452 Games and then Toronto and Seattle play a final: the 2020 MLS thread.

[Anton Gramscescu]

No more promotion & relegation in Mexico for 5 yearsl.

What? Why? Are 2nd div teams not screaming blue murder?

[ursus arctos]

One third of them had already gone bust and the others are being bought off

https://www.espn.com/soccer/mexican-...ext-five-years

My take is that the ultimate goal here is a ring fenced North American League based on the NFL without promotion or relegation.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Interesting. Still, I don't see how you could do that without at least *some* pro/rel. MLS + Liga MX is what - 50 teams? A closed two-division structure maybe? (Was Japan not a closed two-division structure until 3-4 years ago? How did they negotiate pro-rel to a new third tier?)

I personally would love playing Mexican teams all the time. Re-watched our CCL run a couple of weeks ago and my God the football was tremendous.

[ursus arctos]

Yes, a two division structure makes more sense, but the "big" Liga MX clubs would rather only play "big" MLS clubs.

I will have to look into Japan. There are other examples of fire breaks at various points in the pyramid.

[jefe]

We have a plan! Kinda.

Not for the resumption of the season, but a tournament, in Orlando, mostly at Disney. Everyone gets flown to Florida, training starts June 1, ramps up to June 22, when matches start. Probably a round robin, followed by a knockout and consolation bracket so everyone plays at least 5 matches within 4 to 5 weeks. They need to round up enough tests to test about 1000 people twice a week.

DC, Philly, Miami, Orlando and Seattle got government loans, but haven't decided whether or not to keep or return the money. DC sacked 5 people as well

[jefe]

[QUOTE=jefe;n2292838]We have a plan! Kinda.

Not for the resumption of the season, but a tournament, in Orlando, mostly at Disney. Everyone gets flown to Florida, training starts June 1, ramps up to June 22, when matches start. Probably a round robin, followed by a knockout and consolation bracket so everyone plays at least 5 matches within 4 to 5 weeks. They need to round up enough tests to test about 1000 people twice a week.[QUOTE]

If the players union signs off on it, MLS takes over Coronado Springs for 2 months.

The guy with the USL East Bay rights who wanted to build next to the Concord BART station has abandoned that plan and will look for another place to put his team.

[jefe]

And we have potential tournament details. 4 groups of teams, three groups with 6, one with 8, groups headed by Seattle, LAFC, Atlanta and "hosts" Orlando, with Nashville kicked over to the Eastern Conference for balance. 5 group games for everyone which count in the regular season standings, top two per group advance to a knockout. When the season resumes, in-conference play only, 9 teams per conference make the playoffs. The MLSPA has not signed off on this, having sent over a lengthy list of questions, which will be answered soon.

FC Cincinnati have hired Jaap Stam to coach them. And announced this on Twitter, with the picture of a person who was not Jaap Stam. Deceptive Getty picture caption.

Portland ME has some people looking into a USL1 expansion team.

One of Montreal's MF's went for a run to stay fit and broke his foot.

[Anton Gramscescu]

And we have potential tournament details. 4 groups of teams, three groups with 6, one with 8, groups headed by Seattle, LAFC, Atlanta and "hosts" Orlando.

The fuck? How do Atlanta get to head a group? They finished second in the East last year and lost the final to an evidently superior team which need not even be named.

[ursus arctos]

Nice to see you drive by in your Whaaahmbulance

[jefe]

The fuck? How do Atlanta get to head a group? They finished second in the East last year and lost the final to an evidently superior team which need not even be named.

Further details have ensued. The rest of each group would be filled via random draw, with one exception. Atlanta, TFC, LAFC, and Seattle are the top seeds, but Orlando gets to be a top seed as .the host. One of TFC or Atlanta will be a top seed via some sort of random draw (guess which number Don's thinking of?), the other is guaranteed to be the 2 seed in Orlando's group.

Tentatively, play to start on July 3rd, with games to be played at 9AM EST, 8 and 1030PM EST. Any of the knockouts tied at the end of 90 go straight to PK's. Gameday rosters of 23 as opposed to the usual 18.

[Anton Gramscescu]

I would still be pissed if I were NYCFC. I guess I am not supposed to care about them (Abu Dhabi, evilness incarnate, etc) but I really fucking hate Atlanta.

[jefe]

The NWSL plan is now official. Tournament in Salt Lake City, most of the expenses picked up by Dell Loy Hansen (he sent "one of his planes" to get the Reign and bring them back), opener and final on CBS, the rest on their streaming service. This replaces the regular season. NWSL players are in, but those who do not want to play will still be paid and keep insurance; USWNT players can opt in/out at their discretion.

Banc of California, after a management change, are buying themselves out of their stadium sponsorship for LAFC after this year for $20M

[jefe]

MLSPA has agreed to most of the proposals from the league, extended the CBA for a season, and accepted salary cuts and other concessions, and agreed on the Orlando tournament. Back to the league for approval

[jefe]

The NWSL did their draw for their tournament, everyone in one big group, playing 4 games. Washington got Portland, Sky Blue, North Carolina, and Houston, for instance.

