World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

[JF_Gophers]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

The scoreless part or the draw part?
I think it's fine personally. If it was a home game, I would agree but T&T is definitely the 2nd best team in the group and did well in the Gold Cup winning a group with Mexico.

Not winning first, and not scoring second.

 

[unofan]

Scoreless draw with T&T. Nor acceptable anywhere, anytime.

Meh, win at home, draw on the road, and you move on with ease.

And T&T makes the hexagonal with regularity. They're not a pushover. I'd really like to see how comparable European teams to the US would do on some of the hellholes for stadiums you have to play at in CONCACAF. A bad pitch cab be a great equalizer.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

Meh, win at home, draw on the road, and you move on with ease.

And T&T makes the hexagonal with regularity. They're not a pushover. I'd really like to see how comparable European teams to the US would do on some of the hellholes for stadiums you have to play at in CONCACAF. A bad pitch cab be a great equalizer.

Discussing the way they played and the fact that Klinsman chose to play a defensive style when a game vs T&T was probably a great opportunity to play possession football and see how it goes.

 

[Jimjamesak]

Discussing the way they played and the fact that Klinsman chose to play a defensive style when a game vs T&T was probably a great opportunity to play possession football and see how it goes.

Hey, putting your best left back and right back as midfield wings is a great idea!

 

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

I like soccer. Many people do not like soccer. But if Ionesco-level absurdism like this happened more often, they would.

 

[Spartanforlife4]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

Man, isn't it amazing the NYT has happenstanced into having a reporter in the lobby of the same Swiss hotel both times there were major arrests of FIFA executives?

 

[goldy_331]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

Man, isn't it amazing the NYT has happenstanced into having a reporter in the lobby of the same Swiss hotel both times there were major arrests of FIFA executives?

Well, we all know how vital these meetings in Switzerland are to the Times' readers.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

As anyone ever listened to Ted Westervelt's pro/rel ideas for USA?

 

[joecct]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

The latest 16 indicted

Alfredo Hawit (Concacaf president), Ariel Alvarado (ex-Panamanian football official), Rafael Callejas (former president of Honduras football), Brayan Jimenez (Guatemala FA chief), Rafael Salguero (Guatemalan Fifa executive committee member), Hector Trujillo (general secretary of Guatemala FA), Reynaldo Vasquez (former El Salvador FA president), Juan Angel Napout (Conmebol president), Manuel Burga (former Peru FA president), Carlos Chavez (Bolivia football president), Luis Chiriboga (Ecuador football president), Marco Polo del Nero (Brazil football president), Eduardo Deluca (Conmebol general secretary), Jose Luis Meiszner (former Conmebol secretary general), Romer Osuna (Bolivia football audit and compliance committee chief), Ricardo Teixeira (former Brazil FA chief).

Jeffrey Webb has pleaded guilty and has forfeited $6.7 mllion+

 

[Jimjamesak]

As anyone ever listened to Ted Westervelt's pro/rel ideas for USA?

No, dear God no. There's a reason he's called Tinfoil Ted.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

No, dear God no. There's a reason he's called Tinfoil Ted.

haha, he was on Wynalda Talks Football last night and it certainly was interesting to hear his ideas. That's why I brought it up. I've never really been a guy that believed in pro/rel being necessary for America to succeed at soccer, but after listening to that discussion, I honestly didn't think his idea is that crazy. It will never happen as long as the MLS owners get their way, because they want MLS to be like NFL and prevent that kind of competition, but the thought of having eastern and western leagues and 36 top division teams makes sense. My biggest problem is how to split the country. I'd hate the idea of Minnesota getting to the top division and them being the northeastern most team in the west and not getting to ever play a team in Chicago or Milwaukee or Indianapolis, etc. You'd likely have their nearest rival be Kansas City and then the rest would be be flights.

The division line would be very important, and you get into problems that are similar to Hockey where the west would have teams in LA, Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, Canada. There aren't enough markets in the west to split the league between Pacific/Mountain/(HI/AK), Central/Eastern timezones...or maybe there is, but that would mean a ton of teams in California in the Western pyramid.

Yes its tinfoil, but I only think its tinfoil because the current MLS owners are extremely unlikely to agree to give up their exclusive rights to have franchises, but beyond that...he probably isn't totally crazy.

