Crew TSII: Trialists on Trial; Cinderella Over Columbus*

The Columbus Dispatch, which really seems to have upped its coverage from just one year ago (way to go, whomever made that happen), posted something about a pair of German trialists for the Columbus Crew: Lars Ricken and Roman Friedli.  So, I’ve already confessed to some dubiousness regarding Ricken; as for Friedli, well, it depends on one’s opinion of the – let’s see – Swiss first division.  On the upside, neither player is being considered as designated players.  Given that, I can’t see the harm in a try-out.

* A Bob Hunter column got the old Cinderella song “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)” stuck in my head (and why is “till it’s gone” in parentheses?  Tom Keifer doesn’t sing it as an aside…).  The Columbus area columnist is concerned that the club’s failure to land a local owner could wind up sending it to one of city-suitors for a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise.  St. Louis, Vancouver B.C., Miami, Portland….yeah, it’s something to think about…

MLS Daily Sweeper, 12.13: A Contribution to MLS Underground’s New Direction; Stadiums; Collapsed Rumors; Parsed Trades

– For those who haven’t seen it already, MLS Underground is under new management and, with that, is headed off in a new direction.  And this isn’t so much a sharp right-hand turn as it’s a three-to-four-point turn with an e-brake slide.  Rather than deal in its former insider-dish/rumor-hawking stuff (and I’m still baffled by the commenter to the post who said “there are enough rumor blogs out there…says who?), MLSU is changing its focus to supporters’ groups, whether it’s history, circulating their songs, or making them go national.  It’s a cool idea.  So cool that it triggered something I was thinking about, maybe last night, maybe another night…or maybe I just dreamed it.

That can be found in the comment left by manlyferry – who happens to be me, though I’m leaning toward a change in handle (not yet affected): the basic idea – and I give this with my blessing to anyone who can get their shit together and get it off the ground before I can get my shit together and get it off the ground (should give you, oh, a decade or three; and that assumes it’s even possible, or even desirable) – is to build up a database on places for visiting fans, even away fans, to stay as they visit MLS and, what the hell, USL-1 cities.  These should be cheap options at most, free at best – e.g. places with people who are willing to put up other people (he writes, knowing he has no space of his own); but a simple guide to cheap hotels, contacts in the city to help people with getting around, etc.

The idea is to facilitate, say, summer tours for people wanting to follow MLS teams.  As I said in the comment, it’s like following the Grateful Dead, but without all the shitty music…yeah, you’d lose the drugs, but, on the upside, you get to keep your kidneys.  Pie in the sky?  Quite probably.  But a fella can dream, can’t he?

At any rate, cool concept for MLS Underground and tip of the hat to SF of The Offside Rules for making it happen.

MLS Seattle sparks talk of MLS Philly

Funding Progressing Slowly                    MLS Narrows the Field

Couple things we find out from these articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Should know by the end of the year whether or not the stadium will in fact be built. In turn, we will know if MLS Philly will go through.

MLS Philly will most likely play in a temporary venue (like my second home of Franklin Field) until the completion of the stadium in 2010.

Main concerns slowing up the process: Does this negatively impact the taxpayers? Where is the real benefit to Chester’s residents – “Chester needs supermarkets, rec centers, and schools before it needs a stadium”

Chance that Philly will be announced tomorrow as the next franchise in Don Garber’s Annual State of the League Address? – Slim to none.

Good news? – The Senate Appropriations Committee authorized spending $45 million on the Chester Waterfront stadium and other developments.

Catch? – That doesn’t mean it WILL be spent for that, but it’s a step closer.

It all comes down to the state of Pennsylvania and whether they share the passion that Governor Ed Rendell, former Chester mayor Domenic Pileggi, the Sons of Ben, and the who MLS Philly investor group share. Call it FC Delco for all is care, just please give our Philadelphians our team.

