Back to Work Tuesday

The Galaxy players, who have been off since Wednesday's loss to RSL, will return to training on Tuesday afternoon as they begin their preparations for the trip to Toronto on June 26. The players spread to all corners of the U.S. during their time off, visiting friends, families and loved ones wherever they may be. Chris Birchall and Donovan Ricketts even flew back to England and Jamaica respectively, taking advantage of the rare chance to head home during the season. In fact, both players have been given a few extra days off this week before returning to training later in the week.

One person who stayed here in Southern California was Cobi Jones, who was at the ESPN Zone at L.A. Live on Saturday morning before the U.S. game and helped break down all the action with Rob Fukuzaki on ABC 7's Sports Zone. Additionally, Cobi checked in at ESPN Los Angeles with his analysis from the 1-1 draw between the U.S. and England.

Finally, while most of us were watching that game and the rest of the World Cup here in the Southland, LAGalaxy.com's Troy Bardy is on the ground in South Africa as part of Yahoo! Sports coverage of the tournament. He sent along the following message and photos from the first week of his experience in South Africa.

Hello from Johannesburg and the 2010 FIFA World Cup!

I left for South Africa a week ago to the day, though it already feels like I’ve been here a month. I’m staying at a beautiful B&B in the city of Sandton near Mandela Square while helping Yahoo! Sports with their coverage of the tournament. (Make sure to get all your World Cup info there!)

In the past seven days, I’ve been heading out to U.S. camp and visiting the Fan Fests in the Johannesburg area. One of the highlights for me thus far was seeing Landon’s reaction when he came across me sitting in the press conference. He looked happy to see a familiar face from the HDC.

The atmosphere here in South Africa compares to Germany in 2006, maybe even exceeds it. However, while traveling around Germany was very easy, so far South Africa has been anything but. With that said, the hospitality here has been great and the people are ecstatic the world has come to their home. Traveling around the city to cover stories has been an eye-opening experience that has already taught me a lot about this country and about this beautiful game.

Here are a few pictures from the past week I wanted to share with all of you back home.

Even in the dark of night, South African fans packed the Fan Fest in Soweto...
...cheering on their squad throughout, and of course playing their famed vuvuzelas.
When not in the field shooting pieces at the area Fan Fests, Troy has been part of the international media that has followed the U.S. National Team at all of their training and media sessions.