugese coach went on to post a 12-12 record in the regular season before being dumped out of the playoffs by DC United. DC United have gone on to win four MLS Cups, four Supporters' Shields, one US Open Cup, one CONCACAF Champions Cup, and one InterAmerican Cup. The Metrostars have won no trophies at all. Well, unless you count that friendly tournament they won in, what was it, Norway? I don't know. In any case, Carlos Queiroz is one of a long list of otherwise successful managers who have failed to replicate that success here in New Jersey. The list has grown to include men like Carlos Alberto Parreira, Octavio Zambrano, Bora Mulintinovic, Bob Bradley, and Bruce Arena. It's an otherwise impressive group of coaches, you'll just have to ignore their time at Giants Stadium. Queiroz went on to take the job of Sir Alex Ferguson's right hand man in 2002. Ferguson granted Queiroz quite a bit of freedom and responsibility and the Portugese, has in turn, influenced the way the aging Scot views the game. Ferguson has claimed on numerous occasions that Queiroz would be his choice to take the reins at Manchester United when he retires within the next three years. The assistant coach is also reported to share a special relationship with winger Cristiano Ronaldo. Given his influence at the Theatre of Dreams, it's easy to see why Daniel Taylor of the Guardian feels his potential departure to coach Portugal could have wide-ranging and detrimental effects for the Champions. Ferguson will have to find a new assistant and establish a working relationship with them while the loss of his 'mentor' could make Ronaldo increasingly see his future in Spain.

In one of the biggest moves of the summer, Portugal boss Luis Felipe Scolari has recently taken charge at Chelsea. In his short time in London, Big Phil has already brought in former Barcelona midfielder Deco as he looks to put his mark on the club. You can watch his first press conference here. I don't know about you guys, but I love the way he pronounces Chelsea as Chel-see-uh.

SoccerTimes.com is reporting that French Ligue 1 side AS Monaco is interested in acquiring the services of American midfielders Michael Bradley and Freddy Adu. Monaco finished a disappointing twelfth in the league last year and is looking to improve on that finish in the upcoming campaign. The club's management apparently feels our boys can help them do that.

Freddy Adu and Michael Bradley had incredibly different seasons last year. Bradley was a constant for Eredivisie side SC Heerenveen. While his father consistently plays him as a defensive midfielder for the US National Team, his performances in Holland seem to indicate this isn't his ideal role. Bradley shattered Brian McBride's goal-scoring record for an American abroad (from midfield, no less) last season with sixteen league goals and twenty in all competitions. These are statistics you would expect from a midfielder like Frank Lampard, not a twenty year old American. Based on his performances, Bradley's departure from Heerenveen this off-season was a foregone conclusion, a question of 'where' not 'if'. Freddy Adu, on the other hand, enjoyed much more limited success in his first season at Benfica. When given the opportunity, Adu has put in good performances, even scoring a few goals. Unfortunately, Adu joined the club on the cusp of a very tumultuous period. The manager who signed him, José Antonio Camacho, left the club soon after Adu's arrival and Benfica has since gone through two managers, both of whom have proven reluctant to give Adu time. Moves away from their current clubs will be beneficial for both players, particularly Adu who would certainly benefit from regular first team football. I've got my fingers crossed on this one.

Okay, it's time for full disclosure. I'm a big Tottenham Hotspur fan. This is despite the fact that I live in New Jersey and have never set foot in England. I've been a fan of the club since the 02-03 season. The 2002 World Cup had just ended and my 12-year-old self was on the lookout for more soccer. This was before I knew about Fox Soccer Channel or its ilk so a weekly highlights show on MSG called, I believe, Premier League Review had to suffice. My choice of club, having no actual links to England generally or North London specifically, came down to two factors. The first was that I didn't want to root for one of the big four clubs. Even at the tender age of twelve I desired the masochistic pain that comes with rooting for a club that flounders in perpetual mediocrity (I'm also a New York Red Bulls fan). I found Tottenham to be a sufficiently middling club: they finished ninth in the 2001-2002 season. The name itself may have given the club an advantage over its mid-table compatriots. Being an American, it's likely that I was preconditioned to prefer team names that resembled the American 'place'-'team name' formula. Tottenham followed that formula. The second factor had been born at the 2002 World Cup. I am entirely of Irish descent. Every branch of my family tree can somehow trace itself back to Ireland. So, I naturally had a soft spot for the Irish at the World Cup. The fact that the Irish and the Americans performed so well in Japan and South Korea is probably why it remains my favorite major tournament. In any case, I was spellbound by the play of Robbie Keane in Ireland's four games. From his late equalizer against eventual finalists Germany, to his spinning volley against Saudi Arabia, to his game-tying (all for naught) penalty against the Spanish in the Round of 16, to his manner of celebrating goals, the man played spectacularly. The fact that Tottenham had just signed one of my favorite players from the World Cup tipped the scales. I was hooked. Which is why I find the latest rumors about Keane asking to leave Tottenham for Liverpool to be particularly distressing, despite questionable veracity.

Perhaps it's denial, but I can't buy Keane leaving Tottenham. At least not for a few years. He's just about to turn 28 (in four days), undeniably in the prime of his career. At Spurs, Keane is already a legend and shares a magnificent partnership with Dimitar Berbatov. The pair of them form what is perhaps the only true, old-school style strike partnership in the Premier league. Keane has found stability at Spurs, something that eluded him when he was bouncing around from club to club before 2002. I doubt he'd want to leave just as the Juande Ramos revolution (fingers crossed) begins. Then there's the fact that Keane was on his honeymoon with new wife Claudine Palmer when the news broke. It's suspect that business such as transfer requests were at the forefront of his thoughts. In addition, Keane has reported for training for Spurs. Which is, incidentally, the last place you'll see former Aston Villa Captain and Liverpool target Gareth Barry. It's unlikely Keane would make the effort if he planned on leaving the club in the near future. Then there's the fact that the deal just doesn't make sense to me. What does Tottenham need a meager 5 million pounds and Peter Crouch for? They already have the far superior Berbatov to play the role of target forward, so unless Berbatov leaves (which I doubt will happen, despite relentless media links away from White Hart Lane), Spurs have no need of Peter Crouch. Keane also has to consider the fact that he would be relegated to the bench at Liverpool far more often than at Spurs in favor of a five man midfield with Fernando Torres by himself up top. I suppose you'd have to consider the unlikely (and horrifying) prospect that Robbie Keane simply does not figure in Juande Ramos' plans for the club. Ramos has many connections in the Spanish soccer world and if there's one thing Latin countries are good at producing it's creative withdrawn-forward, attacking-midfield players; precisely the role Keane plays for Tottenham. Yet, Ramos went to Croatia to find a central midfielder in Luka Modric to pull Tottenham's offensive strings.

All I know is, however unlikely the prospect, I may weep if this deal goes through.

So, here's the deal. I've just finished my freshman year at college and I have little to no idea of what I want to do with myself. I've had varying ambitions throughout my life, but two of the only constants have been soccer and writing. I'm decent to good at both, but probably not good enough to merit much success in either past a certain age. It seems that an ideal solution would be to marry the two together and write about soccer. We'll see how much time I'll be able to devote to this undertaking with school and other things weighing heavily on my time, but it'll be good practice for the time being. Unfortunately, this idea struck me just after the fantastic Euro 2008 concluded and now I don't have much to write about besides Major League Soccer, a couple scattered World Cup qualifiers, and transfer speculation until late August, just in time for school to start up again. Fantastic. Perhaps I'll throw in a retrospective on Euro 2008 for the hell of it later on. We'll see.