Filed under: Jordan Morris, Uncategorized | Tags: Ante Razov, Aron Johannsson, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Bobby Wood, Brazil, Canada, Clint Dempsey, Colombia, CONCACAF, Costa Rica, DaMarcus Beasley, Darlington Nagbe, DeAndre Yedlin, FIFA Confederations Cup, FIFA Under-20 World Cup, Foxboro, German Bundesliga, Germany, Gyasi Zardes, Hermann Trophy, Hertha Berlin, Holland, Jermaine Jones, John Brooks, Jordan Morris, Juergen Klinsmann, Kyle Beckerman, Landon Donovan, Liberia, Los Angeles Galaxy, Lukas Podolski, Matt Miazga, Mercer Island, Mexico, MLS Cup, NCAA Division I championship, Nelson Valdez, New Jersey, New York Red Bulls, Obafemi Martins, Per Mertesacker, Philipp Lahm, Port of Spain, Portland Timbers, Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Rose Bowl, Seattle Sounders, Sigi Schmid, St. Louis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Stanford University, Sunderland, Sunil Gulati, Tim Howard, Trinidad & Tobago, U.S. National Team, UCLA, Union Berlin, Werder Bremen, World Cup
Homegrown player Jordan Morris signed with the Seattle Sounders in a splashy ceremony at the team’s fan clubhouse in Pioneer Square, capping a whirlwind six weeks in which the 21-year-old striker led Stanford University to the 2015 NCAA Division I men’s national championship, was awarded the Hermann Trophy as the country’s top collegiate player and took part in a trial with Werder Bremen that left the German Bundesliga club poised to offer a contract.
Morris earned seven caps with the U.S. National Team last year, scoring in a 2-0 victory over Mexico in April and becoming the first college player to make an appearance with the full national team since UCLA forward Ante Razov in 1995. He also scored six goals and added four assists in 11 appearances in ’15 for the U.S. under-23 side, including two goals in a 3-1 victory over Canada in its opening qualifier for the ’16 Rio de Janeiro Olympics; that campaign will be decided in March with a home-and-home playoff with Colombia .
The signing of Morris reunites the Mercer Island, Wash., native with U.S. and Sounder striker Clint Dempsey. Sounder coach Sigi Schmid was delighted by Morris’ signing, saying he possesses “unteachable” qualities. The Sounder rookie, however, is expected to spend his first MLS season in a supporting role, watching Dempsey, Obafemi Martins and Nelson Valdez start ahead of him. [January 21]
Comment: Here comes Mr. Jordan, and possibly others. Can embattled U.S. National Team coach Juergen Klinsmann channel his inner 2006?
In recent months Klinsmann has been blessed by an interesting wave of fresh young talent. Before the broad-shouldered, baby-faced Morris there was another forward, Bobby Wood, 23, a promising poacher who scored late winners in friendlies against Holland and Germany last spring, plus equalizers against Mexico in the CONCACAF playoff and the World Cup qualifying opener against St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Wood continues to produce for his club, Union Berlin of the Bundesliga 2. There’s also midfielder Darlington Nagbe. Born in Liberia, raised in the U.S., the 25-year-old naturalized American made his U.S. debut against St. Vincent & the Grenadines and dazzled in leading the Portland Timbers to their first MLS Cup title. Finally, defender Matt Miazga, 6-foot-4 and a mere 20. He went from buried on the New York Red Bulls roster last spring to becoming one of MLS’s best central defenders in ’15. Before bowing in with the full national team in the St. Vincent match, Miaza helped the U.S. reach the quarterfinals of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup and became a starter on the U-23 team.
Then there are youngsters who appeared in the 2014 World Cup: defender John Brooks, 23, of Hertha Berlin, defender-midfielder DeAndre Yedlin, 22, of Sunderland, and forward Aron Johannsson, 25, of Werder Bremen. Johannsson battled injuries in 2015 but Yedlin and another attacking player, Gyasi Zardes, 24, of the Los Angeles Galaxy, appeared in 19 of the USA’s 20 matches in ’15.
