MLS 2013 -- Deuces Wild

Titans Bastard

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Zososoxfan said:
I really enjoy this broad-level type of discussion, and both of your contributions are terrific. Perhaps we can swing this into a new thread? A few comments:
 
1. As an American-Argentine, I have to say that the split seasons is also hokey to me. It completely devalues each championship to me. It also underscored to me just how bad the league (and really the country's) health were doing. Once it switched systems, it was clear to me that Argentines in power felt that their ceiling was a feeder system for the Euro clubs and nothing more.
 
I'm not sure how I feel about the Apertura/Clausura season, but out of curiosity why do you view it as a sign that Argentina is resigned to being a feeder league?  (Note: pretty much every league in the world is a feeder league to some extent.  And within leagues, there are essentially feeder teams.)  An acknowledgement of the wave of transfers every six months?
 
 
Zososoxfan said:
2. TB, I appreciate your understanding about the TV and attendance nuances of MLS, but how can you not see the problem with not televising the most important games? I think the league needs to look at that as a necessary cost. If you want to black out or regionalize (or some other term I'm not familiar with) some regular season games, go ahead. But, if you're going to utlizie a playoff format, you HAVE to televise all of the games.
 
FWIW, the KC-Revs game was one of the few games in the entire playoffs that wasn't on national TV.  To make matters worse, CSNNE had the Celtics conflict, but in the 2013 playoffs that game was very much the exception and not the rule.
 
I just don't see the televised (or not) status of one early-round playoff game as having an appreciable effect on TV ratings down the road.  A lot of US soccer fans like to blame the TV stations, ESPN, etc for US soccer's middling popularity, but in my view ESPN's historical treatment of soccer has been the symptom of MLS's lack of popularity, not the cause.
 
That being said, I feel as though in the last year we've really turned a corner in terms of excitement/interest/coverage in the USMNT.  Every qualifier seems to break new ratings records and stadium atmospheres are better than I can ever remember.  My hope for MLS is that the process of general soccer --> USMNT --> MLS trickle-down fandom slowly continues.
 
3. I agree that the CCL is not an enticing enough carrot, but Libertadores certainly would. Cost would be an issue, but I think with the economy in the US (even in its current weakened state) significantly bigger than any south American country (especially outside of Brazil), this isn't an impossible obstacle.
 
For Libertadores, cost isn't the issue -- it's travel.  England is slightly smaller than Louisiana.  European teams like to bitch when they have to travel to Romania, a short hop by American standards.  MLS teams are traveling a ton just for league play and traveling all the way to places like Montevideo and Sao Paulo would be a serious drain.  I would like more involvement with South American NTs and clubs, but I'm just not sure how realistic this is at this time.  I view it as a long-term goal, but MLS needs more depth and more success in the CCL first.
 
CONMEBOL has been willing to invite Mexican clubs, so maybe one day MLS will get a shot.  But I don't think this happens soon.
 
4. What do you mean by this: "Plus, although the standard of play would be higher, South American clubs don't resonate with most US soccer fans.)?" Mexican soccer fans are passionate, but after living in Florida for 4 years, I can tell you that Peruvians, Colombians, Uruguayans, and Chileans, in addition to the obvious Argentines and Brazilians, are completely nuts about their teams. I also think that generally teams from those countries are better supported in the US than from smaller central American countries, but I have no idea how to look that up.
 
What I mean is that outside of specific ethnic enclaves, people in the US have never heard of Botafogo or Peñarol or América de Cali.  Most soccer fans know all the big European clubs and many of the smaller ones as well.  They don't know South American clubs, they don't see them on TV, they don't play with them on FIFA, etc.
 
So if the Philadelphia Union played Universidad Catolica or LDU Quito, it just wouldn't generate the buzz that you would get if MLS teams could somehow play meaningful games against Schalke or Fiorentina.
 

Zososoxfan

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I don't know how to break up your post like I used to, so I put my text in bold.
 
