Bravo US men for the come-from-behind 2-2 tie, but The win was practically handed to Brian Ching twice on a silver platter in the final two minutes. A win is always good, but this one would have been poetic, because those final two minutes only existed because El Salvador chose to feign at least six clock-killing injuries while ahead. IT COULD HAVE BEEN EPIC.
I continue to be unimpressed with Mr. Ching.
WHAT THE? is my weekly Premiership review column where I write about the crap I found interesting in the latest round of Prem games. This is about me, not you, so I don’t want to hear you bloody whine about it.
At the Top of the Prem?…Probably should start losing:
To sum up the new top six:
| P | GD | PTS | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Man Utd | 29 | 31 | 65 | ||||||||||
| 2 | Liverpool | 30 | 33 | 64 | ||||||||||
| 3 | Chelsea | 30 | 32 | 61 | ||||||||||
| 4 | Arsenal | 30 | 21 | 55 | ||||||||||
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| 5 | Aston Villa | 30 | 7 | 52 | ||||||||||
| 6 | Everton | 30 | 9 | 48 | ||||||||||
The search for lost glory. The registration fees. The tragic team names. The championship t-shirts. The inflated egos. The weekend war. This is rec league soccer.
The rec league is in many ways like a bloodsoaked Darwinian social experiment.
Due to the impossible task of evaluating new, unfamiliar teams, league organizers have no choice but to handle the insertion of these teams as a realtime assessment. Consequently, newcomers are usually placed in a skill division that is no more than a best guess. Imagine if you had never seen a wolf before, and upon adopting one, opted to keep it in a pen with your goats. They’re roughly the same size, hairy, with four legs. A reasoned but wholly uninformed guess just slaughtered all your goats. And just when you figure out where the wolf ought to be kept, a lion shows up looking for a home.
Add to this the spotty reliability of recreational players, and you occasionally have games so severely lopsided it’s hard to watch. In fact, teams that are too often the goat usually go extinct altogether. Natural selection is a brutal judge.
I have personally suffered through a savage attack (losing by 10) and have had the sadistic pleasure of winning by 20. As good as you think you are, there is a team somewhere in your past or future that will tear out your guts like a National Geographic documentary. The good news is, sooner or later, we all get to be the goatslayer.
[Anecdotally, I just realized I once played for a team whose mascot was a goat. And we lost a lot.]
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There is a tiny nation in the world of soccer of which many of us are citizens: The Recreation League. Far from Old Trafford, papparazzi, and highlight reels, you’ll find me playing co-ed, open age group, in a middle tier division, in Columbus, Ohio. In the grand soccer scheme, my team hardly exists. There is no cup for us. We have no fans, no salary, no recognition, and no respect outside our microcosm. But what is inside the microcosm is what Rec Rules is about—a regular look inside the American recreation league culture.
Major League Soccer has awarded Vancouver (Canada…duh) a franchise that will join the league in 2011. Vancouver will be the 17th team in Major League Soccer. Portland, St Louis and Ottawa are awaiting the MLS to add a second franchise in 2011.
In other news, Barcelona reversed their position on helping place a Major Soccer League franchise in Miami. Then Barcelona president, Joan LaPorta, was seen visiting the site where the Philadelphia franchise is building a new soccer stadium.
Just saying…
Soccer isn’t generally a violent sport, crazed fans notwithstanding. But, as many of us know, all it takes is one such crazed fan to wreck a party. Even so, I’ve never heard of an incident quite as dramatic as what happened in Iraq this week, wherein a player was shot in the head during play by an opposing supporter.
Two things caught my attention in this story. One, that “More Iraqis are turning out for sports events now that security is improving…” which begs the tasteless joke, “I’d hate to see what their bad security is like!” And two, the sheer Bruckheimerness of the scene: In the final minute of a close game, an attacking player was shot in the head by his assassin, presumably at range in the stands, in the moment before a crucial tying attempt at goal. Tragedy, Hollywood-style. Unfortunately, there is no Nicolas Cage to avenge his death.
WHAT THE? is my weekly Premiership review column where I write about the crap I found interesting in the latest round of Prem games. This is about me, not you, so I don’t want to hear you bloody whine about it.
The Fight for Forth Place:
In Other News:
First off, props to Andrea Canales who wrote a very smart column appearing on cnnsi.com, about how “MLS’ quest to keep David Beckham reeks of desperation and sheer naivete.” True, true.