Is this the cavalry thundering down the hill? Klinsmann can only hope so. Dempsey is 32. Defensive midfielders Jermaine Jones and Kyle Beckerman and left back DaMarcus Beasley are 33. Goalkeeper Tim Howard is 36.
Klinsmann, in his fifth year as national team coach, is on a hot seat, becoming the first national team coach in this soccer-averse country to experience a modicum of public scrutiny. In 2015, after historic wins against the Netherlands in Amsterdam and Germany in Cologne, the U.S. stumbled badly at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, finishing fourth, its worst showing in a Gold Cup in 15 years. A humiliating 4-1 loss to Brazil in Foxboro followed, which served as a warm-up (or down) to the lifeless 3-2 overtime defeat to Mexico in a CONCACAF playoff at the Rose Bowl that cost the Americans a berth in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. Three days later the U.S. tumbled to Costa Rica, 1-0, in a friendly in New Jersey, but it salvaged the year by opening a new World Cup cycle by routing St. Vincent & the Grenadines, 6-1, in St. Louis and escaping Port of Spain with a scoreless draw and a point against Trinidad & Tobago.
As the mixed results mounted, Klinsmann came under increasing criticism for his often baffling player selections, his lineups (20 different lineups in 20 games), his tinkering with formations (a 3-5-2, a 4-2-3-1, a flat 4-4-2 and a diamond 4-4-2) and tactics. At one point, former U.S. star Landon Donovan said that Klinsmann should lose his job if Mexico won at the Rose Bowl. The U.S. lost, and Klinsmann got a half-hearted vote of confidence from USSF President Sunil Gulati.
This cavalry of young talent may yield a couple of riders or, in Klinsmann’s dreams, a full platoon. And what the U.S. coach does with it will determine the course of the national team for the near-term, although it figures to be closing in on a 2018 World Cup berth when 2017 dawns. He’s nurtured young talent before, steering a bunch of young Germans to third place at the 2006 World Cup, becoming a national hero in the bargain. Among his players were defenders Philipp Lahm, then 22, and Per Mertesacker, 21, midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, 21, and forward Lukas Podolski, 21. That was a generation of talent that would go on to win the 2014 World Cup.
Can Klinsmann do it again? He could succeed. He could fail. This new crop–and possibly others to emerge over the next 18 months–could win in spite of him. Or too many of them could prove to be all false promise. Time will tell. But for the U.S. to nail down a World Cup berth and go into Russia ’18 with any hope of a better showing than the last World Cup, Klinsmann is going to have to succeed, and once again engineer a successful changing of the guard.
Filed under: MLS team values by Forbes, Uncategorized | Tags: Andrea Pirlo, Avaya Stadium, Chicago Fire, Chivas USA, Colorado Rapids, Columbus Crew, David Villa, DC United, Didier Drogba, Don Garber, ESPN, FC Dallas, Forbes magazine, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Frank Lampard, Houston Dynamo, Kaka, LAFC, Los Angeles Galaxy, Major League Soccer, Miami Fusion, Montreal Impact, NBA, NBC, NBCSN, New England Revolution, New York City FC, New York Red Bulls, NFL, NHL, Orlando City SC, Philadelphia Union, Portland Timbers, Real Salt Lake, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, Sporting Kansas City, Steven Gerrard, Toronto FC, Univision, Vancouver Whitecaps, WNBA
The average worth of Major League Soccer clubs reached $157 million in 2014, up 52 percent from the previous year, according to a valuation by Forbes magazine.
Topping the list were the Seattle Sounders at $245 million, while the Colorado Rapids, worth $105 million, brought up the rear. The biggest mover was DC United, whose value increased 97 percent, from $71 million in ’13 to $140 million last year. Average team worth was $103 million in 2013, nearly triple what Forbes valued the teams five years earlier.
Eight of MLS’ then-18 clubs turned a profit in 2014, led by Seattle’s $10 million. The biggest loser was the New York Red Bulls at $9 million.