Where Seattle Meets Barcelona

Everyone is flagging the Seattle MLS announcement, so, seeing as you’ve all seen/heard this before, I thought I’d play up the aspect that most appeals to me: the fan ownership thing, in which fans buy shares of the club. Drew Carey handled the announcement and, assuming he’s playing it straight (and we wouldn’t he?), fans who own a chunk of the club get to vote fer or agin’ the team president. That’s kinda neat, as I see it. More significantly, that kind of talk flies like one of those birds that migrates super-fucking-far on annual basis – e.g. very, very well indeed – in the Pacific Northwest. We pitch “progressive tents” at every opportunity in this neck of the woods.

Anyway, you can find a video clip of the announcement on GOALSeattle.com.

One last thing: somewhere during Drew Carey’s entrance, someone in the background blurts out “Say Portland sucks,” which kind of makes me titter given my comment on what I view as an entirely shared progressive culture in both cities. Having lived in both cities for 5+ years, I don’t see a whole lot separating them generally, which may explain the bitterness of the rivalry (certainly much more so than the half-silly, yet frequent references to a “rivalry that goes back to NASL days.” Yeah, it did…but with a 20-freakin’-year hiatus; just admit the hate is natural and stop trying to dress it up). At any rate, the Timbers Blog responds in kind…at least with the graphic that tops his post.

I can’t pretend I’m part of that scrum, of course. Hell, I may be living in Seattle in a couple months for reasons that none of you (should) care about (no, it’s not because an MLS team set down roots there; 1) I’m still holding out hope for a Portland team; 2) do you seriously think a married father of two can make his wife move for that?). In any case, I pack my weird brand of soccer whorishness wherever I go.

Whoops. One last, last thing: is it true, as reported by MLS Rumors, that Seattle’s MLS team won’t be the Sounders? Was this mentioned at the announcement? If so, how do Seattle fans feel about this one?

Daily Sweeper, 11.9: It’s Gullit, but Is It Worth It?; More About Last Night…and a little benign evil

“The essential quality for an MLS coach is making due – or, god forbid – excelling under the restrictions handed down from MLS HQ. As Walsh points out, the foreign coaches currently coming up in these searches worked for clubs who had seriously deep benches and who, given so much as the perception of need, could buy nearly any player they wanted. The question in MLS isn’t how well you can make a team perform with a World First XI, but how well you can perform when Eddie Gaven looks like your best offensive threat and Alejandro Moreno constitutes a serious upgrade.”

Some smart guy wrote that…well, it was me, actually, and just a couple days ago. And that makes me wonder why I was so wishy-washy-wait-and-see about the Los Angeles Galaxy’s decision to sign Dutch great Ruud Gullit as head coach in yesterday’s Daily Sweeper. If you want the above argument fleshed-out and improved upon, check out Andrea Canales’ piece on the Gullit “gire” (sorry) for ESPN. Getting back to me, the more I think about this, the more I think Gullit will struggle with the Galaxy. This isn’t a lonely position. Soccer By Ives expects to be underwhelmed, while some penpal of Sideline Views’ Andrea Canales’ predicts a one-year-and-out tenure before Gullit freaks out on the Galaxy’s unique brand of madness (it can only be unique when it’s centered on one man). Whether it was what I read or thinking about it a little more, put me down as predicting nothing spectacular. It’s nothing against Gullit. I followed the EPL pretty closely back when he coached Chelsea, then Newcastle, and that’s about what he got there.

For the record, I’m going to resist acting on the urge I had to change every “h” in this post to a “g.” Crap, that’d be annoying.

– Seeing as I’ve already said my piece on the subject, I thought I’d pass on a couple things about last night’s game. First, Blue Blooded Journo wrote up a happy thank you to the New England Revolution and his fellow fans and let me pass on my congratulations to him and everyone else from the West Coast posse, malnourished and feeble as it is; let’s just say, when the umbilicus attaching you to a team (can I call them “Mom”?) gets a little longer, the intensity wanes a bit. Being there matters, where the noise and atmosphere wrap you right up in the frenzy; ditto for the shared pain of the losses. Coming from the other side, Luis Arroyave turned his Red Card blog over to the fans (in the comments at least) for Fire Nation’s thoughts on last night. To attach a word to it: scathing.