What I can not understand is how Beckham could be such a HUGE wanker, and so completely lack any kind of savvy to guide his career. Consider these clumsy missteps:
#1. Coming to America. What’s all this rot about being an ambassador for the sport? Growing the sport in the U.S.? Blah, blah, blah? If indeed OrangeShorts is right with his theory, and Beckham had any kind of savvy, he would have researched the league, and the Galaxy in particular. Consequently he should have realized that the Galaxy weren’t very good, and that–despite what some might say about the level of play–he certainly couldn’t just walk in and dominate play. What an absurd notion.
#2. Transfer-on-the-Sly. In his next brillant move, Beckham tried to engineer a loan, and then a transfer without communicating with the Galaxy. Again, not just the club for whom he was playing, but where he allegedly made the commitment to be an ambassador, grow the sport, blah, blah, blah. All out the window, just like that.
#3 Adding Insult to Injury. And, he paid–PAID!–out of his own pocket to make the transfer happen! From Canales’ column: “It’s not just that Beckham had declared numerous times that AC Milan is wonderful and he wants to play there, and it’s not just that he has added nothing complimentary about the Galaxy or MLS. It’s that he has put his money conclusively where his mouth is. Beckham has thrown his own funds into the deal to extend his loan in Italy, reportedly paying more out of his own pockets than the entire amount Milan offered MLS.” Are you kidding me?!
#4 Says He’s Gonna Come Back! Becksy, do you really want to come back after the Serie A season is over? To the team you hate so much you paid not to play for them? To the sub-par league where you barely made a difference on the field? To the country where 99.9% of the people don’t give a shiny new sarong about you? To the competitive environment where hard-workin, proud, strapping young American boys who won’t make as much in a lifetime as you make in a year are going to have access to your knees, ankles, achilles tendons, etc.? REALL??
The sheer stupidity of it boggles the mind.
See you in July!
Landon Donovan, on his loan stint to Bayern Munich:
“I’m not sure I wouldn’t have changed if I hadn’t gone.” Emphasis mine.
Go ahead, figure that one out.
David Beckham just wants one of two things.
(A) Play at the top level of world football. Nothing feels better than knowing you’ve still got it. But in soccer terms, David is a bit of a geezer, and he knows it. So, in 2007, he opted for…
(B) Create a legacy. Put his stardom to work and establish a lasting culture of Beckham soccer. Effectively, retire on a plan that makes David a hero.
As he promised of his run in MLS, David would spend five years cultivating soccer in America, teaching children and building respect from coast to coast. A noble challenge, but possible for a guy with a profile as high as Dave’s… oh, and, with a little, um, hard work? See, apparently, this part of the plan was left out of the explanation to our hero. It seems David expected to just show up and that would be good enough. He would without a doubt excel in play and propel his team to a cup (after all this is America), in his mind. The rest—the kids, the respect, the future—would fall into place. Violá, legacy.
Reality set in for Dave probably by his fifth loss with LA: his team sucks, and the league (while not top-tier in a global sense) is much better than he thought. How could he champion a century of American soccer growth if he can’t even win a few games? Suddenly Dave was between a rock and a hard place; he could have neither A nor B. The right thing to do at this point would have been to lead his team a la Columbus savior Barros Schelotto, but you could see in his face after every goal against that instead he became frustrated, increasingly lazy, resented his teammates, and ultimately withdrew from his promises. Essentially, it was too hard. And he is a douchebag.
THEN! By the grace of God a respectable top-tier club in Italy showed interest in David’s ability to perform at a substandard level (read: move jerseys) and Dave couldn’t wait to sell out for the forgotten glory that is option A. Good luck with those caps, Dave.
I actually believed he was a good guy with great intentions and actual determination. In reality, he’s a spoiled elitist with an ego so self-centered it could compete with an Earth-devouring black hole. Hopefully he’ll go, and fade out, and never come back. We’ll call this option C.
Ah, the old Pretend-to-be-a-hot-mistress-when-you-are-really-two-Liverpool-fans-who-are-also-cage-fighters trick. I have to give them respect for the quality of this prank, but I’m afraid it’s a few steps out of touch, so to speak. I mean, they broke the guy’s ankle and got him divorced? For supporting Manchester United? You must read this cautionary tale of a life lived in the shadow of widespread EPL hysteria.