ProSoccerTalk’s daily soccer re-set

Soccer birthdays:

England international and Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck, now making regular appearances for mighty Manchester United, turns 22 on Monday. He’s got a long, long way to go before they are throwing statues up at Old Trafford, a la Sir Alex Ferguson last week. But the young striker does seem to have some nice upside.

Big Important Stories of the Day:

Major League Soccer’s Best XI will be announced.

We’ve already “announced” our Best XI selections from ProSoccerTalk. We didn’t have a fancy press conference or anything like that – but don’t let that diminish the selections in your mind, OK?

RASNoD (Random American Soccer Name of the Day:  Clint Mathis (pictured)

*Ahead on the blog today:

We promise to interrupt the week of All Things David Beckham with a sufficient balance of Houston Dynamo coverage. In fact, we’ll start by deconstructing the Dynamo success. Look for that one in about an hour.

We’ll talk about that official MLS Best XI.

And later today we’ll have a Monday “Meh” list of the weekend’s slightly overrated in our sport.

Twitter daps:

What you should watch on TV today:

The lineup looks like a bunch of Paris super models … a little thin. If you have beIN Sports, there are a couple of Italian Serie A offerings, but even those don’t seem to be anything to shout about.

Background noise while blogging today:

Spies and zombies if there’s a break in the blogging action; that is, the Homeland and Walking Dead eps that went unseen Sunday night.

We’ll leave you with this: I know this December MLS Cup seems a bit odd, after Thanksgiving and all, but it does open a Saturday afternoon time slot thanks to a lot less college football competing for network time. And an MLS Cup without pro football (at the usual Sunday slot) as competition has a far better shot of attracting viewers not aligned with one of the competing teams. So, there’s that.

* Always subject to change; you know how it is