Earlier this year, an old college pal of mine called me up and gave me a little stick about the Pittsburgh Pirates getting blown away by Stephen Strasburg in his major league debut. I calmly told him the Pirates haven’t cared about winning since they blew it in 1992, and when they start caring about baseball again, I’ll start caring again, too.
I think MLS is hoping soccer fans in America will feel the exact same way about the CONCACAF Champions League. If nothing else, it will help those 500 or so Galaxy fans who actually showed up last night pretend that their team’s comprehensive collapse against the Puerto Rico Islanders wasn’t real. Besides, winning the MLS Cup before Landon Donovan returns to England in January is what really matters, right? Right?
5 responses so far ↓
1 Joseph L // Jul 28, 2010 at 1:23 pm
No. No one cares. But, while MLS is playing off of the All Star game for all they can bleed it, we all still know that Americans (anybody, really) really don’t care about All-Star games. Sure they are nice and pretty. Plus, you get to see the best of the best play with each other. But, they mean diddly squat. So, while it is not now, there will be a time that the All Stars takes a back seat to the Champions. For now we should just accept this young leagues current state, try and be a part of it, and help it mature and grow laterally at the state it is at (No more after Vancouver).
2 Rob // Jul 28, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Yeah the Galaxy had a bad game last night. But to say (as insinuated by the headline) that last night’s performance was representative of the best that MLS has to offer? That’s pretty damn naive.
I would put money on the Galaxy to beat the Islanders 9 games out of 10, easy. Sometimes the better team doesn’t win on the night… I guess we’ll find out next week.
3 joejoejoe // Jul 28, 2010 at 8:09 pm
It’s cowardly to not try your best but it’s also good insurance against getting found out to be not quite as good as you imagine yourself to be. If the MLS doesn’t ever try in CONCACAF Champions League they can rely on kind words from Sir Alex Ferguson when he has his B-side on vacation for validation instead of say…the scoreboard in a competitive match against a team from another league.
4 a different Dave // Aug 6, 2010 at 11:34 pm
MLS teams do not have sufficient bench depth to play competitively in what are effectively SIX competitions (MLS Conference, MLS Supporters Shield, MLS Cup, USSF Open Cup, Superliga, and CONCACAF Champions League).
It’s that simple. You can call it “cowardly” all you want to, but that does not change the fact that MLS coaches have to economize their scarce resources.
Until MLS can afford to pay for talent in depth, expect stuff like this to continue to happen.
And I hope no one is insinuating that this somehow “proves” that USL/NASL/D2 is “as good” as MLS; that’s retarded and everyone knows it. Or should.
5 a different Dave // Aug 6, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Comments in previous thread seem to be closed, so to answer JoeJoeJoe’s question:
“Note: Was there ever a time where club soccer friendly matches meant something? I can’t think of any but my knowledge isn’t all that deep on the subject.”
Yes, prior to the establishment of the major international club competitions (European Cup in 1955, Copa Libertadores in 1960, etc), an international club friendly might “mean something” as there was no other meaningful way to gauge the relative merits of clubs in different countries. Since then, club friendlies have been absolutely meaningless as a means of gauging talent levels, especially as you rarely get both clubs putting out their 1st teams and at lease one of the clubs tends to be in pre-season form.