In the aftermath of Team USA's 6-1 thrashing of Cuba in a World Cup qualifier on Saturday night, I couldn't help but feel like there was one thing missing -- and that was the presence on the field of one of the future stars of the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team, Maurice Edu. With Edu now playing with Glasgow Rangers of the Scottish Premier League, fans in North America just don't get enough chances to see him play.

Unless of course you pick up the video game FIFA '09 from EA Sports. Edu is such a big star these days that he earned himself a place on the cover next to Ronaldinho of AC Milan and Guillermo Ochoa of Mexico's Club America. Edu is pictured here wearing the kit of Toronto FC, the club he played with in MLS, but the cover will depict him wearing his U.S. Men's National Team kit.

Welcome to RFK Stadium where I'm waiting for the start of the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifier between Team USA and Cuba. For all the preliminaries from Mike Cardillo, click here. For a short interview I did with Maurice Edu and Sacha Kljestan of Team USA, click here. And be sure to be back here at 7:00 p.m. sharp when we start our live blog coverage of the match. Look for our live blog box after the jump.

Miss Scotland Norway Iwelumo
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There are misses and then there are misses. In today's 2010 World Cup qualifier Scotland's Chris Iwelumo doomed himself to the all-time gag reel with an unbelievable miss against Norway home at Hampton Park.

Scotland ended up drawing 0-0 and has a lot of work cut out for itself if it hopes to be playing in South Africa (or wherever the tournament ends up) in two years time.

Far be it from me to pile on Iwelumo, who at least is upset himself and not blowing it off in a typical athlete non-admission. The fact still remains that 99 times out of a 100 that play ends up in the back of the net.

There's probably a cheap 'Braveheart' joke in there somewhere, but why pile on? The video speaks for itself.

As I begin to write a tidy little FanHouse preview of Saturday's 2010 CONCACAF World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and Cuba in Washington, it appears a pair of Cubans have already defected. So congrats to those there in Inter-nets land that had Friday in their Cuban Defection Pool. (Me, I had Sunday morning.)

So with the Castro-baiting out of the way, let's look at what you need to know about the match. (7 p.m. EST, ESPN Classic)

• * With a win, the U.S. automatically moves to the final stage of CONCACAF qualification, with two games remaining.


• * Coach Bob Bradley may have finally heard the fans pleas in the dark alleys of Internet blogs and message boards and included young phenoms Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore. (Danny Szetela gets his first national team recall in a while, too. )
  


• * Texas-born 20-year-old Jose Francisco Torres is included in his first U.S. squad. This is only noteworthy because a) his father is Mexican and b) he plays professionally in Mexico for Pachuca. If Torres gets a cap he will lose his right to switch allegiance to Mexico down the road. (Judging by the tone of this Spanish-language report, El Tri fans don't seem overly happy about the decision.)


• * Watford defender Jay DeMerit was named to the roster but stayed in England to rehab a nagging leg injury.


• * The U.S. hasn't allowed a goal in six matches, the last coming to Spain's Xavi in a pre-Euro tuneup for the Spanish.
  


• * Fulham's on-loan striker Eddie Johnson finally was left out of the team. In his stead come Altidore and Charlie Davies, who plays in Sweden. Surprisingly to fans of MLS, Kenny Cooper -- who's second in the league behind Landon Donovan with 16 goals -- stays home again. There are only four MLSers on the roster (Donovan, Frankie Hejduk, Sasha Kljestan and Brian Ching.)
  

Overall, this match figures to be more of the same for the U.S., which barring a miracle should advance with ease. The more interesting match to watch will probably be Wednesday's match at Trinidad & Tobago, since Bradley might finally take off his Barry Goldwater-approved conservative glasses and unleash some of the young blood. In any event matches at RJK Stadium always produce a good atmosphere and home some of the best and most passionate supporters America has to offer. Hopefully they'll have some kind of banner hanging from the touchline egging somebody on as they've famously done in the past for D.C. United matches.

Jak sie masz? For the first time in recent memory, there are actually positive thoughts coming from the England national team's camp on the eve of a World Cup qualifier. A month ago the English journos would be finding any possible way to slag off the Three Lions on the eve of a match with Kazakhstan. Now, after an impressive 4-1 away win to Croatia, it's England-mania all over again. (Naturally, the last time England had a passing connection to Kazakhstan, Borat and his moustache helped lead to Paul Robinson's all-time worst own goal.)

OK, some are worried about Fabio Capello's England being over confident. It seems England is the classic example of a team that plays to the level of its competition. Americans can get to see this for themselves as the qualifier isn't in pay-per-view, instead on Fox Soccer Channel live at noon Eastern. (FSC follows with Estonia hosting European champion Spain.)

Elsewhere in UEFA Group 6, Croatia goes to Ukraine, which has won its first two matches to tie for first place with England.

More highlights around UEFA qualification after the jump.

Chances are even if you're not a soccer fan, you're passingly familiar with ex-France superstar Zinedine Zidane due to his famous/infamous headbutt of Italian defender Marco Materazzi in extra time of the 2006 World Cup final. The play became a popular Internet meme that summer, yet to my knowledge no one has ever interspliced Zissou with Rick Astley. Go figure.

Anyways, since his retirement Zidane has been a goodwill ambassador for FIFA across the globe, however his character again comes into the crosshairs with a upcoming autobiography from French player Jérôme Rothen.

According to the book in 2004 Zidane fouled Rothen from behind, prompting this exchange.

"It was a foul and I went down, admittedly I made a bit more of it, but anyone would have done the same, as we were trying to buy some seconds. Zidane leant over me and said: 'Get up, you son of a bitch.'"