2014 valuation of MLS clubs, plus revenue and operating income*:
1. Seattle Sounders — $245 million, $50 million, $10 million.
2. Los Angeles Galaxy — $240 million, $44 million, $4 million.
3. Houston Dynamo — $200 million, $26 million, $5 million.
4. Portland Timbers — $185 million, $35 million, $4 million.
5. Toronto FC — $175 million, $32 million, -$7 million.
6. Sporting Kansas City — $165 million, $29 million, $4 million.
7. Chicago Fire — $160 million, $21 million, -$6 million.
8. New England Revolution — $158 million, $25 million, $7 million.
9. FC Dallas — $148 million, $25 million, -$3 million.
10. San Jose Earthquakes — $146 million, $13 million, -$1 million.
11. Philadelphia Union — $145 million, $25 million, $2 million.
12. New York Red Bulls — $144 million, $22 million, -$9 million.
13. D.C. United — $140 million, $21 million, -$1 million.
14. Montreal Impact — $128 million, $22 million, -$3 million.
15. Vancouver Whitecaps — $125 million, $21 million, -$6 million.
16. Columbus Crew — $112 million, $18 million, -$4 million.
17. Real Salt Lake — $108 million, $17 million, $1 million.
18. Colorado Rapids — $105 million, $15 million, -$3 million.
*Operating income before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization.
Forbes cited a number of reasons for the league’s surging team valuation, including:
o Growing attendance, which through July averaged 21,000, as MLS continued to widen the gap with the NBA (17,800) and NHL (17,500) in that department. That average projects to total attendance of 7.2 million in 2015, thanks in part to the addition of new teams in New York and Orlando. The 2013 total was 6 million.
o An influx of overseas talent that picked up in 2015 with the arrival of the likes of Kaka, Andrea Pirlo, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, David Villa and Didier Drogba–a clear indication that owners are willing to spend to enhance the product on the field.
o More soccer-specific stadiums throughout MLS. The latest was San Jose’s Avaya Stadium, which opened in March, and DC United plans be in new digs by 2018. Like United, the Earthquakes’ value has doubled since ’13.
o The end of a TV deal with ESPN, NBC and Univision that paid MLS an average $30 million per year. The new deal, in which Fox replaced NBC, pays $90 million a year. Hardly NFL figures, or even NHL figures, and average viewship of 232,000 this year on Fox Sports 1 trails even the WNBA, but that represents a 65 percent improvement over NBCSN’s average audience of 141,000. [September 19]
Comment I: Total team worth of more than $2.8 billion for a league that as recently as 2002 nearly went under. No wonder there were no signs of panic when MLS Commissioner Don Garber, during his “State of the League” address in December, revealed that the league was losing more than $100 million a year.
Comment II: Being part of MLS is still far from being a license to print money, but no wonder the owners of LAFC, which won’t begin play until 2018, paid a league-record expansion fee of $110 million to try to succeed where it predecessor, the ill-fated Chivas USA, failed. By comparison, the Miami Fusion, one of the league’s first two expansion teams, paid $20 million in 1997 to join MLS.
Filed under: Away goals rule, Uncategorized | Tags: Brad Evans, Bruce Arena, CenturyLink Field, Clint Dempsey, Columbus Crew, FC Dallas, Juninho, Landon Donovan, Los Angeles Galaxy, Major League Soccer, NASL, NBA, New England Revolution, New York Red Bulls, NHL, Real Salt Lake, Seattle Sounders, StubHub Center, Village People
The Los Angeles Galaxy lost to the Seattle Sounders, 2-1, on a frigid night at CenturyLink Field but won the Western Conference final on away goals to advance to Major League Soccer’s championship game.
The Galaxy, which a week earlier took the first game of its home-and-home series, 1-0, will return to the StubHub Center on December 7 to play host to the New England Revolution in the MLS Cup final. New England defeated the New York Red Bulls, 2-1 and 2-2, in the Eastern Conference finals for a 3-2 aggregate.
Brad Evans, in the 26th minute, and Clint Dempsey, six minutes later, scored to give the Sounders hope of reaching their first MLS final, but nine minutes into the second half L.A. midfielder Juninho pounced on a deflected corner kick by Landon Donovan and ripped a shot in off the left post for his first goal in 13 months. [November 30]
Comment: The last stupid MLS idea has died peacefully of natural causes.