Titans Bastard said:
 
I'm not sure how I feel about the Apertura/Clausura season, but out of curiosity why do you view it as a sign that Argentina is resigned to being a feeder league?  (Note: pretty much every league in the world is a feeder league to some extent.  And within leagues, there are essentially feeder teams.)  An acknowledgement of the wave of transfers every six months?
 
Yes, by changing from a logical 1-season system to a 2-season system, AFA was acknowledging that catering to the European transfer window was more important than domestic concerns. Although I will concede that having the 2 winners play against each other eases this problem, but teams can change drastically from one season to another (i.e. a team loses their all star player after the Apertura).
 
 
FWIW, the KC-Revs game was one of the few games in the entire playoffs that wasn't on national TV.  To make matters worse, CSNNE had the Celtics conflict, but in the 2013 playoffs that game was very much the exception and not the rule.
 
I agree, but again (and I'll try to stop being so repetitive), I think it's counterproductive to the MLS product to not televise the playoffs.
 
I just don't see the televised (or not) status of one early-round playoff game as having an appreciable effect on TV ratings down the road.  A lot of US soccer fans like to blame the TV stations, ESPN, etc for US soccer's middling popularity, but in my view ESPN's historical treatment of soccer has been the symptom of MLS's lack of popularity, not the cause.
 
ESPN has gone down a lot in my book over the past 5-8 years for a variety of reasons, but their utter neglect for soccer (other than the occasional top 10 highlight) is among them. If you ever watch the ESPNDeportes Sportscenter, they cover tons of soccer and still make time for most US sports as well. It really comes down to ESPN preferring to feeding the American public more Tebow, Bountygate, etc. coverage (even though they're utterly oversaturated) than getting ahead of the curve. I refuse to believe that Americans care that much about Tebow (or for a more current example, rehashing the Dolphins stories - at least until more actual news comes out).
 
That being said, I feel as though in the last year we've really turned a corner in terms of excitement/interest/coverage in the USMNT.  Every qualifier seems to break new ratings records and stadium atmospheres are better than I can ever remember.  My hope for MLS is that the process of general soccer --> USMNT --> MLS trickle-down fandom slowly continues.
 
Agreed on this point. The USMNT is making strides for American soccer and MLS should benefit as a result.
 
For Libertadores, cost isn't the issue -- it's travel.  England is slightly smaller than Louisiana.  European teams like to bitch when they have to travel to Romania, a short hop by American standards.  MLS teams are traveling a ton just for league play and traveling all the way to places like Montevideo and Sao Paulo would be a serious drain.  I would like more involvement with South American NTs and clubs, but I'm just not sure how realistic this is at this time.  I view it as a long-term goal, but MLS needs more depth and more success in the CCL first.
 
CONMEBOL has been willing to invite Mexican clubs, so maybe one day MLS will get a shot.  But I don't think this happens soon.
 
I think MLS will one day get a shot, but they'll probably have to subsidize the travel or provide some other incentive to CONMEBOL to get in. That being said, when the time is right, that would absolutely raise the profile of MLS.
 
What I mean is that outside of specific ethnic enclaves, people in the US have never heard of Botafogo or Peñarol or América de Cali.  Most soccer fans know all the big European clubs and many of the smaller ones as well.  They don't know South American clubs, they don't see them on TV, they don't play with them on FIFA, etc.
 
So if the Philadelphia Union played Universidad Catolica or LDU Quito, it just wouldn't generate the buzz that you would get if MLS teams could somehow play meaningful games against Schalke or Fiorentina.
 
OK, I thought you meant the popularity of south American clubs compared to central American clubs. I agree that European clubs are followed much more by American fans (including myself), but I would add that south American clubs are followed significantly more than central American clubs.
 
 
Also, caught the 2nd half of the RSL-LA game last night. The ref was just terrible for disallowing that goal. Taylor Twellman was right for being indignant, then backpedalled in confusion about an offside call that was incorrectly not called, before finally just giving up. He was also killing the LA left winger and rightfully so. That player was getting a lot of touches and was just disastrous. The game was very physical, but I enjoyed watching RSL press aggressively and vary their attack from the wings and the center.
 

