It looks like the United Soccer League is playing hardball.

The league has taken steps to squeeze at least one of the teams hoping to defect and form a new league with the Carolina RailHawks and a few other teams.

The USL says it plans to start a new USL-1 team in the Twin Cities next year. And there's chatter that the team could play at the Minnesota Thunder's old stadium.So what does that mean for Cary? The Thunder is one of the teams that was expected to join the Carolina RailHawks in their breakaway attempt from the USL-1. The teams got into a beef with the USL over branding and ownership power after the league was sold to a group of private investors.

Carolina was one of the first three teams to go rogue, along with Miami and Minnesota. The USL scrubbed away Web links for these teams and told players they had been released from their contracts.

Despite that, Carolina managed to keep its roster intact. Minnesota, however, ended up cutting everybody.

Now the Thunder will have to try to establish a team in a rebel league while competing with a team formed by an established brand that apparently isn't messing around. The USL-1 called the Thunder's bluff.

That will only weaken the foundation on which they hope to build a new league.

There were already issues on whether the new league would be approved by the United States Soccer Federation due to a lack of teams. With the Thunder looking homeless, playerless and soon-to-be replaced, there were just six viable teams left.

Two of them, Vancouver and Montreal, are making plans to join the MLS soon. Vancouver is slated to join in 2011, and Montreal is also pushing to make it happen.

That left just Miami, Carolina, Atlanta and St. Louis as teams still in the league as of 2012. The original NHL had more teams.

Atlanta and St. Louis could be viable options for future MLS expansion, since the league doesn't have many Midwestern or southeastern teams.

So where did that leave the rebel league? In perfect spot to counterpunch on Friday.

Franchises from Tampa Bay and Baltimore have joined the others hoping to start the new league in 2010. With nine teams -- one above the USSF's minimum for starting a new league -- it has enough franchises for a first season even if Minnesota should fold.

And still others could be on the way -- which is necessary given some teams' likeliness to move up to MLS status in the coming years.

"There's a few others in the [USL] now that still haven't paid the [franchise] fee," said RailHawks owner Selby Wellman, one of the creators of the spinoff league. "They're kind of sitting on the fence watching to see what will happen."

But watching ain't getting. The lack of viable teams past 2012 could still present a huge obstacle to the new league's proposal. And the USL holds the ultimate trump card. If the RailHawks don't get a league, expect no mercy for the mutineers.

We've already seen how the USL treated Minnesota. If the new league can't get approved, we haven't seen the last of hardball.