World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

[blockski]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

I wonder whether the USSF might even be able to add, as a selling point (not an incredibly important one, but a minor one anyway), that MLS would be running concurrently, in many of the same cities but in different stadiums:

LA: WC at Rose Bowl or LA Coliseum; Galaxy and Chivas USA at the HDC
Dallas: WC at Cotton Bowl or Cowboys Stadium; FC Dallas at Pizza Hut Park
DC: WC at FedEx Field; DCU at RFK
NY/NJ: WC at New Meadowlands Stadium; RBNY at Red Bull Arena
Houston: WC at Reliant Stadium; Dynamo at Robertson Stadium
KC: WC at Arrowhead Stadium; Wizards at new SSS to open in 2011
Denver: WC at Mile High; Rapids at Dick's Sporting Goods Park
Seattle: WC at Husky Stadium; Sounders at Qwest Field
Philly: WC at Lincoln Financial Field; Union at PPL Park

It might be a nice selling point for fans who might potentially be traveling to the World Cup from other parts of the world to be able to take in an MLS game while they're here. Obviously it's not on par with the top European and South American leagues, but it seems to me that people who are the type of fans of the sport who would travel to another continent are the type who'd go to a game regardless.

From perusing the bids, they definitely highlighted the fact that all the MLS stadiums have signed on to host teams as a training ground or as a location for pre-cup tune up friendlies. It's hard to project an exact schedule out this far in advance, but I'd imagine MLS would take a break again (like it did this season) during the group stages (where you have at least 3 games a day).

I'm sure MLS could come up with some creative ways to market and cross-promote games - perhaps you hold events there on off-days (for that city), etc.

 

[J.D.]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Well I'd say the picture is becoming a little clearer. While England and Italy have been sent home, some of the big boys still remain:

Brazil
Spain
Argentina
Germany
Netherlands

I'd be pretty surprised if the champion didn't come from that group.

Having one of Brazil/Holland and Argentina/Germany in separate semifinals...I like that.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Crazy out there thought:

If the MLS were to ever switch to a more traditional schedule (fall to spring), doing it while hosting a World Cup is probably the best possible time to do it.

How it would happen: We host in 2022. MLS season for 2021 ends in November. 2022 season doesn't start until August/September and goes on until April of 2023.

There's a million reasons why MLS will probably stick with the summer schedule (namely: all the competition from other, more popular sporting events), but if they ever felt the need to make the switch*, that'd be a good time.

*Or, if FIFA demanded it in return for us hosting the World Cup. Really, would that surprise you?

 

[Puck Swami]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

There's a million reasons why MLS will probably stick with the summer schedule (namely: all the competition from other, more popular sporting events), but if they ever felt the need to make the switch*, that'd be a good time.

The serverity of the weather makes winter soccer virtually impossible in many MLS cities.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

The serverity of the weather makes winter soccer virtually impossible in many MLS cities.

For all the hand-wringing that FIFA had over every other element of MLS that differs from the traditional European model, it would not surprise me if FIFA didn't care about that.

I'm sure a winter break could be isntituted around December and January, if need be.

Believe me, I'm not actually advocating this. I'm just saying that FIFA is so backwards assed that you could almost expect something random like this coming up in the "negotiations" for 2022.

 

[blockski]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Crazy out there thought:

If the MLS were to ever switch to a more traditional schedule (fall to spring), doing it while hosting a World Cup is probably the best possible time to do it.

Argh.

How it would happen: We host in 2022. MLS season for 2021 ends in November. 2022 season doesn't start until August/September and goes on until April of 2023.

There's a million reasons why MLS will probably stick with the summer schedule (namely: all the competition from other, more popular sporting events), but if they ever felt the need to make the switch*, that'd be a good time.

I'm going to nip this in the bud right now. Fall-Spring will not happen. Not unless you think playing on snow covered fields in Columbus, Chicago, Toronto, New York, Salt Lake City, and other places is good for soccer. Hell, it already makes NFL football sloppy in bad weather, and they don't rely on the ball rolling evenly on the ground at all - nor do they actively play through the entire winter.

If you do the math on the kind of 'winter break' that would be required, you'd end up with a season that starts in the fall and then takes a 2.5-3 month break, and finishes in the summer with a 1 month offseason. This is no way to run a railroad.