– GOALSeattle.com announced that a local pub called The George & Dragon will host some kind of MLS-related announcement next Monday. You can find details on the occasion in the post, but what you won’t find is this: prior to being the George & Dragon Pub, the same building was called The Midget Tavern, a place where half the trips to the (tiny) bathroom involved navigating around dudes either selling or snorting blow. My how times and places change…still, looking forward to the announcement.

– Bob Bradley announced the roster for the South Africa friendly. Rah, rah. Maybe I’ll get caught up next week. Now…not so much.

Turning, now, to the benign evil….

MLS: Philly Peeking Over the Crest?

Answer: yes, if one anonymous tipster is reading several signs correctly.  To flag some just-behind-the-scenes details to my colleague’s Philly expansion post below:

“-reportedly, Gov. Rendell has already agreed to the Philly MLS deal. He is just waiting for the Senate/House to pass the bill to sign it.”
“-The senate majority leader, former Chester city mayor, is a champion of the Chester MLS stadium project. He is fully behind it.”
“-The House appropriations chair is also 100% behind it.”
“-Both the chair and the majority leader are from 2 different parties, but completely agree this is a good project”

So, will it be the Emerald City (Seattle) and the City of Brotherly Love?

DS, 10.18: Cooling PDX Dreams?; LA v. RBNY TONITE (+ Cobi); Solo’s Apology; Odds ‘n’ Ends

– The middle section of Ian Plenderleith’s MLS News Review for USSoccerplayas.com revisits the MLS-to-Portland issue and, to be direct about it, brings out the wet blanket. I’m not criticizing – the man is entitled to his opinion and, odds are, he’s not engorged with soccer-lust for an MLS team in his hometown – but I read what looks like the same article from my local paper and came away with a glass-half-full vibe – though the emphasis belongs on the “half” part. And, in his defense, Plenderleith flagged the biggest trick – e.g. the money invovled in upgrading PGE Park, something that will be particularly hard to sell in terms of public revenues given that the city undertook renovations on the facility not all that long ago.

– As we all know – and I’m not talking about The Ankle – the LA Galaxy continues clawing out of its grave tonight when they take on a Red Bull New York side that should be more interested in going into the playoffs healthy than in keeping LA out. Previews abound, but I liked what I got from Goal.com and Martin Rogers’ preview for Yahoo! Sports as much as any of them; the passage where Rogers calls LA coach Frank Yallop “a good and decent man” particularly caught my eye…though I can’t say why.

Speaking of LA, I came across a weird passage in Andrea Canales piece for USSoccerplayas.com on LA’s (evil-infused) resurrection. Here’s that:

“’All along I’ve said in this league you need a steady team,’ said coach Frank Yallop, who maintained that he never lost faith in his players. Instead, he blamed injuries and a difficult schedule for the team’s struggles”

Only after reading that did it occur to me that LA’s (wicked, Faustian) resurrection actually coincided with said difficult schedule…so, earlier in the year then, it must have been the injuries….or they just sucked…right?

– Speaking of LA, there’s something fishy about Cobi Jones retirement – specifically, the occasional rumors that it’s not going to happen. But then you read something like this on the front “page” of Sports Illustrated’s site:

“The Galaxy are set to honor retiring star Cobi Jones on Thursday night…”

I mean, if they honor him, he has to retire…doesn’t he?

– I’ve read a lot of MLS regular-season end-game analyses lately. Hell, I’ve even written a few (well, loose interpretations of them, anyway). But I think Red Bull Rising turned in one of the best end-game posts so far.

