I kind of watched some of the Club World Cup

Well, the Club World Cup has come and gone. I kind of watched some of it, the highlights that is, no way would I ever be able to sit down and watch a whole game.

MLS did nothing really. (insert snickering sound here)

Did we really expect MLS to do anything?

Seattle got beat three times, LAFC tied a game but lost two, and Miami won a game and tied two. Then they went on to get beat 4-0 by PSG, and that was only after PSG took it easy on them to not completely embarrass Messi.

There is still a little chivalry left in the world.

But MLS needs to stay out of these competitions, we are not a real soccer league. 

Maybe once they merge with the USL and we get promotion/relegation set up properly in this country, then maybe we can join the big boys of the world. 

But not until, not until..... 

  

Where MLS truly stands after its Club World Cup awakening

(nytimes.com July 2, 2025)

Before we kick off this post-mortem, a disclaimer: no one game of soccer, or even a handful of them, can adequately serve as a referendum on an entire league.

When U.S. Soccer worked to launch MLS as a condition of hosting the 1994 World Cup, the paperwork didn’t include a “must be among the world’s top five leagues by” deadline. When Inter Miami brought Lionel Messi’s talents to South Beach, it was a gambit that the other 29 franchises couldn’t parody. Miami is operating within MLS’s labyrinth of rules in a very different manner than every other club can — it doesn’t reflect the operational standard.

Still, the Club World Cup has come to the United States and FIFA let three MLS teams enter its grand experiment. Just as the Mamelodi Sundowns were an avatar for South African soccer, and many will base their perception of the J-League on three games of the Urawa Red Diamonds, MLS’s caliber in the global landscape was largely conveyed through Miami, Los Angeles FC and the Seattle Sounders. That’s just how these things work.

So, yes: Miami’s 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain, which saw the reigning European champions go into full energy conservation mode for 45 minutes, brought MLS’s Club World Cup foray to a sobering end. Even if it technically did a little better than the “other” Inter fared in a bigger game vs. PSG last month, the half-hearted nature of the French power’s post-halftime approach showed just how little fight the MLS team was perceived to have — even with Messi.

Now that it’s over for the MLS trio, let’s take stock: what impression did the league provide to a global audience, and what did those closer to the circuit learn about its caliber and operation?

MLS is more competitive than some may think

For any team entering a global tournament that isn’t seen as a threat to contend, the prioritized side quest is to not be embarrassed. In a World Cup, each group’s minnow hopes to avoid what Thailand experienced against the U.S. women’s national team in 2019. Auckland City provided a perfect example, overcoming a brutal 10-0 thrashing in its opener against Bayern Munich to notch a famous draw against Boca Juniors in its final match.

At a glance, MLS’s results leave a record with much to be desired: one win, three draws and six losses. In terms of competitiveness, however, the result shows a trio of teams that gave opponents a game almost every time. Lopsided results were largely absent. Before PSG routed Miami, only three of nine games saw an MLS team lose by two goals, and none by a greater margin.

One doesn’t enter a tournament for moral victories, but it’s a start. So, too, is the fact an MLS team advanced from its group over a side from UEFA. MLS’s one knockout qualifier is equal to the Saudi Pro League, Portugal’s Primeira Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and Liga MX while giving it a greater knockout presence than, say, the Argentine Primera División and the Austrian Bundesliga. If you were bracing to barb MLS for all three teams getting grouped, be willing to contextualize what happens when one advances.

Teams also received plenty of praise along the way, and not just for harboring the sport’s most famous player. Before Luis Enrique’s side played Miami out of the tournament, PSG stuck its landing and won Group C by beating Seattle. While Miami has gone full Nick Fury to assemble mid-2010s FC Barcelona and LAFC had two members of France’s 2018 World Cup winners on-hand, Seattle was seen as a plucky underdog that had earned its place but was unlikely to thrive in the tournament’s toughest group.

Seattle arguably outplayed Botafogo — more on that below — days before the Brazilian club’s upset of PSG, and was outclassed by an Atléti side with a point to prove. PSG was its sternest test, but Seattle’s composed shape and tirelessness until the final whistle earned the praise of Brian Schmetzer’s opposite number.

“This is the Club World Cup; it’s impossible to have an easy match,” Enrique told DAZN after the match. “I think (the Sounders) compete really well, they play great football. It was difficult until the last minute.”

And yet…

The league’s roster restrictions are holding teams back

Any high-level team inevitably tailors its marketing plans around a few central figures. Any poster promoting these games will select the most famous guy or two to convey an entire team’s reputation. Inter Milan wants to hitch its wagon to Lautaro Martínez. Manchester City’s reinvention features Erling Haaland as its leading man. It’s never seen as a slight to Yann Sommer or Nathan Aké, who are both very good even if their likeness is never plastered on the side of buses. Their wages validate their impact, and they’ll get their flowers whenever they come through in big moments.

Over time, MLS has configured its roster rules to give oversized importance to those marketable men. The designated player rule, hatched to bring David Beckham to the LA Galaxy, allows teams to exceed the maximum salary, which is determined in multi-year windows via collective bargaining talks with the MLS Players Association. In 2025, the senior maximum salary is $743,750, or just under £10,500 per week at current conversion rates.

Teams are allowed two or three DPs depending on their squad-building model, and league-issued allocation money allows teams to sign a few more players above that maximum but below a $1.74 million threshold. Miami and LAFC’s squads each have nine players earning above $743,750 annually, while Seattle has eight. Other factors to consider are a salary cap ($5.95 million this year; DPs hit the cap at a figure up to the senior max) and a limit of eight international slots, although you can acquire extras via trade.

How MLS teams did at the Club World Cup

Only one game saw an MLS team log a considerable expected goal differential advantage, when Seattle still lost to Botafogo. MLS teams lost the underlying numbers ledger against a team from Egypt and only barely outperformed a side from Tunisia. Even the team with Messi, who famously defies xG models with regularity, had a negative xGD in all four of its games.

There’s simply no budget to bring in role players of Rodrigo De Paul’s quality, no license to cobble an entire roster under one coherent vision without cutting corners. Games aren’t won by one, or three, or nine players — it takes everybody who touches the field, plus a lot of worthy alternatives who are stewing about not being involved that day.

Last week, we learned as part of the MLSPA’s twice-a-year salary dump that Miami pays its roster $46,836,635 per year. Now consider that $36.7 million of that bounty is dedicated to Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez. The other 25 players earn an average of $404,599, or £5,666 per week. Some of you can already see how this would put teams at a disadvantage, but let’s cite an example.

Before falling in the round of 16, Botafogo jolted the Club World Cup to life with its 1-0 upset of PSG. Talking with commentators and rival teams over the following days, and the consensus hallmark of that win wasn’t Igor Jesus’ imperiousness: it was the swarming defense under (shockingly, now-former) head coach Renato Paiva. Botafogo moved as a collective, closing passing lanes and hustling upfield behind a possession sequence to establish a high line of engagement to shrink the field.

Defenders of that caliber don’t come cheaply, but think like an MLS sporting executive for a second: if you only have two, or three — up to nine, if you’re clever — roster slots to pay players more than $743,750, how many of those will you utilize for defensive roles? Are you comfortable going all-in on that while relying on cheaper attackers and midfielders? No matter what, a bulk of your squad will have to earn less.

So while the results were credible and performances earned plaudits, the underlying numbers show a gap in quality between MLS and most of its opponents.

MLS brass deserves a lot of credit for ensuring the league weathered a nearly catastrophic period at the turn of the century. The work of commissioner Don Garber and his support suite of executives helped keep the league afloat before setting it on the ascendency through expansion, enacting an academy model, working into the global transfer market and helping teams see the importance of world-class stadia and training venues. However, quotes like this give a worrying projection of how much further MLS owners are willing to reach to contend at the levels to which he once regularly professed to aspire.

“I saw something in the news today about Transfermarkt values of each [Club World Cup] club, and clearly MLS teams are at the lower quadrant of Transfermarkt value,” Garber said earlier this month. “That’s something over time that I hope to be able to see continue to grow as our teams are investing more in players and hopefully generating more revenue to justify that expense.”

Compare that tone to his comments in 2015, when Tyler Adams and Alphonso Davies were still in MLS youth setups and a year after the LA Galaxy had won a third MLS Cup in four years with Landon Donovan, Beckham and Robbie Keane:

“I do believe in 10 years’ time or less, people will think of us like Serie A, La Liga, and hopefully the way they think about the Premier League. If we continue to do things right and stay to our plan.”

