Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

SOCCER - Spring 2015


Dolfan in NYC

Recommended Posts

Guest Edwin

I used to despise MLS, then I watched a game where Beckham scored 2 sick goals against Portland and I softened up on it, but still didn't begin following it.

Then I moved to Florida and went to an Orlando City USL game and fell in love with the atmosphere. It's something you really have to experience live to be able to truly enjoy and embrace. Games that have been horrible on TV have been a fun time live.

Heck OC is pretty bad, yet being from central Florida and seeing the magnets on everyones car and seeing everyone wearing purple around town on match day has made me love watching them. I've gone to a couple of games this season and have watched every other game on TV with my girlfriend and have had fun doing so. But I get why you may not enjoy it completely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I score free tickets all the time. The atmosphere is fine, I just don't enjoy the games. It didn't help that the Whitecaps were pretty negative under their old manager. I enjoyed the Div 2 team and their games at Swanguard in Burnaby back in the day. It was really low key but their dedicated fanbase was pretty hilarious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it,

 

 

Jozy Altidore's MLS record: 38 games, 17 goals

Jozy Altidore's Premier League record: 72 games, 2 goals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, the UAE/Qatar/other well to do Arab nations are pretty much made for the extremely wealthy. Pirlo et al. will be living it up in style. He's won the championships and got the glory. Now it's time to make that bank so his grandchildren's children never need work should they figure it's not for them.

 

 

I've just got a feeling that if a rich footballer is playing in Qatar he probably is required to be best friend's with the local Prince/Sheik or whatever.  I'd imagine it's like being in a real life version of The Toy

fullwidth.e374b06c.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it,

 

Jozy Altidore's MLS record: 38 games, 17 goals

Jozy Altidore's Premier League record: 72 games, 2 goals.

Jozy Altidore's Eredivisie record: 67 games, 38 goals

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to echo the above, the trend of star player going overseas began really with the introduction of the North American Soccer League (NASL) when Pele, Bobby Moore et al came over to try and popularize soccer in the US. Some players like Gary Lineker for example went to Japan to play in the J-League so it's best to think of it as one last pay-day as a professional football/soccer player's career is relatively short although I guess you can say that statement is true for most sports. Apart from the exceptions to the norm like Giggsy, Kevin Phillips, Steve Claridge et al then it's likely at the end of their careers they'll go where the money is and who can blame them, since unless they are already set up for life with huge wages, then it's unlikely they'll be able to maintain their lifestyles when their career does come to an end so playing in the US, Middle East, Japan etc helps them extend their playing career & still get a decent salary. As usually as time goes on a football/soccer club is likely to play even a star player a lot less in the twilight of their career whilst a Kaka would be a player with name value who could add a great deal to a MLS team. Same as when Pele played for the NY Cosmos and added huge name value. 

 

Ashley deserves most of the blame. You don't sell your manager off in the middle of the season, especially when your replacement is John Fucking Carver. If Palace wanted Pardew that badly, make them play half a season with an interim manager, not your own team. The players should step up more, but when the owner doesn't give a shit about what's going on, why should they?

 

Yeah that's true I guess But the fans demonizing him is counter-productive because he seems to wind them up even more on purpose. The Newcastle fans did want Alan Pardew out too, so it wasn't all Mike Ashley's fault there, which was evidenced in their 'Pardew Out.com' placards and protesting & such, so I think Pardew made the right choice to walk away and go to Palace where he received a much more welcoming response. Whatever he did wouldn't please the Newcastle fans and because I think he was labelled as being in Mike Ashley's pocket & a sycophant that turned favor against him. Placing the team in the hands of John Carver is a huge mistake, although he worked with Sir Bobby Robson so you'd think he would have learnt something good from him. But anyway, I don't think there's any real team cohesion there & ultimately the buck stops at the actual team going out there wanting to win a match. Ashley does deserve a lot of blame since he has the financial resources to sign quality players, hire a top name manager and bring about a resurgence in the fortunes of Newcastle. But at the end of the day, he seems to be much more business focused, but if you think about it, if he invested some of his fortune into Newcastle in turn they'd be more popular around the world, get better revenues from merchandise & ticket sales, TV rights etc. Although maybe there isn't enough profit for it to be financially viable for him, but Roman Abravomich at Chelsea has spent millions on high quality players, they have one of the best managers in Jose Mourinho and they've been rewarded with the Premiership. I don't know if he's broke even, profited or even lost money on his investment, but that should show Mike Ashley that if you pay for the best you'll get it but maybe he's much more business orientated and doesn't want to throw money away on a pipe-dream of Newcastle potentially being a top level Football team. But if he did, I think Mike Ashley would probably go from being hated to being beloved by the Geordie faithful. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to echo the above, the trend of star player going overseas began really with the introduction of the North American Soccer League (NASL) when Pele, Bobby Moore et al came over to try and popularize soccer in the US. Some players like Gary Lineker for example went to Japan to play in the J-League so it's best to think of it as one last pay-day as a professional football/soccer player's career is relatively short although I guess you can say that statement is true for most sports. Apart from the exceptions to the norm like Giggsy, Kevin Phillips, Steve Claridge et al then it's likely at the end of their careers they'll go where the money is and who can blame them, since unless they are already set up for life with huge wages, then it's unlikely they'll be able to maintain their lifestyles when their career does come to an end so playing in the US, Middle East, Japan etc helps them extend their playing career & still get a decent salary. As usually as time goes on a football/soccer club is likely to play even a star player a lot less in the twilight of their career whilst a Kaka would be a player with name value who could add a great deal to a MLS team. Same as when Pele played for the NY Cosmos and added huge name value. 