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dirtynine said:
I would love an honest conversation about better ways to break ties in one-off settings, other than penalties.  Replays are the fairest, and of course they ain't coming back.  
 
Alternating corner kicks
1. Each team gets the same number of kicks, say at least three
2. After the corner, play continues until a) the attacking team scores, b) the defending team possesses the ball passed midfield (i.e. not just cleared), or c) the attacking team plays the ball over the touch or endline. If the defending team kicks it over the touch or endline, the attacking team gets a throw or corner as normal.
3. Once #2 occurs, play ends and the other team gets a corner. 
 
The things I like about this is that: 
a. all the players are on the field,
b. the goals are actually goals
c. the defending team can't pack the box with 11 players because they have to leave a couple guys near midfield to advance the ball over the midfield line and either end play or get their turn to corner, which means:
d. but there's no chance for a counter-attack, which is the problem with things like golden goal or silver goal: teams were too afraid to attack and fall victim to the counter. 
 
Something like 10-15% of corners end with a goal, so if you give the two teams 6-10 corners combined, someone will score
 

Infield Infidel

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Titans Bastard said:
 
That being said, MLS is at 19 teams, NYC is #20, and Orlando is about to be announced as #21.  The league is openly talking about getting to 24 soon.  That's a lot of teams and while the major US leagues have had success at 30+, they have no real competition globally.  At some point MLS is going to have to balance expanding their footprint domestically and competing globally (i.e. not diluting talent too much).  One possible -- but extremely unlikely -- solution to those competing forces would be to spin out an MLS-2.  But the popularity of domestic soccer would have to increase several orders of magnitude for that idea to not be laughable....and even then....
 
If/when they get to 24 teams, and there was some kind of MLS1 with 14 teams and MLS2 with ten teams, there's no way they could split without incorporating MLS2 teams in the playoffs. Like MLS1 got 9 spots and MLS2 got 3. Otherwise, fans might be really upset that their team couldn't win it all. They'd probably also have to have the teams play crossover games, like one against each team from the other side. It might end up being way to convoluted. 
 

SoxFanInPdx

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Great to see the Timbers close out the Sounders last night. Porter simply out-managed Schmid in this series by quite a margin. I expected Seattle to come out fighting, but they didn't really look interested. A lot of talent on that squad, but no chemistry at all. Pretty shocking when you look at their final two months and see that tailspin. I expect Sigi to be gone and some overhauling for that team. Great atmosphere as usual at Jeld-Wen and now onto RSL.
 

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Fist let of the Conference finals are done.
 
Houston and KC drew 0-0 in Houston
 
RSL is up 4-2 at home against Portland.
 

Titans Bastard

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Orlando City officially announced for 2015 tonight.  This has been a foregone conclusion since the stadium deal went through last month.  
 

 
Florida is back in the league for the first time since 2001.  Orlando will be keeping the name and colors, but changing the logo (though not ditching the Lions symbol & moniker).  This is great for the league, which heretofore had no presence in the southeast whatsoever.  Orlando is a low-risk proposition with a stadium already in the works and a sizable built-in fanbase from their current D3 incarnation (8,000+ in 2013).
 
Hopefully NYCFC and Orlando give the league some momentum in the upcoming TV deal negotiations -- the league could definitely use the boost.
 

Titans Bastard

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Juan Agudelo's work permit appeal was denied, so he won't be going to Stoke City in January after all.  It'll either be elsewhere in Europe or back to the Revs.  Retaining him would be huge for New England, but I still don't think it will happen.  Either way, I don't think this is all that bad.  The EPL isn't particularly forgiving or nurturing for players with still-developing games.
 

Titans Bastard

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steeplechase3k said:
Sporting KC won last night so they host the final.

Portland vs Salt Lake kicks off in 7 hours, with Portland trailing by 2.
 
Last night's game was the coldest game in MLS history since they started keeping track of game time temperatures in 2003: 23 F an hour before kickoff.  It was an SRO sellout anyway -- SKC will have a rocking atmosphere for the final, which is great.
 
