Wynne draws attention

It's that time of the year that most European soccer fans hate but also conversely love at the same time. Off-season aka 'silly season' is upon us, and it's a period of time where the discerning fan needs to sort through the outlandish rumors that separate fact from fiction.

Case in point, Michael Owen has supposedly been offered by Real Madrid to every English club on the planet and is likely to join one of Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United, Everton or the Dagenham Boys Club depending on whom you believe.

To fill in before the new season then, here's a belated review of the English Premiership (EPL) season just gone.

Coach of the Year: I wanted to start off by giving Jose Mourinho his due props. He took a hugely talented underachieving squad, and with just a paltry billion dollar budget to work with, turned them into one of the most dominant outfits the English Premiership has ever seen.

Compared to the work his predecessor Claudio Ranieri did, it's easy to see why Mourinho has referred to himself as 'the special one' on many an occasion. Let's hope his wife agrees.

Player of the Year: A toss up between two defenders, John Terry and Jamie Carragher. I'll go with Carragher. Why? It's simple. Under the guidance of Rafa Benitez, Carragher magically transformed himself from a middling squad player at right-back to one of the best center-backs in the EPL. All season long Carragher was a rock and the true heart and soul of the Liverpool team. Benitez called him the best center-back in England and he's not far off in that assessment.

Donkey of the Year: Originally designed to be awarded to one player. Instead I'll give it to Newcastle since the team as a whole did its very best to flood this award with viable candidates. It's hard to choose from between the overpaid and underachieving Patrick Kluivert who'd rather party, or the overpaid and underachieving Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer who'd rather re-enact a boxing match in the middle of a game.

When you add the overpaid and underachieving Laurent Robert who'd rather throw a tantrum, then we have a clear-cut winner on our hands.

British Export of the Year: Unfortunately this goes not to a Brit but to Uruguyan Diego Forlan, shipped to La Liga by Manchester United. The striker formerly known as Diego Forlorn, seemed to be on a new lease of life for Villarreal. His flurry of goals suggests that all he needed was a world-class playmaker (Juan Riquelme) behind him to best utilize his talents.

Either that, or Sir Alex Ferguson really doesn't know how to get the best out of his South American imports, (see Juan Veron and Kleberson for more examples). Brazilian fans can only hope Robinho doesn't sign with United.

Surprise of the Year: Liverpool. How on earth does a team play so poorly in its domestic league, lose to a team like Burnley in the FA Cup and yet snare European soccer's biggest prize at the end of the year? We'll never know and I suspect even Rafa Benitez doesn't. A minor miracle of sorts.

Best tooting one's own horn quote: After searching long and hard in the trade rags for EPL candidates, I cheated and plumped for one from the Primera Liga instead.

"We have signed Denmark's best player. Thomas Gravesen had some important offers from Italy and England but he only ever wanted to come to Real Madrid" - Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez announces the signing of Everton's Thomas Gravesen.

Best undermine the boss quote: "I didn't have any offers at all except for the one from Madrid" - Thomas Gravesen, on why he signed with Real Madrid.

Armchair Musings

The U.S. U-20 team was unceremoniously bundled out of the FIFA World Youth Championships this week by Italy. Ordinarily a defeat to a traditional superpower such as Italy would be considered respectable. However it's a measure of how far the U.S. youth national teams have come that, going into this game, the U.S. were and should have been considered favorites.

From the U.S. perspective the biggest surprise was that UCLA defender Marvell Wynne easily outshone the bigger names of Freddy Adu, Eddie Gaven and Chad Barrett. Prior to this tournament, Wynne was probably best known as the son of ex-Major League Baseball player Marvell Wynne. Yet during the tourney, Wynne showed an explosive combination of speed and power down the right flank and excited scouts in attendance.

Although his technique remains a tad raw, there's no doubt that he exhibits huge potential. A best-case scenario for Wynne would be to get picked up by a Dutch team such as Ajax or Feyenoord where he'd no doubt get to work on the technical aspects of his game. He's already an incredible athlete, reportedly having run the 200 meters in 21.87 seconds back in high school. Even the slightest improvement in his technique, would give any team smart enough to sign him a potential juggernaut on the right flank.

