North American Pro Soccer 2017

[HedleyLamarr]

5 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Attendance "records" don't mean $hit.

 

Win a championship.

 

Oh wait, Atlanta historically has issues with that.

I'll be sure to pass that tidbit on to the team on Wednesday.

[Kevin W.]

Chicago is all but officially a lock for the playoffs.

 

I don't know how to react.

[Red Wolf]

20 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Eh, I think 70,000 and 40,000 regularly showing up for pro soccer in the southeast US speaks well of the health of the game.

 

We're still a long way from convincing people to watch MLS on TV, but the live gates being healthy is still pretty good.

I wish we could get the Saturday games nationally televised. It's weird that the majority of the schedule is played on Saturday, but the national games are almost all on Sunday. 

[Digby]

In this rough year for MLS coaches, Jay Heaps is the latest go. I think it's a shame the team put a club legend in such a tough situation, but it's also the right move. Or, one right move. There are probably five more moves to make for the Revs to right the ship and all of them are more difficult to pull off as long as the Kraft ownership group and current front office are in place.

[dfwabel]

On 9/17/2017 at 1:35 PM, Red Wolf said:

I wish we could get the Saturday games nationally televised.

They are.  They are just on UniMas now as MLS went away from airing the UniMas/Univision Desportes games on Friday night as they did the previous two seasons.  UniMas offers English broadcasters by using the SAP button on your set. 

[Red Wolf]

1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

They are.  They are just on UniMas now as MLS went away from airing the UniMas/Univision Desportes games on Friday night as they did the previous two seasons.  UniMas offers English broadcasters by using the SAP button on your set. 

I guess I assumed they were still doing the UniMas games on Friday. Not sure how I missed that. 

[dfwabel]

15 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

I guess I assumed they were still doing the UniMas games on Friday. Not sure how I missed that. 

UniMas only had three Friday night games this season. Saturday is the last UniMas game.  September 30 is a Univision game

[crashcarson15]

I think part of the thing MLS will always struggle with, to some extent (and I’ve talked about it before) is how few “must-watch” matches there are on TV in any given season, and specifically the complete lack of urgency of, well, most any game.

 

In the Premier League, when Chelsea and City get together, it’s meaningful, if for no other reason than it’s a pivotal game that will help decide who the champion of the league is — and, as such, it becomes interesting even if you aren’t a Chelsea or City supporter. In MLS, I don’t think you get that same feeling with Toronto/NYCFC. You’re counting on people to tune in because the quality of play is high, not because that match is exceedingly important.

 

And to be fair, this is something that every American sport — with the exception of football — has to deal with. No individual NBA or MLB or NHL game is exceedingly important, and I think that especially hurts the NHL like it does MLS; sports with few, if any, marketable stars.

 

But there are very few MLS matches over the course of the season I feel an high level of need to tune into or express an elevated level of interest in. I think a lot of things go into that, but it’s unfortunately true.

 

---------------------------------------------

 

Re: standing, I’m generally of the opinion that (outside of supporters’/student sections) one should sit for the majority of the game, but be expecting to stand when a big play is unfolding, when it’s a particularly tense moment in the game, or when the atmosphere is particularly great. I was at Game 3 of the Stanley Cup playoffs in Columbus last year, and there were entire sections that didn’t sit the entire game. We stood for probably about half of the game, as I recall, and it was great because it was tense, because it was a big game, because every moment was a big moment.

 

For a run of the mill MLS regular-season match, that makes little sense (and it’s part of why I sat in the upper level when I went to a Sounders game).

[Corvus]

Man, ATL vs LA is something already...

[MJWalker45]

Thought they were airing a replay when I turned to it and the score was 3-0.

[4_tattoos]

To crashcarson15...

I'd argue that MLB has made a big deal out of every Yankees/Red Sox game played since 2003. Hell, their first matchup in the 2004  season (after the whole A-Rod acquisition drama & the shenanigans of the 2003 ALCS) was a special nationally televised game Friday night on Fox early in the season.

[Still MIGHTY]

Here's a look at Atlanta United's upper deck curtains:

 

 

If you're gonna do them, that's how you do them. Well done, actually.

[Red Wolf]

Hey, Sporting KC won the US Open Cup! Best of all, they won a thing without it having to go to penalties. Exciting times. 

[Corvus]

15 hours ago, Still MIGHTY said:

Here's a look at Atlanta United's upper deck curtains:

 

 

If you're gonna do them, that's how you do them. Well done, actually.