 

[Jimjamesak]

haha, he was on Wynalda Talks Football last night and it certainly was interesting to hear his ideas. That's why I brought it up. I've never really been a guy that believed in pro/rel being necessary for America to succeed at soccer, but after listening to that discussion, I honestly didn't think his idea is that crazy. It will never happen as long as the MLS owners get their way, because they want MLS to be like NFL and prevent that kind of competition, but the thought of having eastern and western leagues and 36 top division teams makes sense. My biggest problem is how to split the country. I'd hate the idea of Minnesota getting to the top division and them being the northeastern most team in the west and not getting to ever play a team in Chicago or Milwaukee or Indianapolis, etc. You'd likely have their nearest rival be Kansas City and then the rest would be be flights.

The division line would be very important, and you get into problems that are similar to Hockey where the west would have teams in LA, Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, Canada. There aren't enough markets in the west to split the league between Pacific/Mountain/(HI/AK), Central/Eastern timezones...or maybe there is, but that would mean a ton of teams in California in the Western pyramid.

Yes its tinfoil, but I only think its tinfoil because the current MLS owners are extremely unlikely to agree to give up their exclusive rights to have franchises, but beyond that...he probably isn't totally crazy.

Promotion and Relegation is terrible idea in the modern age of sports and for soccer in America in particular. The fact is, professional leagues require a lot of investment and that investment will not come if there's a good possibility that they'll have no way to make it back. To even have enough teams for Pro/Rel be a possibility would require an investment of nearly tenfold, much of which would almost never be gained back. Division 2 and below has a long history of teams folding after 1-2 seasons. Even the NASL is facing uncertain future on 3-4 teams right now. Criticize MLS for what it is but it's the longest continuously operating professional D1 soccer league in US history.

At the macro level everybody speaks of the "beauty" of promotion and relegation, "look at Bournemouth they say! That's why it's great! A small club playing in the big leagues!" And when they do that they only talk about promoted teams, never relegated teams. I've never heard them talk about Leeds or Blackburn or Wimbledon or any of the other countless relegated teams and the financial mess many of them sit in.

And let's not even begin to talk about what it does competition wise.

What Tinfoil Ted describes is a baseless fantasy of his mind. And he espouses the belief that if this country had a completely open pyramid then soccer would bigger than Football, Baseball, and Basketball combined and the US would win the World Cup.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

Promotion and Relegation is terrible idea in the modern age of sports and for soccer in America in particular. The fact is, professional leagues require a lot of investment and that investment will not come if there's a good possibility that they'll have no way to make it back. To even have enough teams for Pro/Rel be a possibility would require an investment of nearly tenfold, much of which would almost never be gained back. Division 2 and below has a long history of teams folding after 1-2 seasons. Even the NASL is facing uncertain future on 3-4 teams right now. Criticize MLS for what it is but it's the longest continuously operating professional D1 soccer league in US history.

At the macro level everybody speaks of the "beauty" of promotion and relegation, "look at Bournemouth they say! That's why it's great! A small club playing in the big leagues!" And when they do that they only talk about promoted teams, never relegated teams. I've never heard them talk about Leeds or Blackburn or Wimbledon or any of the other countless relegated teams and the financial mess many of them sit in.

And let's not even begin to talk about what it does competition wise.

What Tinfoil Ted describes is a baseless fantasy of his mind. And he espouses the belief that if this country had a completely open pyramid then soccer would bigger than Football, Baseball, and Basketball combined and the US would win the World Cup.

Promotion/Relegation probably is a terrible idea, but there is some substance to saying that part of the reason division 2 and below teams have so much history of failing is because there is no hope of promotion. Granted there has been some "promotion" in that teams like Portland, Seattle, Montreal, Orlando, and soon Minnesota showing they are deserving in other leagues and becoming the focus of expansion.

I think its a fun thought experiment, but you are right that it would struggle to work. The one thing I definitely completely agree with him about is that the US Open Cup should be a bigger deal.

 

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

And let's not even begin to talk about what it does competition wise.

Do you think pro/rel is why the Big Four er Five have been able to dominate the EPL for so long?

 

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

This is great.

All Alfredo Dagna could do upon taking in the results of the Argentina soccer federation’s presidential election last night was collapse into his chair, propping his head up with his hand, probably so that he didn’t start banging it against the table. Those results? 38 votes for the challenger, 38 for the incumbent. The problem? There were only 75 voters.

 

[Jimjamesak]

Do you think pro/rel is why the Big Four er Five have been able to dominate the EPL for so long?

