Major League Soccer

do mls teams have prominent shirt sponsorship?

some do.
wait what do you mean by prominent?

http://www.subsidesports.com/uk/images/product/large/SheffUtdHSS0607.gif

yes, all but new england, dallas, kansas city, and colorado i think.

Real Salt Lake: Xango
LA Galaxy: Herbalife
San Jose Earthquakes: Amway

there is a trend here

HOUSTON: ARE YOU READY?

loooooooooooooooool

"the next Darren Huckerby"?

zomg I met Brian McBride 2nite

"the next Darren Huckerby"?

Not likely - Akinbiyi's built like a tank; I vaguely remember him having an OK turn of pace, and he's a solid worker, but his confidence as a finisher got badly knocked when he moved to Leicester for £5million and flopped hard. Still, MLS is a much less pressured environment, and Ade's played a lot of football between the Leicester catastrophe and now - there's a decent chance he might end up doing a job for Houston.

Before Huckerby went San Jose, he'd been basically the key player in Norwich's attack - up til his move there, Darren's career had been characterised by brief purple patches followed by very long periods where he looked disinterested and frequently seemed to not really be trying. When he went to Norwich, he basically grew up very quickly and became a bit of a hero. I gather he's been a bit of a star for San Jose too?

He was awful at Sheffield United.

Oh gosh, was Sheffield United the place where he had a dressing room scuffle with someone then announced "I won't confirm or deny whether a razor was involved", despite no-one having asked him?

Ah yes, him and Claude Davis:

It was reported that Davis approached his team-mate while holding a razor but Akinbiyi said: "I'm not saying he did or didn't pull out a razor. There was a row that lasted about two minutes."

i'm guessing claude davis's parents don't let him use a cut-throat. this was probably a butter knife.

I gather he's been a bit of a star for San Jose too?

Yeah, he came in when they were having a really rough time. The team just re-started play last year due to the vagaries of MLS franchising and had a very inexperienced roster. They didn't make the play-offs, but he started helping them score some goals. This year things look a little better for them, though I'm still ready for Chicago to beat the piss out of them this weekend.

It's not so surprising that aging lower-division English players are trickling over here. A lot of people say that the level of play in MLS is comparable to the Championship. San Jose picked up one-time USNT midfielder Bobby Convey from Reading over the winter.

btw: flags? we got yer fuckin' flags right here.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2j5kz6h.jpg

hey laurel, my week in nyc has disappeared into a world of work stuff. new york city takes the international year of astronomy way too seriously. anyway, i am going to be working on sunday now, so no mls for me :( thanks anyway!

What an enormous bummer! That's too bad, especially as we won (FINALLY) on Saturday so spirits have lifted a bit.

Too bad you'll be missing NY v. DC, that's quite the rivalry game as far as I've heard.

The Fire played the best 75 minutes I've seen this year on Saturday, unfortunately they then decided they didn't need to try to control the ball any more and ended up with a 2-2 draw 15 minutes later. We did get to see one of these, though:

Okay that was fun.

I got distracted (read: drunk) right after the half and accidentally called Conway an asshole (not having adjusted to the switch). Now that I'm sober, I'm probably more embarrassed than I need to be -- but it's hard to pay attention with tall people holding scarves in front of you, and while you're signing and listening to the drums & capos. Eeep.

I can basically never see at home games so I just kind of zone out and try to follow along.

Just start standing on the seats!

yeah, i am bummed. i would arrive in town the week this circus comes through: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bpa/Astro2010.html

is there a good bar in chelsea to watch it, or is that a silly question?

It might be on at Nevada's, actually. Dunno about Chelsea specific.

That game is going to be on Telefutura, which means 2 things in my experience: 1. the commentary will be in Spanish, 2. it'll be a a national broadcast, thus raising the number of places you'll likely be able to watch it due to greater availability of the channel. Whether you'll actually be able to get someone to change the channel to it is way, way up in the air.

Lots of familiar names on the Astro2010 page.

I hate how all the teams have foreign sounding names. Just call yourself the goddamn Pasadena Bobcats or something.

Agree. One of my least favorite things about international soccer is the lack of standardization w/r/t team names, especially how some teams have official nicknames and others don't. What was wrong with the Dallas Burn, for instance? Australian rules football is like this, too, IIRC.

What was wrong with the Dallas Burn, for instance?

seriously?

i mean i'm a believer that all sports names are silly and that they only become cool with some time and history, but the dallas burn is really pushing it.

I think conceptual names are probably a terrible idea.

It's not unique to soccer. Look at the newer NHL franchises, like the Atlanta Thrashers. Are the people of Atlanta known for their thrashing abilities? American sports marketing taken to its logical end. I mean even my favorite team of all time, the Detroit Red Wings, has a comical name but they've been around a long time. In England you've got Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers and all kinds of shit like that, and they've been around for more than a hundred years. What is a Rover? Who cares?

Anyway none of these nicknames are anywhere near as bad-ass as some South American or African teams, like The Strongest or The Indomitable Lions.

