Major League Soccer

nice feel good story here, a local kid went to the Fire open tryouts and appears to have made it onto the first team

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/soccer/4319651-419/pantazopoulos-makes-dream-team.html

classy tifo imo, rising sun flags
can we lool for a sec abt the ref spraypainting the 10 yd line? loved it
i am in an all cowbell sextion. who knew
should be 3-0 sounders

finishing!

they do the evaporating 10yd spray in mexico, imo glad it's here

sloppy goal by la but cmon keller

ok on replay maybe it wasn't such a sloppy goal

http://www.kmbc.com/r/27214722/detail.html

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco will be coming to Kansas City next week to tryout and train with the soccer team, Sporting KC officials tweeted on Wednesday.

lolwut

i see irish international striker caleb folan has gone to colorado rapids

Are there any major rivalries in MLS? How do they compare to, say, Liverpool-Man Utd, Arsenal-Spurs?

they're kinda manufactured since a lot of the teams are so new

Atlantic Cup — D.C. United vs New York Red Bulls
Brimstone Cup — Chicago Fire vs FC Dallas
California Clasico — Los Angeles Galaxy vs San Jose Earthquakes
Cascadia Cup — Seattle Sounders FC vs Portland Timbers vs Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Lamar Hunt Pioneer Cup, pre-season — Columbus Crew vs FC Dallas
Rocky Mountain Cup — Colorado Rapids vs Real Salt Lake
SuperClasico — Chivas USA vs Los Angeles Galaxy
Texas Derby — FC Dallas vs Houston Dynamo
Trillium Cup — Columbus Crew vs Toronto FC

None of them compare to Utd/Liverpool or other such rivalries, having not been around for generations.

Probably the biggest, starting this year, is the 3-way Seattle-Portland-Vancouver clusterfuck, due to their proximity and their history in other leagues over the past 30ish years.

NY-Philly-DC-New England is pretty big in a lot of ways, again because of proximity and all the other sports rivalries that exist between these cities. NY-DC hate is probably greatest in this one.

Chicago and Dallas used to be a huge rivalry back when there were fewer teams in the league, but has waned recently. Fire fans (of which I am one) basically hate everyone, but recent rivalries are biggest with Columbus (proximity) and New England (repeated playoff meetings).

Vancouver and Toronto (and Montreal when they enter the league) are going to be pretty big.

Columbus and Toronto is pretty dece.

The only true crosstown derby, LA/Chivas, is a rivalry, but is mostly hype-driven ime.

Dallas/Houston is pretty big too, being a Texas thing.

(afaik)

NY and New England not a rivalry, the supporters groups have been friendly for years! The DC part is for real, though.

Wait I thought you guys had like bottles thrown at you when you drove up to Foxboro that one time? Or was that in DC?

For anyone who's so inclined, a couple of Fire fans are producing a podcast starting this season.

http://hotmesscf97.podomatic.com/

Great humor, good analysis, a complete overview of where the team (and others around the league) are at the start of the new season.

Yah we did! But I think the climate has changed/different people are in charge of stuff/the people doing it weren't the main supporters club.

nobody goes to their games anyway lol

xp Would crosstown derbies work in the US if, say, Cosmos get off the ground? It doesn't seem to be a big deal in other sports e.g. I never hear about a Giants-Jets beef.

I am not a knowledgeable NFL fan, but afaik the Jets and Giants don't play each other because they're in separate conferences. I do know that Giants/Eagles is a huuuge rivalry.

Crosstown derbies could work though, imo, once there are some more teams. Gals/Chivas could be huge but the issue is that the Chivas branding tends to drive some fans away from their side. It definitely happens in other sports -- the baseball crosstown classic here in Chicago, Cubs/Sox, is always huge. The various California teams in other sports all hate each other, etc etc.

Jets and Giants could maybe meet in the playoffs? Dunno.

I'm not up on what's happening w the Cosmos name & future these days, but until maybe a year ago, it wasn't even clear that the NYC-area market could make ONE team really work, much less two. I would say we're a ways yet from having to worry about a cross-town derby.

There would DEFINITELY be people who'd join up for the Cosmos/any 2nd team just out of spite for Red Bull changing the name of the 1st team all those years ago -- a certain number of fans left after that who've never re-engaged, although some of them crumbled when the stadium opened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpOnM4SHPO0

Cosmos got a bit of publicity here last week when Cantona did an interview with the bbc - our awful pundits were left open-mouthed when he named the Kung-Fu kick as the best moment of his career

They're the trolliest non-team in existence.