The terms most often used when discussing MLS’s approach are “stability,” stating a secondary aim of ensuring competitive parity. In truth, most justifications for MLS’s strict and limiting roster rules suggest a prioritization of profit over play quality. That’ll keep MLS’s group of billionaire owners happy, but it’ll hardly help the competition near synonymity with Europe’s top leagues.

Aging icons have their limitations

Reports of MLS being a “retirement league” have always been backed by shaky banter, especially in recent years. MLS hatched another rule to encourage teams to lean into signing players under the age of 22, building off of the outbound transfers of Adams to RB Leipzig, Davies to Bayern and Miguel Almirón to Newcastle United in January 2019. Nevertheless, some players in the twilight of their careers continue to appeal to MLS suitors, often due to a combination of sporting and marketing reasons. Some of these guys can still ball. Zlatan Ibrahimović was a force in 2018 and 2019, when he was pushing 40, before returning to (and starting for) AC Milan when it won the Scudetto. Giorgio Chiellini and Gareth Bale helped LAFC win its first MLS Cup. Messi’s impact speaks for itself.

However, this Club World Cup saw most of the involved teams’ most veteran members struggle against non-MLS opposition. Olivier Giroud’s frustrating stint with LAFC ended with an ineffective tournament. All three teams had a starting goalkeeper aged 38 or 39 years old. The defensive flaws of Alba and Busquets were laid bare, and even Messi wasn’t immune: despite taking 13 shots and creating seven chances, his only goal contribution was that famous free kick to topple Porto.

If pressed to pick the best MLS player of the tournament, it wouldn’t be a former FIFA Best XI honoree. It would be Cristian Roldan, a 30-year-old who joined Seattle a decade ago and has played 294 league games for the team. His work in the engine room helped his team go toe-to-toe with Botafogo, while his pressing work in tandem with Obed Vargas forced PSG to abandon the midfield and operate up the wings.

At this stage, aging icons often fare best in MLS as role players, often requiring some pay cuts to ensure a better roster around them to handle the hard work and allowing them to focus on their technical and mental strengths. Miami’s struggles in the current MLS season have also provided ample evidence that balance is necessary to maximize this type of signing.

Spotlight on the kids

We end on a promising positive, as seeds laid by the league to foster dependable youth development around 2010 have more regularly borne fruit.

In any top circuit, academies are a surefire way to support a squad’s headliners with young talent on controllable wages. These players can run longer and easier than their veteran leaders, and they can provide sparks of technical promise that swing results and hint at great things to come.

No player embodied the payoff of those efforts than Vargas, who partnered with Roldan to start all three of Seattle’s games. A 19-year-old born in Anchorage, Alaska, Vargas’ family relocated to Seattle when he was a teenager to realize his professional dreams. He became a coveted dual national, opting to represent Mexico instead of the U.S., and is already among the best two-way midfielders in MLS. He’ll likely be off to Europe, following a path previously trod by MLS homegrown midfielders like Adams, Aidan Morris and Tanner Tessmann.

Each teams had their own young standouts. Miami’s win over Porto was sealed by Messi, but saw three academy graduates earn starts in what proved to be a momentous match. Another trio of “U22” international signings logged considerable minutes for Miami. While LAFC didn’t see any of their homegrown products make a measurable impact, a couple of rising South American youngsters played over half of the minutes available.

And to whet the romantics’ collective appetite: this is also where the best narratives and the most sustainable bonds between fans and their teams are fostered. There’s something intrinsically worth cheering for when “one of your own” is playing for the team he, himself, grew up idolizing. If those players go on to leave the club and play abroad, that’s great for the club; if they stick around for a decade, they’ll be fan favorites. It’s an undeniably positive pursuit when done right.

This is the direction MLS needs to venture towards even more confidently. Soccer has long been a staple of youth sports, and working to eradicate pay-to-play models has made teams’ academies a more realistic possibility for a broader portion of the population. There’s still plenty of work to do to improve accessibility, the quality of education available to coaches below professional ranks and bridging the gap from the academy to the first team — but it’s clear these efforts will help drive the league’s future.

If there’s one last lesson to take from this tournament, it’s this: teams from beyond Europe can still stand toe-to-toe with the continent’s biggest clubs and walk away with a win. Brazil has rebounded from the pandemic in a big way, reinvesting in veterans and international players to bolster the well-established developmental pipeline and raise its already impressive standard. Botafogo and Flamengo didn’t just beat PSG and Chelsea — they did so looking like the better side. While the Saudi Pro League is still a project that makes many observers uneasy, Al Hilal’s 120-minute triumph over Manchester City will validate the ridiculous sums spent and likely only catalyze further investment.

The case that teams outside of Europe, and even South America’s best, can’t contend at the club game’s highest levels has been debunked. That’s an encouraging sign for a competition like MLS, although how proactively the league works to make up ground against its rival competitions will undoubtedly be the biggest story of the months and years to come. With the World Cup coming to North America next summer, there’s never been a better window to take bold action and close the gap.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6463505/2025/07/02/mls-club-world-cup-lafc-seattle-inter-miami/

MLS' new stupid playoff structure - let the clown show continue

 

MLS announces new playoff format for 2023 season

(mlssoccer.com 2-21-23)

Major League Soccer today announced the format and schedule for the Audi 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs and MLS Cup presented by Audi.

Building on the popular single-elimination format, the 2023 MLS postseason will see the addition of a pair of single-elimination Audi MLS Cup Playoffs Wild Card matches ahead of an enhanced Round One, which now includes a Best-of-3 series.

After Decision Day on Oct. 21, the playoff schedule will go as follows:

Wild Card matches: Oct. 25-26

Round One Best-of-3 series matches: Oct. 28-Nov. 12

Conference Semifinals and Conference Finals: Nov. 25-Dec. 3

MLS Cup presented by Audi: Dec. 9.

Qualification:

Seeds 1-7 in each conference will automatically qualify for the Round One Best-of-3 series.

Seeds 8-9 in each conference will qualify for the Audi 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs Wild Card matches.

MLS Cup Playoffs Wildcard Matches (2 games)

Two single-game elimination matches hosted by the higher seed.

If the score of a Wild Card game is tied at the end of regulation, no extra time will be played, teams will participate in kicks from the penalty spot to determine the winner.

The winner of each Wild Card match will advance to the Round One Best-of-3 series to face the conference No. 1 seed.

Eastern Conference Wild Card Match: No. 8 vs. No. 9

Western Conference Wild Card Match: No. 8 vs. No. 9

Round One Best-of-3 Series (16-24 games)

Every Round One game will have a winner; no ties, no aggregate score.

The matches will be hosted in a home-away-home format:

Match 1: higher seed hosts

Match 2: lower seed hosts

Match 3: higher seed hosts

If a match is tied at the end of regulation, no extra time will be played, teams will participate in kicks from the penalty spot to determine the winner.

The first team to win two matches will advance.

Four teams from each conference will advance to the Conference Semifinals.

Eastern Conference Round One Best-of-3 Series

No. 1 vs. No. 8 or 9

No. 2 vs. No. 7

No. 3 vs. No. 6

No. 4 vs. No. 5

Western Conference Round One Best-of-3 Series

No. 1 vs. No. 8 or 9

No. 2 vs. No. 7

No. 3 vs. No. 6

No. 4 vs. No. 5

Conference Semifinals (4 games)

Single-game elimination matches, hosted by the higher seed.

If the score of a Conference Semifinal game is tied at the end of regulation, two 15-minute extra time periods will be played in their entirety. If the score is still tied at the end of the two extra time periods, teams will participate in kicks from the penalty spot to determine the winner.

Conference Semifinal winners will advance to the Conference Final.

Eastern Conference Semifinals

Winner of No. 1 vs. No. 8/9 series vs. winner of No. 4 vs. No. 5 series

Winner of No. 3 vs. No. 6 series vs. winner of No. 2 vs. No. 7 series

Western Conference Semifinals

Winner of No. 1 vs. No. 8/9 series vs. winner of No. 4 vs. No. 5 series

Winner of No. 3 vs. No. 6 series vs. winner of No. 2 vs. No. 7 series

Conference Final (2 games)

Single-elimination match hosted by the higher seed.

If the score of a Conference Final game is tied at the end of regulation, two 15-minute extra time periods will be played in their entirety. If the score is still tied at the end of the two extra time periods, teams will participate in kicks from the penalty spot to determine the winner.

The winner of each Conference Final match will advance to MLS Cup presented by Audi.

Eastern Conference Final: highest advancing seed vs. lowest advancing seed

Western Conference Final: highest advancing seed vs. lowest advancing seed

MLS Cup (1 game)

A single match hosted by the higher seed.