– Speaking of great contributions to the collective mind, it’s hard to top Dan Loney’s reaction to the public apology from U.S. Women’s ‘keeper Hope Solo, which was posted on U.S. Soccer’s site.

– Finally, 3rd Degree posted one of those items for which I’m a real sucker: FC Dallas’ All-Time Top 10 Players. Just seeing Ariel Graziani’s name reminded me why I developed that soft spot for the old Dallas Burn…and he doesn’t even mention Alain Sutter (who, for the record, hardly meets the criteria for that Top 10 list).

MLS Expansion: Double-Down on PAC NW & Beyond

My local paper reports this morning that Major League Soccer’s (MLS) top officials are again eyeing the Rose City’s potential as an expansion market. While nothing definitive appears in the article- for instance, no talk of negotiations, advanced or otherwise – it’s easy to disregard this as a simple means of keeping the lines of communication open. Indeed, the official line on the visit boils down to providing MLS Commish Don Garber with a chance “to see [PGE Park] in ‘game condition’ for a significant event.”

Reality aside, however, just seeing the reefer to the headline on the top of The Oregonian’s sports section set some wheels to spinning in my head – and those along somewhat urgent lines. Between Merritt Paulson’s (perhaps throw-away) figure on what it would cost to get the Portland Timbers’ PGE Park up to MLS standards and with a Seattle team to MLS looking powerfully firm for a rumor, it occurs to me that the future is now for Portland getting an MLS team.

Let’s separate this to make it prominent: Portland should get a Major League Soccer franchise in the same round of expansion that takes in Seattle, which looks to be 2009.

Clear self-interest aside (self-interest? where!?), a couple things recommend getting the Pacific Northwest “toe” in the national footprint in place all at once. To begin, if Seattle plays in one league and Portland in another, the risk of the rivalry between them losing its bite grows with each year – e.g. Seattle gets fixated on, say, San Jose, while Portland starts worrying about Vancouver’s Whitecaps. Pull both teams into the league at once and – Whammo! – enjoy the eye-gouging basement brawl between two expansion teams already entangled in regional rivalry. Second, the simultaneous move not only folds the Pacific Northwest region into league with a bang, it essentially wraps up the Western coast footprint. After Portland, Seattle and San Jose, where else does MLS go in a 18, or even 20, team league?

The last piece provides a nice segue into the larger question of expansion: where does MLS go to get its 18 teams by 2012?

DS, 10.11: Chivas Notes; Single Table Rumors; It’s Gotta Be St. Louie + More

There’s so much good stuff out there today…let’s just say I had to cut more than I wanted up to and including those Seattle announcement rumors (crap…there it is; for the record, I don’t buy them). Moving on…

– A half-mysterious injury to Maykel Galindo makes for one of the less-reported items coming out of the Chivas USA camp. As much as that impacts tonight’s game against FC Dallas (great preview), there’s the longer term to consider – as in what this does to Chivas’ MLS Cup chances.

– “Operation: Improve MLS” gets a quantity of suggestions equal to or, possibly, exceeding the number to fans of the league. Believe me when I say I’m not making fun; I come up with an idea per day on my own. But the hoariest of these tinkerings got new life today when the ever-entertaining MLS Rumors floated another one about MLS going to a single table in 2008. It occurs to me now that I should one day track MLS Rumors’ record against reality, but for now, I’m just going to point readers to a semi-formal single table v. status quo poll set up by the Toronto FC Offside. Let’s just say I surprised myself with my answer:

“I never thought I’d write (or say) this, but I’m going with the playoffs. I think it was Craig who helped me see the light. At the same time, I’d shrink Craig’s playoff pool, even as I have to admit that in a 20-team league, eight teams making the playoffs wouldn’t look f-ing ridiculous as it does with 13 teams. Fundamentally, though, I like how baseball, the most patriotic of all American sports, limits the post-season party to a few teams. I’d go with a four-team post-season, two from each conference. We’re looking for the best of the best, right? “

Inexplicably absent from all that is the central reason for sticking with the status quo: the U.S. is f-ing big y’all; conferences make sense given that reality. Whatever you think, All y’all should head over to join the fun.