Soccer has always been a summer sport here because of the climate. There's also a reason that the only sports that run through the winter either involve snow and ice or are played indoors. They play though the winter in Europe because their winter (outside of the Mountains) is more like the Fall in most of the US.

At least Sepp Blatter's ignorant comments about promotion and relegation are based on league structure and something that can be changed. The Fall-Spring thing is a complete non-starter unless the FIFA weathermachine division has made some rapid advancements.

 

[Terrierbyassociation]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

The severity of the weather makes winter soccer virtually impossible in many MLS cities.

How would you say that? England is not much better off weather wise than the majority of the MLS cities. Sure some of the cities' climates would make it very difficult, but many?

 

[blockski]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

How would you say that? England is not much better off weather wise than the majority of the MLS cities.

What? Yes it is. Particularly in one key category - frost. When the ground freezes and the grass you play on goes dormant, any grass field will quickly turn into a muddy mess. Even the heated ones in use in the NFL are stopgaps to try and fool the grass from going dormant.

Never mind snow and ice.

It's no coincidence that London's worst weather month by temperature is January (Avg hi - 46, Avg low - 36), which is about the same as the both November and March in Chicago (avg hi - 48 & 47, avg low - 34 and 30). November and March just so happen to be the bookends of the MLS season.

England's winters (and that of most of Europe) are far more temperate than those in the Western, Midwestern, and Northeastern US.

EDIT: For your edit, these current/future MLS cities would be an absolute no-go for winter - Chicago, New York, Boston, Columbus, Toronto, Montreal, Denver. Others would be less than ideal, bordering on no-go with poor field conditions - Seattle, DC, Philly, Vancouver, Portland, KC. Only the California and Texas teams would be solid.

The other thing is, of course, you have to make money and get fans to go to these games. MLS attendance in March, when the weather is sketchiest, is middling at best compared to the rest of the season.

 

[Red Cloud]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Seattle: WC at Husky Stadium; Sounders at Qwest Field

Qwest is the Seattle venue, not Husky Stadium (and that's my bad partially, that's 2 MLS venues on the World Cup list, Gillette and Qwest.

 

[jmh]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Qwest is the Seattle venue, not Husky Stadium (and that's my bad partially, that's 2 MLS venues on the World Cup list, Gillette and Qwest.

The Wikipedia page for the bid lists both, though that may be outdated; in any case, I mistakenly left Qwest off my list of WC stadiums.

 

[blockski]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

The Wikipedia page for the bid lists both, though that may be outdated; in any case, I mistakenly left Qwest off my list of WC stadiums.

I think the initial bid list was more for markets and cities than specific stadiums.

 

[French Rage]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Having one of Brazil/Holland and Argentina/Germany in separate semifinals...I like that.

Quarterfinals?

 

[JohnN]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

I'm going to nip this in the bud right now. Fall-Spring will not happen. Not unless you think playing on snow covered fields in Columbus, Chicago, Toronto, New York, Salt Lake City, and other places is good for soccer.

I tend to agree that we won't see Fall-Spring out of fear of the NFL, but Fall-Spring wouldn't be that bad. Start in August and go until mid-December. Then start up again in mid-February with "Northern" teams playing on the road until March. Eight weeks break isn't really that bad. The biggest advantage to this, in my mind, is having the play-offs in May would showcase the league better. Right now MLS is trying to gear up for the play-offs just as American sports fans are looking to the gridiron. Heck, I love soccer and I'd watch the Vikings before the MLS Cup.

I think MLS enjoys their little niche in the Summer. It does cause problems with "the rest of the soccer world", but I think the league is a long, long way from going head-to-head with college basketball and the NFL.

 

[blockski]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

I tend to agree that we won't see Fall-Spring out of fear of the NFL, but Fall-Spring wouldn't be that bad. Start in August and go until mid-December. Then start up again in mid-February with "Northern" teams playing on the road until March. Eight weeks break isn't really that bad. The biggest advantage to this, in my mind, is having the play-offs in May would showcase the league better. Right now MLS is trying to gear up for the play-offs just as American sports fans are looking to the gridiron. Heck, I love soccer and I'd watch the Vikings before the MLS Cup.

I think MLS enjoys their little niche in the Summer. It does cause problems with "the rest of the soccer world", but I think the league is a long, long way from going head-to-head with college basketball and the NFL.