If the score of the game is tied at the end of regulation, two 15-minute extra time periods will be played in their entirety. If the score is still tied at the end of the two extra time periods, teams will participate in kicks from the penalty spot to determine the winner.

MLS Cup presented by Audi: Eastern Conference Champion vs. Western Conference Champion

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-announces-new-playoff-format-for-2023-season

Overrated Messi to Miami? Who gives a sh*t?!

Seriously, every time I have ever watched Messi play I end up screaming at the TV, "GOAT my ass! This guy sucks!"

Messi and MLS are made for each other perhaps, a crap player in a crap league, both pretending to be more important than they actually are. 

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Lionel Messi says he’s joining Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami after exit from Paris Saint-Germain

(cnbc.com 6-7-23)

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/07/lionel-messi-says-hes-joining-major-league-soccers-inter-miami-after-exit-from-paris-saint-germain.html

Lionel Messi has pulled off his latest stunning feat: He is headed to Major League Soccer, and joining Inter Miami.

After months — years, even — of speculation, Messi finally revealed his decision to join a Miami franchise that has been led by another global soccer icon, David Beckham, since its inception but has yet to make any real splashes on the field.

That likely will soon change. One of Inter Miami’s owners, Jorge Mas, tweeted out a photo of a darkly silhouetted Messi jersey shortly before the Argentinian great revealed his decision in interviews with Spanish news outlets Mundo Deportivo and Sport.

It was widely believed that Messi eventually would choose to play for Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, following longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo to a nation where some clubs now are funded by the state’s sovereign wealth fund. Going back to Barcelona, a storied franchise where he spent most of his career, was another possibility.

But in the end, he made the call that surprised many. Messi is joining MLS. He said in the interviews Wednesday that some final details still need to be worked out, but that he has made the call to “continue my path” in Miami.

“After winning the World Cup and not being able to return to Barcelona, it was my turn to go to the league of the United States to live football in another way,” Messi said.

He didn’t take the money. He didn’t choose the memories. He picked Miami instead. Messi’s next matches are likely to be exhibitions with Argentina against Australia on June 15 at Beijing and at Indonesia in Jakarta four days later — and then his Inter Miami debut figures to be sometime in July.

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner — the trophy given annually to the best player in the world — makes his move after two years with Paris Saint-Germain. At 35, Messi has nothing left to prove in the game and filled the only significant unchecked box on his resume back in December by leading Argentina to the World Cup title.

Messi has more than 800 goals in his career for club and country, making him one of the greatest scorers in the sport’s history. In more than 17 years of representing Argentina on the international stage, he has scored 102 goals against 38 different national team opponents — 16 of those goals coming on U.S. soil. He scored twice in last year’s World Cup final against France, a match that officially ended 3-3 with Argentina prevailing in penalty kicks.

He has been to the absolute mountaintop of the game.

And now he comes to MLS, and a team that is struggling — last place in the Eastern Conference, just a few days removed from the firing of coach Phil Neville (who was hand-picked by Beckham two years ago).

Messi’s decision to play in the U.S. might be the biggest boost ever for American soccer on the pro stage. Some of the game’s biggest names — Pele, Thierry Henry, Beckham himself — have come to the U.S. toward the end of their careers, but landing a player still no worse than near the pinnacle of his game and just a few months removed from hoisting a World Cup is simply huge.

It took months of negotiations with MLS, the Inter Miami ownership, Adidas and even Apple getting involved in a creative pitch to bring Messi to Miami’s pitch. Apple — which is a broadcast partner of MLS — announced Tuesday that it will show a still-untitled four-part documentary series “featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes access to global superstar Lionel Messi. ... In his own words, Messi tells the definitive story of his incredible career with the Argentina national football team, providing an intimate and unprecedented look at his quest for a legacy-defining World Cup victory.”

And now, his story will have a Miami chapter.

Inter Miami needed six years from inception to playing its first match, and its first four seasons have been less than stellar.

Messi is joining a team that sits last in the Eastern Conference and just fired its coach. It has made the playoffs in two of its first three seasons but has yet to finish a season with a winning record or even a positive goal differential.

Still, there have been hints for months that Miami remained very much in the Messi sweepstakes. Messi met with Inter Miami co-owner Beckham this spring, and that was shared publicly almost to ensure that everyone knew the sides were still talking. Messi and his family also own several pieces of luxury real estate in South Florida, and — almost as if to suggest something big was coming — the MLS club told fans the only way they could get tickets for the second half of this season was to purchase a season-ticket package.

He’s an enormous draw everywhere on the globe, including Miami. Two days after Argentina won the World Cup, Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry sat on his team’s bench for a game unable to play because of injury. He wore a Messi jersey that night.

Inter Miami still plays home matches in a temporary home in Fort Lauderdale, about 45 minutes north of the site in Miami where the team wants to build a permanent complex.

And even in an area where the population has a serious Latin flavor, and where more people might actually call the sport futbol than soccer, Inter Miami has struggled to generate the same attention as do the area’s primary pro teams — basketball’s Heat, baseball’s Miami Marlins, football’s Miami Dolphins and hockey’s Florida Panthers.

Messi could change that in an instant. In a flash, he becomes the biggest name in MLS and makes everything Miami does newsworthy.

His decision ends what has been a wild saga. Barcelona made Messi a superstar, but the financial issues that forced the team to letting him go two years ago still remain an issue.

"I heard that they’d have to sell players or lower players’ salaries and the truth is, I didn’t want to go through that,” Messi said Wednesday.

There are no financial issues with Saudi Arabia, and speculation that he would end up there intensified when Messi made an unauthorized trip to the kingdom. PSG suspended him and some fans turned on him, serenading him with jeers toward the end of his season with the French club.

Everyone knew he wouldn’t be back with PSG. Few likely thought he was heading to Miami. But here he is, a move to Miami by a superstar that might even be more shocking than LeBron James arriving to join the Heat 13 years ago.

Atlanta to break all-time MLS single-game attendance record vs. Orlando

(by Sam Stejskal mlssoccer.com 9-15-17)

Atlanta United have made plenty of history already in 2017.

On Saturday, they’ll further write their name into the MLS record books.

Atlanta announced late on Thursday that they've sold more than 69,256 tickets for Saturday's match against Orlando City SC at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (4 pm ET | Univision, Facebook Live, MLS LIVE in Canada), officially breaking the all-time MLS record for tickets sold to a standalone match. The record was previously held by the LA Galaxy, who drew 69,255 fans to the Rose Bowl in their first-ever game in 1996.

The all-time attendance MLS single-game attendance record is 92,650 for Chivas USA-New England Revolution match at the LA Coliseum. That contest was part of a doubleheader with a friendly between FC Barcelona and Club America.

The all-time single-season attendance mark is also in reach for Atlanta. The Five Stripes are averaging 45,811 fans per match through 11 of 17 home games. With the club set to fully open Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday and in the season finale against Toronto in October, the all-time MLS record of 44,247 fans per home match set by Seattle in 2015 is in reach.

The all-time single-season average attendance mark for a pro soccer team in the US and Canada of 47,856 set by the NASL’s New York Cosmos in 1978 is also potentially in play for Atlanta.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/09/14/atlanta-united-chasing-all-time-mls-attendance-records

ALL-TIME REGULAR-SEASON SINGLE-GAME ATTENDANCE (STANDALONE GAMES ONLY)
69,255	4/13/1996	Los Angeles vs. MetroStars	Rose Bowl
67,385	8/25/2013	Seattle vs. Portland	CenturyLink Field
66,452	10/7/2012	Seattle vs. Portland	CenturyLink Field
66,237	8/18/2007	Red Bulls vs. Los Angeles	Giants Stadium
66,216	10/27/2013	Seattle vs. Los Angeles	CenturyLink Field

SportsCenter on the Road visits Portland

(by Benjamin Baer mlssoccer.com 7-23-16)

The Portland Timbers and LA Galaxy have played in some big games over the years and Saturday's match-up is no different, except for one thing.

For the first time, SportsCenter on the Road will originate from the site of a Major League Soccer match-up on Saturday at 2:30 pm ET, live from Providence Park where the Timbers will host face the Galaxy on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. Canadian viewers can see the match on TSN.

Max Bretos and Dianna Russini will co-anchor the 75-minute program from inside Providence Park. SportsCenter on the Road in Portland will lead into the match telecast. There are many special features to be shown during the program including an interview with Timbers owner Merritt Paulson and a profile of LA Galaxy forward Giovani dos Santos.

