Major League Soccer

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.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/embarchie/photo-39.gif

RSL is just a pleasure to watch. So fundamentally sound, with great spacing and trust between the players. Watching them beat the Galaxy and Red Bulls back to back is also a joy.

I watched the first half of that Montreal debut and that field was criminal. The guys playing on it were pretty poor too. It's gonna be a tough slog for Montreal this year.

had to lol at the seinfeld reference in this nyrb article title

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/for-red-bulls-prognosis-negative/

The Red Bulls do not have a creative clue in the midfield, a sad situation that probably will not be remedied until the summer — if then — with the import of another designated player. Michael Ballack? Stephen Ireland? Kaká?

One of these is not like the others.

rumor is they already promised Ireland a pile of money

which is lol

Sadly, Ireland would be a huge step up over who they've played the first two weeks.

I think Dax McCarty played the worst half I've seen in ages in the first 45 minutes against RSL.

Ireland's pretty good when he's got the head on, I just wouldn't exactly put him in the 'dependable superstar' echelon.

EZ are you in the US and/or American? Just curious, always like to see more interested fans over here.

No doubt Ireland would be better than Dax McCarty or whomever they've been rolling out this season in central mid, but it's emblematic of NYRB's rudderless ship tendencies that he's even being discussed as a solution.