North American Pro Soccer 2018

[DG_ThenNowForever]

5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that at all. 

 

I meant to say “It’s so easy, why do people who know the sport have difficulty understanding it?”  I place the blame on those trying to explain who make it more complicated than it needs to be.

 

And that’s true about all sports, from the ones I understand to those I don’t. Because all sports have their idiosyncratic quirks, and all have their connections with things familiar. 

 

If you can understand American football, you can understand anything. 

 

EDIT:

 

Also, there are games tonight. Congrats Atlanta United! Let's go Sporting KC!

[Digby]

46 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Yeah, aggregate is an odd one to wrap your head around. 

 

Right on cue tonight. Red Bulls lose, 1-0.

[Red Wolf]

50 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Yeah, aggregate is an odd one to wrap your head around. 

I think it's easy enough until they throw in the away goals rule. Speaking of which, I don't care for the away goals rule. I also have a vested interest in away goals not being a thing tonight, so maybe I can't be trusted.

[Red Wolf]

At least I can't bitch about away goals, except yes I can because Sporting wouldn't have been pushing so hard if having the exact same amount of goals counted as the same amount of goals.

[FiddySicks]

Well, I do know one thing. There’s gonna be about a million people at the MLS Cup Final this year. 

 

 

And yes, :censored: the away goals rule. So glad they tied that to a tree and bashed it over the head with a shovel. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Lower seeded madness rides again.

 

Go ATL.

[gosioux76]

Good guys won. Go get that second star, Timbers. RCTID! 

 

(That’s not exactly fair. KC is a class franchise with great supporters. They’re good guys, too.)

[Wings]

Let's go Timbers Army and show up well in the ATL. 

 

72,000 soccer fans at the MLS CUP will be sublime. 

 

Great match SKC. A tip of the cap to you. 

[Digby]

Great match, should be a cracking final. Portland is the poster child for getting hit at the right time.

 

also is it me or is Portland everyone’s second favorite team (except maybe in Seattle)? My local soccer bar is a Timbers bar now and we’re on the opposite coast.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

is it me or is Portland everyone’s second favorite team

 

I dig them on account of the former Cosmos manager Giovanni Savarese.

[Gothamite]

4 hours ago, Digby said:

also is it me or is Portland everyone’s second favorite team (except maybe in Seattle)? My local soccer bar is a Timbers bar now and we’re on the opposite coast.

 

There’s a lot to love about Portland.  A real soccer city, drove their baseball team out of town to boost the Timbers.  The organization has been around for a long time, and is widely seen as having worked their way up to MLS. 

 

As @Ferdinand Cesarano indicates, even NASL partisans have something to celebrate there with Savarese as coach.

 

I can totally see soccer fans without a rooting interest choosing to get behind the Timbers. 

[Camden Crazy]

6 hours ago, Digby said:

Great match, should be a cracking final. Portland is the poster child for getting hit at the right time.

 

also is it me or is Portland everyone’s second favorite team (except maybe in Seattle)? My local soccer bar is a Timbers bar now and we’re on the opposite coast.

 

Kinda where I am at with them (and ATL, really).  I guess I’m technically an NYCFC fan because I am a Man City fan, but I’m also an Orioles fan so the Yankees partnership and playing in their stadium kinda ruins it for me.  I guess you could say my fandom is on ice until they get their own place to play.

 

Portland seems like a dope city and they play in a unique venue with a great crowd/atmosphere.  

[BigRed618]

I just got word that the St. Louis board of aldermen approved the tax-incentive plan for the soccer stadium. Now all we need to do left is come up with a good stadium plan and then wait for the commish to give the good news, probably sometime during the MLS Cup final.

 

This makes me wonder... I haven’t heard much from the other cities that were supposedly trying to land a team. Have they all thrown in the towel? I heard Austin had an owner and a stadium, but needed to pay an expansion fee since they’d be getting a new team instead of having one move in from somewhere else, like they originally planned.

[GDAWG]

23 minutes ago, BigRed618 said:

I just got word that the St. Louis board of aldermen approved the tax-incentive plan for the soccer stadium. Now all we need to do left is come up with a good stadium plan and then wait for the commish to give the good news, probably sometime during the MLS Cup final.

 

This makes me wonder... I haven’t heard much from the other cities that were supposedly trying to land a team. Have they all thrown in the towel? I heard Austin had an owner and a stadium, but needed to pay an expansion fee since they’d be getting a new team instead of having one move in from somewhere else, like they originally planned.