And we don’t mean the Columbus Crew’s decision to dump its Village People logo once and for all (that’s called “re-branding”).
MLS finally succumbed to the use of the aways goals rule this playoff season, and the world did not come to an end. Both the Eastern Coference semifinals and finals were decided on aggregate goals, as did one Western semifinal, won by L.A. over Real Salt Lake. And when the Galaxy walked off the CenturyLink Field at the final whistle after the road leg of its Western Conference final, the partisan Sounder crowd of 46,758 accepted the fact that its side, winners on the night by a goal, were losers overall.
Some in the media here didn’t quite know what to make of this new gimmick, although it’s used in cup competitions the world over. “Rules of the road lift Galaxy into the final” read one newspaper headline. Another: “Galaxy’s Goal is One for the Road.” But a worthy winner was produced. Galaxy coach Bruce Arena called the concept of the away-goals rule–an incentive for the road team to attack in the first leg–“garbage,” and it certainly didn’t inspire Seattle to produce an away goal or two in the first leg. But no one at CenturyLink exited wringing their hands over an injustice. Everyone knew the rules going in. In fact, the Sounders were the first team in MLS history to advance on away goals, eliminating FC Dallas nearly three weeks earlier in the Western semifinals (1-1 in Texas, 0-0 at home). And there was no effect at the gate: MLS drew a record average attendance of 19,151 during the regular season–once again better than the NBA and NHL–and 21,275 during the playoffs. Not a tremendous accomplishment, unless one recalls the days in the not-too-distant past when most MLS post-season matches drew crowds embarrassingly smaller than many regular-season games.
Americans fans, apparently, have been more adaptable than MLS gave them credit for over its 19-season run. Or at least they were tolerant. They’ve had to endure earlier MLS playoff concoctions, such as the ponderous best-of-three-games playoff. And the ridiculous “first-to-five-points” system. Once it got to the simple home-and-home formula in 2003, it counted road goals equal to home goals, perhaps in the belief that a romp by the visiting team in the opening leg would kill interest in the second leg.
Fans here also–some of them–survived other MLS innovations, like the silly countdown clock, and they survived leftovers from the old NASL, like the shootout, back when it was believed that American DNA made it impossible for folks here to understand, let alone appreciate, the concept of a draw. Perhaps the seamless debut of away goals signals the end, once and for all, of its “unnecessarily creative” period.
Filed under: MLS teams 40th anniversaries | Tags: A-League, American Professional Soccer League, American Soccer League, Associated Press, BC Place, Canadian Soccer League, CenturyLink Field, Empire Stadium, Eric Wynalda, Fall River Marksmen, FC Portland, FC Seattle, FC Seattle Storm, Gillette Stadium, Golden Bay Earthquakes, John Doyle, Kasey Keller, Kingdome, Major League Soccer, Marcelo Balboa, Memorial Stadium, NBC, New England Revolution, New York Cosmos, New York Red Bulls, New York/New Jersey MetroStars, North American Soccer League, Pedro Morales, Portland Timbers, Providence Park, Richard Nixon, San Francisco Bay Blackhawks, San Jose Clash, San Jose Earthquakes, San Jose Hawks, Seattle Sounders, Soccer City USA, U.S. National Open Cup, University of Portland, USL-1, Vancouver 86ers, Vancouver Whitecaps, Victoria Riptides, Watergate, Western Alliance Challenge Series, Western Soccer Alliance, Western Soccer League, White House
Pedro Morales converted a penalty kick in the 19th minute and struck again on a 20-yard shot a minute later to lead the Vancouver Whitecaps to a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes in a Major League Soccer match before a crowd of 21,000 at BC Place.
