Major League Soccer (MLS) Thread

Scuba Steve wrote:Colorado compounded their early season issues by selling Deshorn Brown (who to be fair wanted a go in Europe, and was probably at his height in terms of value) and getting Kevin Doyle in his steed. Wooden spoon a great possibility in the Mile High this year.

Damn, just started a new manager mode yesterday on FIFA. 

I waited as long as I could for you MLS, I waited.

Still just over a month to go before our window closes, I believe. But also, Doyle isn't joining until July.

They fucked up when they let the best CB in the history football leave.

Kevin Doyle isnt too bad, he could still do a job in MLS.

Got damn Zat Knight was so bad. Bad enough that he hardly played. Colorado should have been contracted for merely signing him. And he'll score some, Sean. But the bigger issue is they have now put a fair amount of money into a player (he's a DP) when they have several area of needs. So it's kinda just papering over the issues for a guy who might get a result or two.

Zat Knight? Lol, no. I was talking about Marvell Wynne

I imagine it's hard to attract really big players to a place like Colorado.

Still that's Keane, St Ledger and now Doyle. The Irish are taking over 

Keyser Söze wrote:Zat Knight? Lol, no. I was talking about Marvell Wynne

I've always wanted to know if he is really that quick in real life, or if he is just Koscielny-quick.

I've never seen him play but apparently he used to train as sprinter in his younger years and ran 100m in 10.39 in high school.

Yeah, that's pretty decent. The high school state record in PA is 10.44, I think.  Then again, I remember running a 10.23 in P.E. and being gutted that the teacher was too busy smoking marijuana behind a dumpster with an upperclassman to serve as an official timer.  That's what I get for going to public school.

Wynne is pretty quick. Or he was. I remember there was an article from a previous co-worker years ago before the TFC-Real Madrid friendly in 2009 (I think). She was basically dispelling the idea that Wynne was just MLS fast, and would be easily outpaced by Ronaldo. Her over reaching theme was that physically, MLS teams could match up to a point with their European counter parts.

In that friendly, Wynne had no trouble keeping up with Ronaldo, but Ronaldo skinned him several times with moves that Wynne couldn't ever dream of seeing in MLS.

Sean wrote:I imagine it's hard to attract really big players to a place like Colorado.

Still that's Keane, St Ledger and now Doyle. The Irish are taking over 

Denver is a nice place. But you're right, it's no LA, NY, Toronto.

Big fan of the Rapids coach

Liga MX had it's version of Wynne in Guillermo Rojas a few years back. Was blinding fast but only barely qualified as a footballer. Which is probably why despite playing for 7 different first division teams he never played much for any of them.

His greatest accomplishment was probably blowing past Dani Alves to score a goal against Barcelona in the 2009 edition of the club world cup.

Now that we are at a even team total of 20 I wish we could get arid of the divisions and play a single table.  Then we could play each team twice and still have the top 8 teams play in playoffs to keep the American way especially since we will never have promotion or relegation.  Does anyone think this will happen or that this is a very good idea?

As much of some of us (I include myself in that group would love it), it just doesn't make any fiscal sense. I ran the numbers from stadium to stadium, and if NYCFC were to play a 38 game schedule, alternating games home and away (like they do in Spain), they would travel 53,478 miles for a season. That's an incredible amount. Using this year's schedule for them (where you travel to 5 games in the other conference, and the other five teams travel to play you), NYCFC will only travel 31,722 miles for their 34 game season. 

And truthfully, NYCFC isn't the worst case. RBA is 20 miles from Yankee Stadium, and both Philly and NE are within 200 miles, and DC is just outside 200 miles. If I had done Orlando, it would have been much worse in terms of miles traveled for 38 games, as DC is the closest team to them at 850 miles. (LA would have similar travel distances). 

That's a lot of money to spend for a league that wouldn't make any more (potentially less even) by going to a 38 game home and away schedule. 

Also couldn't get just the picture to show, but click on the link that shows the clubs in the US Open Cup on the US map compared to the map of England. It's just staggering. 

http://www.sounderatheart.com/2015/3/23/8280199/this-map-shows-the-breadth-of-u-s-open-cup?utm_campaign=sounderatheart&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

That is a great point that is true in other countries as well.  A few years a in extreme eastern Russia played in the Russian Premier League and I remember some head of another team telling them that they should play in Japan.

I am not sure how Perth Glory manages things in the A League because all of the other teams on the opposite coast, well Adelaide is about halfway.

Yeah that problem is not US specific. But I think it stands to reason to think that it makes the most sense for how to operate here.

Im suprised with the lack of DP's at NYRB (not sure if BWP counts) do you think NYCFC will blow right past them and get all the big name players now?

Thats alot of acronyms..

BWP was made one this offseason. I'm not sure if NYCFC is going to start swooping NYRB on all the big targets that want to come to New York, but there definitely will be some interesting competition to acquire talent.

NYCFC out for world domination.

Minnosota confirmed as new MLS team in 2018. Is this a good thing?  I'm guess there's enough of a market to warrant their inclusion.

Yeah, there were two groups fighting for one spot. One was the owners of the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL team there. The other was the owners of Minnesota United. MLS chose the Minnesota United group. They are aiming to build a downtown stadium, and will begin play in 2018. There's a good market for them up there, and adds a team to an area that doesn't have one all that close.

My few cents on the format of MLS. Ideally I think they would love to follow suit with the majority of the world and have 1 league table. It's just not possible in countries like America and Canada. 

IMO there are a few reasons for that. The main, obviously being, the sheer size of the place. Spread out over numerous time zones, having a 1 table league isn't going to happen because it just wouldn't work. Unless teams from say the West played Away to teams in the East every week for a couple of weeks, basically touring that side to save on money. That won't happen. 

Another reason I think is that they don't want to be seen to be bowing to "Eurosnobs" and changing the entire way of doing sports there. Look at the NFL, NHL etc etc and how they are run. How they are split into smaller 'leagues' then play playoffs for a champion.

If MLS keeps expanding at a rate which it is, it could well be that they have to split into much smaller 'leagues' within MLS for teams to be able to compete with costs of traveling etc. Maybe more similar to the NHL than the NFL? 

They really need to think about a cap on teams very soon though. I know it's an American/Canadian league but they need the Euros and Asians and cats and dogs to see it's a league that deserves to be taking more seriously than being called a retirement home. For MLS to grow into one of the top leagues in football, I do believe it will be in time, they need to take a look at the format instead of throwing teams at every city that asks. 

Fix the format and they'll see a better quality of player join, keep adding team on top of team and you'll see money disappear, spread out over way too many teams and lessen the quality all round.

Who are you?

The Russian Premier League can be really bad when it has a team from the exclave or the far eastern part of the country lucky for everyone else involved this year the league has neither.  I assume the reason they do the one table league is it managed to somehow work during the time of the Soviet Union.  In 2009 a team that was a 9 hour flight from Moscow was in the Russian Premier League.

What bugs me is that you still have games between teams from different conferences.

Keyser Söze wrote:Who are you?

http://www.the-playmaker.com/u1760