Yeah, I’m still alive

Well, it seems a few things have happened in the last few days. Guess I should catch up a bit.

The big news, for LA fans, is that Fish will be returning. LA fans are split by this move. They either love or hate it. I’m in the camp that believes no one is going to want to face the three-headed monster of Becks, Donovan and Fish. Of course, that assumes they aren’t injured and Fish doesn’t keep tripping over the lines marking the penalty area. My biggest beef is that with so much cap space being filled by just a few players, what’s left for the rest of the squad?

Chicago now has a shirt sponsor. To be honest, I’m surprised Best Buy didn’t insist their yellow tag logo be put on the shirt.

The MLS SuperduperDraft is tomorrow. I have a tough time getting interested. I don’t follow college ball at all. No one really knows that much about the players except from the combines. MLS teams really don’t scout players outside of their local area. If quality player in a non-MLS area is a stud, who would know? Baseball has scouts combing every tiny High School for talent. MLS doesn’t even come close. To prove my point, of the players in MLS who were drafted out of college in the last few years, ok, I don’t have the numbers but it seems to me that they are just as likely to come from the later rounds as they do from the early rounds. Someone put the numbers together and prove me wrong. Until a quality scouting system is put in place, I’ll worry about those guys when they come in off the bench for their MLS debut.

Speaking of the draft, Nick Garcia is worth a #1 pick. I’m still trying to figure out what that tells us.

We are starting to see more Americans heading to Europe….even England. Fulham (Eddie Johnson) may soon have five (yes, 5) American’s on their squad. As always, keepers are popular—Matt Pickens on trial at that scummy team in Green And Yellow.

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is management giving teams time to jell. I said it a bunch last season when LA made a million moves to try and get the right combination. One area which seems to be overlooked in this area is coaches (managers). What’s bringing this up is the recent changes in Newcastle…but the same could be said about New York. The guy in charge needs time to get things right and if you keep changing things all the time, there’s never any time for the team to come together. Of course, this doesn’t explain what’s going on in Colorado, but there are always exceptions to rules.

Ok, enough for now. If I keep rambling and don’t post this, it’ll never happen. I’ll post again when I have the chance.

Ending hibernation briefly

I’ve kept my mouth shut on this whole Figo thing thinking–hoping(?)–it would just go away.  But it isn’t.  So, I’m posting to voice my opinion.

BTW, I hope everyone reading this had a great holiday season.  I haven’t posted much cuz, well, I was busy with the family and I was working on some stuff for ITFC-NASC in the little time I’ve had….besides, not much has really happened.

Now, this Figo nonsense.  Anyone who knows me…or has read my blog…knows I’ve followed LA since Day 1.  I’ve seen all the different ups and downs over the years.  Beckham coming to LA, in my opinion, was a good move on many levels.  However, from that time on, every agent in Europe has used LA and AEG as a pawn to get a better deal for their clients.  I have every reason to believe this is the case with all these Figo stories.

OK, so what if the stories are true?  God, I really hope they aren’t.  But if they are true and he arrives in LA in a couple of months.  This would be awful for the team.  We’d have 3 massive players (Donovan, Beckham and Figo) taking up almost all the salary cap and pocket change left over for Ruud to build the rest of the squad.

What about Cannon or Xavier?  That would probably empty the remaining space.  No, I haven’t done the math but….

We’ll have the most expensive 5-a-side team in the world.  Too bad we’ll be playing teams with 11 on the pitch.  LA need depth in their squad if they are going to succeed.  There’s no way to do with with a few guys (albeit quality guys) taking up most of the salary cap.  I don’t care how good a job Ruud will do, he’s got to have the right squad…and adding Figo isn’t what he needs.

Ok, rant over.  Back to other stuff.  Thanks for listening.

Burgers for Berger

The latest rumor for signing under the Beckham Rule is Patrick Berger.

While he’s not Beckham, he’ll improve any time he’s with. Let’s just home he doesn’t ask for Zidane money.

Will he coming with the right attitude and without injuries?

Is it that time already?

Yeah, I’ve been enjoying the holiday season and staying away from my computer a bit the last week or so. However, I’ve been reading other peoples reflections on 2006 and that got me thinking…

If I were to say the one thing that will stick in my mind as a soccer fan in the US about 2006 it would be the media. For the first time MLS has managed to sell it’s broadcast rights. For the first time (that I know of) the media in the US gave the World Cup almost wall-to-wall coverage. And, probably the part which shows have far the professional game has come in the US, the media were all over the US performance and discussing weather or not Arena should keep his job.

Ok, so a ton of the commentary was from sports media with no clue about soccer, but I’m thinking that’s a good thing. Now, with the Beckham Rule in effect, MLS teams are able to bring in names which will, hopefully, get MLS more media coverage. I’m honestly doubting we’ll see Beckham at this point, but who knows. Giving owners the opportunity to open their checkbooks will be a good thing in my opinion.

Of course, on the flip side there are talented American players heading to Europe, but that’s not going to change any time soon. After all, Beckham left England to go seek his fortune in Spain. Other top players all over the world are doing the same, even if their domestic league is at the top level (how many Mexican players are suddenly in Europe?) so why not Americans as well.

Regardless, things are looking good for soccer in the US and I can’t wait to see what happens next year.

They keep getting richer

So, Beckham is worth £87 million (what’s that…about US$ 170 million give or take)*. Now, the rumors say (and keep telling us) that he’s heading for LA and the league will pick up $400,000 of his salary. According to the report, he’s making £4.4 million (about US$8.5 million) per season at Real. There’s a bit of difference there. I’m having a tough time thinking AEG will fork out the difference. Phil Anchutz didn’t amass his fortune paying talent that much.

