Flying on Tuesday to sign for LA Galaxy on two-year deal

— Amr Zaki (@ZakyOfficial) March 31, 2013

Zaki, 29, has terminated his contract with the last two clubs he has played for.

Guess we’ll soon find out whether this is an April Fool’s Day joke or Galaxy coach Bruce Arena has had a chat or two recently with Egypt national team coach Bob Bradley.

Updated:

“@zakyofficial: Was just April fool’s..” @jguesman

— Jake Vasquez (@JakeVasquez49) March 31, 2013

And he is almost the most experienced defender on the injury-hit squad — with all of five caps.

And as I Tweeted Sunday, Galaxy striker Robbie Keane is with the Irish team; both will miss Saturday’s home game against the Colorado Rapids.

Jurgen Klinsmann will talk to the media in a few minutes via a conference call. Here’s a few highlights.

*On the absence of veteran defender Carlos Bocanegra: “The reason why he’s not here is he simply isn’t playing (in the Spanish second division).  … He has no flow, no rythmn. Carlos is still in the picture. This is not the end of his national team career.”

*Klinsmann said he will hold off on naming a captain publicly until Tuesday after he has informed players who will all arrrive by tonight. Former captains Bocanegra, Landon Donovan and Tim Howard are all missing from the squad.

*On the inexperienced squad: “This is the roster we have total trust in and they will gain more experience by doing that.”

*Landon Donovan’s name came up, but it doesn’t sound like Klinsmann has spoken with the Galaxy star in some time. Klinsmann said simply “no” when asked whether he’s going to tell Donovan that his country needs him and he needs to get off the couch and start training.

*On Omar Gonzalez: We just want to give him the opportunity to mature and grow in our environment. … We believe there is a real special talent coming through the system.”

“I think everybody is surprised. He’s been great for this club, for this league and for everything he’s done for AEG and me personally.
“He’s the one that brought me to this club so I’ve got a lot to thank him for. Everybody was shocked, as you can imagine. We’re going to certainly miss him. He’s a great character, a great guy, and we’re certainly going to miss him in that locker room after games and before games and his enthusiasm for the Galaxy and the Kings was exceptional.
“For me to come over from the UK, to bring my whole family over here, he made it so easy for myself, my family and we’re forever grateful for that. He’ll always be a great friend to me.”

“I am very surprised. He’s obviously a guy that is so massive to what this league’s become, a guy that went to bat for us when no one else really would. It’s sad. We don’t know the details, but it’s something that you just remember times when the league was kind of going south, and he was always a guy who stuck up for the league and obviously put a boat-ton of money into our team and this league when no one else would. It’s sad and hopefully he finds his way back somehow.
“He set the bar pretty high. I couldn’t imagine AEG changing anything it’s been doing with us, but it definintely makes you think twice if it will be the same or not.”

“Devastating. The night before, he was in our locker room congratulating us on going through and he seemed really excited about it. And the next day, he’s gone.
“Everyone was just shocked and it’s sad to see him go, but I’m sure he’ll be fine wherever he lands. He was great to me, he was great to the Galaxy, the overall league and he will definitely be missed.
“From what I understand nothing’s changing. We are still going to be determined to be the gold standard moving forward, to keep on bringing in big names and to keep on winning championships. He kind of started that movement by brining in names but now it’s up to us to kind of keep it going, to keep that standard high.”

Palos Verdes Estates’ Christen Press and Rolling Hills Estates’ Whitney Engen both scored today for the U.S. Women’s National Team in a 5-0 victory over China at the Algarve Cup in Portugal.

Check out their goals:

Game story (and wasn’t justice served with that soft PK call at the end of the game?).

Ante Razov scored 114 goals in MLS play and took more shots than anyone else (by more than 100) but he’s not done yet. Apparently, the former UCLA star — and Galaxy and Chivas USA forward — is still lurking around the hallways at Home Depot Center.
That’s the background. In Mike Magee’s Galaxy locker, there is tape with the word “GRETZKY” written on it. With Magee’s hat trick on Sunday, it was only natural to ask if someone had anointed, jokingly or otherwise, Magee as the next Great One.
Not quite.
“Ante Razov self-proclaimed himself Gretzky, so he came and stole my shoes one day and put that up there,” Magee said. “So don’t tag that one on me.”

It would be easy to think the A.J. DeLaGarza-Omar Gonzalez pairing at central defense would be the rock of the Galaxy’s back line, and the former college roommates have certainly been a huge factor in two championship runs.
The duo was broken up by the return of Leonardo, who had not played an MLS game since tearing ligaments in his knee on April 17, 2011 in Chicago. Leonardo teamed with Gonzalez, pushing DeLaGarza to the flank, and went 90 minutes in the shutout.
“A lot of things were going through my head. Not just today but even yesterday I was thinking about today,” Leonardo said. “It was almost two years and this exact same team, Chicago, that I got injured. All the training sessions, training games and games leading up to this moment I was thinking about everything, and I leave with a good feeling that I’m ready not only for this game but this season and many more games.”
Why did it take so long? It wasn’t just the anterior cruciate ligament, it was the lateral collateral ligament. He thought he might be back in midseason last year, but was injured again in June during a reserve league match. He didn’t give up, even though when the Galaxy opened camp this year he was still struggling.
“At the beginning of preseason I wasn’t 100 percent but I had five games to get in shape and right now I’m hitting my stride and ready for the season,” the 25-year-old Leonardo said. “I don’t think about the knee, I think about the muscle mass on my knee and giving it enough rest.”
Even if Leonardo spent a substantial time of his rehab in Brazil, his work didn’t go unnoticed.
“It’s an incredible story, really,” fellow defender Todd Dunivant said. “He hasn’t played in two years, more or less Not only that, he’s hardly trained in those years. He’s had a great preseason, he’s built up slowly and he’s gotten the trust of our coach, of his teammates and he’s done fantastic. He was rock solid. He always is.”