Whatever Floats Your Boat: DC United & Sundry Soccer Links for 10 July 2015

Here we are now.  Entertain us.

Q&A: Comcast SportsNet D.C. United Analyst Santino Quaranta - Press Box DC: Quaranta's take on DC United is very, very shiny.  I don't entirely buy it.  Maybe I should.  I want to buy it.  But then I see things like that Seattle game last week, and I wonder whether a Villa-Pirlo-Lampard team will overtake us in the Eastern Conference before the season is out.  As the season drags on, with our 11-point running start over the next team, can we hang onto first?  (FYI:  DCU has 39 more potential points to earn; NYCFC has 48 more potential points to earn.)

D.C. United Academy concludes 2014-2015 season — Soccer Wire:  Our U-18s had a good run.

MLS Will Ride The USWNT's Coattails By Having Floats In Victory Parade - Deadspin:  Deadspin lambasts the crassness of MLS trying to catch the excitement of the women's World Cup.  "It's embarrassing."

Don't worry, MLS players won't be on floats in Friday's U.S. women's national team parade | Fusion:  Fusion assures us that we won't see Andrea Pirlo riding a float behind Carli Lloyd.

Women's Soccer Stars Will Be First Women Feted With Ticker-Tape Parade in Decades - NBC News:  And the MLS floats will be the first MLS floats feted with ticker tape, period.  So what's the bigger news here?

St. Paul Mayor Invites MLS To View Potential Stadium Site " CBS Minnesota:  Hmm.  Don't they know that Minnesota is United only so long as St. Paul knows its place?

Landon Donovan to make coaching debut for MLS Homegrown Team - ESPN FC:  LanDo news!

MLS Preview: Lampard set for debut - Beinsports:  Without a DCU game this weekend, this Lampard debut is the MLS game to watch.  Remember when he was supposed to be there four months ago and he wasn't?  (Pirlo, by the way, comes online on July 21st.)

Gold Cup preview: USMNT to face Group A underdogs Haiti | ProSoccerTalk:  Haiti did surprisingly well against Panama the other day.  But I think Dempsey's got this.

FIFA bans Chuck Blazer from soccer for life | Reuters:  Ostensibly, it's because of his corruption.  But, really, it's probably because he's a snitch.

And your Friday Freedom Kicks treat is this shovel that sounds exactly like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Commentariat, forward!