It's a combination of pro/rel and massive injections of TV money. In the last 30 years a whopping 8 clubs have won the title. Since the founding of the Premier League that drops to 5. (For comparison, in that time frame: 15 teams have won a Super Bowl, 16 a Stanley Cup, 17 a World Series, 9 an NBA title, and 10 (and potentially 11 ) MLS Cup Champions) Because of the structure of the PL you can't distribute the money equally among the teams, it has to be awarded as prize money and only to PL teams, this why the PL was founded in the first place, to centralize the money at the top. Because of Pro/Rel, middle table and below have to operate as if that money isn't going to be there tomorrow, if they don't they end up like Leeds or Portsmouth, bankrupt in the 3rd division. Add in Champions League money and you get a 3-5 team bloc that is nearly impossible to break. Only Chelsea and Man City have broken in and that required HUGE amounts of outside cash from very rich owners. In the last 20 years those clubs have aquired a massive amount of resources that other clubs can't match: larger stadiums, tv networks, foreign affiliate clubs, sponsors. Because of the structure, there's no way to force sharing those resources. Why should Man United share a sponsorship deal with Norwich or Stoke when they won't be around much longer? It's unrestrained capitalism on a small scale.

In other countries it's worse, at least the PL shares the TV money. Spain is virtually controlled by Barca and Madrid. Italy has had 2 corruption scandals! And has a virtual Big 4-5. You regularly see the same teams in UCL out of other countries like Turkey, Greece, Holland, Belgium etc.

Germany is only the country that actually tries to force equality among its club, and still deals with the "Bayern always wins" problem because it's hard to do in a pro/rel structure.

 

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

It's a combination of pro/rel and massive injections of TV money. In the last 30 years a whopping 8 clubs have won the title. Since the founding of the Premier League that drops to 5. (For comparison, in that time frame: 15 teams have won a Super Bowl, 16 a Stanley Cup, 17 a World Series, 9 an NBA title, and 10 (and potentially 11 ) MLS Cup Champions) Because of the structure of the PL you can't distribute the money equally among the teams, it has to be awarded as prize money and only to PL teams, this why the PL was founded in the first place, to centralize the money at the top. Because of Pro/Rel, middle table and below have to operate as if that money isn't going to be there tomorrow, if they don't they end up like Leeds or Portsmouth, bankrupt in the 3rd division. Add in Champions League money and you get a 3-5 team bloc that is nearly impossible to break. Only Chelsea and Man City have broken in and that required HUGE amounts of outside cash from very rich owners. In the last 20 years those clubs have aquired a massive amount of resources that other clubs can't match: larger stadiums, tv networks, foreign affiliate clubs, sponsors. Because of the structure, there's no way to force sharing those resources. Why should Man United share a sponsorship deal with Norwich or Stoke when they won't be around much longer? It's unrestrained capitalism on a small scale.

In other countries it's worse, at least the PL shares the TV money. Spain is virtually controlled by Barca and Madrid. Italy has had 2 corruption scandals! And has a virtual Big 4-5. You regularly see the same teams in UCL out of other countries like Turkey, Greece, Holland, Belgium etc.

Germany is only the country that actually tries to force equality among its club, and still deals with the "Bayern always wins" problem because it's hard to do in a pro/rel structure.

Very well thought out. Thank you for taking the time.

 

[Jimjamesak]

Very well thought out. Thank you for taking the time.

Thank you but it's pretty much a canned piece at this point. Its just a matter of updating the specifics. Longtime US Soccer fans like myself have been making the same points for 10+ years. On Bigsoccer they've created specific areas for the discussion and they're largely ignored. Twitter has given the zealots like Tinfoil Ted a new platform so this stuff comes up more frequently.

 

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVI: Fun for MLS Fans and Eurosnobs Alike

Thank you but it's pretty much a canned piece at this point. Its just a matter of updating the specifics. Longtime US Soccer fans like myself have been making the same points for 10+ years. On Bigsoccer they've created specific areas for the discussion and they're largely ignored. Twitter has given the zealots like Tinfoil Ted a new platform so this stuff comes up more frequently.

I like the idea of pro/rel only because that has been the tradition of the sport internationally and because, it being unfamiliar to me, I still think it's neat.

Do European hockey leagues do pro/rel?

 

[joecct]

I like the idea of pro/rel only because that has been the tradition of the sport internationally and because, it being unfamiliar to me, I still think it's neat.

Do European hockey leagues do pro/rel?

Snce my kid played a season in the French Div 2, I can say yes for France.