The meeting commemorated the 40th anniversary of the first game between the Whitecaps and Earthquakes, who opened the North American Soccer League season at Empire Stadium as expansion franchises on May 5, 1974. Fans at BC Place were encouraged to dress ’70s retro, which many did with long-haired wigs, sunglasses, fake mustaches and bell-bottom pants. [May 3]
Comment: The match was played about a month after the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders battled to an entertaining 4-4 draw before yet another standing-room-only crowd of 20,814 at Portland’s Providence Park. The Associated Press referred to that encounter as “one of the wilder match ups of a rivalry dating to the mid-1970s.” NBC, which televised the game, called it “the 85th meeting of the two teams.” MLS noted earlier that the Sounders, along with a third Cascadia rival, the Whitecaps, and the ‘Quakes would mark their 40th anniversary seasons this year, with the Timbers celebrating No. 39.
What a stretch of the imagination.
Those clubs have as much right to claim a 40th anniversary as a married couple who experiences divorce, death, ressurection, marriage to other partners, further divorces, identity changes, separation, multiple relocations, and, finally, rebirth, all since the days that Richard Nixon was in the White House.
True, the Sounders, Whitecaps and ‘Quakes were born in 1974 as NASL teams, followed by the Timbers in ’75. However, Portland, which once boldly called itself “Soccer City USA,” folded after the 1982 season, and Seattle, Vancouver and San Jose (known as Golden Bay for its final two seasons) went down with the ship when the NASL itself died after the 1984 campaign.
A year later, with professional soccer in the U.S. resembling a moonscape, two new teams, FC Portland and FC Seattle, joined with a reconstituted San Jose Earthquakes and the soon-to-be-forgotten Victoria Riptides to play in a hopeful attempt to revive high-level soccer called the Western Alliance Challenge Series (San Jose finished first with a 4-2-1 record). The WACS morphed into the Western Soccer Alliance, then the Western Soccer League, then, through a 1990 merger with the East Coast’s year-old American Soccer League, the American Professional Soccer League. FC Portland, born as an all-amateur side made up primarily of University of Portland players like Kasey Keller, and their rival, since renamed FC Seattle Storm, folded after that year.
As for the San Jose Earthquakes, they were replaced by the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks in 1989; after U.S. internationals like Marcelo Balboa, Eric Wynalda and John Doyle led them the to APSL title in ’91, they dropped into the USISL by ’93 as the San Jose Hawks and then folded. After three years of darkness, the San Jose Clash became a charter member of MLS. It shed the regrettable Clash nickname in 1999 and went on to win two MLS championships as the ‘Quakes, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the poorly supported team from moving to Houston in 2006. Two years later, an MLS expansion team, named the Earthquakes, was awarded to San Jose; this fourth version of the ‘Quakes will move into a new, soccer-specific stadium, in 2015.
Vancouver? It returned to action in 1986 as a freelance team, then joined the new, short-lived Canadian Soccer League the following year. After six seasons as a CSL power, the 86ers embarked on an 18-year odyssey that took them to the APSL, A-League and USL-1. Along the way, the 86es nickname was changed to Whitecaps.
These 40-year anniversaries are all well and good, but they ignore the difficult days between NASL and MLS, when there was genuine doubt that pro outdoor soccer would ever be seen again. Ask those in the crowd of 34,012 who watched the Sounders beat the Timbers at the Kingdome in 1979 if any of them were among the 1,500 or so who saw an amateur Portland team play a semi-pro Seattle team at the old Memorial Stadium eight or nine years later. Would any of them have drawn any sort of parallel between the two games? Could any of them have foreseen a day when an MLS Portland Timbers and MLS Seattle Sounders would meet at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field in front of 66,452 in 2012 or 67,385 last season?
Given the ups and downs–and glaring gaps–in these and every other major soccer-playing market in the U.S., creating milestones like this is a shameless example of revisionist history. If not, the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (now the New York Red Bulls) should’ve just claimed the legacy of the New York Cosmos as their own and begun life in MLS in 1996 with five NASL titles to their name. Better yet, the New England Revolution should’ve simply traced their roots to the Fall River Marksmen, founded in 1921. That would’ve given the Revs an immediate 75-year history, plus seven American Soccer League championships and four U.S. National Open Cup crowns. A stretch? Fall River, which of course is part of New England, is only 36 miles from the Revolution’s home field, Gillette Stadium.
