Major League Soccer

Portland signs Kris Boyd huh

so dan are you a big fan of oatmeal/ exreme non-violence?
http://www.footballshirtculture.com/images/chicago-fire-2012-adidas-home-away-football-shirts-r.jpg

The Chicagoats Fire

I'm glad they picked up a quasi-local sponsor and the $ will come in handy as the team finishes rebuilding, but I (and many others) are pissed they changed the stripe across the chest from white to blue.

although it has been repeatedly said that the change is not a result of Quaker being the sponsor

attn Laurel, don't know if you've been following the Wilman Conde-to-NYRB saga but

https://twitter.com/#!/HotTimeOldTown/status/164136846048231424

I loled

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/feb/21/mls-away-portland-independent-supporters-council

^^met this guy while he was over here talking to supporters, interesting fellow with a lot of ideas

is he the same Dave Boyle that used to post on ILE?

perhaps?

loving this comment on the article:

It was my encounters with fan culture in this country that got me into the game here - more than any marquee signing or league initiative (though those things all help the growth of the game, of course). When you look at the message boards, fan sites, blogs and podcasts around the country, you see all the same humor, intensity, fatalism, absurdity, lack of/sense of proportion that you see anywhere in the world when fans talk about the game. If you're a fan from anywhere, you'll recognize your people here - just follow the noise.

time for let's get stoked videos
http://p.mlssoccer.com/SAu5a/video/875795/league_2012-02-21-183335.640hq.mp4

ignore the title
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98EvwIGFB7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQbBo7uaDd8

@mlstalk

In 2011, MLS's 475 players were paid a collective $82.9 million, which was 30% of Man City's 10-11 wages: http://t.co/1gJkXc3f

I'm actually excited that the Fire's leading scorer from last season, Dominic Oduro, got the call from Ghana for their upcoming friendly against Chile in Philly. When it's our starting keeper away for U-23 US national team duty it's an annoyance, but the Ghana first team is no joke and the guy is a legitimately friendly, down to earth person.

Guardian season preview

from 3:20 is p neat http://www.mlssoccer.com/video/2012/03/05/mls-road-trip-behind-scenes-aik-portland

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/432137_337412099627637_2038422048_n.jpg

houston stadium nearing completion

sorry "BBVA Compass Stadium"

PUT A BOYD ON IT

damn we just signed Arne Friedrich

Can't tell if it's for real or just the lens/angle, but that stadium looks good, nice & steep.

prolly for real, I don't know about Houston's stadium specifically, but I know the same architecture firm did most if not all of the latest round of 'soccer specific' stadia, and they're all nicely steep.

guardian mls coverage is really good. had not heard about this
Earlier this week ESPN released the results of a poll that showed that among 12-24 year olds, soccer was the second most avidly followed sport after NFL.

Crazy RLS-Galaxy game tonight. RLS looked lost in the first half and absolutely took every chance in the second. As I said last year, RLS is great to watch.

Gals defense is pretty shitty w/o Gonzalez, it's kind of amazing.

btw Americans MLS Direct Kick is on free preview this weekend.

This is my second year as a subscriber to the online streaming service and the improvement of picture and interface is noticeable. Watching the game last night was a pleasure.

mls live+roku is something to behold. brilliant color, no hiccups. and just to not spend the time hunting around for shitty streams is so worth it. wish every league could figure this out.

watching the galaxy look so poor defensively (and at home!) gives me hope for this season

I need a roku.

Have high hopes for FC Dallas this year. Wish I could make it to today's opener but alas I cannot. Should be an interesting matchup.

Brek Shea with appropriately shitty hair, New York with appropriately shitty defense. Liking the NBC production so far. Man I wish the fuckin Fire were playing.

the dream of the 90s is alive in portland

timbers player just scored what looked like an OG and then a tying goal in the space of about 2 minutes

dude are u in the guardian today?

Yup!

my new impression of a-lot-of-things-MLS (team front offices, bloggers, etc) is that they've taken "let the supporters do it" as a recipe for success. we're making careers over here.

I don't really understand US sporting culture but given football's particular circumstances (huge number of players, decent level of interest, no particular outlet, other sports appear pretty tightly-controlled) that seems like a good way of reaching people.

ps What's the piece, Dan? I couldn't see you.

The Fire half of the CHI/MTL preview here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/mar/16/mls-fan-previews-earthquakes-dynamo-houston

Very good - and a nice idea to load your own guys down with a preseason banquet. I hope you fed them steaks in the British tradition.

chicken :/

whoah what happened to seattle?

sigi talked shit about big herc gomez once upon a time, so herc and his boys got some payback

I was gonna suggest that MLS has surely graduated to season-by-season threads by now, but this 'un hasn't had as many posts as I'd thought.

Thought about it last season, but until gamedays start generating hundreds of posts apiece, it's not really necessary.

That said: post away! Obv I like talking about this league.

me too.

i saw the 2nd half of philly/portland and wow was philly's midfield overrun. they might suck this year. exciting half to watch though, 4 goals in the rain.

i wish jeld-wen had a wider field. (i wish a lot of things about a lot of MLS stadiums, but yeah). It gets too ping-pongy kick and run fast break for me.

this should be a good weekend: 50k in montreal, RSL gonna crush NY, and I get my first Sounder game in my new season ticket spot.

I read a similar opinion of Jeld-Wen being cramped recently. I think it plays a large role in why PDX are so tough at home (along with the crowd, fake grass, rain, etc). Philly looked weak, but the first couple weeks is hard to form any real impressions from. It'd be weird if they were going through a rebuilding year 2-3 seasons ahead of when it "should" happen.

Rly wishing I was with my friends in Montreal.

That's cool they're going. What a great city and it should be a good atmosphere even though olympic stadium is a dump.

There's about 60-70 traveling. We'd have had hundreds if it wasn't so damn expensive to fly there.

It starts today! It starts today!

Thought Montreal played a very cynical game, lots of fouling that should have led to yellow cards long before one finally came out. Still, pretty good to get a point on the road, on indoor shitty turf, in front of 60k crazy fans.