 

This was the MLS Expansion Race from Soccer Stadium Digest a few weeks ago:

 

https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2018/11/handicapping-the-next-mls-expansion-round-november-2018-edition/

[Wings]

Right now if things go according to plan it'll be Austin & St. Louis as 27 & 28. But as many others have said, MLS will eventually expand beyond 28. 

[GDAWG]

MLS will probably end up like the big 4 and cap it at 32.

[Crabcake]

Great MLS Cup matchup. Two soccer-crazy cities that will bring the noise and be really stoked about winning it. I’m kind of pulling for Atlanta because I’ve always kinda rooted for them because of how good I think they are for the league, but I’ll still be fine if Portland wins. 

[Digby]

7 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

There’s a lot to love about Portland.  A real soccer city, drove their baseball team out of town to boost the Timbers.  The organization has been around for a long time, and is widely seen as having worked their way up to MLS. 

 

As @Ferdinand Cesarano indicates, even NASL partisans have something to celebrate there with Savarese as coach.

 

I can totally see soccer fans without a rooting interest choosing to get behind the Timbers. 

 

5 hours ago, Camden Crazy said:

 

Kinda where I am at with them (and ATL, really).  I guess I’m technically an NYCFC fan because I am a Man City fan, but I’m also an Orioles fan so the Yankees partnership and playing in their stadium kinda ruins it for me.  I guess you could say my fandom is on ice until they get their own place to play.

 

Portland seems like a dope city and they play in a unique venue with a great crowd/atmosphere.  

 

Yeah, I get that, not least because a Portland match was the first non-local MLS game I ever went to while on vacation! Their stadium is a real gem even before you get into the fandom aspect; all the nice new stadiums are great but the historic charm of whatever they call it now in Portland is really different for American soccer and it's super cool. It's like the Fenway of soccer.

 

(I do think the "hip white young professional" demographic of MLS fans are in play here, with Portland as their mecca, but yeah I get it!)

 

(Also it’s indeed a dope city in the fact that people pass out overdosed while waiting at res lights, hey-o)

[FiddySicks]

Louisville City FC and former Orlando City FC owner died in a plane crash today. 

 

https://deadspin.com/usl-and-former-mls-owner-dies-in-small-plane-crash-1830782564

[Brian in Boston]

4 hours ago, BigRed618 said:

I just got word that the St. Louis board of aldermen approved the tax-incentive plan for the soccer stadium. Now all we need to do left is come up with a good stadium plan and then wait for the commish to give the good news, probably sometime during the MLS Cup final.

To be precise, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen voted in favor of a non-binding resolution that outlines the tax incentives that the investor/operators of a proposed St. Louis-based MLS expansion team say would be necessary in order to make the privately-financed construction of a soccer-specific stadium viable. The approval of said resolution is just the first step in a process that will require the proposed team's investor/operators and the Board of Aldermen to hammer out the details of a lease. If that is successfully accomplished, the aldermen must then pass the binding city statutes that would legally provide the tax incentives the investor/operators are seeking.

24th Ward Alderman Scott Ogilvie said before the resolution was taken up, "I will enthusiastically vote yes. But, I will remind everyone that our work is not done making sure that this is a good and fair lease."

Alderman Jack Coatar of the city's 7th Ward later added, "This is by no means a done deal. All we're doing today is showing our support." 

Perhaps most importantly, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson has said that the statutes required to establish the tax incentives would be voted on by the Board of Aldermen after Major League Soccer awards the city a team.   
 

I could be wrong, but I'm not expecting Don Garber to be making a hard-and-fast, guaranteed announcement about the awarding of a Major League Soccer expansion team to St. Louis at MLS Cup 2019.  What I could see in the wake of today's vote is Garber speaking to the fact that today's resolution has provided both him and the members of the MLS Board of Governors with a great deal of enthusiasm regarding the possibility of the proposed investor/operators and city officials successfully completing the negotiation of a stadium lease and the Board of Aldermen passing laws authorizing incentives to support stadium construction. I suspect that he'd then go on to say that as  a result of said enthusiasm, MLS officials will be keeping a close watch on developments in St. Louis, with the expectation being that the league would love to award an expansion team to the city just as soon as the all of the details are hammered out.