As a neutral, the Portland vs. Salt Lake matchup is the more appealing of the two conference finals.  Two teams that play quality soccer, coached by two of the best American managerial prospects around.  To me, SKC (Vermes) and Houston (Kinnear) both come from the school of uninspiring-but-effective MLS soccer.
 

Titans Bastard

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Portland 0 - Real Salt Lake 1
 
The Timbers were stifled and never looked capable of running up the two goal lead necessary to level the tie.  Portland really could have used an early goal to set the tone for the night, but Robbie Findley scored for RSL after half and hour and that was it.  5-2 on aggregate.
 
Condolences to steeplechase.  More good things to come if the debut year of the Porter era was anything to go by.
 
 
SKC vs. Salt Lake in MLS Cup, then.  Kreis has a forward dilemma on his hands.  Devon Sandoval has formed a partnership with Findley during Saborio's absence that has been extremely effective in limited minutes.  Saborio will probably be healthy by MLS Cup and if so, does Kreis dare bench a guy who has scored 12 in 18 games this season?
 

steeplechase3k

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Thanks.  Part of me is frustrated by the lass, but last year the Timbers were one of the worst teams in MLS, and this year we won the conference. There is really only one team the scares me, and that is RSL, they have our number.  
 
However they are ~5 years into building that program, the Timbers are 10 MONTHS into building their system.  If they can be this good after 10 months of work, I can't wait to see what they do after 3-4 years.
 
 
Also: Schedule is out: http://www.mlssoccer.com/schedule
 
Portland is at New England on August 16th.  There is a good chance I'll be at that match, my family is tentatively planning a trip the New Hampshire for some time in August, so I hope it is the week before or after that match.
 
Edit to add another video bragging about the support in Portland:  This is a few minutes AFTER the final whistle.
http://instagram.com/p/hH6deFFQE8/
 

Titans Bastard

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steeplechase3k said:
Thanks.  Part of me is frustrated by the lass, but last year the Timbers were one of the worst teams in MLS, and this year we won the conference. There is really only one team the scares me, and that is RSL, they have our number.  
 
However they are ~5 years into building that program, the Timbers are 10 MONTHS into building their system.  If they can be this good after 10 months of work, I can't wait to see what they do after 3-4 years.
 
If Porter is as successful with his acquisitions going forward as he was in 2013, the Timbers will be a force.  Portland had pretty much no busts to speak of other than a few speculative signings, which is the nature of the beast.  Only Mikaël Silvestre's long-term injury comes to mind, but honestly that may have been addition by subtraction.
 
I will say, though, that what makes RSL's success so impressive this season is that 2013 is their rebuilding year.  Kreis dumped a bunch of key contributors from the old core (Will Johnson, Fabian Espindola, Jamison Olave) and still had the team contending for the Supporters Shield late in the season.  For me, Kreis has really boosted his stock as a potential USMNT manager this year.  It's one thing for a manager to assemble a good core and ride the wave for a few years.  If you can do it all over again, you've established yourself at another level.
 

Titans Bastard

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  • The 2014 schedule is out early and the Revs have zero nationally televised home games, as per usual.  Gotta keep the ugly stepchildren off the stage as much as possible.  Meanwhile, Portland, KC, and Seattle will be on ESPN2 or NBCSN a combined 24 times.
 
  • Speaking of ugly stepchildren, Chivas USA is looking for a new manager again now that Jose Luis Real has been reassigned as manager of big boy Chivas de Guadalajara.  From one Vergara shitshow to the other.
 
 

Titans Bastard

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The Revs' own José Gonçalves wins Defender of the Year.  I'm glad to see this, as he is a deserving candidate.  The dude was a rock all season and has been the Revs' best foreign acquisition in a long time.  He was on loan from FC Sion in 2013, but fortunately they've already secured a permanent transfer.
 