Some other highlights of SportsCenter on the Road in Portland include:

• Timber Joey, the unofficial mascot of the Portland Timbers will be interviewed on SportsCenter on the Road;
• ESPN’s lead soccer match analyst Taylor Twellman will join Bretos and Russini on the set;
• A look at Darlington Nagbe's journey from Liberia to becoming a MLS star and US national team player;
• Sit-down interviews with one player from either team in the MLS Soccer Sunday matchup;
• A video essay – an ode to the City of Portland – by weekday 1 am ET SportsCenter anchor and native of Portland Neil Everett.

ESPN’s SportsCenter on the Road initiative, which takes the program out of the studio to events and fans, began in 2015.
1
SportsCenter on the Road has originated from pro and college football and basketball games, the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl and NFL Draft, the College Football Playoff, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, the Little League World Series, the Indianapolis 500, the World Series, MLB Playoffs, MLB All-Star Game and more.

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http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/07/20/sportscenter-road-visit-portland-Saturday

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My take:

Well, it only took ESPN 20 years to get on board.

This reminds me of the old days when I sent emails to ESPN suggesting to them that they help MLS grow by doing a "MLS Minute" at the end of each Sportscenter on Saturdays and Sundays. Of course there was now way in hell they were going to do that but it made me feel better, kind of.

Actually all it did was aggravate me more and more.

It also reminds me of when the Commissioner Doug Logan ripped ESPN a new one after the failed to even mention DC United beating Vasco De Gama to take the 1998 Inter-American Cup which in my mind is still the greatest achievement by any US soccer team, club or national team.

Anyway, it's pretty much a mute point, soccer is a little too "Millennial" for me now.

Houston Dynamo, Colorado Rapids break new ground with first intra-MLS loan

(by Avi Creditor soccer.si.com 1-21-14)

http://soccer.si.com/2014/01/21/dynamo-rapids-intraleague-loan-tony-cascio/

The UConn guys are making all sorts of history this MLS offseason.

Days after former Huskies standout Andre Blake became the first goalkeeper to be selected first overall in the MLS SuperDraft, another former UConn star, midfielder Tony Cascio, will forever be the answer to this trivia question: Who was the first player loaned within MLS?

The Colorado Rapids loaned Cascio, an attacking wide player, to the Houston Dynamo Tuesday, marking the first intra-league loan in MLS history. The player-movement mechanism was introduced last season, in an effort to get young players first-team time when their current playing situations were bleak, but no team took advantage of it. Until now.

The stipulations for players to be loaned within the league, according to MLSSoccer.com, include players having to be 24 or younger (Cascio will be 24 in March) and that the loans last through the end of the season (According to the Dynamo and Rapids, it is a year-long loan, with the Houston sending an international roster spot to Colorado).

Cascio enjoyed a successful rookie season with the Rapids in 2012, accounting for three goals and three assists in 29 games (18 starts). His playing time diminished considerably in 2013, though, as he appeared in just 13 games and played just 530 first-team minutes.

With Houston potentially losing Brad Davis and Oscar Boniek Garcia during the World Cup, Cascio offers a viable option on the wing while also adding to Houston’s overall depth. According to a Rapids spokesperson, Cascio will not be eligible to play against Colorado while on loan. The Rapids and Dynamo are due to square off on June 1 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

“I watched him in college and his first two years with Colorado and I enjoy the way he approaches the game,” Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear said in a team statement. “He is not afraid to take on players and he has good versatility. I think when he has the ball at his feet he is not afraid to try and be productive, whether it be an assist or a goal. With what we have coming up this year, we think he is going to be a great addition to the team.”

MLS spring training helps fill void in Tucson

(by Tom Dart si.com 2-25-13)

The storm that spat snow over this desert city last week was an aberration. But the sight of MLS teams tuning up in Tucson? It could well become routine this time of year.

Baseball has left this part of Arizona. Soccer is stepping in to plug the hole. The third annual Desert Diamond Cup concluded Saturday when the Seattle Sounders beat Real Salt Lake 1-0 in the final.

Also climaxing on Saturday was the fourth Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic, an eight-team tournament at Orlando's ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex with six MLS participants. Other clubs are playing at events in Portland and Charleston.

With structured and tourist-friendly preseason fixtures at high-caliber facilities in Arizona and Florida, MLS now has its own miniature versions of MLB's Cactus and Grapefruit spring training leagues, those beloved customs that have honed the commercialization of anticipation.

Even through pounding sleet, it's impossible not to notice the relationship with baseball in FC Tucson's Kino Sports Complex base. At Veterans Memorial Stadium the foul poles leer luminously over the corner flags, the scoreboard records innings, not goals, and the writing on the center-field wall might trick the unwary for a moment into believing that the pitch is 405-feet wide.

It's the home of the Tucson Padres minor league team, which is set to move to El Paso, Texas, in a year or two. It was the spring training center for MLB's Chicago White Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks, while the Colorado Rockies were nearby. After the 2010 season, all had relocated to the Phoenix area rather than have the hassle of a four-hour round trip to play against the other Cactus League clubs.

Tucson was bereft. But FC Tucson was founded that same year, and in 2012 it entered the USL Premier Development League. Annually expanding its efforts to welcome professional teams as well as aiming to support the thriving local youth soccer scene, in the future it hopes to partner with an MLS franchise and join the USL Pro division.

"Tucson was a big part of spring training for a long time with MLB baseball, but with all the teams moving up to Phoenix there was a void left in our city and a lot of facility availability that we'd be able to repurpose for soccer," Tucson general manager Jonathan Pearlman said. "Our goal was to earn the designation, which we have, as MLS's western hub for spring training."

Other clubs passed through earlier in the offseason to benefit from the (usually) mild weather and pristine facilities. The city hosted its first international friendly in January when Canada met Denmark. "We've had half the league come here and play games -- 10 of the 19 teams have come through Tucson this year," Pearlman said.

"The response we've had from the teams has been tremendous. We're really happy that MLS wants to see this grow along with us and the teams do, it allows us to centralize their operations and I think that's going to be vital for the league to grow and for them to have an event that just kicks off their season properly."

Real Salt Lake head coach Jason Kreis seemed happy. "I really enjoy it, I think it's a well-done tournament, I really like the city, I like the atmosphere of the people here, I think they're all terrific," he said. "The food here is so good and the facilities are top-notch, so we're really pleased with what we've gotten out of this tournament so far."

The Pima County government received a $5 million settlement from the White Sox when they canceled their lease in 2008. About $2.8 million is going toward a 2,200-capacity soccer stadium to open in the fall, while conversions of baseball fields will ultimately give the complex six soccer pitches.

"At the stadium they've done great, but the fields across the street is what's won over the teams," Tucson coach Rick Schantz said. "They dug all the clay out of the infields and the surfaces are great, the facility's world class. The Diamondbacks and a lot of baseball teams, when they build stuff they don't mess around. You're talking about guys who are making $20 million a year. So the facilities are built for players like that. MLS guys have told a lot of us in the locker rooms, this is unbelievable. For MLS standards it's A-1."

Though March To March would have had an apt symmetry to it ahead of the start of the regular season next month, MLS branded the build-up as March To Soccer as the league seeks to generate buzz ahead of the first kick. In a notable step forward, the Desert Diamond Cup final was televised live on the NBC Sports Network.

"The MLS figures that through the MLS Cup then at the start of preseason here's only 45 days that they're not actually doing something," Schantz said. "If they can have something on TV or marketable through the preseason it just ramps it up.

"You've got to keep it fresh in people's minds, in Europe they play from August until May, they take a month off then everybody's watching those preseason tournaments. If they're not going to be on that FIFA calendar they have to maximize the amount of exposure they're getting. We feel that we fill that void."

MLS teams were wooed by the chance to use the training facilities for free and favorable accommodation rates. Tucson offered convenience as well as a good climate. "We've created basically a turnkey spring training package for the teams," FC Tucson co-managing partner Greg Foster said.

"We go out in the market, we get quotes for hotels, for transportation, for food and we present them to the teams and that's been attractive for them because we've done a lot of the legwork that they would have had to do anyway.

"The other thing we do for them is we find competition. Most of the MLS teams would like to play other MLS teams during preseason. We've taken that burden off them as well, we've said let us plan your games -- basically let us plan your preseason so you can focus only on training."

Ticket sales and sponsorship provide income for FC Tucson. Future plans include possibly expanding the tournament to six teams, perhaps inviting a club from Mexico. The border is only 70 miles south and, naturally, a large percentage of Pima County's one million residents is Mexican.

