Major League Soccer

Galatallahassee and Dayton Orient for me.

this should almost be a poll

That's awesome. The comments thread just goes on and on - Galatasaraleigh-Durham, Denverbahce, Trabzonsportland

Brooklynverness Caledonian Thistle

the guardian podcast has a preview of this weekend's final today, predictably they mostly make jokes and talk about Beckham

― fwiw: lol iirc sb'd u tbqh (dan m), Thursday, November 18, 2010 2:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also inlcuded the american journalist talking about some hertofore unknown team called Wigan Wanderers.

I think he said Wycombe Wanderers

Wisconsin Wanderers?

d'oh. sorry leander
xp

Just use your fucking hands, nobody cares about this shitty championship

fuck dallas with a duck phallus

And the league's worst nightmare comes true, shitbox Colorado hangs on to win, though it was deserved. The playoffs aren't going anywhere but let's hope that they at least play at the home stadium of one of the finalists from now on.

Now we wait for the expansion draft.

it had to be an own goal to decide the mls cup!
actually this game was fairly entertaining, thought a brawl was about to erupt for most of it.

apparently zakuani is off to train with everton...

fuck dallas with a duck phallus

Can we nick that for the SPL thread title next year if our head of refereeing development hasn't been dunted out of office please?

By all means. Dallas hate knows no bounds.

Different Dallas, same hate.

(I suspect we won't be nicking it, but if I remember I'll be nominating it as a suggestion anyway)

Anyone feeling particularly masochistic in learning about the details of MLS expansion would probably be interested in the expansion draft:

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/mls-releases-unprotected-list-expansion-draft

also lol arsenal

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/colorado-rapids-clinch-first-mls-title

Collins John we hardly knew ye

Also the Quakes released Geovanni? That might be a good pick up for the right team.

i wonder if he's too expensive
or maybe it's a personality thing

the consensus on the internet seems to be he wanted 3 years at too much money

How many professional sportspeople are there in the US? I ask because I'm watching Crawley Town right now, whom the commentator has just told us are a full-time club - iirc even in the mls the lower-paid guys have to have second jobs.

What's it like in other sports? Are there professional leagues below NBA, NFL etc?

Crawley are possibly the 100th biggest club in England

There are lower leagues for hockey and baseball for sure, those are probably the closest analogies to the futbol pyramid. Those will have a mix of actual full professionals and part-timers. I know the most about hockey, so for example the Chicago Wolves play in the American Hockey League, and are a "farm team" for the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL, so they might send good players up when the Thrashers need back-up, or develop prospects that are too young for the big time.

Basketball and throwball not so much, although the college ranks take up a lot of that slack. But you won't find a journeyman nose tackle bouncing around the Southern Football Association or whatever.

portland y u so srs

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cm7dPnQPGv4/TPfxojqQK2I/AAAAAAAABqc/vamCqjgzIMI/s1600/NoPity2.jpg

^^^actually met that dude once, very weird to see him building-sized

sean johnson on the gen ad trip to spain:

http://www.chicago-fire.com/news/2010/12/skyping-sean-spain

new fugly houston kits:

http://i51.tinypic.com/2dtuqrm.jpg

a long article about qatar and the us BUT
i liked this, about halfway down, for a solution for DC United and an idea for a national stadium:

I suggest that US Soccer and MLS join together in an effort to build a National Stadium. We need an American Wembley; our own Azteca; a Stars-and-Stripes version of the Stade de France. Sure, there are other nations that rotate their national team matches through a list of stadiums within (and outside) their borders, something the US seems content to do now and into the future. But wouldn’t it be special to have a single venue that would over the years see history made for our national team on a regular basis? It can be done, and it should be done.

I propose that the location for the US National Soccer Stadium should be close to our nation's capital, maybe even on the site of that raccoon-infested dinosaur RFK Stadium. Having it close to the Eastern Seaboard population metropolis is paramount (sorry fellow west-coasters) to ensuring a strong representation of supporters at every match. Being in the shadows of the District lends an air of credibility to the outside world that our stadium truly represents our country.