Fear not Spice fans. There is a way to make the move happen. Ya see, Beck’s made about 5X as much money last year from sponsorship deals. That’s where AEG and MLS have lots of experience. Those of you who payed attention the last 11+ years will know that most of the “big name” signings the league has had over the years have had contracts which kept them under the salary cap by giving them huge sponsorship deals.

If Beckham comes to MLS, his playing salary won’t be very big…though he’ll probably end up making more money than ever thanks to those folks on Madison Avenue who work so hard to part us all from our hard earned money.

*Currency conversions were done based on today’s exchange rate. If you are reading this at some other time, it will probably be different and the US$ amounts will be higher because of political and economic policies which are weakening the Dollar. However, as this isn’t a political or economic blog, I’ll avoid going on a rant here.

It’s only a FANZINE!!!

Ok, this has to stop. All this Beckham to LA stuff is getting out of hand. Yeah, I’ve no doubt that a big part of the reason MLS investors allowed this new rule was to get someone like Beckham and it’s true, Beckham does have business ties in LA. However, I just stumbled across this Business Journal piece about Glazer buying LA and adding Becks to the roster.

The piece is quoting a Fanzine!!! For those of you who don’t know what a fanzine is, it’s a publication produced by fans for fans. Yeah, they’ll interview players and have various other bits of information. However, I don’t believe a fanzine has ever broke a big news story. I may be wrong here, but I doubt I am.

Now, can someone tell me where in either The Red Issue or The Mirror there is anything other than speculative fiction? The guys over at the fanzine must be having a great laugh at all this publicity.

Bottom line is, there’s nothing to the piece. It’s pure fiction and the way Soccernet and other news sources have picked up this (non) story makes me laugh. How can professional hacks not see though this.

I guess it’s a good thing there’s bloggers like me keeping things straight.

Then again, it’s good to see the LA Times had some fun with story.

So, should the Galaxy change owner and name…what should the new name be? Here’s some great suggestions.

…Top 10 new names being considered for the Galaxy:10. Manchester United States

9. Man USA

8. Man, U Remember When They Called Us the Galaxy?

7. Manchester United of Los Angeles

6. Miracle on Manchester

5. David Beckham and 10 Other Guys

4. No One Here Can Play for England

3. Nippon Beck Ham Fighters

2. Beckham Family Time Share

1. The Spice Girls

Ah the internet. It’s such a great source of information…but an even better source of misinformation.

Oh, and the skeptic in me now believes that the Spice Boy saying that he won’t go anywhere until the end of the season leads me to believe he’ll be making a move in January. Either way, we’ll know in a couple months. Ah the silly season is living up to it’s name this year…probably the first time in MLS history. Ya gotta love it.

Big Changes

I’m not over it, probably never will be, but I’m now getting used to the idea that I’ll never see this seasons MLS Cup Final. However, the Final itself was almost secondary to all the announcements the league made this weekend. Some are pretty darn big.

The owners have finally decided to open their checkbooks. Yeah! I’ve read/heard numerous opinions on this. Here’s my take…this is nothing more than a marketing move. Seriously, Becks is a decent player for someone with only one foot. His left peg is only good for standing on. In my opinion, he won’t be improving the level of play in the league. Heck, no one person can do that. However, he’ll sell a ton of shirts and that alone should make signing him worth the money. We’ll see if it happens sooner rather than later.

I was watch American Soccer on GolTV last night. Towards the end of the show they read this email from a viewer on a rant about how the Supporters Shield winner is the true champion. While I agree that a true champion proves it over the course of an entire season, I don’t buy the argument that the Supporters Shield winner is the best team over the course of the season. The unbalanced schedule makes it possible for a team in a weaker conference to do better than they would with a balanced schedule because playing weaker teams more often inflates your record. Next season it gets even worse as teams in the same conference won’t even play each other the same number of times…or something like that. I still don’t completely understand how they are going to get 30 matches out of 13 teams.

On top of that, they reduce the season by two matches because of the Copa Oro/America. However, they then add midweek Champions Cupish matches against Mexican clubs. Mmm, seems like there will actually be more matches next season…and the leagues best will be gone for two months. I’m still not convinced of the value for money proposition when matches that count are played while the best are with their national team.

It’s only taken 11 years for those in power to realize that developing local youngsters is the only way to improve the quality of the league…and that forcing those players to then be entered in the draft only gives teams a disincentive to actually find the best youngsters and give them the guidance they need to reach their potential. (I could probably use more punctuation in that sentence…but I can’t be bothered)

Probably the announcement I’m most excited about is FSC’s announcement on their MLS broadcast plans for next summer. Every match will be scheduled for a 3 hour time block. This will give a half hour before and as much as 45 minutes post-game for analysis and interviews. Of course, with the added content keeping us views in front of the box, they can slide in a bunch of advertisement breaks. To be honest, I’ve always hated the way broadcasts have always cut away to something else as players walk off the pitch. I know, they do the same for NFL and other sports here. Personally, I can’t wait for those broadcasts.

Also, FSC will be broadcasting the Gold Cup next summer. I wonder how much better the matches will look if they do 3 hour blocks for each match there…or double headers with studio comments in between. Either way, the coverage of both the Gold Cup and MLS on FSC will be better than we’ve seen in the past.

Well, my over/under on when the new US coach will be announced just moved into the over. I was certain Klinsman would be announced by November 15. Oh well, will they get it in before Thanksgiving? Anyone else noticed that Canada and Mexico are also still looking for a coach?

Hey, RSL changed their name to XanGo. Oh, that’s a sports drink who have paid $1 million/year for the honor. Good deal. Now we’ve got two (Red Bull being the first) teams with corporate sponsored shirts. Money is money. Take it however you can.

Is it just me, or is the league slowly moving away from the Americanized version of the league and taking on more of a global image?