The more established and appealing the tournament becomes, the easier it will be to fill the empty local hotel rooms that were once occupied by baseball fans enjoying one of the great American sporting traditions. While the use of taxpayer dollars to fund facilities for professional sports franchises is often controversial, the economic impact can be considerable.

The Phoenix area benefits from the Cactus League to the tune of between $300-$422 million a year, depending on which estimate you believe.

With more clubs, expanded media coverage and smart marketing, soccer in the desert might become an attraction, then a habit, then a tradition. "Strikers and 'keepers report to spring training" has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?

Commissioner Garber "surprised" by Blatter's MLS comments

(by Grant Wahl si.com 1-2-13)

Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber responded to FIFA president Sepp Blatter's recent criticisms of MLS on Wednesday, telling SI.com he was "a bit surprised" by Blatter's remarks.

"I know he's aware of the progress being made," said a somewhat bewildered Garber, adding later, "I look forward to inviting the [FIFA] president to an MLS game, and I'm sure when he does attend he'll be very pleasantly surprised."

Blatter issued his MLS criticisms in an interview with Al Jazeera last week. "There is no very strong professional league" in the United States, Blatter said, adding that MLS was not "recognized by the American society." Blatter concluded that he thought MLS should be much further along by now in its development. "It's been 18 years, it should have been done now," he said. "But they are still struggling."

Garber was careful in acknowledging FIFA's help in starting MLS in 1996, but the commissioner clearly wanted to provide details on the league's accomplishments.

"We have always had a good relationship with FIFA and president Blatter," Garber said. "Without FIFA and the World Cup coming here in '94, there's no Major League Soccer. But I know he's aware of the progress being made, and as such I was a bit surprised."

Garber confirmed Wednesday he canceled his plans to attend the FIFA Ballon d'Or ceremony in Zurich next week -- he has been a regular at the event in previous years -- and will instead be on hand next Monday at Soccer Night in Newtown, an event featuring 30 MLS players for those affected by the recent shooting tragedy in Connecticut.

As for the state of MLS, the league now has 19 teams (up from 12 in 2006), with 13 of them playing in stadiums built primarily for soccer. National TV ratings remain disarmingly low, having held steady in the 0.2 and 0.3 range for the last decade. But in 2012 MLS did set its all-time average attendance record of 18,807, making it the seventh-highest attended league in the world.

"To be fair, for those who don't live here in North America or spend a lot of time in the United States, it's hard to comprehend how powerful the other major sports leagues are," Garber said. "If you live in Europe or South America there's only one [major] sport, the sport of football. We have sports in the U.S. that are as powerful here as football is in its respective countries, and we have at least four that have been around for over 100 years. And all have had the benefit of building a fan base over many generations."

"Even against that backdrop, we have made tremendous progress over the last 17 years," Garber continued. "Interestingly, we're probably recognized as being more significant in many ways here in the U.S. than we are in other parts of the football world because of some of those developments: three broadcast partners, every game televised in HD, amazingly strong corporate support, lots of new stadiums and a great fan base that has us now in the U.S. and Canada ranked third [in average attendance] among all of the major leagues after the NFL and Major League Baseball. Those are pretty remarkable developments and ones that we're very proud of."

"Our owners, our players and our staff all accept that our job is not even remotely close to being finished. We feel pretty good about what's happened over the first 20 years, but it will be in my view many years before we've achieved our goal. We hope in 10 years to be one of the top soccer leagues in the world."

MLS truly does feel "major league" in cities like Portland, Kansas City, Vancouver and Seattle, where the Sounders drew an average of 43,144 fans in 2012. Other teams (Columbus, Dallas, New England, Chivas USA) don't feel major league, and all drew less than 15,000 per game last season.

When I asked Garber if there wasn't some aspect of tough-love truth in Blatter's comments, given MLS' low TV ratings, the commissioner said: "No, I don't believe so. You've got to continue developing the fundamentals and get a solid foundation before you can build a massive national television audience. We're doing better than expected as it relates to the fundamentals, and we'll continue to work on our national TV ratings, and that might be a project that will take some time. But our broadcast partners continue to believe in the league, and I believe there will be even more interest in our package when it's up after the 2014 season."

Asked if Blatter's comments would hurt MLS with potential multinational sponsors, Garber argued they would not. "Not in any way," he said. "The sports industry has enormous respect for us. Several years ago, against all the other major leagues, they [the Sports Business Journal] recognized us as the league of the year. The Seattle Sounders were recognized as the team of the year in 2009. Our corporate sponsorship base continues to grow. Our relationships with municipal governments providing support for soccer stadium development is at an all-time high. Investment in our league is at an all-time high and in some ways the envy of soccer leagues around the world.

"So no, I don't believe his comments hurt us in any way. But I think it's important to stand up and say that Major League Soccer -- while we have a lot of work to do -- is now thriving and making an impact."

Is it fair for Blatter to think MLS should have been much farther along 19 years after the 1994 World Cup in the United States? Garber said no.

"I don't think anybody believed MLS would be in the position it is today when it was launched in 1996," he said. "We have 19 teams and strong broadcast and corporate support and great players being developed in MLS and continuing to play here like Landon [Donovan] or perform at a high level like Clint [Dempsey]. We have world-class players coming here like [David] Beckham and [Thierry] Henry. It's a challenge to expect that we would be at the level of the other football leagues around the world, or even the other major sports leagues here in the U.S., which are now more than 100 years old."

By the time we were done talking, it was clear that Garber was trying to stay positive about MLS without opening verbal fire on Blatter. But he didn't exactly offer a ringing endorsement of the FIFA president when I asked if he thought U.S. Soccer should continue to support Blatter as the USSF has done since 1998.

"I consider Sunil [Gulati, the U.S. Soccer president] a good friend, and I believe he's been a very good president of the federation," Garber said. "And I will support the position he takes on behalf of the U.S. Soccer community."

But if you were the U.S. Soccer president, Don Garber, would you have voted for Blatter in the 2011 FIFA election as opposed to abstaining (as England's FA did)?

Garber had no comment on that one.

Sounders, Timbers to get near-record MLS crowd

(si.com 10-5-12)

The idea may be unsettling to Seattle Sounders fans, but with less than a month left in the regular season the priority for the playoff-bound Sounders is to avoid the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and not the Cascadia Cup.

Fortunately for Seattle fans, a win over rival Portland on Sunday would go a long way toward getting out of being the fourth-seed and the extra game that comes with it. It also keeps alive Seattle's hopes of retaining the trophy that goes to the winner of the Northwest rivalry involving the Sounders, Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps.

Three points against the Timbers, in front of an expected crowd of 66,000 and one of the largest in MLS history, could have massive influence on how the next few weeks play out for the Sounders.

"We talked a number of weeks ago we set some goals for ourselves and one of those was to have that No. 2 spot in the west,'' Seattle midfielder Brad Evans said. "That's still within our grasp and something that we really want. If we can eliminate that playoff game that will benefit us in the long run.''

Seattle has already assured itself of a playoff berth, but by sitting in fourth place in the conference standings leaves itself in the uncomfortable position of facing an extra game when the playoffs arrive. As part of the playoff restructuring the Nos. 4 and 5 teams in each conference have a one-game playoff with the winner advancing to face the No. 1 seed in the conference semifinals.

As it stands now, Seattle would face Vancouver in the one-game playoff, before having to face likely Supporters' Shield winner San Jose.

That is not the scenario Seattle wants to face. But the Sounders do have one more game than any other Western Conference team and matches against Real Salt Lake and Los Angeles - the two teams directly in front of Seattle - still to be played.

Seattle won last year's Cascadia Cup, bu needs help to retain the title. Portland currently leads with eight points in the competition between the three Northwest squads, with Seattle second with six points and Vancouver in third. To keep the title, Seattle needs a victory over Portland and the Whitecaps to beat or tie the Timbers this month in Vancouver.

A draw by the Timbers on Sunday will give them the Cascadia title in an otherwise dreary season in Portland.

"It certainly helps us and keeps us in a rhythm of playing important games, so we can't relax and have an easy game,'' Seattle coach Sigi Schmid said. "Every game is going to be a game that's going to require concentration and attention from the team, which is good because it keeps you sharp going into the playoffs.''

Only one other stand-alone MLS match has drawn more than 67,000 fans in league history. Los Angeles drew 69,255 for the first game in league history in 1996 and the Galaxy and New York played before 66,237 at Giants Stadium in 2007.

The league has seen larger crowds for doubleheaders featuring international clubs, but in terms of stand-alone matches Seattle will own two of the top four marks in league history after Sunday night.

