MLS CONFIDENTIAL: O'Brien to Chivas USA?

By Ridge Mahoney, Senior Editor
Soccer America

U.S. midfielder John O'Brien is back in Southern California, awaiting his official release from Dutch club ADO Den Haag so he can sign with MLS. He has been training and working out at the Athletes' Performance facility at Home Depot Center.

As a U.S. international entering MLS for the first time, he is subject to a team using an allocation to sign him, and tops on the current list is CD Chivas USA with the allocation received for missing the 2005 playoffs.

O'Brien left Ajax last summer by mutual consent and signed with Den Haag but has asked for his release. He returned to the United States last week after discussing his situation with Den Haag officials.

Despite his scant competitive activity for more than two years, U.S. coach Bruce Arena refuses to cross O'Brien off his list of World Cup candidates.

"There's hope for John O'Brien," says Arena. "We're going to have to see where he is over the next month and make some determinations. He's starting to train a bit and that's about as much as I have right now."

A call to O'Brien's cell phone was not returned in time for this article. Bill O'Brien, John's father, said Tuesday he hopes something can be worked out so his son has a shot at playing in his second World Cup.

O'Brien grew up in Southern California and left home when he was 17 to take his stab at European soccer. Two years ago, he told the U.S. soccer players' Web site: "I would like to finish my career with the Los Angeles Galaxy in my hometown. Last year the Most Valuable Player [Preki] was 40 years old, so I have some time."

O'Brien turns 29 in August. The Galaxy is way down the allocation list with an expansion allocation picked up from Real Salt Lake during the 2005 SuperDraft but can acquire rights to O'Brien by working out a deal with team(s) ranked higher. Teams can also pass on using an allocation to acquire O'Brien.

And if CD Chivas USA grabs him, the club will have taken one step toward regaining a semblance of the Dutch roots it lost last year when coaches Thomas Rongen and Hans Westerhof were jettisoned.

PHILLY FANATIC. From the very early days of his tenure as MLS commissioner, Don Garber has talked of landing a team in southern New Jersey, near — if not in — the soccer-mad city of Philadelphia.

Garber considers himself a "Queens guy" — as the Queens borough of New York City, where he was raised — and lives in northern New Jersey, to wit Montclair, and is acutely aware of how hotly the sports fans of the region adore, and sometimes abhor, their sports teams.

Attempts to wrangle some kind of arrangement to play at Lincoln Field, home of the NFL Eagles, and Temple University haven't panned out, but for more than a year, league officials have been maintaining contacts with Rowan University, a 9,000-enrollment institution near Glassboro, about 25 miles south of Philadelphia. University officials have announced plans for an extensive project that will include sports fields and a soccer stadium.

According to sources, meetings with potential investors of an MLS team have been held but none has of yet signed on. Dietrich Mateschitz, whose purchase of the MetroStars was approved by the MLS Board of Directors last week, wasn't interested in a Philadelphia team.