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Old Enough to Drink and Superdraft - MLS 2017

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    Good thing I was not at yesterday's game. Between our continued mediocre play and the abnormally high even for MLS degree of ref-fuckery (two utterly horseshit disallowed goals) I think I would have had a brain hemmorhage. Still, bring on Columbus.

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      Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
      I think promotion/relegation is too alien to North American sport to become established. OTOH the play-off system — as practised by MLS — is just plain stupid. A six game knock-out doesn't establish the best team in a twenty-two team league by any standard. The league has to go to a balanced schedule before the rest of the footballing universe takes it seriously.

      Most leagues in Europe aren't stale. Once you get below the perennial 2–6 top teams in the highest division they're mostly very competitive. I think a European Super-League by invitation is pretty much inevitable in the not too distant future. Depending on how it's set-up it could be the best thing for everyone.
      I agree with all of this. Soccer just doesn't lend itself to a North American-style playoff. Seven game series or even three-game series (and how would ties be handled?) would take too long and straight knock-out gives too much power to random luck.

      But without the playoffs, a lot more games late in the season would have nothing at stake.

      MLS Cup also ensures that there will be at least one potential showcase game for TV. The popularity of the Champions League and World Cup around the world shows that most fans like Cup Finals, but Americans especially wouldn't want a season to just "wind down" and then end without fanfare, potentially several weeks after the champion has been crowned. It would be especially depressing given the current unfortunate schedule which puts the end of the season in the fall when every other sport is going on.

      It's also somewhat arbitrary that fans and the media choose to treat the playoffs as the "real" championship rather than the Supporters Shield. Ideally, we should have both and both should be celebrated.

      If the schedules were balanced, the Supporters Shield would mean more, of course. I don't know if there's currently a lot of interest in a balanced schedule among the team and league leadership because of the travel/time-zones and desire to build up regional rivalries. But perhaps they could fix the latter issue by hyping and/or creating some extra-league cup competitions that promoted rivalries. Maybe do more regional brackets for the US Open. The travel thing doesn't seem like it ought to matter so much for games that are only played once a week. Maybe they could try to set the schedule so that, for example, DC could play San Jose, LAG and LA2 in successive weeks and just stay and train in California for that month. And vice versa.

      Another option would be to just have essentially two separate leagues, east and west, and then have their respective table-winners play a two-leg series or three two-leg series or something. But that would create a lot of games with no stakes late in the season.

      European football would be more entertaining to have the really rich teams go off and do their own thing on TV and in front of rich people while everyone else could play in competitive leagues where it really feels like anything can happen.

      Then again, Leicester.

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        A single aberrant result every quarter century is no indicator of competitiveness.

        I hear you so far as MLS goes. As it goes two conferences with an integrated balanced schedule, plus a final between the two Conf Champs to provide a "big day" might work. Better yet would be the addition of a proper knockout cup between MLS, NASL and USL clubs.

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          Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
          A single aberrant result every quarter century is no indicator of competitiveness.

          I hear you so far as MLS goes. As it goes two conferences with an integrated balanced schedule, plus a final between the two Conf Champs to provide a "big day" might work. Better yet would be the addition of a proper knockout cup between MLS, NASL and USL clubs.
          US Cup games tend not to draw very well - at least traditionally - because they’re only put on the schedule a few weeks in advance and are usually during the week. I don’t know if the teams want to add another domestic cup.

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            LA Galaxy's Robbie Rogers has retired.

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              Injuries? He's still quite young (30 or so).

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                Along with him, Chris Rolfe (officially, he's not played for 18 months from concussions) and Justin Mapp.

                Vancouver is canning David Ousted for making too much money, and told him so in June.

                NASL final: Sunday, San Francisco Deltas v New York Cosmos, on BeIN, tickets are a whopping $5.

                USL final: Monday, Louisville City v Swope Park Rangers, on ESPNU.

                LA cut a whole lot of their kids this week, and Philly declined options on 11 people, including Maurice Edu, Charlie Davies, Gooch, and Ilsinho.

                Remi Garde, of the Villa disaster, is Montreal's new head coach.
                Last edited by jefe; 10-11-2017, 07:27.

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                  LA cut a whole lot of their kids this week
                  Possibly we'll be seeing some of those playing for the LV Lights, next season.

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                    Originally posted by jefe View Post
                    Along with him, Chris Rolfe (officially, he's not played for 18 months from concussions) and Justin Mapp.

                    LA cut a whole lot of their kids this week, and Philly declined options on 11 people, including Maurice Edu, Charlie Davies, Gooch, and Ilsinho.
                    Bloody hell, in a couple more years the only player I'll know in MLS will be Wayne Rooney.

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                      Please don't say that. Dave Kasper's already tried.

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                        Deltas 2-0 Cosmos, in a a game that was boring, stupid, and violent. but a sellout.
                        Louisville 1-0 Swope Park Rangers
                        The Camp Cupcake friendly will be againat Bosnia, January 28th

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                          FC Cincinnati has a plan to build a stadium in the Oakley area (near where my parents grew up) and say it's 100% privately funded, except they want the county to chip in for infrastructure via TIF. By recent Cincinnati standards, that's a great deal.

                          They might also try to make a deal with Northern Kentucky. If it's by the river, that would still be an ok location, but not nearly as good as Oakley and there's something off-putting about having to go to another state to see your city's team. Would be closer to the airport, though.