I might have had too much coffee but I cannot sit through 10 mins of that interview.

I did, however, just buy my ticket for the home opener tonight and ALL the supporters sections are sold out! Now let's see who's actually sitting in them....

Normally I'm not one to care much about screen-size when watching games on video (lol internet streams) but the prospect of watching the Fire on a 10x30ft screen tonight has got me a little geeky.

So following the retirement of McBride and Brown and the departures of Ljungberg, Castillo, Conde, and a bunch of other dead weight, Coach looks to be running out a 3-5-2 with a youngish bunch of hungry no-name (outside the league, at least) players against the playoff runners-up from last year... should be quite interesting.

lol toronto

cd9 getting 2 goals as well

fire don't look like shit in a road draw, I'll take it

MatchDay Live (their name for the internet game interface) season pass is $39.99 until the 28th. Decided to give it a go and am watching the Vancouver - Toronto game from the other night. Boy do Toronto look bad; horrible fullbacks and midfield. It's gonna be a while before the Ajax system reaps any dividends. A while being years, based on the start.

a good first day! lots of goals, glad to see charlie, agudelo is a wonder, lol sounders.

Oh man so the Toronto-Vancouver game had video feed issues on Match Day Live and I didn't get to watch it (as it was happening)! And then the other game I was really excited about wasn't on MDL, the Timber's season opener. Had to go to some streaming site that probably gave me worms. Terrible defense on the Timbers side, the goalie looked so frustrated!

DC United kicked some serious ass, that was good.... I gotta put Charlie Davies on my fantasy team if he keeps up that level of play.

Watchin' the DC game as I type. Looks great, especially compared to the SD stream for the Tor-Van game. Love Pat Onstad.

That was a great MLS game. Chippy, some great defending, a couple of good goals.

The Fire home opener on Saturday is forecast to be in the low 40s, rain, w/ chance of snow. Still excited.

On a brighter note, our supporter sections have almost hit 800 season tickets sold, more than doubling our previous high mark. And this is after the team missed the playoffs last year for only the 2nd time.

I wonder if that's a MLS-wide phenomenon or just limited to Chicago... I think last years world cup created a lot of new American soccer fans.

It could be, but I think it's also a side effect of ownership deciding to try and give a shit about their fanbase. They've cut parking prices in half, offered up a lot more perks for buying season tickets, it's looking like they'll play Man Utd in a friendly at Soldier Field and all season ticket holders get that game included at no extra charge, etc. Numbers are up all over the park, not just in the end sections.

Also fwiw I don't remember a big bump in attendance after the WC finished last year.

hey dan - bit more -

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/football/nfl/03/23/ochocinco.ap/index.html

Publicity stunt or no I have to wonder what it makes ppl think of the league.

can i say how happy i am for omar salgado? (#1 pick but wasn't allowed to play by fifa bcz he's 17 and it'd be an international transfer-dumb, but all smoothed out now) just one more fun kid to watch in MLS.

don't fuck it up, kid

lolseattle again last night

hyped for game day here, 35 and sunny, no precip

kansas city: pick a state, pick a state, pick a state

The Real Salt Lake - LA Galaxy game was impressively one sided. RSL looks really good; their spacing and teamwork is top notch. Hustling right until the end.

Don't know what happened to LA... they lose Omar for one game and everything goes to shit? Yikes it was embarrassing.

RSL looked like a buzzsaw. I wasn't too impressed by the Galaxy in the game against New England, but they at least dominated huge swathes of that game. I don't think Landycakes could have done much too change the result.

The Metros game was hiiiiideous, but we were missing 6 players and down to 2nd or 3rd string in some places. And a 0-0 draw on the road at the start of the season is not the end of the world...but international weekends are going to SUCK.

RSL is the best team in the league and has been for the past 2 years or so.

Fire benefited from some questionable calls yesterday but won so I'm cool with it. I'm liking that they have avoided putting many international-level players on the team so we can avoid the kind of shit NY etc deals with.

We have not, in the past, been a team with much (any) depth. It's kind of perversely exciting to HAVE a third-string at all, tbh.

so i was actually physically present at that seattle game. decent atmosphere, but good christ the dynamo is TERRIBLE

also do we have a US SOCCER thread for the nat'l team?

usmnt

thankin u

seattle ain't lookin' like much this year yet either imo, still early tho