The Burn, the Fury -- hell, wasn't Chicago almost called something completely embarrassing?

xp are you KIDDING? How much would you love to be the Indomitable Lions???

For some reason this is reminding me of the Budweiser ad that goofed on "Americanizing" the Premier league and had "Team Manchester" in purple jerseys.

All I'm saying is I like the American formula of LOCATION-NICKNAME. None of this "FC" bullshit -- half the teams emphasize the FC (or SV, AC, etc.) in their official logos, the other half don't. Half of them put it at the front of the team name, half put it at the end. Some are known by their city ("Liverpool FC"), others by their nickname ("Rangers FC"), still others use both (Japan's "Kashima Antlers").

I don't care how stupid "Dallas Burn" sounds, it obeys the rule of LOCATION-NICKNAME. Thirty years ago, I might've looked askance at "Burn" as a singular collective noun, but the Utah Jazz (and later the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat) made that OK.

30 years ago you were a newborn baby, you were probably looking askance at lots of things due to lack of ocular control

Don't get me started on sponsorship, although without it, I guess we wouldn't have the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japanese baseball.

30 years ago you were a newborn baby, you were probably looking askance at lots of things due to lack of ocular control

^^t-bomb

I mostly just hung out on this awesome baby-blue blanket upon which was stitched "Magic Cunningham."

do u see
http://www.prosportsmemorabilia.com/Images/Product/33-70/33-70457-F.jpg

Ideally I like sports team names that have something to do with their locale or its people -- the Dodgers, the old NASL team the (Washington DC) Diplomats, the Seattle Sounders -- or old trade-derived names like the Steelers, the Packers, (the) Arsenal, the Cleveland Stokers, and so on.

With new teams always being created, though, and other teams being moved across the country by new owners, I guess it doesn't pay to have a team to attached to its roots, huh? So much for fan base.

I feel like we should be having this discussion on BigSoccer.com.

Clubs names like Liverpool, AC Milan, Inter, Barcelona, Madrid... they're basically just brand names now. Like, I bet not one person on ILX who even tangentially follows the international game would think I was talking about Internacional of Porto Alegre, Brazil instead of Milan, or Atletico Madrid instead of Real Madrid. Their history and marketing power have overtaken the need for any other identification of what they are. Smaller teams in Europe do have the nickname/city or city/nickname combo, like Wisla Krakow, Locomotiv Moscow, etc.

Some MLS team names are good, some are terrible. "The Columbus Crew" makes me laugh almost every time. I'm honestly glad for Dallas that they're not called "Burn" any more, even if it does mean the Brimstone Cup (the supporter's trophy for the winner of the regular season series with the Fire) doesn't really mean quite as much any more.

xpost to Laurel: Yeah, I mean, speaking of Utah Jazz, it's always been this massive joke that the team kept the nickname upon their relocation from New Orleans to one of the states least evocative of jazz in the nation.

Also, quite frankly, the wide variety of club names, city identities, nicknames both complimentary and un-, and all other identifying characteristics of teams and their fans just add to the rich tapestry of sport. And to the various ILX rolling threads, most of which I can't make heads of tails of without googling the history of half a dozen Londontown clubs.

All I'm saying is I like the American formula of LOCATION-NICKNAME. None of this "FC" bullshit -- half the teams emphasize the FC (or SV, AC, etc.) in their official logos, the other half don't. Half of them put it at the front of the team name, half put it at the end. Some are known by their city ("Liverpool FC"), others by their nickname ("Rangers FC"), still others use both (Japan's "Kashima Antlers").

I don't care how stupid "Dallas Burn" sounds, it obeys the rule of LOCATION-NICKNAME. Thirty years ago, I might've looked askance at "Burn" as a singular collective noun, but the Utah Jazz (and later the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat) made that OK.

― Bianca Jagger (jaymc), Monday, April 20, 2009 4:45 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

are you fucking joking

like srsly dude we're pals but i couldn't disagree with you more on this issue

laurel OTM

i'm all in favor of MLS teams just being NAME OF CITY and they can put FC (or SC) or whatever anymore. let the people pick the nickname instead of a committee

actually, mostly i just have a problem with the NEW YORK RED BULLS and REAL SALT LAKE like are you joking, let's make the american game even more laughable

NYRB is a special, sad case. Nobody wanted that except Red Bull and whatever entity was selling the team.

I mean, I hate DC, NY, Columbus, and the rest but the league is too fragile and small for what harms one team not to harm others.

Ironically, though, while Liverpool may be called Liverpool F.C. officially, to most people they're the Reds or 'Pool or just 'damn scousers'

Real Salt Lake, otoh, just befuddles me. The Royal Football Club of SLC?! Really?!

I can't talk about RB, it's too complicated and long and annoying. But if you think the battle for the team name isn't still fought every day by supporters on message boards, go back to college and earn one fucking clue credit.

Also, sometime check out these wikipedia entries to learn a bit more about the actions of, and reactions to, the soccer marketing ploys of Red Bull

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Red_Bull_Salzburg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV_Austria_Salzburg