 

Good analysis I´d say. Quatar is going to be the next big thing up until the World Cup, they did the same for the handball worldcup earlier this year.

The Bundesligas - first aswell as second - have a crazy relegation battle each. Freiburg scored a big point in beating Bayern last week, Stuttgart topped HSV in a direct duel and Hannover won their first match since December 2014. Here´s an overview of all the teams who are still theoretically able to get relegated.

 

13. Hertha BSC 35 points; -15 GD

Hertha plays their final game at Hoffenheim; their chance to get relegated is very much theoretical, simply because the match ups on the final day and Hamburger SV´s horrendous goal difference,

 

14. SC Freiburg 34 points; - 10 GD

15. Hannover 34 points; -17 GD

Both teams face each other, Hannover being the home team in that game. A draw would secure Freiburg´s spot in the Bundesliga. Hannover would prevent direct relegation. One of the teams winning would put the other one in jeopardy of going down directly.

 

16. Stuttgart 33 pts, -19 GD

18. Paderborn 31 points; - 33 GD

16th marks the relegation play-off spot. I paired those two up because Paderborn plays Stuttgart at home in the season finale. Stuttgart needs a win to avoid relegation. Paderborn needs a win and at best a draw for Hamburg to get the play off rank. Bad GD and all.

 

17. Hamburger SV 32 pts, - 27 GD

Playing Schalke at home, the only remaining foundation member of the Bundesliga needs a win and a lot of help to remain in the Bundesliga. A draw between Hannover and Freiburg would put both teams out of reach, a win by Stuttgart in Paderborn would do the same for the 2007 champion. All in all it looks like the final chapter for an once great club, which is kind of painful even if I support the local rivals.

 

Aside from that, Dortmund and Bremen square off in a final for the 100 % secure remaining Europa League spot. It´s Dortmund´s first chance for said spot. Bremen would need a win and help from Wolfsburg in their cup final against the BVB. Other stuff is pretty much set.

 

2. Bundesliga has three points between 17th place and 12th place, with all the teams in the danger zone playing away games. 12th SV Sandhausen sits on 38 points and will play their last match in Bochum, who avoided relegation on matchday 32 and are just playing for pride now. 13th Fuerth (37 pts) - who were in Germany´s top flight division two years ago and in a promotion play off last year - had a horrible second half of the campaihn and have their crucial away game at Germany´s least likeable football franchise Red Bull Leipzig (6th). My club, St. Pauli (37 pts), has won 5 out of their last 7 games and are still right in the middle of all this because everyone below them in the table kept winning and winning aswell recently. Their last match is at 2nd-place Darmstadt (56 pts), who are battling for promotion. Munich 1860 - 36 pts, one point less than Pauli but a better GD - plays an away game in Karlsruhe (55 pts), who are Darmstadt´s rivals for 2nd (direct promotion).  FSV Frankfurt (36 points) have to go to Duesseldorf (8th), Eastern German club Erzgebirge Aue (35 pts) in 17th plays at 7th-place Heidenheim,

 

To complete the short 2. Bundesliga wrap-up, FC Ingolstadt became the 54th club to join the Bundesliga last weekend thanks to a 2:1 win over Red Bull at home. They will play their post party match in Kaiserslautern, who sit on 55 points in fourth place and are of course hoping to grab either 2nd or 3rd place on the final match day. I really hope we will help them lucking into that spot, but I fear for a lot of heartbreak. Football is horrible sometimes.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it,

 

 

Jozy Altidore's MLS record: 38 games, 17 goals

Jozy Altidore's Premier League record: 72 games, 2 goals.

