All-Purpose, Never-Ending Soccer Thread

I will give Donovan credit for his play the other night. Obviously he didn't score, but he was balls-out hustling the entire time.
I thought him and Dempsey played well and I enjoyed watching them treat it more like a real game rather than a friendly.
I taped the game and watched it and realized the viewers at home didn't get to see Dempsey get into it with their keeper.
After the Guatemala sub came in during injury time, the keeper tried to kill time by offering a water bottle to the ref. Suddenly Dempsey charges over and starts trying to grab the bottle from him and is screaming at him and finally gets the bottle and throws it 30 yards away off the field and tells the keeper to kick off the ball.
The keeper then got a yellow card.

 

Marcela Mora y Araujo ... her voice is a tantalizing blend of Selma Hayek and Wheezy Jefferson. Love her poetry readings.

 

There's a better chance of Mexican fans shutting him TFU with their fists (or whatever weapon they choose). Donovan's mouth when it comes to the Mexico rivalry makes for great copy, but he'd better be more careful.

 

Cuauhtemoc Blanco signing with the Fire tomorrow as a Designated player. You can watch the news conference live on MLSnet.

http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20070401&content_id=87011&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp

 

Blanco is a terrible signing for them. The guy is damn close to being a has been. He's only coming for the money. I can't believe the Fire had to turn this guy.

 

I can already see his first fight with teammates, first disagreement with the coaches, first tantrum, etc. He's got some quality, but will he be a good teammate? Does he really want to play in the MLS? I hope I'm wrong.

Oh and the latest CNNSI.com rumors has RBNY going after Chile's Marcelo Salas.

 

Speaking of RBNY...
As Saturday is the opening of the season, a few of us will be spending the game at Stout. Here is the lowdown:

The action starts at 7pm on MSG2, with the pre-game at 6:30pm.

When: Saturday, April 7th 6:30pm~9pm
Where: STOUT NYC, 133 W 33rd St- Between 6th & 7th, New York, NY 10001
Stout Bar Web Site

Getting There:
NJ Transit: Half a block from Penn Station, and the 33rd Street PATH station.
NYC Subway: 1/2/3/B/D/F/V/N/Q/R/W/A/C/E to 34th Street.

We’ll have our own room downstairs with a full bar, flat screen TVs with sound, and the kitchen will be open for dinner.

 

He'll put butts in the seats at home and on the road. He'll also be a focusing point for hatred. This is something the MLS needs.

 

Liverpool handles PSV easily in Champions League, 3-0.

 

A solid signing, but nothing special as far as the Beckham rule or the history/future of the league.

They still need another name, a European or South American player people have heard of, to validate the Beckham rule. They've signed quality, even legendary, Mexican players before.

 

PR -- that who has heard of? This is my issue with the DP Rule. If they are looking at the average fan, they are familiar with fewer than 10 international soccer players, 7-8 of which would never come here because they are close to their primes. To paraphrase Rick Pitino, Cristiano Ronaldo isn't walking through that door. So, unless we sign Ronaldo or Zidane, the general public couldn't care less.

The Hispanic fan will come out in droves for a big SA/Mexican player, especially if they are from an immigrant's native country. But that's not the area in which MLS is looking to increase their fan base. And I will go so far as to say that there isn't a single player playing in a Mexican or South American league that the average English speaking MLS fan has heard of, much less the causal fan.

The fact of the matter is that, with the weak dollar, even a middling EPL player like Reyna is taking a decent pay cut to come here. So how can we expect to get any decent European-based player that people might know from FSC or Gol TV?

 

For me, who cares aout non-soccer fans? The ratings for Fox Soccer Channel and the World Cup indicate there is a soccer audience out there who don't rate MLS as anything special. So the answer to your question is: players who soccer watchers have heard of. But good players, who play for one of th countries that has an international impact. Davids from Holland, while not what he once was, would have been perfect. Ditto Figo. Ronaldo would have been beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but at least thre were talks. I regarded Zidane as a pipe dream.

In the end, I think we'll find that Chivas USA made the smartest DP-related move. It took itself out of the market immediately, and added a very good player in Guevara at the cost of its DP slot. If Bradley were still there to keep him in line, I'd rate that the best move of the offseason. As it is, the move was wise.

The DP rule, in my opinion, will hurt more than it helps. Yay! David Beckham is coming! Whoops. . . the Galaxy, unless they change the rule, will have to trade for another DP slot to retain Landon Donovan in a couple seasons. Luckily for them, MLS greases the wheels on trades when necessary . . . . . .

Reyna is a nice homecoming story, but he'll waste little time getting hurt, because that's what he does.

And for the life of me, I can't think of a scenario in which a Columbus or a Kansas City utilizes its DP slot. Which means LA and Chiago end up with their slots through trade. I think right now the best-case scenario is that Beckham loves it here, and convinces someone else from the EPL to come to the USA. But the floodgates will not open for a bunch of quality players to come here, and the DP momentum will be lost.