MLS looks to be finally going to Disney, after the players stood up to one last management attempt to screw them with suddenly renegotiating the CBA terms in light of the coronavirus. June 24 to August 9 or so in Disney, it looks like, the whole tournament length will only be 35 days. And if an agreement hadn't been reached, Don Garber said today he would have locked out the players. Which has enraged some of them, with the whole losing medical coverage for them and their families during a pandemic possibility.

One of Dallas' players just tested positive, after Kasper I can't spell his last name of Philly had it and recovered.

[jefe]

Alexander Katai's wife said a bunch of racist things on insta about the protests, and it got her husband fired today by the Galaxy.

USL Championship has a plan to restart July 11th; League 1 on the 18th, League 2 already cancelled its season.

Kevin Durant bought into the Union, after trying to buy into DCU.

FC Dallas keeper Jesse Gonzales was suspended for alleged domestic violence.

[Hot Pepsi]

Union could use the investment

[jefe]

In Mexico, Monarcas de Morelia got moved to Mazatlan by TV Azteca, renamed Mazatlan FC, and had their colors changed to purple and white.

Luis Caicedo will miss the rest of the Revs season after meniscus surgery.

The USL has arranged a relief package for its 47 professional teams of $5.5M/roughly $120K each, which will go a decent way at that level.

The decision by US Soccer a couple years ago to force standing for the anthem looks likely to be overturned in a meeting tomorrow, and in the course of this we learned that the punishment for doing it twice was a 12 month suspension, it wasn't negotiated with the men's team and so "we were not concerned about it" per their spokesman, and the women's team want an apology to them and players of color, at whom it was (plus Megan Rapinoe) pretty clearly aimed.

Proposed new CONCACAF WCQ setup: 3 groups of 4, done by FIFA rankings. Everyone else (who can afford it) plays a knockout tourney. Winners go through; best second placed team plays the winner of the tourney; that winner plays CONMEBOL's 5th (?) for a WC slot.

[jefe]

Further details have ensued. The rest of each group would be filled via random draw, with one exception. Atlanta, TFC, LAFC, and Seattle are the top seeds, but Orlando gets to be a top seed as .the host. One of TFC or Atlanta will be a top seed via some sort of random draw (guess which number Don's thinking of?), the other is guaranteed to be the 2 seed in Orlando's group.

Tentatively, play to start on July 3rd, with games to be played at 9AM EST, 8 and 1030PM EST. Any of the knockouts tied at the end of 90 go straight to PK's. Gameday rosters of 23 as opposed to the usual 18.

It's a Small World Cup is finally official. And God, I wish it was named that in reality. It's going to be six groups, 5 of 4 teams, one (headed by Orlando) of 6. The other seeds are TFC, Atlanta, Seattle, LAFC, and RSL. Draw to fill out the groups tomorrow. Winner gets the CCL slot that was earmarked for the non-Shield conference winner. Group stage starts 7/8, 3 games per day at the times in my previous, final on 8/11. They will as far as possible keep East and West teams separated through the bracket. Top 2 and 4 best 3rd place teams move on. Everyone gets put up at the Swan and Dolphin, but no one gets to go to the parks. The regular season resumes after the tournament, details tbd.

Christen Press and Megan Rapinoe are pretty likely to not play in the NWSL tournament in Utah.

Andy Najar returns, but to LAFC.

Canada's women's coach resigns, to return to Denmark.

[jefe]

And we have groups:
A: Orlando, Miami, (those two are the opening game), NYCFC, Philly, Chicago, Nashville
B: Seattle, SJ, Dallas, Vancouver
C: Toronto, Montreal, NE, DC
D: RSL, SKC, Colorado, Minnesota
E: Atlanta, Cincinnati, RBNY, Columbus
F: LAFC, Houston, LAG, Portland.

[jefe]

MLS teams can now sell ads on their shorts, as a way of making up for revenue lost. Also, some of them are thinking about skipping the USL season for their reserves to save money.

One DCU player tested positive for the rona.

Mix Diskerud to Helsingborg

[jefe]

One Atlanta player tests positive for corona.

USL and the players association have a tentative deal for the 2nd division to start. Also, Eric Wynalda got fired as Vegas coach. He says he didn't want to take a 70% pay cut, other rumors say differently.

Dallas, Houston, Portland and Montreal each sign one or a couple homegrowns before the tournament.

NWSL seems pretty close to an expansion team in LA, in some sort of conjunction with an MLS team. LAFC says definitely not them; LAG neither confirms or denies. Utah's got a gorgeous new home jersey, and a new sponsor.

Vancouver fired their new 6 months old CEO while he was in Boston dealing with his father passing. Harry Shipp retired at 28, to go get an MBA at Northwestern.

[Hot Pepsi]

He was only six months old, so he probably didn’t have the experience or formal education necessary to do the job anyway.

[jefe]

Add an NWSL player and an Inter Miami player to the positive tests

[jefe]

Leandro Gonzales Pires returns from Tijuana, to Inter Miami.

[jefe]

Orlando Pride pull out of the NWSL Challenge Cup last minute after a bunch of their players were like, fuck it, let's go to a bar. 6 players and 4 staff all test positive, all asymptomatic. In somewhat less dumb news but still kinda dumb, Washington and North Carolina are splitting the costs of a charter and flying together.

When USL Championship starts, Louisville City gets to play at 50% fan capacity.

Austin broke ground on their training complex.