 

 

article-0-0074F0531000044C-970_634x.jpg

 

We can play this game all day, if that's the path you want to wander down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Altidore got stuck playing for Sunderland in the Premier League. Nobody scores for that team.

 

Fact check: Sunderland has 2 players who cracked 10 goals in a Premier League season in the last 5 seasons. One had 10, and the other had 11. They did have Darren Bent pot 24 goals six years ago.

Edited by Dewar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it,

 

Jozy Altidore's MLS record: 38 games, 17 goals

Jozy Altidore's Premier League record: 72 games, 2 goals.

 

Jozy Altidore's Eredivisie record: 67 games, 38 goals

 

 

So your point is that the Eredivisie is roughly as bad as the MLS? When did anyone say the Eredivisie was a top European league?

 

So do you guys legitimately think that the MLS is on a par with the top leagues in the World, rather than being another feeder league/ retirement party... or are you just playing devil's advocate/ suffering from a burst of patriotic fervour?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it,

 

Jozy Altidore's MLS record: 38 games, 17 goals

Jozy Altidore's Premier League record: 72 games, 2 goals.

Jozy Altidore's Eredivisie record: 67 games, 38 goals

 

So your point is that the Eredivisie is roughly as bad as the MLS? When did anyone say the Eredivisie was a top European league?

When did anyone say MLS was equivalent to a top European league?

Here's the full paragraph DFA posted:

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it, considering how fast once you get past a few leagues the Euro leagues fall off into mostly garbage. Some of those lesser leagues putting teams into Champion's League are really no better (and in some ways probably much worse) than MLS except for that one Golden Carrot that gets dangled for their champion. I get the feeling most European fans still think MLS is some sort of joke league, and that honestly sailed a long time ago now. It will never be as big as the big Euro leagues because of the lack of European Dream Leauge money that will always be the trump card that European football holds over everyone, but I will say even as a guy that only catches a little MLS now and again it's not nearly as bad as the perception seems to be. When a guy like Gerrard comes over here there are a lot of Europeans that talk about him like he's dead or something, but are happy to talk about Grimsby Town vs FC Halifax Town or something in the 7000th division of English football*.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

I don't particularly like MLS but I think it has a ludicrously bad rep in Europe when I hear opinions from the other side of the pond about it,

 

Jozy Altidore's MLS record: 38 games, 17 goals

Jozy Altidore's Premier League record: 72 games, 2 goals.

 

Jozy Altidore's Eredivisie record: 67 games, 38 goals

 

 

So your point is that the Eredivisie is roughly as bad as the MLS? When did anyone say the Eredivisie was a top European league?

 

So do you guys legitimately think that the MLS is on a par with the top leagues in the World, rather than being another feeder league/ retirement party... or are you just playing devil's advocate/ suffering from a burst of patriotic fervour?

 

 

See, here's the thing. I mistakenly gave you credit for actually reading my post then editing it down to one line you latched onto which seems to have started all this, when what you actually did was read that one line and then stop. The exact point I made was that there's a lot of pretty bad leagues in Europe but for some reason we're not supposed to talk about that because Malmo and AEK Athens get that one magic Champion's League spot, and MLS is no worse (or better) than those leagues.

 

Why does MLS and Altidore get singled out? Where was this shit for Johan Elmander? Okay. Altidore is bad. Landon Donovan wasn't. So what?

 

Of course MLS isn't a "top" league. Nobody anywhere said it was. There are three top leagues.

 

Then there's Italy, though if we are going to judge leagues on "players leaving League X and being fucking terrible in League Y" there's no league in history that comes off worse than Serie A. But it's still a good league, even if it has a bizarrely questionable export record especially to England. And they do build winning clubs in Europe a few times a decade. Then there's everyone else who honestly isn't worth ranking (and since I have Gol TV I'm also going to poke the bee's nest and put domestic Brazilian football in this tier too). Some of those players will survive and thrive at higher levels, a lot will flop. Portugual has the weird thing going on where they have three top clubs (even though those teams don't *really* own most of their good players and they have weird agreements with talent agencies), Holland at this point is really a league people remember being good but it hasn't been in a long time, Ajax is basically now Celtic with weirder names where they are a youth development club with great history. Ukraine has one legitimately great team in Shaktar which has no chance of getting better with the current political climate.

