A quick catch-up on Major League Soccer’s off-season

We are just 10 days past the 17^th MLS Cup championship – so why does it seem like three weeks?

Probably because this will be the shortest MLS off-season, if we can even call it that. The time off has been trimmed on both sides; the 2012 season went longer than ever, into December for the first time, and the 2013 regular season begins earlier than ever, in early March. It’s about a month earlier than in those first years of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

That means things are moving at lickety-split pace. There’s no other way.

Talking points so far (some of which have been resolved, others not):

• The ongoing David Beckham watch
• The ongoing Landon Donovan watch
• Real Salt Lake’s roster makeover
• Red Bull’s roster makeover and coaching search
• Chivas USA’s coaching search
• D.C. United’s management shuffle
• An eventful period of player option declines
• An uneventful Phase I of the MLS Re-Entry Draft

For a more thorough review of the above, and more, this is a good place to start: a piece from Soccer America wrapping up the first 10 days of Major League’s Soccer post-season lite.