Old Enough to Drink and Superdraft - MLS 2017

[jefe]

Don Garber, amazingly, is backing the owner. When he purchased the Crew, there was a clause that required him to keep the team in Columbus for 10 years. Except for a move to Austin. He also turned down offers from locals to buy the team from him at market price. And it also means that if the move happens, San Antonio's expansion chances are dead.

Vancouver already stated that they're killing off Whitecaps 2 and moving to affiliate with the expansion USL team in Fresno that Frank Yallop's running. This, plus not wanting to fork out for stadia up to USSF's second division standards, appears to be causing a few other teams to get rid of their reserves. Any or all of Sounders 2, Bethlehem Steet, Swope Park Rangers, and OC B.

Jack Harrison got his red card from Saturday rescinded, and Brad Evans is out for the rest of the season.

[Hot Pepsi]

Bethlehem plays at Lehigh's football field. 16,000 seats with real grass. What's the problem?

[Renart]

Garber sees dollar signs, I'm sure. Austin is booming, and has been for a while. (Expect the next crash right about when Atlético Austin or whatever they end up calling it play their first match.)

[jefe]

One of the preregistered names actually is Austin Athletic.

Brian Carroll is retiring after Sunday.

San Diego's NASL expansion team has named itself. San Diego 1904 FC. Because, as we all know, the Germans founded San Diego in 1904.....

[Hot Pepsi]

It means “a whale’s vagina.”

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh wow. You were serious. They are naming the club for an Anchorman reference.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...htmlstory.html

[imp]

Brian Carroll is retiring after Sunday.

Christ, he's still playing? I once did a one-on-one Q&A with him when he was having a brief purple patch with DC. Even by the standards of clean-cut American soccer players he was crushingly dull - pretty much talked the way he played.

[jefe]

Christ, he's still playing? I once did a one-on-one Q&A with him when he was having a brief purple patch with DC. Even by the standards of clean-cut American soccer players he was crushingly dull - pretty much talked the way he played.

Yep. He's been doing nothing much of consequence for Philly for the past few years.

Bill Hamid is gone after Sunday, out of contact/no fee, to Midtjelland in Denmark. Way to go, front office.

[imp]

Hamid was linked with Eintracht last week, I think I read somewhere. Unless he's really improved, I'm glad that turned out to be false.

[jefe]

Last call at RFK at 4PM tomorrow.

David Bingham's leaving San Jose.

The NASL says they have letters of intent from 7 teams in the NPSL to join the league in 2018, which with their current expansion and the almost guaranteed loss of San Francisco (who moved stadia for a game this week, didn't tell anyone, and had less than 100 people show up and are just giving away their merchandise) and quite possibly North Carolina (to USL) and Edmonton (to the CPL) would have them at 17 teams for next year. This would be accomplished by having 3 current owners each help fund 2 of the ascending teams next year.

Puerto Rico, obviously, are playing all their remaining home games on the mainland.

eta: USL playoffs are going on right now, and KC2-Phoenix got rained out halfway through the game. Second half resumes tomorrow afternoon.

Someone in Reno threw something at OKC players and hit one, drawing blood.

And god help us all, Eric Wynalda is running for the presidency of the USSF.

Barcelona is going to build another youth academy, on Long Island.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Portland's turf always looks like a particularly moth-eaten 70s shag rug. Caps missing Fredy Montero. Nosa gets his debut.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Caps go ahead with a patented Waston header.

Timbers tie two minutes later from Liam Ridgewell.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mattocks (wouldn't you know it) gives Portland the lead after a magnificent clusterfuck by the Caps defence. 2–1 at the beginning of the second half.

[Amor de Cosmos]

And 2–1 it stays. We're just not as good as Portland (or Seattle.) Yet.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Toronto draw 2-2 in Atlanta. I think we'd beat them over 2 legs if we have to. That said, I hope we don't meet them again, because they're the most dangerous team I've seen this year.