 

What pisses me off is MLS getting singled out for being "bad" on social media, mainly from people that have nothing to say about any of those leagues, or any of the Euro leagues lower than that, and the only reason it's happening is because the league is "not in Yurop". That's all. If Gerrard (or Kaka, or Villa etc) had for some bizarre reason gone to Dinamo Zagreb or Bursaspoor instead of New York or LA, I wouldn't be reading nearly as many of the same barbs about how snicker-worthy this was. The closest that crowd comes to evening it out is "lol Europa league is terrible" which only adds to me thinking they are idiots considering that Europa league has been pretty consistent entertainment which you would think most actual sports fans would be interested in.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, the things about the MLS that get people's backs up are:

 

1) Football is a hyperbolic sport now, but European people don't like to admit their own domestic product is overrated/ shit, so they victim blame the most visually hyped lesser league.

 

2) The name, MAJOR LEAGUE Soccer, when clearly it's a minor league and always has been.

 

3) Europeans like to wind up Americans, because Americans are (stereotyping ahoy~!) all patriotic and get easily offended when you say something American is rubbish. Or even 'this European thing is better than this American version of the same thing'.

 

4) Jealousy over Californian weather. Even though most of America isn't actually like that.

 

5) The pretentiousness of some of the team names. Nobody united to make DC United. Spanish royalty never visited Salt Lake City. 

 

6) What, you expect people to be nice to each other on social media? The whole thing is an avalanche of unrelenting pisstakery, isn't it?

 

7) The game Americans call 'Football' barely involves kicking the ball unless someone messed up. Which sets up all manner of 'Americans are stupid and have to make up their own sports because they're crap at everyone else's' humour.

 

8) Jozy Altidore LOL.

 

Edit to add: It might also be rooted in the fact that as the modern fan understands football, the purpose of a team owner is to pump endless millions into buying better players, developing the stadium, building new training facilities and buying more better players. But the American team owners (amongst others) seem to have decided that they'd rather increase costs, reduce overheads, generate profits and actually make money from owning the team. And when you look at where Chelsea or Man City are now compared to fifteen years ago, to the English fans that's what an owner should do. Not turn off the money tap faucet at Villa (or Sunderland, or Fulham) and see them go from finishing 5th, Europa League, deep Cup runs, maybe crack the top 4 this year... to selling the best players, letting good managers leave and replacing them with whoever asks for the lowest wages, then firing them and splashing out on a decent one in a desperate scramble to not get relegated. Or getting relegated.

 

Basically, with all the history the English league has, almost everyone has glory days to look back on, and wish they would return. And for fans of almost every team, said glory days occurred before the days of foreign ownership. And America being the most vocal and visible of foreign countries makes it the obvious target.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Edwin

News sources in Spain and Italy are reporting Rafa Benítez is on the verge of signing with Madrid if he hasn't signed already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Juventus come from behind in extra time to win the Copa Italia in a 2-1 thriller vs Lazio at the Stadio Olimpico!  Well the first 15 or so minutes were entertaining anyway, where Radu and Chiellini each scored headers from set pieces.  Then it was like 100 minutes of good ol fashioned Italian defending!  Lazio missed their best chance to win ET when their striker hit a rocket that went off both posts and bounced back out.  Shortly after that Tevez and Matri got into position in the box, and the ball ended up bouncing to Matri for him to hit a low shot past their keeper.

 

On to Berlin,  1 more for the Treble!

 

And the biggest news in the entertainment world! Beyoncé shouted out Arturo Vidal's name to the delight of everyone everywhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Edwin

The media in Spain was reporting that Otamendi was going to United. Huge pick up for United if true. There's been rumors going on about this transfer in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully it's not true. Otamendi was one of the best defenders in Spain and it will be a huge blow for Valencia. I know Valencia wasn't going to let him go for less than 50 mil.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I asked a bunch of jornos in the last year where they would rank MLS and the consensus was 15th to 20th in the world. Whcih sounds about right to me

 

I can't remember where I heard it, I think it was maybe Steve Nicol? but the level of the football/soccer itself was compared to like the Championship/League 1 level of the English league. Where it stands alongside the Premiership, Serie A, Eredivisie, La Liga, Bundesliga et al is debatable, but I think it does stand up well against the secondary leagues (Championship/Serie B etc) of those leagues I've mentioned and according to an article on Bleacher report they actually rank it 10th in the world & they used statistics to rate the MLS as such, so maybe it is better than most people like to think. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...