                          This is all contingent, probably, on MLS giving Cincinnati the franchise. But if either of those stadium deals can be had, they ought to. The alternatives of Nashville and Sacramento are no better, especially if Columbus moves to Austin. And the Lindners are Cincinnati's "first family." They aren't going to move and they have money and contacts. The USL team as it is draws very well.

                          Unfortunately, Hamilton County wants to convince FCC to play at Brown Stadium and share with the Bengals and are going to maybe offer some money to fix it up for soccer. Apparently, it was already designed to host soccer as part of Cincinnati's quixotic quest for the Olympics or a World Cup match. That works in Seattle and Atlanta, I guess, but those were markets MLS really coveted. I don't think MLS will look favorably upon that when comparing Cincinnati to other smaller market options.

                          I don't really understand why they can't just stay at Nippert. Playing on the campus of UC puts them in a good location for the kinds of young and/or affluent fans they want. But something about the revenue sharing or whatever. For reasons I don't understand, every team in every sport needs its own facility.


                          http://cin.ci/2ihlHLV

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                            The major sticking point on facility sharing right now is usually revenue from premium seating and luxury boxes (as well as naming rights) which are among the highest margin items for owners.

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                              There was a city council meeting in Austin last week, formally to permit said council to start looking for stadium sites, at which everything was finally laid bare.
                              In Columbus, Precourt wants a stadium built for him. In Austin, his rep promised no public money would be spent.
                              He approached Austin, not the other way around.
                              And worst of all, the rep was quoted as saying that he saw the expansion list and prices being quoted for an expansion team, and bought the Crew for the sole purpose of moving them as a way of cutting the expansion line to get a team in Austin.

                              New Revs coach is Brad Friedel.

                              Atlanta is going to have their own USL team in 2018 and play at the Gwinnett Braves stadium.
                              Vegas USL's coach is going to be the ex-Chivas and pleasantly crazy manager, Chelis.
                              Bob Lilley has left Rochester to be Pittsburgh Riverhounds coach. Rhinos have a press conference tomorrow about the state of the franchise, about which the best guess is take a year off and play in USL D3 in 2019.
                              Memphis officially gets a team in 2019.
                              Harrisburg City Islanders may be getting rebranded as Penn FC.

                              Expansion Draft is 12/12, at which LAFC gets to pick a grand total of 5 players, each team can only lose 1.
                              Last edited by jefe; 15-11-2017, 04:54.

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                                Another wrinkle in the Crew to Austin plan is that one of the Circuit of the Americas (a Formula 1 racetrack) owners (Bobby Epstein, I think) says he is now having trouble attracting sponsors, players, and coaches for his planned Austin USL team, which was supposed to begin playing in 2019, because of Precourt's plans to move an MLS club here. The USL team was going to play at a to-be-built 5,000-seat stadium at the CotA site, but now that the mayor and city council are talking about leasing land near downtown to Precourt to build a stadium, the USL ownership group is understandably asking why they might not be able to compete for such a lease, too. (The CotA track is well southeast of downtown and not near much of interest. Definitely not a place you could walk to a match from a nearby bar.)

                                Wouldn't be surprised if both clubs fail to become a reality here, to be honest.

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                                  Harrisburg City Islanders are renaming themselves Penn FC

                                  https://www.uslsoccer.com/news_artic...rer_id=2333971

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                                    Sporting KC waffled long enough about buying FC KC that Real Salt Lake bought and moved them instead for next NWSL season.

                                    Rochester Rhinos press conference: either we raise 1.3 million by the end of the month or we can't play in 2018. As a sign of what they're up against, all they wanted for the shirt sponsorship this past year was $75K, and had no takers.

                                    There are rumors of a USSF-NASL settlement floating around that would give the NASL 3 more years to get their shit together.

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                                      TFC appeal of Altidore's red card failed, as it should have been clear from the get-go that it would.

                                      That *should* mean we go to the 3-4-2-1 system with Ricketts up front. However, since the Impact disaster in September Vanney has preferred 4 at the back which I think will get us murdered. Will be happy if we end up only one goal down coming out of Columbus, frankly.

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                                        Vlatko Andonovski to coach Seattle Reign.
                                        Caleb Porter resigns as Timbers manager.

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                                          The FCKC mess is finally cleared up. NWSL bought the team back from its owner, having already warned them several times about not meeting standards, and sold it to RSL. All the players contacts and suchlike were handed over to the "expansion" team, and they get 1st pick in the draft.

                                          LAFC signed an Egyptian international left back on loan.

                                          A developer in Chicago that's building a complex on the river including a 20,000 seat stadium has gotten himself a USL expansion team in 2020 to put in it. Same guy is also chasing Amazon's new headquarters for the same area.

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                                            Crew 0 - TFC 0
                                            Houston 0 - The Fucking Sounders 2

                                            Rematch of last year's final looking likely. Has that ever happened before? Same 2 finalists two years in a row?

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                                              2006 and 2007 - Houston v New England
                                              2011 and 2012 - Los Angeles v Houston

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                                                Seasons I swtiched off in August.

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                                                  FC Edmonton withdraws from NASL, ceases professional operations.

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                                                    Laura Harvey, formerly of Seattle Reign, is the RSL women's head coach. And they're over 2K season tickets already.

                                                    Attn gero-LV Lights are hosting DC, Montreal, and Vancouver in friendlies in February.

                                                    Someone at MLS HQ had the balls to tell the Columbus people trying to keep the Crew that if/when they leave, you can apply for an expansion team if you want. $5M deposit, same as everyone else.

                                                    Everyone's going through and exercising options/dumping people today and tomorrow.

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