"We've kind of become accustomed to having 3 or 4 games per year that were almost sellouts,'' Evans said. "Just a great opportunity. Like last year and games prior when we've had so many people, we've played well. For us this is a massive game once again. We're playing for a playoff spot and this will be a big one.''

MLS makes changes for 2012 regular season and playoff schedule

MLS reveals 2012 conference-based schedule format

(mlssoccer.com 11-20-11)

With the addition of the Montreal Impact to MLS in 2012, bringing the league’s total to 19, many have wondered how the schedule would look when there are 10 clubs in the Eastern Conference and only 9 in the Western Conference.

Now we know.

According to the plan approved by the MLS Board of Governors on Saturday, some things will remain the same, but there will be changes as the league shifts to an unbalanced schedule, or a conference-based schedule.

We have established a fair and compelling format for the 2012 season,” MLS executive vice president Nelson Rodriguez said in a statement. “This regular season will include more games between regional rivals and less total travel than we have seen in recent years. Because of the wide geographic distribution of MLS clubs, this structure should improve the quality of play, while continuing to give every club an equal chance of qualifying for the MLS Cup Playoffs.”

Each club’s total matches will remain the same, at 34 regular-season matches, and the regular season will run from mid-March through October, as it has in recent years.

Here is how the conference-based schedule will work:

Western Conference clubs will play each other three times, totaling 24 matches. They will play four conference opponents twice at home and once away, and play the other four conference opponents twice away and once at home. The location arrangement will be reversed in 2013.

West clubs will complete their schedule by playing each of the 10 Eastern Conference clubs once. Five of matches will be at home and five will be on the road. Again, the arrangement will be reversed in 2013.

Due to the higher number of clubs in the Eastern Conference, things are a little different on that side. Each club will play a total of 25 conference matches.

Each East club will play seven of their conference opponents three times each (21 total games) and the remaining two conference opponents twice each (4 games).

To complete their full slate, East teams will then play the nine West teams once each. Those nine games will be split either five at home and four away or vice versa. The locations will be reversed in 2013.

The league says it plans to announce the full schedule earlier than they have in previous years.

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MLS makes changes for 2012 playoff schedule

(si.com 11-20-11)

Major League Soccer will have 10 playoff teams and more games between regional rivals under new competition policies in 2012.

MLS made several announcements about next season's schedule before Sunday's MLS Cup between Los Angeles and Houston.

Next year's MLS Cup will be hosted by the finalist with the most regular-season points, a long-rumored change from the league's tradition of neutral-site championship games.

After a regular season weighted for games within each conference, five teams will make the postseason from each conference. The bottom two seeds will play a knockout game to determine who takes on each conference's top seed in a two-game aggregate-goal format.

The conference finals also will be played in a two-game series, a change from this season's winner-take-all finals for an MLS Cup berth.

Freddy Adu returns to MLS, joins Philadelphia Union

(by Dave Zeitlin mlssoccer.com 8-12-11)

It’s official: Freddy Adu is returning to the league where his career began and reuniting with his first professional coach.

On Friday morning, the Philadelphia Union announced the blockbuster signing of the 22-year-old Adu, who will join the Union on a free transfer from Portuguese giants Benfica. Though terms of the deal were not disclosed, the club confirmed that Adu will not be a Designated Player.

Adu will be available for selection for Philadelphia's game at FC Dallas on Saturday.

One of the most well-known American soccer players of all-time, Adu made history when, at 14, he became the youngest athlete to sign a professional contract, inking the momentous deal with D.C. United in 2004.

Under the tutelage of Union manager Peter Nowak, who coached D.C. from 2004-'06, Adu played three seasons for United, making 87 regular season appearances and scoring 11 goals. In 2004, he helped the club win its fourth MLS Cup.

Ahead of the 2007 season, he was traded to Real Salt Lake, where he played only 11 games and scored one goal before moving to Benfica in Portugal.

However, in Europe, Adu’s progress stalled as the one-time prodigy struggled to earn sufficient minutes while being bounced around throughout the continent. After one season with Benfica, Adu had separate stints on loan with AS Monaco (France), Belenenses (Portugal), and Aris (Greece), none of which were particularly memorable.

It was only after he joined Turkish 2nd-division side Çaykur Rizespor on loan in January of this year that Adu began to regain his form. In half a season in Rize, he played 13 games, scored 4 goals, and led the club to 3rd place in the Turkish 1.Lig. The small, aspiring club just missed out on promotion to the country's top flight, the Turkish Super Lig, falling in the promotion playoff final to Orduspor.

His performances in Turkey led to a surprise call-up to the US national team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup in June. Showing the kind of creativity, vision and ball control that first turned him into a star, Adu was very effective in the final two games of the tournament despite the fact that he was making his first international appearance in two years.

Adu, who will likely be used as an attacking central midfielder with the Union, was called up for national team duty again this week, but he did not suit up for Wednesday's friendly against Mexico at Lincoln Financial Field here in Philadelphia.

Now, Adu gets to stay in Philly – where he hopes his once-promising career can be revitalized under the same coach that gave it its start.

Rapids manager decides against taking Mullan to Seattle

(by Nick Thomas mlsnet.com 7-15-11)

Brian Mullan won’t be making the trip to Seattle for Saturday’s nationally televised game between the Sounders and the Colorado Rapids (4 pm ET, Fox Soccer) after all.

Rapids head coach Gary Smith, who had intimated Thursday he fully intended to take the wide midfielder, told MLSsoccer.com on Friday that the veteran would be left behind for a variety of reasons.

"It's based on two home games coming up, soreness in his body and the fact we are at full health," Smith said. “It’s totally my choice. Brian was adamant he wanted to go.”

The inclusion of Mullan, who has been struggling with a back injury since his return June 26, would have marked his first match in Seattle since his tackle led to Sounders midfielder Steve Zakuani breaking his leg back on April 22. The 33-year-old midfielder was subsequently suspended for a total of 10 matches.

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Comment by The Cup

Good call by the Colorado manager. I think it best Mullan never play in Seattle again for the rest of his career, for his own safety.

Rapids coach admits team is in "turmoil" , Mullan seeks psychiatric help

“We are in a little bit of turmoil ourselves,” the head coach said earlier this week. “There have been a number of injuries, we have had international call-ups and now there is the suspension. We are having to dig deep into our squad right now.”
(see Nick Thomas' article on mlsnet.com dated 4-29-11)

"Mullan did not report to Rapids practice on Tuesday, and Smith told reporters that Mullan was “distraught” in the aftermath of the incident. Smith also said that Mullan has inquired about receiving psychological counseling to deal with the incident."
(see Nick Firchau's article on mlsnet.com dated 4-28-11)

Mullan's tackle puts Garber on the spot

(by Steve Davis si.com 4-25-11)

The Brian Mullan-Steve Zakuani matter:

This is a big moment for MLS commissioner Don Garber. Later this week MLS' disciplinary committee will render judgment on Mullan, the Colorado midfielder whose terrible tackle has ended Zakuani's season of high promise.

Mullan was immediately red carded for the 3rd-minute tackle that snapped the Seattle winger's leg Friday outside Denver. Now all eyes are on Garber.

The backdrop for all this is the serious, ongoing and long overdue discussion about refereeing. Garber has publicly stated his frustration at the lack of organizational control over referee development and the volatile way league matches are officiated. (U.S. Soccer oversees and assigns referees, not MLS.) And Garber has vowed to increase protection for the highly skilled, offensive players.

Well, the Mullan decision (and the precedent) is something that Garber controls.

Before the commissioner sits a fiercely physical player who has done grievous harm to a highly technical player, there are several points to consider. Is Mullan a dirty player, one prone to cheap shots? No. But his aggressiveness is notoriously weapons grade. He's the very embodiment of MLS' highly deserved reputation as a "physical league," which is really just a candy-coated euphemism for an overly combative league where pugnacity frequently rules over technical ability, where hustle and brute force often trump the beautiful game.

That's Mullan. He has always played on the edge, consistently straddling the line between the legal and illegal. Players around MLS respect Mullan's work rate and his do-or-die mentality. But they'll also tell you privately that he can cross the line into reckless behavior and that he's fortunate something like this hasn't happened before.

Mullan works ferociously; that part is commendable. But he also plays with a chip on his shoulder, always quick to scream and complain when the whistles don't go his way. And he has always been prone to emotional overreaction when he doesn't get the calls -- which is exactly what happened Friday.

Highly combative, aggressive players have a duty to police themselves and their emotions. Short of that, Garber must do it for them. Because it's too late for Zakuani, but not for the next tibia and fibula that may be in jeopardy.

