I'm about to leave for today's Sounders practice. Meanwhile, a few links to a few to a few soccer items of local interest.

First, here's my story from from today's paper on Sounders' draft pick Michael Fucito, who started working with the team Monday after graduating from Havard on Thursday.

In one quote that didn't make the paper, I asked him what it was like juggling a Harvard work load along with D-I soccer duties:

"It was a pain," he said. "But it was worth it. I went to Harvard just because it’s Harvard. You can’t really turn that down. Hopefully I’ll see the benefits of that in a couple of years. It was doable. It was an adjustment. They were very strict academically there and they don’t give athletes any extra benefits or leniency. So you have to work hard, but if you do your work it’s doable you get through it. ... I felt it was the best of both worlds because they were competitive on a Division I level and then it’s the best school in the country. When I was going to college I had no idea that the MLS was going to be a possibility."

Meanwhile, an interesting game could be on tap tonight in Bremerton, where the Portland Timbers of the USL-DI will meet the Kitsap Pumas of the USL-PDL in the opening round of the U.S. Open Cup. The winner will advance to the Open Cup second round, where they will play for the right to meet Sounders FC in the third round. Here's the bracket.

In MLS all-star voting, 10 Sounders continue to rank among the MLS First XI. Which makes you wonder what Nate Jaqua has done to annoy Seattle voters.

New England's Taylor Twellman was selected MLS player of the week after his two-goal performance in the Revs' 4-0 rout of New York.

Finally, MLS has announced that David Beckham's 2009 debut with the LA Galaxy on July 16 at New York will be televised by FSC.

I'll be back this afternoon with whatever Sounders news come out of practice.

Coach Sigi Schmid said today that he had individual chats with stars Fredy Montero and Freddie Ljungberg after the Sounders’ 1-0 loss at Chivas USA over the weekend.

Schmid said he met with Montero to explain why he was benched in the 65th minute of the game.

“Most players aren’t happy when they’re going to be replaced,” Schmid said. “That’s pretty standard. I know when I played I wasn’t too happy when I got subbed out. Whenever the sub card goes up you’re looking the other direction, so he’s trying to not look over there in case it’s your number. It was something we talked about after the game as a team. And I’ll be talking to them individually as well. But it is not an issue.”

Schmid also met with Ljungberg about an ongoing concern that the former English Premier League star spends too much time quarreling with referees.

“We need to concentrate, we need to focus on our game,” Schmid said. “I don’t want to talk about referees anymore. I don’t want to talk about them all this season. They’re out there and they’re doing their job. We need to do our job.”

Ljungberg clearly was steamed late in the game when a Chivas player went into his legs, and he explained today that he saw it as the kind of play that could have broken his leg and perhaps ended his career. For what it's worth, he said the Chivas player apologized after the game.

The Sounders are off the practice pitch for another day.

Joining the session today was midfielder Michael Fuchito, the Sounders No. 4 draft pick who has been back east getting his degree from Harvard. Now that he's done, he's in town and hoping to stay. And although he isn't yet under contract, coach Sigi Schmid said some nice things about him: that he begins a different look from the team's other midfielders, that he's left-footed and has a low center of gravity. I'll have some direct quotes from Fuchito and Schmid later.

Meanwhile, Schmid says he hasn't quite seen anything like the parade of red cards that the current team is going through. But, as always, he says there's nothing to do this week but have other guys step into the roles of Nate Jaqua and Jhon Kennedy Hurtado.

Meanwhile, Schmid said that he doesn't yet know the status of injured Osvaldo Alonso or Peter Vagenas for Saturday's game with San Jose.

More later.