Major League Soccer

Thanks! I likely won't be playing -- even without an Ian Taylor there's still quite a few very experienced players on our side. We have a ringer or two up our sleeves as well, potentially including a certain guy from Chicago with MLS and EPL experience who used to wear #20...

nice. And sneaky.

Hold on - this deserves to be big news in ilf world, like when Martin Keown turned up at Ronan's five-a-sides. You've got to get on the pitch Dan, maybe even throw in a reducer on the ex-pro.

Haha well, maybe. I really suck, though! I'll be at the match for sure so I'll definitely get pictures.

I guess I should have criticized FC Dallas for their effort earlier than this week! Busted their butts all game and got their first road victory of the year.

k so this summer is when I find the sport to give a big sht abt when basketball isn't on, so now I have a bunch of dumb noob questions.
-how does MLS compare to first division leagues around the world? I know it doesn't rate alongside EPL or la liga, or bundesliga, or serie a, so what is its rep exactly?
-is the MLS planning to expand to ~30 teams a la every American sports league or will they cool off at about 24 or so?
-T or F: soccer will become a major professional sport in America

I have more, I don't want to overload yall

imo:

1. english 2nd division is seen as a rough equivalent quality-wise. aside from a few plastic turf fields the stadiums are all pretty much on par. the real difference is player salaries.
2. according to what I've read, not right away. some kind of 'mls 2' lower division development is probably more likely.
3. it already is a major sport, it's just that our domestic game isn't the thing most people follow.

Grant Wahl ‏@GrantWahl

Vancouver Whitecaps announce signing of Scotland captain Kenny Miller.

Poor Vancouver

why a 1pm start for ny/chi today?

It's the annual "camper kids" day. They try to have a day each year where kids in summer camps and the like can see a game.

It's gonna be a hot one for those kids this year.

The Chivas/Portland game is 1pm Western time zone for the same reason.

So fucking stupid.

were you able to watch Dan? I just got back in so just started the replay.

Yeah, I watched it.

worth spending my time with it?

I have to say that if this was meant to get kids to catch a game it failed. There's nobody there.

Just wrapping up watching the Red Bulls/Fire game. I know the heat, the road, and the early start all played into it, but it really felt like Chicago played for the draw from the kickoff and didn't pick it up until Henry scored. That might have been the right tactical decision but I hate to see what is obviously a pretty solid team playing so defensively. I thought that the two teams were pretty even throughout but New York was much more aggressively trying to score.

I'm a misreading this Dan? Did you feel like your team pushed hard enough against the questionable back four of the Red Bulls?

They pushed hard for the first 15 minutes or so I thought, but you're pretty otm otherwise.

definitely started well and ended strong.

The Fire's real problem right now is no consistent scorer, and since they've pissed off Grazzini there's no one who can really make the plays from midfield that are necessary to deal with teams that play a deep line to deal with Oduro. Marco Pappa, for all his obvious talent, gave away a lot of balls through selfish play today (as he does in a lot of games). I thought Nyarko should have come on for him in the second half instead of Alex, who is the closest thing to a Grazzini type player the squad has right now.

also once again wtf at the start time for this game, both sides looked lethargic as hell for long stretches

the heat absolutely killed the chance for this to be a great game. The teams are pretty evenly matched and I hope the October game provides a better showcase.

Holy crap - a 5-0 win. It seems the Timbers have nothing to offer if they're not allowed to kick, pull, elbow and generally cheapen up the play. A still mediocre (but improving) Dallas team crushed them tonight. The heat was brutal - it hit 107 here today, probably well over 100 at game time - but the ref trying to curtail the borderline dirty stuff took more out of Portland than the weather. Show a justified early yellow and call a foul every time a Timber player "finishes the check", so to speak, and they have no second option.

It's nice to see Dallas move past their own petulance (Brek notwithstanding) and cynicism as the season moves on. And the work rate was once again outstanding. Even with the horrible pk attempt at mid-week this is as good a week as FCD has had since the opening of the season.

had tickets to the scorpions yesterday, couldn't go, but watched it online
NASL is p chippy! lotta shoving, two red cards booked.
Pablo campos playing like a dude who wants back into MLS, has 11 goals for us
gonna try to go to one of the next two games
can't wait for next year when we have a soccer specific stadium

Portland played that same game vs the Fire and shut them down very effectively earlier in the season, good to see someone is calling them on it, at least.

