The Soccer Thread (Version 7.0)

Define support. And I ask this in all seriousness.

 

At least what you do for the team across the pond whose ground you may or may not ever set foot upon.

I understand that it was easy for me to support MLS. One of the league's best franchises was in my hometown, and I was going to games from Day One. And this has been hashed out here, many times.

But it remains a topic worth discussing. It's always interesting to see WHY people support the teams they do. I latched onto my hometown and undergrad alma mater teams. Others have a different standard.

For me, I simply cannot care about the weekly exploits of a team from a place to which I have no real ties. I do support the Italian national team, but they are far secondary to the U.S. and besides, it's sort of necessary for U.S. fans to support a secondary team.

It's fair to ask: does it hinder the game in this country when fans support an overseas team, but ignore the domestic league? I think it does, very obviously. Who was it . . ."John"? who said before a major international competition, "Uh, duh, um . . . I don't really know the U.S. players that well, 'cause I support so much Premier League stuff!"

There's room to support many teams. And looking to give glory to some foreign team while also virtually ignoring the domestic league, seems to be counter productive. It's often these people who say, "Duh, um . . . why isn't our national team BETTER?!?!?!!?"

 

Yes, there is room to support both teams.

I went to my first Fire game in 1996.

Still haven't been to a Liverpool game.

But it's a lot easier for me to watch Liverpool on tv.
1. There are a lot more matches, between ESPN, FSC and FSC Plus.
2. Those matches are free to watch. I'd have to shell out a bit of cash for the MLS package.
3. The time of the matches makes it easier to watch European soccer than MLS.

Also, and not for nothing, there is a dropoff in quality. There just is.
It's like being mad at people for not supporting their local AHL team as much as their favorite NHL team.

Lastly, the derision you show "eurosnobs" doesn't help matters.
It just makes most people pissed and hostile to your ideas.
Let it keep happening organically. MLS has grown quite a bit. There is room for further growth.

 

That's mostly true, and very fair. U.S. television providers know there's an audience to tap. It's why idiots who see MLS ratings and attendance and conclude that no one likes soccer are, well, idiots.

Also, Fire's first MLS season was 1998. They won the title game in the Rose Bowl.

Sure there is. This is a common observation. I used to tell people in the MLS press boxes I actually spent zero time in during my failed career [/crossthread] that I couldn't even play the video game on game day, because it would makes MLS look slow and poor.

Would more people support the league if the "quality of play" were up to their standards? And what are those standards?

Many European fans support their domestic basketball leagues, of course.

Could not possibly care any less about their feelings in this particular matter. Choose West Ham or Leeds United, and I'll not scoff at the inevitable frontrunning aspect of the typical "Eurosnob."

That said, I think foreign fans who choose to support the Lakers are just being really smart, so there you go.

Not really, unfortunately . It's probably as popular as it's going to get, and the overall quality of play isn't going to experience anything but slow and steady growth, if any further growth is to be had. It's better in all ways than I ever expected (and a decade ago, it really was a house of cards), but it has a clear ceiling that it has probably reached or is approaching.

 

Soccer!

Passion!

Beautiful Game!

http://deadspin.com/5989300/soccer-referee-outruns-mob-of-angry-players-and-team-officials

 

1998? Jesus. I could have sworn I was a sophomore. I guess I was a junior.

And you don't have to care about their feelings. I'm just telling you beating them about the head hasn't and won't work.

I also disagree there isn't room for popularity growth. People are going to want to watch soccer live. And the two or three weeks the European teams spend here won't be enough to sate the appetite. If the players can keep getting a little better, and teams start signing some bigger names, fan interest will grow.

 

How big can pro soccer get in the U.S.? You'd think markets like Boston and D.C. would be among the leaders in attendance. Soccer is at least realistic compared to rugby and cricket supporters who think all the public needs is a league to watch and fans will flock to games.

What is the ultimate goal for MLS? Soccer "purists" want a single-table, with promotion-relegation, and a traditional August-May schedule. That's not going to happen.

 

Nothing will work. They've made a choice. May as well have my fun with them.

I don't think anything short of a World Cup semifinals appearance will make domestic soccer fans who now ignore the league stand up and say "hey!! I wanna go to an MLS game!"

Those particular purists are morons.

 

Norrin is on the money here. Europoseurs have made their decision and are unlikely to change. If they come around and embrace MLS, they'll be welcomed with open arms, but such pivots seem to be rare. The thing is, the goalposts keep moving. MLS has ditched the countdown stadium clock, shootouts, goalkeeper substitutions and other quirks not seen in "proper" leagues, moved away from cavernous NFL stadiums in favor of more intimate, soccer-only venues, recruited progressively better foreigners and even partially embraced ersatz, quasi-European names for teams.

