More European Training News

Soccer By Ives just tweeted the U.S. U-23 and DC United rookie defender/midfielder Perry Kitchen will spend a week training with Bundesliga side Freiburg.    That is excellent news.

Also planning some off-season training time in Germany is US MNT wunderkind Juan Agudelo, who will spend a stint at Stuttgart.

Kitchen and Agudelo are not the only MLSers spending their off season in Europe.  Goalkeepers Bill Hamid (DC United) and Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire) will spend time with West Brom and Manchester United respectively and Omar Salgado will spend time with Fulham.  Of course, Brek Shea will spend a month with Arsenel.

I have long been an advocate of young MLS players spending training time with European clubs.  While work permit rules would make a move by any of these players unlikely, aside from Shea and perhaps Agudelo, the time spent working out with high level players is always a good thing.

Update:

Kyle Beckerman and Robbie Rogers will also have training stints with Kaiserslautern according to Soccer by Ives.

For Rogers, who is set to be out of contract with the Crew and has expressed a wish to return to Europe, the training period is not a trial, but it does provide him an opportunity to catch the eye of Kaiserslautern coach Marco Kurz.