I didn't get a pic with Ian Taylor at our supporters match yesterday, but he did swap shirts with one of our players and I snapped this one: pic.twitter.com/lUaXtUgp

Also, our referee got his red card autographed: pic.twitter.com/Mizt5xDo

Final score was Fire 2-4 AV, we were up 2-0 in the first half so instead of trying to run through the lines Taylor just started pinging in amazing through balls and their players got on the end of a couple. Also, they had a Princeton U women's player in goal who was apparently on her way for a trial with Aston Villa Ladies. She made two amazing saves to keep them ahead. Good time, I got sunburnt and we all drank a bunch of beer afterwards.

taylor shirt pic: http://t.co/lUaXtUgp

taylor red card pic: http://t.co/Mizt5xDo

btw the real avfc beat the real fire 1-0 in a boring-ass game

You'll always be the real Villa v Fire to me Dan. Did you take the field yourself, or were you twelfth man?

Nope, we had more players than needed and I am terrible.

San Antonio must be getting big if they're getting a turn with Jeff Cunningham!

http://sanantonioscorpions.com/team-news/item/355-scorpions-add-mls-all-time-leading-goal-scorer-jeff-cunningham

tiiiiiight
we had 10,500 show up for our last home game

coulda been from $4 flashback ticket prices, but it's only slightly above average

Red Bulls are getting Tim Cahill from Everton. I know he's been injured of late but I'm still surprised he's coming over.

That is surprising

Given this move and others by New York and most every other team in the entire f'n league I am more than slightly annoyed with the Fire for doing nothing in this transfer period. They did technically sign a player, but everyone has known he's been coming since before the season started so it's not a surprise or a significant change. In fact, there are now two highly paid, important midfielders who are either on the outs or already out plus a third who they're letting ride out his contract and will likely leave for free at the end of the year.

Normally I don't get too down on club mgmt because this is still a fledgling league and times are tough all over but I'm getting to the "wtf" stage now.

question: is standing pat better or worse than trading for Julian De Guzman?

depends on how much money he gets

he's a designated player this year and I think it's the last year of his contract; I think he's getting around $1.5 million or something that stupid. Don't imagine Dallas would be interested in paying DP wages for him going forward.

what can I expect from Jeff Cunningham? he's only a few years removed from some quality play, but I know a fwe years can change everything in terms of productivity.

http://www.chicago-fire.com/news/2012/07/chicago-fire-sign-dutch-striker-sherjill-macdonald

This has been rumored for a while, most fans are not so hot on the guy but we'll see I guess.

Also the practice of giving players DP contracts in order to pay transfer fees is kind of stupid imo. Fire already have one of those sitting on the bench.

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/story/_/id/8194367/mls-hopes-build-national-profile-roger-bennett

A Handler campaign deployed on ESPN2 during the Euro 2012 clash between Italy and England turned the subsequent Portland-Seattle match into the third-most viewed MLS regular-season game of all time with 888,000 people tuning in.

worked for me, those timber fans made me a believer

srsly those wacky pacific northwest hipsters going apeshit was infectious

MLS starters: Nielsen, Beitashour, Collin, DeMerit, Morrow, Alonso, Beckham, De Rosario, Donovan, Henry, Wondolowski

Not really sure why I'm gonna watch this... Other than hoping Osvaldo Alonso breaks John Terry's bones, somehow.

recording this

may possibly watch a replay.

i'll watch some. why not, it's fun.

more importantly though, wtf: Sources tell FOX Soccer that Tim Cahill's NY Red Bulls contract is 3.5 years, at $3.5 million per season.

interview with san antonio prez and also the head of refereeing in the usa

http://pitchinvasion.net/blog/2012/07/26/14514/

cool! thanks for that.
I know that there were (and still are some lingering) doubts about hartman's (owner) scorpions succeeding, especially since the spurs were trying to start a USLpro team simultaneously and there was feeling that bc of their success in the NBA, they'd be better suited to eventually get a team to the MLS. but they did some bogus things wrt to stadium and Hartman has been able to get enough private investors to get a SSS going by next year. I don't know if this is a surebet to get into the MLS, though. seems like MLS is in search of more tv ratings and SA won't help that v much (though we do have e largest local market share of any professional team in the country w the spurs iirc).

oh hai more sounders cast-offs that's cool I guess