Titans Bastard

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Mike Magee wins MVP
 
Best XI:
 
GK: Donovan Ricketts (Portland)
DF: Matt Besler (Kansas City)
DF: José Gonçalves (New England)
DF: Omar Gonzalez (Los Angeles)
MF: Tim Cahill (New York)
MF: Will Johnson (Portland)
MF: Diego Valeri (Portland)
MF: Graham Zusi (Kansas City)
FW: Marco Di Vaio (Montreal)
FW: Robbie Keane (Los Angeles)
FW: Mike Magee (Chicago)
 

Zososoxfan

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I saw yesterday that the MLS Cup game is going be on Saturday at 4pm. What do you guys think of the timing? I think for the final, MLS should be shooting for prime time. I can understand not wanting to go up against the NFL, but the NCAA conference championship games are going to be stiff competition too.
 

Titans Bastard

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Zososoxfan said:
I saw yesterday that the MLS Cup game is going be on Saturday at 4pm. What do you guys think of the timing? I think for the final, MLS should be shooting for prime time. I can understand not wanting to go up against the NFL, but the NCAA conference championship games are going to be stiff competition too.
 
No matter what you do, you're going to be going up against something.  At least the SEC doesn't overlap with the MLS geographic footprint whatsoever (for now).
 
 
Anyway, looking forward to the game in a few hours.  This is the second MLS Cup since they ended the "neutral site" era.  KC will be hosting, so the atmosphere will be excellent.  I'd rather see Salt Lake win because I think they are better advertisement for the domestic game.  While KC does have some good talent, their physical pressing game isn't nearly as pleasing to the eye as what Kreis has built.  Still, it will be hard to overcome KC in their own house.
 

 
I wouldn't mind of these for the Revs.
 

Titans Bastard

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Lineups





Sporting Kansas City




1

G

Jimmy Nielsen



7

D

Chance Myers



78

D

Aurélien Collin



5

D

Matt Besler



15

D

Seth Sinovic



6

M

Paulo Nagamura



20

M

Oriol Rosell



10

M

Benny Feilhaber



8

F

Graham Zusi



14

F

Dominic Dwyer



17

F

C.J. Sapong






Real Salt Lake




18

G

Nick Rimando



2

D

Tony Beltran



6

D

Nat Borchers



28

D

Chris Schuler



17

D

Chris Wingert



5

M

Kyle Beckerman



21

M

Luis Gil



20

M

Ned Grabavoy



11

M

Javier Morales



15

F

Alvaro Saborio



10

F

Robbie Findley








Bench




18



Eric Kronberg



37



Jacob Peterson



16



Claudio Bieler



3



Ike Opara



9



Teal Bunbury



22



Soony Saad



13



Lawrence Olum











7



Lovel Palmer



44



Brandon McDonald



24



Jeff Attinella



12



Cole Grossman



8



Joao Plata



26



Sebastian Velasquez



13



Olmes García








Managers








Peter Vermes















Jason Kreis
 

DLew On Roids

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Kudos to SKC if they win with Curt Schilling in goal.
 
Edit: I heard Paolo Bandini say on Guardian Football Weekly that Nielsen ran up so much debt to a Danish bookie that the bookie went out of business.
 

Zomp

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I'd love it if the RSL player who makes the penalty just flips off the crowd with both hands.
 
 
Dlew you may get your wish.
 

Billy R Ford

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Great match! I don't think I've seen a final go to 10 penalties in any competition before (and in the freezing cold no less).
 

Titans Bastard

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Sebastian Velasquez positively Heapsed his PK attempt.  Between that miss and the three shots that hit the woodwork, RSL will have a lot to think about after the game.  I still can't believe Morales' shot didn't glance in off the post.
 
PKs were nervier than expected for a neutral.  Good stuff.  The quality wasn't quite what it could have been, but when it's 20 F that can't be helped.  Sporting Park apparently has undersoil heating, but you could tell from the way the ball was bouncing over the grass that it wasn't going to be a tiki taka festival.
 
P.S. I dedicate my MLS Live viewing experience to Tunnelbear.