Major League Soccer

"fill the bowl" an unfortunate slogan for Orlando City today

smoke up!
going to my first sounders game in a while. new turf, morris, thunder in the forecast. Should be fun

fun final minutes in OC
do chi fans really holler 'puto' at GKs? did i hear that?

Chicago does but it's not just them. even United States fans have started chanting it at USMNT matches. fuckin infuriates me.

and yeah bizarre final minute. was a pretty garbage match today with some really bad officiating (what else is new).

sounders was one of those: dominated, fair red, fluky loss. the game changed with the weather. <3 ecs singing 'seattle sunshine.'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/03/22/31D252E900000578-3475547-image-a-1_1457045132344.jpg

how is attendance at Fire matches? I attended one like, two years ago (my first ever MLS match) because I was in Lincolnshire on business, and one of the execs from the front office tried to sell me a ticket package the other day (left me a voicemail). that was a bit...weird!

They're desperate to sell tickets. I have friends who haven't been to games since 08/09 that are still getting calls, despite their repeated efforts to get off the lists, including being aggressively offensive to the people who call. Attendance is all over the place, yesterday was pretty good but probably because of NYCFC stars coming to town. Without that I'd imagine it to be around 14k. There are allegedly 6500 or so season ticket holders, and that number has been dropping.

do chi fans really holler 'puto' at GKs? did i hear that?

#notallfirefans

jk jk, but really, it isn't everyone, or even a majority, but it's a huge problem that the supporters have been trying to solve for a few years. The FO is totally two-faced about it, speaking out about it and threatening sanctions to people who do it, but doing nothing as far as action because they're afraid of putting people off from buying tickets in groups, which they rely upon due to their low numbers I discussed above. And yeah, it's a problem elsewhere too. In my own discussions/arguments/fights about the matter, the single largest retort/excuse I hear about it is it's a "cultural" thing for Mexicans. I love my Mexican-American friends and family, and I hate to hear their culture besmirched that way.

R U READY DAN

Watching on a pirate stream, I still have so many questions

Why this goalie again? Why don't they have a full roster? How can teams not know Accam is fast as hell?

Lol I yelled that at Seb Hines when he gaffed on that. The dick.

https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/podcasts/fading-embers-the-blizzard-podcast-episode-thirty/

Interesting take on the Fire's woes, only misses the mark on a few minor points.

http://i64.tinypic.com/69dpus.jpg

if you can you should see incident that drew the whitecaps first penalty Saturday night. a guy trips over his own feet in the box, the defender is about a meter away, penalty awarded. mls officiating at its finest!

whitecaps and sounders are both bad this year so far. 1-2 and 0-3 respectively. whitecaps had, I think, the best defence in mls last season, have so far conceded 6 goals in 3 games.

http://www.espnfc.com/major-league-soccer/19/blog/post/2826676/2016-mls-anonymous-player-poll

really interesting survey of mls players on a range of topics related to the league

pro/rel truthers getting all hip on us

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeVsay7WAAIVXxq.jpg

promotion/relegation would really make the league a lot more interesting. never going to happen though.

it'd be a kick in the pants to the fire's ownership for sure but I doubt they (and a lot of other owners) would even be in the game if there was a chance their little investments could *gasp* lose and be devalued!

anybody got an NWSL team near them? we have the Pride too. I think I'm taking my mother to their home opener and she loves Alex Morgan. I'm so glad we have this.

lol we done fucked Portland's shit up

they had an assload of supporters at this one. gotta say they were loyal, stuck around to the final whistle.

san antonio fc got off to a good start popping off sounders 2, 3-0. i think my son is old enough to go to a game, or at least part of one, so im gonna try to to go to some this year.

do it! lotta kids at the match tonight despite late hour and they all looked like they were havin a great time.

I kinda wanna check out our USL team but Brevard is kinda far.

whitecaps have yet to score from open play in 5 matches.

The league is streaming its first ever match, 20 years ago today, to the minute: http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/04/06/san-jose-clash-vs-dc-united-april-6-1996

Interesting stuff, there's some additional commentary/coverage that's pretty good too.

Wish they'd put more effort into stuff like this and less into banning people over bullshit: http://dcist.com/2016/04/dc_united_facing_fan_mutiny_as_supp.php

fuuuuck u dejong

not exactly surprising imo

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/behind-the-scenes-of-mlss-efforts-to-improve-officiating

God I'm not expecting like Premier League levels of flash and quality but jesus christ this DC United-Toronto match is abysmal.

there's a foul every 10 seconds, and Johnson just basically intentionally grabbed and climbed on an opponent's back and bitched when he got whistled.

nobody is holding possession for more than 3 seconds, just a series of errant volleys back and forth.

might have to change to another match (MLS Live)

orange ball yayuh

nobody is holding possession for more than 3 seconds, just a series of errant volleys back and forth.

sounds like pretty much every fire game of the last, oh, 3-4 years at least

Lol. They were pretty good the match I saw in Chicago in 14.

I'm at the OC match a bit buzzed atm.

Pride starts tonight!

i do believe that is the fastest penalty i've seen

hah yeah that was hilarious.

originally I thought we got jobbed by the ref but while that last handball was a horseshit call, I don't think our second goal should have counted either. bleh. still off to a sloppy start this year despite only having one loss! Kaka and Ceren had nice matches tho.

wow Pride lookin sharp already. this is way more exciting than our men's team's match today.

Pride break the all-time attendance record at their home opener and win 3-1. that was dope. took my mother and she had a blast.

does every motherfuckin' franchise share the same cheers?

lol, yes there are a lot of the same songs (this is similar in Europe tbh)

The toronto v vancouver game yesterday was amazing. Van went ahead 2-0 ahead in half an hour, toronto pulled one back before half time and equalised shortly into the second half. Then with about half an hour to go vancouver scored two quick goals. They then had their left back sent off, conceded to make it 4-3 and just managed to hold off toronto pushing for an equaliser. It was a really dramatic game. Vancouver have won 3 games in a row after starting the season badly, and this was their first away win of the season plus first ever victory away to toronto in mls.

OCSC - SKC entertaining as hell, even though both backlines have been shambolic at times.

Joe Bendik having a helluva game at goal.

officiating has (for once) been mostly competent, other than letting play continue while Ceren was eating the grass in the box.

xpost I heard about that one! good - fuck Toronto.

http://m.bbc.com/sport/football/36352180

that's insane, and kinda shows you the level of parity in the league, considering how bad NYRB were not that long ago (I think they've found their form lately tho!)

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/24/antonio-conte-italians-mls-consequences?CMP=twt_a-sport_b-ussports_c-us_g-1

This has got people twisted today

Antonio Conte, the Italy national coach, has said that Italian players who move to MLS must “pay the consequences in footballing terms” – which means not being picked for international tournaments while he is coach.

Not surprising imo, also not gonna be surprising when Italy goes out in the group stage

I wouldn't say Italy are guaranteed not to advance from their group. Giovinco maybe could have added something to their squad, Pirlo definitely not - while Giovinco looks like Messi in mls Pirlo actually looks like garbage.

Oh yeah, I'm mainly just shit talking. Honestly I think it's good that people were asking Conte about leaving Giovinco out.

Gerrard not making much of an impact over there either from what I hear

More than Lampard!

Phuck Filly!

Also kinda :/ at being a fan of the hothead team

GOD...DAMMIT