Shaun Fuentes

Daniel to con­test teen for mid­field role

To­ba­go-born mid­field­er Keon Daniel will like­ly have a toss-up with new team­mate, 16-year-old Zach Pf­ef­fer for a reg­u­lar spot in the Philadel­phia Union in the Amer­i­can MLS this sea­son. Daniel was signed by the club last week but re­ports in­di­cate that Pf­ef­fer is be­ing seen as a nat­ur­al cen­tral mid­field­er and as­sis­tant coach John Hack­worth says the club is ea­ger to un­veil the teenage who came through the club's acad­e­my. "We are try­ing to be very con­ser­v­a­tive in bring­ing Zach along, but at the same time we know how im­por­tant it is to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to play. He's proven to us he's ca­pa­ble," said Hack­worth.

Pf­ef­fer is the Union's first ever MLS "Home­grown Play­er" and he showed what he is ca­pa­ble of by un­leash­ing a long-dis­tance won­der goal dur­ing a pre-sea­son game in Flori­da. T&T goal­keep­er Thorne Hold­er is al­so con­test­ing the num­ber one role at Union while Daniel is hop­ing to force his way in­to the club's start­ing team. Both play­ers were part of Union's re­cent train­ing camp in Greece. "It's chal­leng­ing but both of us are work­ing hard and do­ing our part to im­press the coach­ing staff and earn our spot in the team. "We're re­al­ly anx­ious about our chances and the club and the fans are ex­cit­ed about the com­ing sea­son," said Hold­er.

Dwight pre­dicts that Unit­ed will beat Chelsea

Ex-Man­ches­ter unit­ed star Dwight Yorke be­lieves that his old team is too strong and ex­pe­ri­enced for Cham­pi­ons League quar­ter­fi­nal op­po­nents Chelsea. The Pre­mier League gi­ants were drawn to­geth­er ear­li­er this month and Yorke, now a foot­ball pun­dit with Sky Sports, made his views on the clash known on the week­end, say­ing ex­pe­ri­ence will give Unit­ed the edge and that Chelsea are un­der more pres­sure to come away vic­to­ri­ous. "The ex­pe­ri­ence Unit­ed have in the likes of Paul Sc­holes and Ryan Gig­gs is on any giv­en day as good as any­one. Wayne Rooney is com­ing to form as well. It is hard to over­look Unit­ed," Yorke told the Man­ches­ter Evening News. "I re­al­ly do be­lieve Unit­ed are more equipped to win this tie. Chelsea are des­per­ate to win this com­pe­ti­tion so the pres­sure on them is very high," Yorke said.

"Unit­ed will know what they have to do on the night in the sec­ond leg and they have been in that po­si­tion so many times. I think it is im­por­tant hav­ing the sec­ond leg at Old Traf­ford. You first have to make sure you don't get beat­en away con­vinc­ing­ly. It is all about giv­ing your­self a chance. "If it goes to penal­ties there is on­ly go­ing to be one win­ner. I think it is a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty for Unit­ed to go on and win the tro­phy once again. The key for Unit­ed is to get all the play­ers fit."

Bir­chall gets ho­n­ourable "MLS" men­tion

Eng­lish-born mid­field­er Chris Bir­chall did not make the fi­nal eleven of the Amer­i­can MLS "Team of the Week" for its open­ing week but re­ceived an ho­n­ourable men­tion by the League for his ef­forts in La Galaxy's 1-0 win over Seat­tle Sounders. Bir­chall played the full 90 along­side David Beck­ham and Lan­don Don­avon in mid­field but it was Brazil­ian Jun­in­ho who struck the win­ner and end­ed up mak­ing the MLS "Team of the Week." Bir­chall was a joint top­scor­er in Galaxy's pre­sea­son with three goals and has done suf­fi­cient­ly well to give man­ag­er Bruce Are­na a se­lec­tion headache. "We've had a tough pre­sea­son and I'm just grate­ful to be in there do­ing well. I feel fine at the mo­ment and look­ing for­ward to the sea­son. We want to do bet­ter than last sea­son and as a team we're fo­cused on our chal­lenges ahead. I'm en­joy­ing it and hope­ful­ly we can do good things this sea­son," Bir­chall said.

Moli­no: Dig­i­cel Cup helped me

Mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no says the ex­po­sure he gained while play­ing for T&T at the 2010 Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup was a big fac­tor be­hind his progress to­wards gain­ing an over­seas con­tract with Amer­i­can club Or­lan­do City. The Care­nage-born play­er of Ma Pau FC joined De­von Jorsling at the club last week af­ter be­ing of­fered a deal by Or­lan­do which al­so an­nounced its plans to en­ter the MLS. "I think the chance I got from coach Rus­sell Lat­apy to play with the se­nior team last year in the Dig­i­cel Cup re­al­ly helped me a lot. I grew as a play­er. I got more con­fi­dent and I am now a bit more ma­ture which is good for my en­trance in­to the pro­fes­sion­al league in the USA. "Hope­ful­ly I can keep on do­ing well and se­cure a place in the team. I want to do well here and help the club and then move on to some­thing greater if the op­por­tu­ni­ty comes lat­er down the road," Moli­no said.