What makes this interesting is that the French translation is in the same vein as what Materazzi said to Zidane, prompting the headbutt. Of course, this could all just be a publicity stunt by Rothen trying to sell books. Granted I'm not French, but what else could this fringe international player have to say?

Professional soccer players will never be considered the most mature in the world -- a lot of them are just overgrown children. That's expected at this point, but managers and even confederation presidents? Shouldn't we expect them to operate in a professional manner?

That's asking too much, as today an absolutely brilliant pissing match emerged between CONCACAF President Jack Warner -- the same man who was investigated for selling 2006 World Cup tickets at an inflated value -- and Sunderland manager Roy Keane -- the same man who called Republic of Ireland coach Mick McCarthy a "wanker" in training before the 2002 World Cup, which got him sent home shortly before the finals began.

In short, the spat began because Keane recalled T&T veteran Dwight Yorke back to England for training before 2010 CONCACAF qualifiers against Cuba and the U.S. The feisty Irishman took offense that Warner used FIFA letterhead in his initial rebuking and responded with a blistering attack on Warner.

''He is probably a small man and he has got this 'Small-Man Syndrome'. The world is against him. If he is writing a letter representing Trinidad, why is he putting it under FIFA? If he is vice-president - and remember, he is vice-president, he is not president yet - God help us. People worry about the game and agents and directors of football and managers losing their jobs - we should be worried about people like him."

After trading letters, it's safe to say these two will not be exchanging Christmas cards in a couple months.

Sunderland plays at Wigan Athletic Saturday in the Premier League.

It was an end of an era, so to speak, Wednesday night for the Mexican National Team when 35-year-old Cuauhtémoc Blanco played his final match for El Tri -- a 3-0 win over Canada in a CONCACAF qualifier.

How you feel about the temper mental talent probably is tied to which side of the Rio Grande you lie. In Mexico, he's a hero in some corners -- mainly for his work at Club America. Meanwhile, in the U.S. most ardent fans like myself possess feelings for him that can't even be published on the Inter-nets.

From an American perspective Blanco is pretty loathed for his work in the green, white and red kit, probably second behind current captain Rafa Marquez. Blanco is part of a generation of El Tri that figured it was their birth rite to defeat the U.S. by hook or by crook -- including shall we say questionable tactics. (Things are a little different nowadays, where guys like Pavel Pardo play the game with respect toward the U.S.)

While he might be hated by most U.S. fans, there is no denying that Blanco was a very unique talent and finished as Mexico's third all-time leading scorer with 34. That includes tallies in two World Cups (1998, 2002) and six in the 1999 Confederations Cup.

He'll press on with the Chicago Fire in MLS, though he's banned forever from U.S. Open Cup play.

Though he won't be recalled fondly, part of me will miss Blanco in the El Tri shirt, simply because the sporting world needs its fair share of characters and villains. For me, Blanco represents big, bad Mexico, the Mexico that the U.S. can never defeat at Azteca. That rivalry created the animosity and subsequently the USMNT's best all-time win, defeating Mexico 2-0 in the Round of 16 at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea. Blanco's angry, hopeless scowl as the clock ticked toward 90 made it all the more satisfying.

Adios.

(It's doubtful too many gringos will miss spelling your first name, either.)

Amidst all the college football and pennant race baseball Saturday, the U.S. men's soccer team claimed a pretty important 1-0 win in Havana, Cuba in a 2010 World Cup qualifier. Clint Dempsey scored the game's only goal in the 40th minute on a long ball played into the box that knocked off a Cuban defender and was settled by Brian Ching who fed the Fulham-man.

Overall, it was probably 90 minutes of forgettable soccer and would barely warrant a blip on the mainstream radar if not for that Castro fellow and a certain government embargo. Saturday's game wasn't, however, about the Bay of Pigs or Elian Gonzalez for the U.S. It was about getting three points -- which they did, thanks to a 87th minute fingertip save by keeper Tim Howard.

Again, coach Bob Bradley opted for a conservative 4-4-2 approach and according the game yielded few clear chances for either side, not that you could tell from the abysmal lighting at the field from the ESPN broadcast. The game was aired on ESPN Classic, but probably doesn't warrant another showing on the network any time soon.

The U.S. returns to action Wednesday night in Chicago against Trinidad & Tobago, which conceded a last minute goal at home against Guatemala earlier Saturday. The U.S. leads the CONCACAF group with six points, followed by Trinidad with four, Guatemala one and Cuba 0. A win Tuesday pretty much books a space in the final stage of qualification, which begins next year.

By most standards Spain posted a pretty solid sporting summer. The nation's soccer (fútbol if you will) won its first major trophy since 1960 when it captured glory at Euro 2008 in June. The next month perhaps Spain's biggest sporting icon -- Rafa Nadal -- won Wimbledon. There were probably some accomplishments in the world of bull fighting, too, but I'm just not Ernest Hemmingway when it comes to the world of matadors.

This weekend Spain's top flight league took off and it posted a pair of shock results. Early Sunday the new-look Barcelona was held up 1-0 by promoted Numancia, meanwhile later in the day title holders Real Madrid went down 2-1 at Deportivo La Coruña. The Spanish giants have combined for all but four La Liga crowns since 1990. Perhaps Athletico Madird, which won 4-0, could put together a run for its first league title since 1996-97.

Overall this probably isn't that big of a deal. If it happened in the middle the season it would be considered a blip. Since it happened on matchday one, it raises eyebrows -- especially Ray Hudson's.

It also doesn't help that there's the international break next week and the next games aren't until Sept. 14.

Maybe Real was too distracted by the mind-numbing Robinho saga. Barcelona's excuse might be its jarring yellow away shirts.