These MLS clubs are right to give a nod to their respective cities’ rich soccer histories. But the Whitecaps, Earthquakes (with their new stadium on the horizon), and Timbers and Sounders (with their routine sellouts) should celebrate the here and now without trying to re-write history–especially without forcing themselves to drag memories of mutton chop sideburns, Watergate and disco into the equation.
Filed under: Chivas USA purchased by MLS, Uncategorized | Tags: Americans, Angelica Fuentes, Antonio Cue, Argentines, Bob Bradley, Chivas Guadalajara, Chivas USA, Don Garber, Goats, Jalisco, Jorge Vergara, Lorenzo Cue, Los Angeles, Major League Soccer, Martin Vasquez, Mexicans, MLS Commissioner Don Garber, New York City FC, New York Red Bulls, Orlando SC, Preki, Thomas Rongen, U.S. National Team, Wilmer Cabrera
Major League Soccer has purchased the troubled Chivas USA from Jorge Vergara and Angelica Fuentes and will operate the team until an owner is found who will build a new stadium for it in the Los Angeles area.
Sale price was a reported $70 million. The original bill Vergara, wife Fuentes, and Antonio and Lorenzo Cue paid MLS to create Chivas USA 10 years ago was $10 million; Vergara and Fuentes bought out the Cues 15 months ago for $40 million.
New owners figure to re-brand the team with a new name and logo.
“Certainly, it hasn’t worked out as well as anybody expected,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “I don’t think this is the fault of ownership, per se. There’s a lot of issues that we, the league, take responsibility for. Now we are just very focused on a new beginning.”
Chivas USA will begin its 2014 season next month under new coach Wilmer Cabrera, the club’s 11th field boss, a list that includes Thomas Rongen, Preki, future U.S. National Team coach Bob Bradley and current national team assistant Martin Vasquez. Chivas’ best season was its third, when it topped the Western Conference with a 15-7-8 record but fell in the conference semifinals.
In 2013, the Goats finished last in the West at 6-20-8, the second-worst mark in the 19-team league. Its attendance for 17 regular-season games at the Stub Hub Center was an abysmal 8,366, a nearly 36 percent drop in the gate from 2012. That was the worst in MLS, which averaged 18,608, the second best in league history. No other MLS club was below five figures in average attendance. Chivas’ co-tenant at Stub Hub, the Los Angeles Galaxy, averaged 22,152, a drop of 4.25 percent in its first David Beckham-less campaign in seven years. The Seattle Sounders led all at 44,038 a match. [February 20]
Comment: About time, and farewell to a failed experiment and a drag on Major League Soccer.
Despite its good intentions to lure Southern California’s thousands and thousands of transplants from Jalisco state, Chivas USA was neither Chivas nor USA. Or maybe it was too USA to be a second Chivas–the 2014 roster shows 18 Americans and just two Mexicans, one fewer than the number of Argentines on the list.
It all looked good on paper, but league rules prevented Chivas USA from fielding the predominantly Mexican side ownership sought, and it was all downhill from there. This secondary version of Chivas Guadalajara quickly became an afterthought and a team damned to stand in the shadow of the older and much more successful Galaxy.
Although the league’s efforts to get to this point were months in the making, it was long overdue nonetheless. Garber adds expansion teams to MLS like a desperately spawning salmon, while he should have been devoting his attention to this weak sister. The concept of a two-team rivalry in a major market remains an enticing concept. MLS will add New York City FC and Orlando SC in 2015, swelling its ranks to an unwieldy 21 teams. It will be interesting to see if New York Red Bulls versus the new NYCFC ignites local passion. In the meantime, MLS is left with the lesson out of Los Angeles that it takes two to make a rivalry.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chicago Fire, ESPN, FC Dallas, Fiorentina, Italian Serie A, Major League Soccer, MLS Commissioner Don Garber, MLS Cup, Montreal Impact, NBC, New England Revolution, New York Red Bulls, North American Soccer League, Philadelphia Union, Toronto FC, Univision
This Saturday, Major League Soccer will kick off its 17th season, tying it with the old North American Soccer League (1968-84) as the country’s longest tenured national pro soccer league. With the addition of its 19th club, the expansion Montreal Impact, the league will play 323 regular-season games, 17 more than in 2011. The climactic MLS Cup is scheduled for Saturday, December 1, making this the league’s longest campaign in its history. And for the first time, every match will be televised, thanks to ESPN, Univision, new partner NBC and various Canadian networks. [March 7]
Comment: Another set of milestones for a league that a dozen years ago was in danger of falling flat on its back, but for those who care about what goes on down on the field, perhaps we’ll see some improvement in the standings, where wins and losses are in danger of being surpassed by ties, draws and deadlocks.
