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

[Anton Gramscescu]

MLS Tournament Schedule is out. Toronto will play Seattle on August 11th.

[jefe]

Miami signs Brek Shea, Toronto re-signs Marky Delgado and Richie Laryea, and New England re-signs Andrew Farrell, and USL League One agrees terms to start their season. The USL Championship will have a 16 game season, with the few games played before sutdown counting, 35 teams split across 8 geographical divisions.

Colorado had another positive test; Dallas a few.

Out of the NWSL tournament are Megan Rapinoe. Christen Press, Tobin Heath, Adrianna Franch, Carli Lloyd and Mallory Pugh (the last 3 injured), plus everyone from Orlando of course. Whose tests may be turning out to have been false positives, since the second round was all negative.

Sky Blue also have a a gorgeous new shirt, and the Red Stars have a supermarket chain as shirt sponsor. Washington's new shirt sponsor is CVS.

[Cal Alamein]

It takes a lower league (4th?) team to have the guts to ditch the National Anthem...and replace w/ Okemah-born Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land.

https://tulsaathletic.com/2020/06/ju...press-release/


NM United will play matches in an empty stadium.

[jefe]

A different 4th division team is Fort Worth is being sponsored by the local police union.

[elguapo4]

It takes a lower league (4th?) team to have the guts to ditch the National Anthem...and replace w/ Okemah-born Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land.

https://tulsaathletic.com/2020/06/ju...press-release/


NM United will play matches in an empty stadium.

Very brave and praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the reaction.

[jefe]

Frank Yallop is Wynalda's replacement at LV Lights. And, any trip under 500 miles in the USL Championship has to be made by bus. They intend for everyone to play a balanced home/away schedule, but if necessary, the schedules can be unbalanced. Vegas, NM, & Miami will definitely not have fans, possibly RSL reserves as well. 9 teams intend to, some of them season ticket holders only; the rest are tbd, including all the MLS2 teams.

I didn't realize til now, but there actually was one week 2 match played in USL. When the quarantine shut everything down, San Diego had already made it to Tacoma, so they said screw it and played behind closed doors.

The first few teams are at WDW; the last few won't get there til next weekend.

Identical 2-1 results in the NWSL tourney to start, NC over Portland and Washington over Chicago.

[Hot Pepsi]

Very brave and praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the reaction.

I believe there’s at least one or two colleges that don’t do the anthem at their sports, but they are small and Quaker. But I expect that will catch on at places like that and maybe work it’s way up.

[ursus arctos]

Supporting just that view, Haverford doesn't use it at cricket (or at least they didn't last time I checked).

We never used it at rowing regattas, either, though that is obviously niche. I think we played both the US and Canadian anthems at ice hockey, which made sense given the Canada-centric nature of the team back then.

[Hot Pepsi]

Cornell does that too, and I met one of those “the way Cornell does it is the only right way to do it” types who was incensed that Penn State doesn’t play both (unless the opponent is from Canada.) Penn State, for example, has as about as many players from Europe as it does from Canada. Are we going to play four or five anthems before the game can start?

Better to have none, really.

[jefe]

There's a 2 day transfer window to get your free agents under contract before the tournament, like Andy Najar and Collen Warner, who just turned up in Colorado, but if you sign a DP or pay for someone with allocation dollars, like Leandro Gonzales Pires in Miami, they *aren't* eligible for the tourney. No trades either. Second window opens after the final.

Jurgen Damm signs for Atlanta, Josh Sims leaves RBNY to return to Southampton, Dallas is up to 6 positive tests, and Juninho retired from the Galaxy and jointed their academy coaching staff. Shalrie Joseph is a youth team coach for the Revs now, too.

The main Charlotte Independence owner likes to hashtag tweets with Soros and say other dumb shit online, so a growing number of their fans want him gone.

We have a Kwadwo Poku sighting, in Gibraltar.

[jefe]

Dallas is up to 9 players and a coach testing positive, and Columbus has one, since they got to WDW, as well.

Jonathan Dos Santos will miss the tourney for a hernia operation.

USL Championship revised schedule is out; Louisville debuts their new stadium 7/12 on ESPN2 against Pittsburgh.

As an example, I just went to look at Loudoun's schedule, who are in one of the wonky 5 team groups. In their group, they have 3 v RBNY2, 3 (one played in march) v. Philly2, 3 v. Pittsburgh, and 4 (*all* away for some reason) against Hartford. Home v. Louisville and NC and at Charleston completes the 16 game schedule. New Mexico is 4 v their groupmates, 1X v Austin (their march game), OKC, Phoenix, and RGV.

[jefe]

Dallas's first game of the tourney is postponed after yet another positive test.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Is this tournament actually going to happen? Lotta rumours about player revolts.

[jefe]

I think so. It's almost too late to stop now, and the vast majority of the positives are in a timeframe where the virus was acquired before entering the proverbial bubble at WDW.

[jefe]

And then there were 25. Dallas pulls out from too many positives.

[Hot Pepsi]

25 is better than zero, I suppose.


Field of Schemes reports, based on Miami Herald report, that Inter Miami's plans for a stadium are bogged down and may end up playing in For Lauderdale "indefinitely." Isn't that what ultimately ruined Miami Fusion?

[jefe]

More Ken Horowitz not having nearly enough money to play in that particular sandbox. He ran out of cash real quick. Ft. Lauderdale didn't help too

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, well. This club has more money, I think. But the Fort Lauderdale location doesn't seem to be what the fans there want.

[jefe]

Someone somewhere decided to name Orlando v Miami the Everglades Cup. Awww.

Vancouver is missing 5 people for the tourney, including Lucas Cavallini.

FC Cincy's big money forward is out for a couple weeks.

Austin signed their first player, a Paraguayan, and are being linked with Vincent Janssen, currently with Rayados in Liga MX.

We're down to one game tomorrow, with Nashville v. Chicago postponed due to all of Nashville's positive tests. DCU v. TOR is pushed back 2 days to 7/12 since Toronto just got there,

[jefe]

Charlotte makes their first signing, newly relegated Racing Santander's captain. They'll loan him out til they start.

Matt Polster returns from Rangers bench, to New England.

Toronto is pulling their reserves out of USL1 for the year.

The NWSL expansion team in Louisville announced their new name: Racing Louisville FC, playing in lavender.

[jefe]

Per Don Garber at halftime, decision will be made overnight whether to pull Nashville from the tourney.

[Sam]

Is this thing really called the MLS Is Back Cup, or is that a joke name my Sofascore app gave it?

[jefe]

Is this thing really called the MLS Is Back Cup, or is that a joke name my Sofascore app gave it?

It is, and they're quite proud of it, even. I still think it should have been negotiated to be the It's a Small World Cup.

There was also a suggestion to start referring to that main field used last night as the Estadio Mouseteca, of which I thoroughly approve.

Nashville is gone; Chicago moves into their group, and we have now a standard 6 groups of 4 to produce 16 teams set up.

Union 1-0 Pigeons this morning.

[ursus arctos]

I was struck by the fact that the scoreboards at the Mouseteca feature "Team 1" vs "Team 2"

[jefe]

It's a very regionalstatetravelu-1281761726871263 feel on those fields, with that scoreboard setup especially.