The current MLS season is 30 games, and the league has said they'd like to keep it at that regardless of the number of teams in the league. With a few weeks off for the WC and an All Star game, that puts the league's regular season schedule at 32 weeks, plus 4 weeks for playoffs. So, you've got a 36 week schedule - that only leaves a 16 week off-season. Most teams have a 3-4 week pre-season camp in a nice warm and sunny location, so that cuts your offseason down to 12 weeks. So, you could have teams with their 'pre-season' camp in the middle of the season, but just about any way you slice it with a fall to spring schedule, the winter break will be longer than the summer one. February is too early for 2/3rds of the teams, and those games are fairly poorly attended even in the warmer climates (they have happened with CONCACAF Champions League games), so I doubt the southern teams would want to get stuck with a lot of their home dates frontloaded in February and March year after year.

Would it be technically feasible? Sure, I guess. There's absolutely no reason to do it, however. You'll get an inferior product playing in inferior conditions in weather that is harder to sell tickets.

 

[JohnN]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

The current MLS season is 30 games, and the league has said they'd like to keep it at that regardless of the number of teams in the league. With a few weeks off for the WC and an All Star game, that puts the league's regular season schedule at 32 weeks, plus 4 weeks for playoffs. So, you've got a 36 week schedule - that only leaves a 16 week off-season. Most teams have a 3-4 week pre-season camp in a nice warm and sunny location, so that cuts your offseason down to 12 weeks. So, you could have teams with their 'pre-season' camp in the middle of the season, but just about any way you slice it with a fall to spring schedule, the winter break will be longer than the summer one. February is too early for 2/3rds of the teams, and those games are fairly poorly attended even in the warmer climates (they have happened with CONCACAF Champions League games), so I doubt the southern teams would want to get stuck with a lot of their home dates frontloaded in February and March year after year.

Would it be technically feasible? Sure, I guess. There's absolutely no reason to do it, however. You'll get an inferior product playing in inferior conditions in weather that is harder to sell tickets.

I agree with you. I think the current season makes sense on a lot of different levels. I tend to look at soccer through a German lens and a Fall-Winter model would be easy enough to do if MLS had the confidence they could sell tickets. The NFL isn't afraid of winter because they know they'll sell out their games regardless.

 

[JohnN]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

They don't even need video replay. Just put one official on each of the end lines. You could also add a second on-field ref just to get another set of eyes out there - that would solve FIFA's concerns about technology.

I really hope soccer accepts end-line officials. I think they would solve 90% of the current problems/mistakes. I know that's a pretty strong claim, but I stand by it. Aside from the things people have mentioned about goal line decisions, hand balls and corner kicks, I think they would also cut down on diving. I imagine goal line officials would be uniquely positioned to spot Ronaldo like falls when no contact has been made.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Qwest is the Seattle venue, not Husky Stadium (and that's my bad partially, that's 2 MLS venues on the World Cup list, Gillette and Qwest.

Hopefully by 2022, MLS will be long gone from Gilette Field.

 

[J.D.]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Quarterfinals?

What I meant is that either Brazil or Holland will be in one semifinal and either Argentina or Germany will be in the other semifinal. I like that we're guaranteed a few big boys in the semis.

 

[3W]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

I need one of the rules gurus to step up for me. Tonight in a youth game I was shooting, the ref called a dangerous play against the defensive team in its own box. Is that an indirect free kick as it was ruled?

 

[Priceless]

Re: World Soccer XVI: The Sadness

Cops: Man killed crying 2-year-old during World Cup game

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A man accused of fatally beating his 2-year-old stepdaughter in Texas when she wouldn't stop crying as he watched a World Cup match was expected to be charged Monday with murder, police said.

Hector Castro, 27, of McAllen was arrested Saturday and scheduled to be arraigned Monday in municipal court. He told police that the toddler wouldn't stop crying while he was watching the U.S.-Ghana game on Saturday, McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez told The McAllen Monitor.

The girl was severely beaten, and police said a screw or bolt was forced down her throat in an apparent attempt to make it look like she accidentally choked.

"There are no words for this," Rodriguez said. "It makes you want to think about doing lots of things to this guy, but he will face the criminal justice system just like everybody else."