Last season, with 18 MLS teams each playing 34 regular-season games for a total of 306, a whopping 106 of those matches ended in a tie. That’s 34.6 percent, or more than a third. The New York Red Bulls and Chicago Fire registered 16 draws apiece, breaking the record of 14 set the previous season by FC Dallas. Toronto FC and the Philadelphia Union were next at 15, and another nine teams posted 10 draws or more. In fact, 11 teams finished with more ties than victories, including all those who made up the bottom nine.
Is there a trend in place? In 2010, in a 16-team MLS, only three clubs hit double digits in ties, and just one club, the New England Revolution (5-16-13), had more ties than wins. Teams each played 30 games that year and they racked up 58 draws–24.1 percent of all results.
To a disdainful general American public, soccer and ties are almost synonymous. But compare MLS with the Italy, the land where, as popular perception would have it, the scoreless tie was invented, and games are so tight, oftentimes so negative, that the players walk onto the field hoping for that one, blissful penalty-kick call. Yet in 2010-2011, Serie A’s 20 clubs, each playing 38 matches, had 97 ties in 380 games–25.5 percent, just more than a quarter of all results. Half of the teams tied at least 10 games, led by Fiorentina, with 16.
“We’re not going to eliminate ties from Major League Soccer, but we have way too many ties and way too many zero-zero ties,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber told the Newark Star-Ledger in July, as the draws were piling up at an alarming rate. “What could we do as a league to make it more valuable for a club to play to win every game as opposed to playing for just a point? We’re looking at what those initiatives could be. And that is a league initiative.”
[For the record, Commissioner, of those 106 ties last year, 27 were scoreless.]
What’s troubling here is that not only has MLS not taken concrete steps to reverse the trend (meaningful player bonuses for victories, perhaps?), it has offered little in the way of explanation beyond praising its parity and competitiveness.
MLS is catching up with the rest of the world when it comes to intimate stadiums and boisterous followings, thus creating in many cities the home-field advantage factor that was so missing in the league’s first decade. As a result, however, is MLS also becoming yet another league in which teams are more than happy to escape most road games with a single point? If that’s the case, it’s all the more reason for the league to take the necessary steps to foster a climate in which those large, loud and loyal followers go home happy on a more regular basis.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Argentine Primera Division, BMO Field, Brazilian Campeonato Serie A, Colorado Rapids, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Dutch Eredivise, Earthquakes, English Premier League, FC Dallas, French Ligue 1, German Bundesliga, Giants Stadium, Italian Serie A, J-League, Kansas City, Lockhart Stadium, Major League Baseball, Mexican Primera Division, Miami Fusion, MLS, MLS Cup final, National Hockey League, NBA, New York Red Bulls, NFL, Pizza Hut Park, Qwest Field, Red Bull Arena, San Jose, Seattle Sounders, Spanish La Liga, Tampa Bay Mutiny
Two clubs that have never won a league championship, the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas, will meet Sunday, November 21, at Toronto’s BMO Field in the MLS Cup final. [November 20]
Comment: The MLS report card came in last month and the results were mixed as TV ratings remained flat while attendance improved by 7.7 percent.
Average league attendance was 16,675, thanks in part to the Seattle Sounders, who increased Qwest Field capacity and saw its attendance jump from last season’s 30,897 to 36,173 in ’10. The New York Red Bulls, who moved from the cavernous, lifeless Giants Stadium (12,490 average last season) to the sparkling Red Bull Arena (18,441 this year), also helped get MLS above its overall average of 16,037 in 2009. In all, the 2010 numbers were the third-best in the league’s 15-year history, behind the novelty-inspired 17,406 of 1996 and 2007’s 16,770.