– In one of my favorite pieces of the day, Bill Urban wrote up all the reasons why David Beckham should NOT make a “glorious return” for LA Galaxy’s post-season run. My favorite line:

“Instead of admiration for their surge into playoff contention, the work the Galaxy players have done to get into that position would be cheapened, denigrated, and lost in the media spasms of the Return of the King.”

Yes, yes, yes. One other thing puzzles me – and I noticed it from the earlier Beckham games: what the hell was Pete Vagenas doing riding pine when Beckham is on the field? That doesn’t add up for me.

– Whoops. Botched my order. More good news out of St. Louie, though of the variety that comes short of guarantees. Even so, I don’t know how they don’t become MLS’s 16th franchise, I really don’t…which isn’t to say I’ll be surprised when they get skipped (and Portland is out there as well; a lot of people are picking up on that today; sorry, no links though).

– Finally, I didn’t think I’d like this, but it left me grinning so it must be good, right? Dave Martinez, who toils (what other verb applies when it comes to Red Bull?) on the Red Bull New York Offside, got to play FIFA ’08 with Josmer Altidore. An entirely charming story, as well as a good interview, came out of that….and, yeah, he’s a nice kid and all, but I think Jozy is a bit nuts for thinking Red Bull has a shot at MLS Cup.

For the record, I’m still rocking the Stone Age with FIFA 2004 – and I suck at it. FIFA ’08 sounds too hard.

Expansion: Cities, Odds, Dead Ends?

With so many people already commenting on this, I feel a little silly linking to the Las Vegas Sun article clocking the race to be one of the next two – or is it four? – cities Major League Soccer (MLS) will welcome into the league by 2010…or is it 2012? But there’s one item in the article I don’t think anyone else flagged, so I thought I’d do it here as a public service of sorts:

“Even though we post odds purely for entertainment reasons, heed them. Pay close attention to the four with the lowest odds and you might have the next four MLS franchises.”

And those top four are: Seattle, Washington (3-2); St. Louis, Missouri (4-1); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (6-1); and New York, Mark II (8-1).

Normally, if you see a 3-2 anywhere other than horse racing, you consider it a sure shot (in horse racing you 1) know the bookmakers just doomed the horse attached to those odds for this year’s Kentucky Derby, and, 2) you avoid that horse like the plague ’cause it won’t pay for shit). Roughly the same applies on a 4-1. All the same, I find the order of the odds interesting given my sense that both Philly and St. Louis got out ahead of Seattle in terms of having firm stadium plans. Then again, in the particular section discussing Seattle, there’s this line:

“MLS has repeatedly tried, and failed, to court Seahawks owner and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Look for that courtship to succeed this fall.”

(There’s actually a little touch of irony in that entry: every other “background” section of the individual city breakdowns talks about the given city’s soccer history…not Seattle’s…hmmm….)

This gets me wondering whether we’ll wind up in what I view as a kind of dodgy situation, one that grows in part from desperation to get an MLS presence in the Pacific Northwest: e.g. will a Seattle MLS team start in at Qwest Field, home to the Seattle Seahawks? This makes me skittish because I know a little about how Northwest people can be about taxes and, with Seattle especially, funding stadiums – assuming it comes to the latter. If memory serves (and that’s all I’m willing to go by right now), Seattle residents got burned pretty badly with cost overruns on Safeco Field; the same could apply to Qwest. If, as seems possible, a Seattle expansion team gets stuck playing in some capacious bowl of a stadium with fans dotting the inside like so many freckles, well…that’ll kinda suck.

I’ll still show up, mind you. But I’m a total whore.

But, as the Las Vegas Sun article says in its lead, it seems almost churlish to point this out. These are, indeed, heady times for MLS.