(And what an atmosphere in that stadium! Who'd have thought?)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah. The team of the future most likely.

The Caps get SJ at home on Wednesday. They're on a high, we're not. The Southsiders are calling for Robinson's head, which would be trés dumb in my opinion.

[Anton Gramscescu]

The one big question in TFC-land is why the hell Vanney is keeping Hagglund out of the side. Our good run last year started when Hagglund was inserted in the lineup and today it seemed like he switched formation to a 4-4-2 purposely to keep him out. It's worrying. Our best three at the back is Hagglund-Mavinga-Moor and we haven;t seen that trio since July or so.

[Renart]

One of the preregistered names actually is Austin Athletic.

Some wag on Twitter suggested "Austin Villa".

[Renart]

You're right AdC, the Timbers really need to get real grass for their stadium. Their turf always makes me think of a childhood friend's "rec room" in the seventies. There should be an air hockey table at one end.

The Pacific Northwest is one of the few regions of the country you can have lush, beautiful lawn year-round without much irrigation, so it's very weird to me that Portland (and Seattle and Vancouver) don't have the real thing. Maybe there's some drainage or other architectural issue that prevents it? Or is it just too costly to pay groundskeepers?

[jefe]

IIRC, the water table is about 3 feet under the pitch in Portland, or some other much too close number.

Mauro Biello and his entire staff fired in Montreal to the surprise of no one.

Mike Petke gets a 3 year extension from RSL.

[Amor de Cosmos]

BC Place is basically an indoor stadium with a sparingly used retractable roof. Both it and CenturyLink are also multi-use facilities, so I guess turf is more practical. Several visiting players have refused to play on either.

[Renart]

Interesting interview with Darren Eales, president of Atlanta United, by Roger Bennett of Men in Blazers, about building the club. Eales said they decided from the beginning to go after soccer fans rather than try to attract the more casual might-be-interested people American soccer clubs usually go for, and have had great success with that so far. Their market research also found almost no overlap between Atlanta Falcons fans and Atlanta United fans (around 4-5%). Neither are particularly surprising to me, but I always find it interesting when MLS or USL clubs discover that what works for soccer in the rest of the world works here, too, and that it's not actually necessary to carve out an American exceptionalism.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Caps lead Quakes 1–0 at HT in playoff. From a set play, which is definitely our strength. Decent crowd only the bottom tier open but looks full, so 20,000ish. I'd feel more confident if Vancouver wouldn't persist in playing the ball from their own eighteen yard box into the feet of the opposition, this is definitely our weakness.

2–0 Caps from another beautiful free kick.

3–0 from multiple ricochets after a corner. Seattle H&A coming up.

5–0 Two goals in two minutes by sub Nicolas Mezquida.

FT. Second half was a good old-fashioned ass-kicking. It's been awhile since I saw one of those in these parts.

[Hot Pepsi]

“Interesting interview with Darren Eales, president of Atlanta United, by Roger Bennett of Men in Blazers, about building the club. Eales said they decided from the beginning to go after soccer fans rather than try to attract the more casual might-be-interested people American soccer clubs usually go for, and have had great success with that so far. Their market research also found almost no overlap between Atlanta Falcons fans and Atlanta United fans (around 4-5%). Neither are particularly surprising to me, but I always find it interesting when MLS or USL clubs discover that what works for soccer in the rest of the world works here, too, and that it's not actually necessary to carve out an American exceptionalism.“


That makes more sense now than it did 20 years ago, though.

And other than the game itself “what works around the world” isn’t at all homogenous. So the US shouldn’t feel bad about being different because everywhere is different.

[Renart]

I'm not trying to make the US feel bad, but most of the MLS attempts to be different for Americans have been bad ones. And focusing on actual soccer fans rather than casual suburbanites, and ignoring American football, do work the world round, and will work here, I reckon.

Anyway, it's an interesting interview, you should listen.