Playing the game with that signature competitiveness has helped Mullan earn five MLS Cup rings. But there will eventually be a price for habitually pushing the limits, and here we are.

Finally, Mullan did himself no favors with his tone-deaf reaction, which included this unfortunate groan-inducer: "It's a tackle that I've done hundreds of times and would probably do again."

No, Brian, it's not a tackle you've done 100 times. Because this one shattered someone's leg. That makes it a very different tackle -- as he is sure to discover this week.

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Comment by The Cup

Hopefully we won't see this chump bastard for the rest of the season.

MLS final sets ratings low

(espn.go.com 11-23-10)

Colorado's victory over Dallas set a record-low for English-language U.S. television viewers for Major League Soccer's championship game.

The 2-1 win Sunday night received a 0.4 rating and 748,000 viewers on ESPN, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday. That's down from a 0.7 rating and 1.14 million viewers for Real Salt Lake's win over Los Angeles in 2009.

Since the league started play in 1996, the previous low for viewers was 876,000 for San Jose's win over Chicago in 2003.

This year's game also received a 0.1 rating and 232,000 viewers on Spanish-language Galavision.

League ponders MLS Cup changes

(by Ridge Mahoney socceramerica.com 11-22-10)

By the time streamers shot into the sky and fluttered down on Colorado Rapids players, coaches and staff celebrating with the club’s first MLS Cup, the stands are BMO Field in Toronto were mostly empty and the giant, white maple leaf that adorns the center-section seats was barely obscured.

Never before had MLS ventured as far north to stage its grand finale, prompting concerns about weather. Prior to the game Commissioner Don Garber reiterated several times his hope that Toronto FC fans, disgruntled by poor on-field performance and front-office bungling of their team, wouldn’t boycott the event. Had rain come down as forecast, a dreary setting it would have been.

If it wasn’t a perfect storm of adversity, it came close. Pre-selecting a venue months in advance is one facet of league operations under review; as a maturing league ponders how best to market and present its showcase event. With months of lead time , arrangements for transportation, accommodations, ancillary events, etc., are simpler to arrange, but most of the fans at a neutral venue tend to be, well, neutral.

Seattle fans came out in droves last year, despite the disappointing elimination of the first-year Sounders in the conference semifinal, and despite a rather lackluster game between Real Salt Lake and Los Angeles they got a good buzz going at Qwest Field. A wonderfully wild group of a few hundred RSL fans injected the proceedings with their chants and cheers and catcalls aimed at Landycakes, et al.

Some of the BMO faithful Sunday night livened up the mood, and small sections of FCD and Colorado supporters did what they could. It wasn’t a dour occasion by any means yet neither did it fizz.

Proclaimed as a sellout crowd of 21,700, the stands at kickoff were dotted by empty seats. A late Sunday night kickoff (8:55 p.m.) dictated by television, and harsh, windy conditions that included forecasts of rain prompted some fans to stay away. The game itself had its stylish moments, and FC Dallas’ opening goal – a glorious crossfield ball from left back Jair Benitez chested down and crisply served into the goalmouth by Marvin Chavez for league MVP David Ferreira to stab-volley into the net – exuded class.

More common in Colorado's 2-1 win were hard challenges and fearsome collisions: FCD defender George John and Colorado battering-ram Conor Casey clashed heads fiercely not once, but twice. There were more showdowns than show-stoppers, as the rugged Rapids blunted FCD’s creative elements and churned out occasional chances for Casey and others. Overtime kicked off at about 11 p.m., and by then a lot of fans had already fled into the night, braced and bundled against the sharp winds off Lake Ontario buffeting BMO Field.

So goes the risk of staging a late November, cold-weather city championship game, which the league granted to Toronto last March as reward for season after season of consistently full houses. Had TFC been in the final, of course, their rowdy, crazy fans would have come early – camping overnight if permitted to do so -- and stayed late, as they have since the team’s first game in 2007. Their anger over constantly rising ticket prices boiled over earlier this year when promise inspired by the hiring of Preki as head coach deteriorated into another losing season and the dismissal of both Preki – after just 24 games in charge -- and the man who hired him, Mo Johnston.

Commissioner Garber said prior to kickoff he believes the league may be ready to scrap the neutral-site final for a game hosted by the highest surviving seed. The complications imposed by such a switch are onerous -- far less time for fans, sponsors, and teams to schedule their travel plans and broadcast arrangements to be completed, finding hotels and suitable venues for ancillary events, etc., -- but could be mitigated by the raucous, colorful backdrop of home fans cheering and chanting their team to a title.

Yet the home team can lose. The mood might not be all that different with the away team waving and jumping around with a massive piece of silverware. Still, the league could increase the significance of regular-season play by assuring that the higher-seeded team that reaches the final gets to host it. Had that occurred this season, FCD would have hosted Colorado at Pizza Hut Park.

For decades, before the advent of a Super Bowl against the champion of a rival league, the NFL decided its title on the field of a finalist. The sports are vastly different but in no other major American team sport does a title rest on one game. While Garber acknowledges the current MLS playoff format that melds both knockout games (or the conference finals and MLS Cup) and a two-game series (conference semifinals) is somewhat contradictory, he can’t see the benefit of a home-and-away final by which a team could win the title by tying, or even losing, the second game. In the USA, at this stage of the game’s development, that won’t fly.

With the advent of soccer-specific facilities and a growing, passionate core of fans in many cities, Garber believes even with a week's notice, at best, most league teams could pack their venues for a title game. Next season could provide a possible window of opportunity if the league decides to experiment; as the league schedule is currently plotted, the projected date of the final conflicts with a mid-November FIFA international-fixture date.

Since staging its first Super Bowl in 1967, the NFL has used both one-week and two-week windows leading up to the grand finale. If it deems itself ready, MLS could use next season as a test case of a two-week option: determine the two finalists by mid-November, skip the weekend after the FIFA date, and stage its championship a week later in November.

A return to BMO Field next season in such circumstances isn’t likely, as TFC has yet to find replacements for either Johnston or Preki, though it has hired former German international Juergen Klinsmann – spotted in the stands Sunday night – as a consultant. And MLS Cup weather issues have cropped up before: a nor’easter lashed Foxboro Stadium for the inaugural MLS Cup in 1996.

Conditions for a late November finale at Red Bull Arena or PPL Park or a few other venues could be quite crisp, but the weather could be temperate and the scenes could be unforgettable. What if the Sounders were to host the big dance? On the other hand, would MLS and adidas and ESPN want a final at Buck Shaw Stadium? Ouch.

There are plenty of warm-weather options in MLS, but the league does not mandate a host – teams bid for the event and the league chooses the most compelling offer. In a few months, it may decide to give a new format a shot, and present a short-notice host the opportunity to show how far it, and the league, have progressed after 15 seasons.

MLS will expand playoffs to 10 teams

(by Jeff Carlisle espn.go.com 11-22-10)

MLS will begin exploring the possibility of aligning its season with the international calendar, according to commissioner Don Garber.

The announcement was just one of several that the head of MLS made at a news conference before Sunday's MLS Cup final between FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids. Garber also indicated that the league will expand the number of playoff qualifiers to 10, and will play a balanced 34-game schedule next season that will begin in the third week of March. The league's conferences will also remain, although those will change with the addition of expansion sides in Vancouver and Portland next season.

The biggest revelation was related to the league's calendar. MLS currently begins its season in March, plays through the summer months, and concludes with a league championship in November. Such a set-up has often put the league at odds with international fixture dates as well as international tournaments such as the CONCACAF Gold Cup, FIFA Confederations Cup and FIFA World Cup. MLS has often played straight through such events, causing many of the league's best players to miss MLS matches.

The league's decision to expand the season to 34 games, when teams are already complaining of fixture congestion because of outside competitions such as the CONCACAF Champions League, highlights the need to look at alternatives.

"We've got to take the steps to figure [the schedule] out," said Garber. "We're going to do a lot of research internally. We're going to take some time to look at people outside of the league who can help us with this research."

Garber refused to put a timetable on when a decision would be reached and said that "nothing is off the table" as far as what format a revamped calendar would take.

As for why MLS has chosen this moment to explore the possibility, the commissioner stated it was down to the growth of the game in North America, although he admitted some serious impediments remain.

"Every day this sport grows and gets more relevant in our markets," said Garber. "As that happens, we're beginning to think that we can push the envelope a little bit further. In our view, it's not so much an issue with fans, but how do you play games in Montreal in February? How do you play them in Salt Lake?"

