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Today is a special day in Seattle. Ten lucky lottery winners will get the right to possibly play with renowned male underwear model, Freddie Ljungberg. Of course, out of fear that last sentence is open to wild interpretations, it should be noted that Ljungberg is also an accomplished football player and the first big money signing by Major League Soccer's 15th club, Seattle Sounders FC - and all forms of play will take place strictly on a football pitch. Today Seattle will pick 10 players from the existing league squads (maximum one from each team), in what has now become an annual MLS tradition thanks to the league's growth, the expansion draft.

The lead up to the event (taking place at 1pm today), must be a time of intolerable wait and anticipation for the players, their families, friends, supporters and managers who don't want to lose them but had little choice in leaving them at the mercy of the poacher. In the event that a player left unprotected for today's expansion draft is perusing the internet, intermittently clicking the 'refresh' button, but visiting other websites linked to mlsnet.com (ours for instance), The Kick About has put together a list of 5 things about The Emerald City, helping you to know your future home, in case you are picked.

Weather

Learn to love clouds. For about eight months of the year Seattle is cloudy or partly cloudy for roughly six days of the week. So if you happen to love dark and dreary days that resemble the usual fog that rolls in, before supernatural chaos breaks out in a Stephen King novel and people start to go missing, this is your town. If you are prone to mood disorders affected by season, request trade immediately after draft.

Garage Bands

Love bad music that makes it big during tough economic times? You are in for a treat. During the last North American recession Seattle was responsible for some of the most depressing music to ever enter the mainstream. Pearl Jam, Nirvana and a bunch of others pretending to be both all came from over there. Now that we are once again tail-spinning into a recession, you can be certain that terrible rock bands will be popular again and you will be in the city sure to be at the cutting edge of that frontier. I can only assume that so many successful businesses such as Microsoft and Amazon only popped up from Seattle simultaneously as grunge music was dying a headbanging death, because people were sick of listening to suburban depression and just wanted to be happy again.

Drew Carey

Who doesn't love Drew Carey? The very funny, soccer loving former U.S. Marine and current host of a popular game show will be your boss. His former sitcom led me to believe however, that he was from Cleveland and that it "rocks." Which begs the question, why is he in Seattle? I guess Cleveland doesn't rock after all. But we all knew that.

Starbucks

You think there's a lot of that where you live now? You just wait.

The Space Needle

If you are soon to be, or after 1pm already are, a former TFC player, you may find yourself home sick when near this 184m structure. In this situation just squint your eyes and this thing could almost pass for the CN Tower (which is obviously much bigger, I mean, we are after all Toronto). Actually, you know what, just close your eyes completely and imagine it is the CN Tower and that you are in Toronto and any second now this bad dream will end, the garage band hippies will go away and the baristas will stop using foreign words to describe coffee. I do this in every city I visit.

So, there you are you lucky Seattle-bound Ten. You are now somewhat prepared to take on the great Pacific Northwest. One final word of advice, Seattle prides itself in being a highly educated city and people will use big words for no reason even if smaller ones are available to them (this is how they keep in shape for weekly scrabble tournaments). Pack a thesaurus with the shin guards.

The football purist in me thinks it's highly unfair that a club that has been the class of the league this season, are now forced to put nine months of hard work and success on the line against a team that stumbled into the playoffs and opportunistically made its way into the spotlight.

Columbus was an exemplary club in MLS throughout the year. They overcame international duties for top players and struggled through injuries just the same as any other team. Yet, they were consistently finding ways to gain results. At the end of the season they finished six points ahead of defending MLS Cup Champions Houston and took home the Supporters' Shield as their reward. Rightfully, head coach Sigi Schmid was voted Coach of the Year.

Then there is Columbus' opponent in Sunday's MLS Cup Final (on CBC at 3pm), New York Red Bulls. Some people are calling their ascendency a "Cinderella story" but I see it differently. New York is the new guy who accidentally gets a job at your office by filling out the wrong application; and despite all the hard work and extra hours you've put in for the last year hoping to get noticed by the brass, this accidental new guy tells better stories and sits poised to steal your deserved glory. Worse yet, he tells people he is from New York, but he is actually from New Jersey.

For the Toronto FC supporter this is a no-win scenario. At least the last two years when Houston faced New England we had Scarborough's very own Dwayne De Rosario to cheer for in the orange shirt of the Dynamo. Now we are faced with a choice between two geographic and divisional rivals.

In strict footballing terms (and not to mention for the sake of justice), Columbus should be the winner hands down. A club that showed consistency and a will to win for the entire season merits all the accolades. Particularly, when up against a club that won only two matches in the months of September and October, and amassed just a single road win all season, then having to rely on the misfortunes of others to get to where they are today.

The contrast in the road to MLS Cup between the two sides makes for an intriguing final. But there are similarities. Both Columbus and New York are prone to major defensive lapses, which could potentially mean many scoring chances. New York in particular has conceded four or more goals in five matches in 2008.

More dramatically, there is an Argentina connection between the two clubs. Veteran Argentine and Columbus' main offensive catalyst Guillermo Barros Schelotto is a Boca Juniors legend. New York's top player, Colombian Juan Pablo Angel played 96 matches for Boca's biggest rivals, River Plate. The two have previously faced off in one of the world's most intense rivalries in South America known as the Superclásico. Now the two masters bring their craft to the northern part of the Americas in the biggest club soccer match of the year. If the Superclásico is one of world's greatest sporting operas, MLS Cup is sure to make an exciting operetta with Shelotto and Angel dueling for that beautiful new Cup.

