I realize this is Portland Is Wonderful Week – probably, as the saying goes, with great justice. Portland soccer is back on the map…wearing Adidas shirts. That's like, I dunno, thousands of people knocking back Diet Pepsi in downtown Atlanta.

But a couple of Du Nord links raised my hackles and my cockles. First of all, it looks like Chivas USA is going to get Benny Feilhaber…and the Goats have the colossal fracking nerve to act all coy about it.

I don't waste my journalist talents on Chivas USA, but if I had sent my typical monosyllabic blabber e-mail to their spam filter, it would have read something like this:

Okay, I'll bite. What could possibly happen during the Whitecaps game to make you not want Feilhaber?

I mean, I'm no bookmaker, but I don't see Chivas winning by the kind of score that will make them say "US international? Nah. We're good." In fact, I don't see why Chivas USA would not want Feilhaber actually playing for them against Vancouver.

It's not like Feilhaber has no connection to Southern California – he went to high school in Irvine. So I don't see Benny fighting this move.

I hate to re-open this can of worms, but this really can't be an instance where Chivas USA doesn't want to alienate the Guadalajara fans, can it?

Maybe they really think there's someone better on the way. The transfer window is closing, but that doesn't apply to free transfers. Freddy Adu's gonna take Lahoud's #11, you read it here first.

Or maybe the Chivas USA braintrust has seen those billboards about Jesus returning on May 21, and they don't want to lose their place at the front of the allocation line – just in case Christ is coming to play in MLS. Although you think He would be a Designated Player.

I realize that Chivas USA could screw up a PBJ, but the Union shouldn't really be getting their hopes up, should they?

Speaking of getting your hopes up – occasionally journalism can be accomplished just by letting the interviewee run his mouth. I defy you, and any other right-thinking American, to consider the prospect of this ship of fools joining up without a horrified shudder.

Also a stadium. There's always the Meadowlands, I suppose.

But Kemsley comes across as the sort of owner who would make us long for the days of Ken Horowitz.

I realize I shouldn't be sneering at the idea of a second New York team, now that once again it seems like MLS is missing a first New York team. But it's going to take a lot more than necrophilia to make the Cosmos an appealing option. The Cosmos jersey is just a Ghost Shirt with an Umbro logo.

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