 

 

Looks better than the tarps the Whitecaps have in BC Place

[dfwabel]

Well....

 

Quote

Wynalda, apparently, is not alone. After 11 unchallenged years as USSF president, incumbent Sunil Gulati will face at least two – and possibly more – declared rivals at an election in February.

 

Wynalda comes with a broad perspective on the state of the American game. A Hall of Famer with more than 100 appearances for the men’s national team, his 34 goals made him all-time leading goalscorer until Landon Donovan broke that record in 2007. Now 48, he was the first American to play in the Bundesliga before Jürgen Klinsmann made that cool – if not mandatory – and scored the first-ever goal in Major League Soccer. He is a coach and now known as a TV pundit with Fox Sports.

 

“I’ve stood back for two decades waiting for things to get better,” Wynalda says. “What I’ve realized is that there is not a whole lot of people who are willing or even wanting to invoke change. Out of moral obligation, I think I’m finally at the point where I’m asking, ‘What can I do to help?’ I don’t want to tweet something or write an article or start a fight. I want to roll up my sleeves.”

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/22/sunil-gulati-us-soccer-eric-wynalda?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Viola73]

7 hours ago, dfwabel said:

Well....

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/22/sunil-gulati-us-soccer-eric-wynalda?CMP=share_btn_tw

It would be nice to know at least some of the ideas Wynalda has if he became head of the USSF. I can only imagine he would be more of a player development oriented boss seeing as he was a player himself. I do think Eric is somewhat correct about his take on the game in the US as well. If you look at the past 11 years, the game has grown substantially, but I do think it has grown with just the minimal support of the USSF. 

[Gothamite]

Can't agree with that one.  The USSF has been instrumental in the growth of the professional game.  

 

The USSF brokered a truce between warring factions in the second division and established clear rules designed to grow each league.  They also helped arrange a partnership between MLS and the lower division clubs.  The rise of the USL is hardly an accident, and the problems plaguing the NASL are directly related to its failure to adhere to the standards. 

 

I agree the national team remains a mess, and Gulati needs to account for that.  But on the other hand, soccer in our country has never been his strong, and he deserves a measure of credit for it. 

[Viola73]

5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

Can't agree with that one.  The USSF has been instrumental in the growth of the professional game.  

 

The USSF brokered a truce between warring factions in the second division and established clear rules designed to grow each league.  They also helped arrange a partnership between MLS and the lower division clubs.  The rise of the USL is hardly an accident, and the problems plaguing the NASL are directly related to its failure to adhere to the standards. 

 

I agree the national team remains a mess, and Gulati needs to account for that.  But on the other hand, soccer in our country has never been his strong, and he deserves a measure of credit for it. 

Oh no, I'm not saying that the USSF has done nothing, and you are right about what Gulanti has done in the past, but I'm just expressing how I can see where Eric is coming from as it feels like the state of soccer in the US is stuck with no real plans as to what direction we are headed. Maybe this is what Gulanti needs to make some of the changes necessary to get the US in a better position not just in competing with other pro leagues here in the states but with other countries on a global stage.

[Viper]

Two straight wins for the Loons, for the first time in their MLS history, after thrashing FC Dallas 4-1 tonight. FCD's freefall has now reached ten straight games. Meanwhile Minnesota's playoff prospects, amazingly, still have a pulse.

[Red Wolf]

I was having a conversation with somebody about which trophies were most prestigious in the US. So I figured I'd get the opinions of random internet folk. And honestly, as far as random internet folk go, this is generally a pretty good group. So, how would you rate the US trophies? I go: 

 

1. MLS Cup

2. US Open Cup

3. Supporters' Shield

 

The other person basically just flip-flopped the USOC and SS. I've even seen people say that the Supporters' Shield is the most important. To me, the Supporters' Shield is like the Presidents' Trophy in the NHL, so something that's nice, but not a real trophy. It's like a high-end participation trophy compared to something like MLS Cup. The Red Bulls' manager even talked about how they've never won a trophy but there have, "been some Supporters’ Shields but there’s never been a trophy."

 

I thought it was especially interesting because I remember Jason Kreis once saying he valued the Supporters' Shield over MLS Cup. He may have been specifically referring to when MLS shortly had a balanced schedule, can't remember for sure, but it's a sentiment I've seen from other people. It was probably the same people who obsess over "pro/rel for USA!" on Twitter, but still interesting.

 

It feels like a no-brainer that MLS Cup would be the top prize, so I'm mostly curious about the USOC vs. SS dynamic, though I'm interested in the SS>MLS Cup argument.