Although the proposal will likely be greeted positively by the league's fans, Garber is likely to get pushback on the changes to the playoff format. The commissioner indicated that the particulars on the postseason still need to be worked out, but that the bottom four qualifiers, however they might be determined, would participate in play-in games to reduce the field to eight teams. Whether that would be a one-game or two-legged playoff is still to be decided.

What also needs to be sorted out is whether the teams will remain in their conferences, or if they can cross over, as happened this year when the fifth- and sixth-place teams in the Western Conference qualified at the expense of the third- and fourth-place teams in the Eastern Conference because they had higher point totals. While keeping teams in their conferences would simplify things, it would also run the risk that one of the 10 best teams might miss out on the postseason.

"It's a tradeoff," said MLS executive vice president Todd Durbin.

As for why the league is bothering to expand the number of playoff teams at all, Garber stated that having more meaningful games trumped any concerns about possibly reducing the importance of the regular season.

"Counter to what soccer people around the world think about our playoffs, they're the most valuable games that we have," said Garber. "They're the highest-rated and the highest-attended. … So I'm not sure by adding two more teams that it devalues what we're trying to achieve."

Garber: We’re looking at changing the playoff format

(by Greg Lalas mlssoccer.com 10-30-10)

This season, with two teams from the Western Conference switching to the Eastern Conference playoff bracket, there has been much talk about possible changes to the MLS playoff format. On Saturday evening at halftime of the FC Dallas-Real Salt Lake Western Conference Semifinal match at Pizza Hut Park, MLS Commissioner Don Garber confirmed those changes are coming.

“It is kind of odd when you have teams moving from conference to conference and we're looking at making some changes,” he told Fox Soccer Channel. “We're going to have more teams in the league over the next couple of years, and I think there are many more exciting ways that we can do this. Everything in the past worked well—it might continue—but let's open it up to making it even better.”

In each of the past three seasons, teams from one conference have switched brackets. In 2008, the New York Red Bulls switched brackets and wound up winning the Western Conference playoff crown and a trip to the MLS Cup. Real Salt Lake repeated that feat in 2009, winning the Eastern Conference playoff title and eventually beating Los Angeles in the MLS Cup.

This year, the Colorado Rapids and San Jose Earthquakes, who finished 5th and 6th in the Western Conference, respectively, are taking part in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

One of the options often mentioned is going to a single table, a move Garber rejected, just as he has many times when asked the same question.

“Everyone around us pushes the single table,” he acknowledged. “At the end of the day we want to create more rivalries. We like the fact that you can be crowned a conference champion. We like the fact that as the league gets bigger and we spread across two different countries that we can keep these local rivalries. And conferences are, in our view, the way to do that.”

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Commentary by The Cup

How freaking long is MLS going to shove this conference crap down our throats?! Nobody gives a crap how many conference championships DC or LA have. No one gives a crap that Chicago won the the Central Conference championship back in the day. There are three domestic titles a team can go after, MLS Cup, Supporters Shield, and the US Open Cup, period. We don't need conferences to decide those titles. A single table is all we need. Get it through your head MLS!

Players still left without freedom of movement

(by Leander Schaerlaeckens espn.go.com 3-22-10)

Amid the cheers, whoops and hoorahs emanating from all involved with Major League Soccer after Saturday's collective bargaining agreement between the league's owners and the MLS Players Union that avoided a work stoppage, an uncomfortable if unavoidable conclusion slowly materialized as the dust settled: The players didn't get what they fought for.

While the players would speak no ill of what they consider progress in their fight for more freedom, it is becoming abundantly clear that the players made little progress on the one thing that truly mattered to them: rights.

We don't know the exact wording of the new CBA yet -- that isn't expected until sometime in the coming week -- but the players didn't win the free-agency rights they sought.

"Everybody recognizes that [free agency] was the elephant in the room," MLS commissioner Don Garber said during a conference call held Saturday to announce the agreement. "Players will have greater rights at the expiration of their agreements but they will not be free agents within the league."

In order to get the players to agree to a new five-year term, owners sweetened the deal with some extra money here and there. More contracts will be guaranteed, unilateral team option years in contracts will be limited to two, and minimum salaries and the salary cap are said (but not yet confirmed) to be going up. More money will also be reaching the players from other, as of yet unknown, places.

But the epicenter of the negotiations was that the players wanted rights and said they cared less about money. In the end, they took more money and gained very little in terms of free agency.

"These negotiations were always about player rights," MLSPU executive director Bob Foose said on the conference call (several attempts to later reach the players' union were unsuccessful). "Players' ability to move freely within the league will be greatly improved."

Greatly improved? Not really. From what we now know, it appears that players whose contracts have expired or have been canceled will be entered into a re-entry draft, most likely to be held every December.

"It's a way for a player to be exposed to every other team in the league," Kansas City Wizards defender Jimmy Conrad said. "There was a form of free agency we were looking for. There were a lot of concerns. One of the big ones was that when you get waived you should be free. If a team doesn't want you they shouldn't get any compensation for you if another team wants you. They met us halfway on some of the rights stuff or ended up giving us what was fair."

In the same vein as Conrad's remarks, many spoke of an increased flexibility for the players. But simply shackling a surplus or unwanted player to another team doesn't give the player any more rights than he had before. While one team won't be able to hold a player hostage anymore, another team will. His new team is just as likely to offer him an unfair deal or not bother to offer him one at all -- holding on to his rights until it has found a use for him, found another team to offer adequate compensation or keep the player in perpetuity. The highest bidder will never be found, as there will never be more than one.

The whims of whoever acquires the rights of a player will still rule. The re-entry draft is closer to the status quo than it is to free agency. Union objectives like the free movement of workers, honoring the rules of international soccer, and gaining the same rights as soccer players the world over were not met.

In truth, free agency was probably never really on the table. MLS has spent too much time and money defending its single-entity concept, which gives the league a de facto bye in the free-agency battle.

Garber said it in plain English: "MLS was founded on the principle that our owners would not be competing against each other for a player's services. When we think of free agency, it is that concept of internal bidding. There will not be internal bidding for a player's services."

So long as that claim wasn't made inoperative, the players were never going to attain their ultimate goal. And they clearly haven't yet garnered the clout to pull it off. So while they may delight in the agreement they've come to, the outcome can't possibly be hailed as a victory for them. They improved their lot to be sure, but win they didn't.

And in addition to their core objective, the players abandoned something else too: one of their own.

Alone among the rubble of the many battles fought to come to this new agreement stands Dave van den Bergh.

In November, FC Dallas decided not to exercise its unilateral option on van den Bergh, who had commanded a well-above-average salary but also came second in the league in assists, was vital in his team's last-ditch run on the postseason and played in every game. Yet it made him no offer. It was well within its rights to do so. Van den Bergh hadn't meshed well with coach Schellas Hyndman, who had also announced his intention to build a younger team, seemingly dooming the 33-year-old van den Bergh.

It's what Dallas did next that was the problem.

Van den Bergh's play, which he maintains he'll be able to keep up for several years more, attracted plenty of interest. The Houston Dynamo, New York Red Bulls, Seattle Sounders and especially Los Angeles Galaxy all inquired as to the option of trading for van den Bergh. All were scared off by FC Dallas' outlandish demands. (MLS claims that van den Bergh was twice offered -- once by Dallas and once by Los Angeles -- a contract at a reduced wage but that he refused to entertain the offers.)

So van den Bergh, one of the league's most recognizable players, won't be saved even by the re-entry draft as it is allegedly retroactive only to players dropped since Feb. 1, 2010. Van den Bergh's option was dropped in November. He's stuck.

"He is the last guy hung out to dry out there and it's unfortunate," Conrad said of van den Bergh. "We tried to solve all the problems."

Leaning over a plate of chicken-fried steak, which he barely touched, in Irving, Texas, a few weeks ago, the usually chipper van den Bergh looked gaunt and tired, a man laboring under the crushing weight of limbo. Limbo that his employer and its overarching infrastructure were quite happy to let him fester in forever.

Van den Bergh's plight, and every other player's nightmare, is not an aberration. He didn't fall between the cracks ripped into the earth when a new system leveled an old one. Even if van den Bergh's situation is resolved in the near future, his is a problem that several have faced and one that could haunt others.

Any team that wants to treat its players like FC Dallas did van den Bergh can still do so. And therein lies the crux. Until the players can seek employment without restrictions, they haven't achieved their goals.

"We've made some good progress and it's a step in the right direction," counters Conrad. "We knew we wouldn't get everything we wanted.

"Hopefully in five years' time [when the just-agreed upon CBA expires] the next group of guys will be able to step up and go for what's next." That's what really happened here. The current crop of MLS players left the real fight for another day, for another generation.