As for Freddy Adu, he's probably not the happiest teenager around at the moment. In addition to an uneven performance throughout the tourney, Adu missed two penalties and suffered the ignominy of being called out and made the scapegoat by his coach.

"I didn't think he showed up today," U.S. coach Sigi Schmid said to reporters of his 16-year-old forward after the game against Italy.

The question isn't so much whether or not Schmid is correct in his assessment of Adu's play (he was). Adu himself largely admitted as such, telling reporters, "I was terrible in this tournament".

However, what one can take issue with is the very public nature by which Schmid took him to task. It's one thing to call out a player when he's not performing on the professional level or for the senior national team, but as the coach for the youth national team, it's supposedly in Schmid's job description to nurture young talent. There's no doubt that such words may have needed to be said, but they were probably best said behind closed doors to Adu.

You could argue that Schmid's calling out of Adu was probably an attempt to deflect away the blame from himself. After all Schmid himself made some particularly questionable decisions throughout the tourney. For instance, he continued with a clearly below-par and short of match-fitness Jonathan Spector against Italy and strangely insisted on keeping an obviously overmatched Greg Dalby in the starting lineup and at captain.

Speaking of strange decision-making by coaches, Brazil's Carlos Alberto Parreira continues to make a lineup choice that has the rest of the world gleefully rubbing their hands. Parreira's ongoing infatuation with Roque Junior as the centerpiece of his defense proves one thing:

Even World Cup winning coaches can be clueless at times.

To his credit Roque Junior is far more defensive-minded than some of his more illustrious and offensively inclined predecessors in the Brazilian defense. Unfortunately though for Brazil fans, that's as good as it gets. Roque Junior lacks the aptitude and the skill to play defense at any level above barely-adequate and doesn't compensate for it at the offensive end. On top of that, despite being a towering physical presence, his inability to win balls in the air makes one wonder.

Let's face it, Roque Junior couldn't cut it at Siena or Leeds, what makes Parreira think he's good enough for the Brazilian starting lineup?

Manchester United's signing of Korean international Park Ji-Sung from PSV is likely the first of many future decisions by the club that will likely reflect new owner Malcolm Glazer's desire to balance the books and count the profit.

The move is so obviously a commercial investment that it's a joke that United are even trying to pretend it's not. Don't get me wrong - Park is an excellent player. He's a quality combo defender/midfielder which is a rarity in itself and he was a key part of PSV's surprising Champions League run last season. This said, it's highly unlikely he'll win a starting spot in United's line-up with Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo patrolling the flanks.

There's no way a cash-strapped United would invest $9 million of its summer budget on a back-up utility player if there weren't other reasons behind the move. Park is revered in Korea where he enjoys national iconic status, and funnily enough, he's been signed just in time to join United when they embark on a Far Eastern pre-season tour in July. No, clearly there's no commercial considerations here.

Back to MLS and despite continued criticism in some quarters about the overall caliber of play in general, there's no doubt that the talent pool among MLS players in some respects is higher than it's been in recent years. I'm talking specifically about the number of players that are likely to earn a lucrative move to Europe at some point. Besides obvious names such as Eddie Johnson, Landon Donovan (should he change his mind about Europe), Clint Dempsey, Eddie Gaven and Pablo Mastroeni, one player that is almost certain to attract the eye of European scouts is the Fire's Nate Jaqua.

Jaqua is one of a very rare breed - a tall striker with pace (relative to height) and body control. At 6'4 he has rare physical presence and unlike most tall players he has well above-average ball skills. Players of his height and skill starting for major teams across Europe can probably be counted on two hands. If he continues to score in MLS at anything close to his recent pace, he could well surprise and be MLS' next export to Europe.

Jen Chang is the U.S. editor for ESPN Soccernet.com. He can be reached at: armchairsweeper@gmail.com