Sprinkles - Life And Death

- We must first start with something that trumps any other soccer news in the world. For those unaware of what happened yesterday, a TAM Airlines plane crashed at the Sao Paulo airport, probably killing all aboard and some on the ground. For some great coverage, check out Globo's website, even if you can't understand Portuguese. Plenty to see. Today it was also revealed that Gremio, of the Brazilian First Division and runners-up in this year's Copa Libertadores, was supposed to be on the flight from Porto Alegre to Sao Paulo, but instead flew to Brasilia to catch another flight. A wise decision, and one that could have affected the soccer world tremendously. Still, an international tragedy in the most-populated city in the Western Hemisphere is absolutely tragic. Today I found out that one of my friends used to live in Sao Paulo and could see the airport from his apartment. He wasn't surprised by what happened, given the recent chaos of the Brazilian airline industry. Here's hoping future tragedies can be avoided.

- In the biggest news in the US Soccer world, the San Jose Earthquakes have made it official, as they'll be returning to MLS next season. I highly suggest you click on the link, Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated broke the news and did a fantastic job with it. What's interesting to me is that it looks like they'll be a band of wanderers, looking to play games at McAfee Coliseum (home of the Oakland A's) and Kezar Stadium (home of the California Victory). With Dimitry Piterman selling his stake in Alaves, the Spanish club now is solely behind the Victory, and I doubt they'll keep them around for next season.

- Yes, I know. The Silverbacks "played" last night. If you can call it that. That game was painful to watch and shows why the 'Backs are still not in the upper echelon of teams in the USL First Division. You can blame it on the fog, the number of games the team's played, whatever. That's what our favorite coach seems to do. The fact is they just plain sucked last night. Actually, I think the thing I hate the most about Jason Smith is that he doesn't like Avenged Sevenfold. M. Shadows and Synyster Gates are not Silverbacks fans either.