Yet despite all this and a standard of play that is far ahead of what it was in the 90s, the Europoseurs continue to stay away. How much more effort should MLS expend toward convincing people who thus far have shown no evidence of being convincible? What's more, how many of these people who bemoan the quality of MLS are willing to wake up early on a weekend to watch the likes of Stoke and West Ham hurl rocks at each other for 90 minutes? Seems like an awful lot of effort for not much return.

While I don't think anyone is obligated to support MLS if they don't want to, I agree with Norrin that expecting the national team to do well while turning up your nose at the domestic league seems counterproductive at best. Plus, one of the biggest chips MLS has in its pile is the ability for fans to feel a sense of ownership in the league and, in a sense, get in on the ground floor. You don't get that with foreign clubs that have been around since buggy whips were a vital part of the economy.

 

DC was among the standard-bearers in attendance before its fortunes took a sharp dive. Playing in RFK and persistent talk of moving to Baltimore probably don't help matters. As for Boston, the Revolution playing in Foxboro is something of a velvet coffin -- they have a ready-made home with no rent payments, but the location stinks and fans are growing increasingly tired of being ignored by what they see as unresponsive ownership. The Revs' management has talked about trying to build a stadium closer to Boston and/or near the T, but land is tough to acquire and there doesn't seem to be much end product for the $2 million the club has supposedly spent on "exploring" the move.

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/soccerusa/id/1748?cc=5901

As for the "purists," fuck 'em. While I don't know if I can articulate one overriding goal for MLS, I'm pretty sure that if one existed it wouldn't be making itself as European (and thus "legitimate") as possible. Anyone that put off by playoffs, a salary cap or a summer schedule probably isn't that interested in MLS anyway -- unless, of course, there really are people who watch European soccer because of its embrace of unfettered capitalism.

 

I dunno, guys. The whole "Europoseur" thing strikes me as endless whacking on a straw man.

My favorite team is Ajax. I follow Inter and Norwich. Why exactly am I obligated to shift my focus to a league that's in my country, but doesn't have a team near me?

MLS is doing great. The level of play is significantly higher than it was just a few years ago. The stadium situation is a huge improvement. Attendance is good and getting better.

I don't follow it much because I have no local team, and because of that I'd just as soon follow leagues that are constantly on TV with a higher quality of play. If I still lived in Portland I'd have season tickets to the Timbers, but I don't. (We did just get a USL team, so I'll be hitting those.)

It seems to me the growing popularity of European soccer in the US will be nothing but a good thing for MLS. People looking to see a game live will increasingly view MLS as a solid option, and that often wouldn't have been the case a few years ago.

And really, are there people who expect the US team to do well while turning up their noses at MLS? I'm always pleasantly surprised when the US does well, and I'm not sure why anyone would ever expect it. The US team isn't very good because the US hasn't produced many great players. It's not exactly rocket science. I've never been a big rah-rah U-S-A guy in any sport so it doesn't exactly keep me up nights. The team is mediocre and hard to watch. When they do well, great. When they don't, it's not a big letdown to me. We produce quality keepers and attacking mids, and seemingly not much else.

 

I've watched a lot more of MLS in recent years because its a better product than it used to be. Quality of play is better (still has a ways to go), the fan culture is cool, etc. Went to a Timbers US Open Cup last year and loved it. Will likely go to a Fire, Crew or Sporting KC match this year.

But I don't feel the need to apologize for not being into it when it was at its nadir in the late 90s/early 2000s because it wasn't worth my time. Quality of play was much worse, they had stupid gimmicks (the shootout) and it was hard to put any kind of fan investment in it when it was an open question whether it would survive (see Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny).

* Side rant: For all of the guffaws about the Euro-names of recent times ... and some of them (Real Fucking Salt Lake?) are stupid, they're no more so than the late 90s trendy names and uniforms MLS began with. Mutiny? Wiz? Clash? MetroStars? Check out some of the unis and logos from that period. Garish.

It doesn't help that the Midwest franchises were either too distant from me or in a city (Chicago) where I'm not inclined to follow their sports teams. I still don't really have a team to call my own. In that respect, following a MLS team is no different connection-wise than following a European club.

I still love English soccer more than MLS. The history of it fascinates me. The fan cultures of each club -- even the lower league teams -- is something I really enjoy reading about it. Relegation/promotion, cup knockouts, derby's ... it all fascinates me. Living life as a Leeds United fan, where my club has gone from riches to rags in my time following them has exposed me to it all ... not just glory-riding with Man U, Chelsea, et al.

It doesn't mean I can't enjoy MLS ... because I do. But qualitatively, MLS is hard to watch after, say, watching the precision of an EPL match or even a Championship match.