It is also ironic that Boca represents the working class in Buenos Aires, similar to Ohio, as often framed in the American political strata. It is in Ohio's capital where Schelotto made his mark just as he had in the poor riverside area of the Argentine capital city. In contrast, the New York area prides itself in its sophistication not completely unlike those in a wealthy northern district of Buenos Aires where Angel scored 46 times for River.

Now that we are primed for an exciting final between working class heroes and sophisticated impostors, let the operetta begin. Additionally, now that a team from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean is Major League Soccer's Western Conference Champions, can we please switch to a single table with eight playoff spots instead of the meaningless geographic distinctions?

In the midst of soaring energy prices and environmental concerns, someone should commission a study to see if the wind power generated from one of Marvell Wynne's darting runs can be used to power condos on Lakeshore Boulevard. Electricity is certainly in the air at BMO Field each time Wynne is at full speed. The sense of knowing and anticipating the humiliating demise about to befall the opposing player, who might be as far as 30 meters ahead of the Toronto FC defender, has become a favourite sight for the faithful in Red. While his bursting speed certainly provides entertainment, it's the addition of offensive flair to this young right back's game that has TFC supporters most excited.

Wynne is a 22 year old California native who is about as humble a professional athlete there is in our city. He has the maturity, calmness and work ethic that TFC fans hope will become contagious as head coach John Carver's cast and crew gets bigger in coming months. While he is still learning and growing as a player, the sudden shift from a primarily defensive fullback to a dangerous and consistent attacking option in the latter part of the season has people taking notice, even if Wynne isn't quick to acknowledge the transformation.

"If I do have a switch I wish I knew what prompted me to switch it," said Wynne of his evolving game, "being a right back means defense comes first." Some speculated that pressure from his United States National Team head coach Bob Bradley might have had something to do with the added impetus on offense, but Wynne points to other elements closer to home.

"At some point Coach Carver wanted to get as many of us into the attack as possible," Wynne said of the tactics employed by his club head coach. "We tried different formations, switched players around and realized our best bet was to stay in a 4-4-2 but have the outside backs joining up as much as possible." Joining up is just what Wynne did when he scored his first goal in Major League Soccer against Houston. On a late Saturday afternoon on September 27th, Wynne slinked past two defenders and placed a left footed chip beyond an astonished Pat Onstad in the Dynamo goal. The priceless exclamation on Wynne's face and the smiles and embrace from his teammates underscored the importance of the occasion, both for Toronto's season as well as the happiness they felt for a teammate and friend. While celebrating on the sidelines I received three simultaneous text messages from colleagues, the gist of each message being that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving player.

A week later Wynne continued his productive runs by taking a flick from Danny Dichio and blazing past a New York defense that he left in tatters on the left flank, before serving a sitter to Chad Barrett with the outside of his right boot for a goal that put Toronto squarely back in the playoff hunt. Wynne got his second goal a week after that and it should have been a match winner. His instinctive pace tracked down a loose ball which he followed with a perfect finish against a charging keeper that had Toronto go 2-1 up on Dallas before another tragic referee decision (of which there have been too many to count in 2008), took TFC virtually out of the playoff picture. But in those three matches Wynne showed a level of improvement that exemplified his maturity as a player and a promise of great things to come.

On a personal level I still remember Wynne's first day on the job in Toronto. Our club had just returned after its first road trip in the inaugural 2007 season and it was apparent that there was a lack of speed at the back. Then head coach Mo Johnston solved that problem with a trade with New York that saw us take the fastest player in the league in exchange for, as far as we can tell - nothing. Good deal. Wynne came into the BMO Field office very nonchalant, wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, cargo shorts and sporting a black knapsack. My initial thought was, "why do we need another intern?"

"To be honest I felt insulted initially," Wynne tells me not of the intern bit, but rather the trade to Toronto so early in his second year. "My life is soccer and to have the feeling what you're doing isn't good enough hurt, but it's a compliment knowing there is a team that wants you and with Mo Johnston as the head coach at the time it was easy to jump in." Johnston had initially drafted Wynne first overall a year earlier while with New York. He knew what he was getting in the deal and as a result Wynne believes he was able to excel without being under pressure to prove himself to the new boss. "Then I familiarized myself with the team, the staff and the city and now I couldn't be happier" he says enthusiastically of his Toronto surroundings. "I wasn't happy to be traded, but now I'm glad I was."

While Wynne's improved play continues to impress the converted at BMO Field, he also has his eyes on the world's stage for South Africa 2010. The American national team is presently trampling through Caribbean and Central American countries with the gusto of a tropical storm in World Cup Qualifying and Wynne is hoping to become a fixture on that squad. When speaking of his chances of being on Coach Bradley's American side for the World Cup, Wynne acknowledges that he is not the "number one (right back) at the moment," but optimistically and in a fashion that is typical of the player, holds out that he "hopes to be one day soon." His recent strides suggest he shouldn't be counted out. As of right now he is happy to get called up to train with the team and learn new things, as he believes that it's "a great way to improve being around the top players and coaches of the United States." With such an open attitude, it is no wonder that his skill level is rising.

Whether Coach Bradley has plans to make Wynne a feature fullback on the senior U.S. squad or not, he was definitely one of the central pieces of Coach Carver's first season at TFC, which saw the club improve 10 points from the previous year. Wynne has been a pivotal figure in Toronto's rise from a last place team to a playoff spot challenger and was a regular on the U.S. Olympic U-23 Team that competed in Beijing. Suffice it to say that it has been a year of interesting experiences, valuable learning and major growth for Wynne. If he can emulate the form he showed toward the end of 2008 early into next year, Toronto fans will be singing his name more deliriously than ever.

A new edition of The Kick About will feature regularly every Tuesday - holidays and Guitar Hero showdowns among writing staff notwithstanding.