Where does this place MLS as a gate attraction? It’s far behind the world’s best-attended soccer league, Germany’s Bundesliga (42,790), but as soccer leagues go, it’s not far down the list. Next is the vaunted English Premier League (34,088), followed by Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, Mexico’s Primera Division, Argentina’s Primera Division, France’s Ligue 1, Holland’s Eredivise, the J-League, the Campeonato Serie A of soccer-crazed Brazil, and MLS. And in the U.S., the NFL, whose teams play eight home games a year, leads at 67,508 in 2009, followed by Major League Baseball (81 home games per team, 30,213 average in 2010). The battle for third is tight, with the NBA (41 home games per team, 17,110 in 2009-10) ahead of the National Hockey League (41 home games, 17,004 in 2009-10) and MLS. (You could pick nits, regarding number of games and stadium/arena capacity, but it would have to start with baseball’s total attendance of nearly 80 million compared to pro football’s 17.4).
Not bad for a league that nearly shuttered its doors after the 2001 season, when its winningest team, the late, unlamented Miami Fusion, averaged an abysmal 11, 177 at Ft. Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium, a converted high school football stadium. MLS contracted that winter, killing off the Fusion and its other poorly supported Florida cousin, the Tampa Bay Mutiny.
It is hoped, then, that a win by Colorado or Dallas inspires a spin at the turnstiles in 2011 for at least one of the finalists. Despite each being blessed with new, soccer-specific stadiums, only 13,329 a game turned out for Colorado at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park this season–12th-worst in the 16-team league–and just 10,815 supported Dallas at its Pizza Hut Park. After Sunday night, soccer fans in Dallas-Ft. Worth or Denver can’t use a lack of a champion as an excuse not to support the home town team.
[A note regarding MLS’s bottom-feeders: Kansas City (10,287), which played its home matches in a minor league baseball park, and San Jose (9,659), confined to a small college football stadium, brought up the rear. K.C. (2000) and the original Earthquakes (2001, 2003) have each won the MLS Cup, so a title isn’t a cure-all at the ticket window.]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Big Apple, Bobby Convey, Chris Wondolowski, Commissioner Dan Garber, Juan Agudelo, Juan Pablo Angel, MLS Eastern Conference, New York Cosmos, New York Cosmos LLC, New York Red Bulls, New York Times, North American Soccer League, Pele, Red Bull Arena, San Jose Earthquakes
The San Jose Earthquakes upset the New York Red Bulls, 3-1, before a disappointed sellout crowd of 22,839 at Red Bull Arena, eliminating New York in the MLS Eastern Conference semifinals by a 3-2 aggregate.
The conference champion Red Bulls, 1-0 winners in the first leg in San Jose, had tied the home-and-home series at 2-2 in the 78th minute as captain Juan Pablo Angel, playing what was likely his last match for New York, headed home a Juan Agudelo cross. But the eighth-seeded ‘Quakes quickly replied when Bobby Convey, scorer of San Jose’s first two goals, set up a headed strike by young sensation Chris Wondolowski. [November 4]
Comment: If the MLS founders knew back in 1996 that their league would go 15 seasons without its largest market club winning a championship, their first question would be how their highly vulnerable project could possibly have survived 10 seasons.
Nonetheless, MLS has progressed (survived would be too tepid a description, thrived too strong) despite lacking the Big Apple glamor enjoyed by its predecessor, the North American Soccer League. While the New York Cosmos won five NASL titles over 10 years, the MLS championship has gone to minor markets like Columbus, Kansas City and, yes, San Jose. That’s a decade and a half without the New York Times and other media outlets there giving a good blankety-blank about domestic soccer in the midst of a gridiron football season.
If MLS simply must conquer New York to make a dent in the media capital of the world, it may have found the solution. A group called New York Cosmos LLC, an English-backed group fronted by Pele, is bidding to join MLS, and Commissioner Don Garber has said he would prefer that the league’s 20th club be based in New York.
That’s the ticket: Put enough teams in the Big Apple and, sooner or later, one will win an MLS championship.
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