...With the next World Cup hosting opportunity still years away, get US Soccer and MLS working together to design and build a soccer stadium of modest proportions that could serve as the new home for DC United. Something in size smaller than your typical NFL stadium but somewhat greater than Red Bull Arena or PPL Park for the near term usage of Major League Soccer’s most decorated (and currently most underappreciated) franchise. Additionally, use the stadium for international friendly matches, the occasional US Open Cup and MLS Cup Final, and for various US Men’s and Women’s National Team qualifiers. Along with adding to the list of new MLS stadiums, build a following among US supporters that the National Stadium is the epicenter of American soccer.

cool idea, won't happen

think it's pretty clear that the gov't doesn't want to build anything for DCU in the capital, hence the rumors they'll move to Baltimore

Are there professional leagues below NBA, NFL etc?

basketball has a long history of 2nd divisions, some pretty entertaining. the will farell movie Semi-Pro touches on it a bit. now they have the d-league. it's basically the equivalent of the reserves in england, owned by an NBA team, but they play in smaller cities. that league was just set up a few years ago. mostly the NBA uses colleges to do scouting, grooming, teaching fundamentals. it's still how most players get noticed. this works for the nba because they don't have to spend much beyond scouting for the draft.

the NFL mostly relies on colleges as well. there are thousands of college american football players. again, the colleges sift through and promote the best players. it's up to the NFL to draft. there is arena football and cfl (canadian) and UFL, all very minor leagues. guys get paid but not a lot. very very rarely does a player come up through those ranks to make the NFL. they end up in those small leagues beacuase they're NFL castoffs, not aspiring players no one knows anything about.

as dan mentions above, hockey and baseball are the closest in model to soccer. i don't know anything about hockey, but i know baseball has a loooong development curve. kids drafted at 17-18 can sometimes take up to 7 years to make it to the big leagues.

the system is similar to what english football is like: mlb=the premiership, AAA=the championship, AA=league 1, A=league 2 etc. One key difference is that the MLB team owns the player all the way up through the system. players aren't sold on from smaller leagues. instead, they start at the bottom and work their way up with similarly-aged players. in that way it's a bit like u-17, u-19, reserves. another major difference is that kids in AA may make 12k a year, while the minimum at MLB level is 400k a year. vast gaps. and those young guys do sometimes still need to get jobs in the off-season.

MLB even has developmental academies similar to what you'd find in england. they're located in venezuela, the dominican replublic, etc. kids start as early as 16.

Fuck DC btw.

while we're in dreamin mode look what these jokesters in miami want to do http://football-miami-n-beyond.blogspot.com/2010/12/miami-marine-stadium-new-soccer-stadium.html

http://i55.tinypic.com/10wi06f.jpg

hm, 2 MLS teams in Florida have already failed

Thanks, con suelo. The reason I asked was during an evening of hopping about streams of what seemed like hundreds of random european matches, it occurred to me that there must be 50,000 or more people employed as full-time professional footballers in Europe. The US/Canada being roughly the same size, I just wondered whether they had anything like as many, given that you guys have more big team sports than we do.

I'd guess not, because:
1. your sporting structures seem much more haphazard than ours; and
2. the resources devoted to employing footballers here is a little insane when you think about it

just a few goals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyPPQWyvpuA&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIcSgBox-xk&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSmQMuHmfTU&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbiiC40-nJA&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks08pazZjiM&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voy0SGaXTlU&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roUvAB2EhO0&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItQEtYnEWNE&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO9kq-tI3RE&feature=player_embedded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=876lbOJ21FY&feature=player_embedded

lol @ DC's video being < 2 min

hey someone is going to make a russell brand movie where he's an aging footballer on one last big contract who comes to america. too bad kc changed their name i could see him in a wiz shirt

http://www.portlandtimbers.com/sites/portlandtimbers.com/files/por-jers1-620.jpg
http://www.portlandtimbers.com/sites/portlandtimbers.com/files/por-jers2-620.jpg

No Pity. Awesome.

I like that they're making the effort, but it's riiiiight on the edge of pandering to the supporters imo.

It's totally pandering! Especially that alt jersey. But it looks good while doing it, which makes it alright in my book.

pandering 2 the supporters is a-ok if it results in a good-looking uni imo

i like the rose thingy

I prefer my pandering in non-patch form

http://www.mlsarchives.com/imaging.aspx?image=/images/front/chicago_fire_2005_alternate_buete22_ss_flatfront_detail.jpg

(PS ADIDAS BRING THIS SHIT BACK <3 K THX BYEEEE)

i don't know where to put this so i'll put it here

akron are really great to watch

otm

but why oh why does the clock count DOWN? and why oh why do they stop it when there is an injury?

it's so weird

Maybe this'll be the year that the ZIPS coach makes the jump to MLS. DC almost had him last year iirc.

Akron won its first NCAA championship with a 1-0 victory over Louisville in Santa Barbara, Calif., capping an extraordinary three years for the Zips: 62-3-8, 169 goals for, 34 goals against.