A few things...

I'm movin' slow and runnin' on fumes... blasted flu!!! By the way, as I laid in a tomato soup/toast/lozenge of soup stupor trying to sleep two nights back, I came up with this joke:

Since a French person got me sick, does that mean I have Freedom Flu?

Shut up, I thought it was funny.

#1 - Before the bug got me, I got Chivas USA ace Sacha Kljestan on the phone. The resulting feature can be found here.

Also... if I can figure out how to edit and convert my audio file, I will add a couple of sound clips from the interview in this post - just don't even imagine it will happen tonight.

#2 - Soccer Insider Steven Goff gets in a few words with USMNT boss Bob Bradley. It's not much, but sadly, we're in take-what-we-can-get mode.

#3 - As NSC likes to do at this time of the week, we turn it over to Sideline Views' Luis Bueno for a weekend summary of Americans playing in Mexico.

#4 - Scroll down into Shawn Mitchell's always excellent Crew Review for a companion bit to those Frankie Hejduk videos in the last post.

#5 - I still have a new Top 5 List coming soon, and will also follow Sean's lead by suggesting a Soccer Book later in the week.

I have no idea what's taking the Eredivisie goal of the week clip so long, but I will have that up in Who likes goals? when it drops.

Actually... now that I think about it... the guy probably has the flu. Duh.

#6 - Tim Howard, Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey were named Honda Player of the Year finalists.

Having taken part in the balloting for about 6-7 years now, I strongly feel U.S. central defenders should take out a class action suit against media members.

#7 - The UEFA Cup group stage draw was held this afternoon, so let's do the rundown (clubs with Americans playing prominent roles in bold).

Group A - FC Twente, Man City, PSG, Racing Santander, Schalke 04
Group B - Benfica, Galatasaray, Hertha, Metalist Kharkiv, Olympiakos
Group C - Partizan Belgrade, Sampdoria, Sevilla, Standard, Stuttgart
Group D - Dinamo Zagreb, NEC, Spartak, Tottenham, Udinese
Group E - AC Milan, Braga, Heerenveen, Portsmouth, Wolfsburg
Group F - Ajax, Aston Villa, Hamburg, MSK Zilina, Slavia Prague
Group G - Club Brugge, Copenhagen, Rosenborg, St-Etienne, Valencia
Group H - CSKA Moscow, Deportivo, Feyenoord, Lech Poznan, Nancy

The "Group of Death"? It's gotta be A or E, though C isn't far off.

- Greg Seltzer

[Photo: Getty]