The First Team from Utah I've Liked

Have I mentioned my growing love for Real Salt Lake (why, yes, only yesterday). From angry fans, through angry assistant coaches, high-stress stadium issues, all the way down to this wunder quote from (current) Head Coach John Ellinger:

""There's something that goes in a jock strap, I guess you got to have that to play this game."

...this franchise continues to accidentally entertain (sorry, had to bold that one). God bless ‘em. By the way, reports of the match that don't discuss the coach’s opinion of his players’ balls do mention several cracking goals. And, checking out Sights & Sounds, I see they’ve got a highlight reel. I’ll be looking in on that later tonight.

Again, God bless RSL. As much as last night must be doubly painful for Carey Talley, who both hates losing and who reportedly scored a whopper of a goal last night, I hope he understands that being the worst at something, or just being part of that, is just another form of perfection. His contribution as the agonized vet is appreciated.

Highlights won’t be available for the Colorado Rapids' 1-0 win over the Houston Dynamo (as usual - don’t they have TV cameras in friggin’ Colorado?), so, um, there’s that. Not much to add there beyond noting that I just learned today that some cat named Terry Cooke leads the league in assists. And, turns out he’s English. I mean, whodathunkit? Wherever he comes from, that turning maneuver he pulled against Chivas this weekend is worth several ganders (again, Sights & Sound; it came with the Rapids’ third goal).

Turning to the A-League, pleased as I am to see that the Seattle Sounders lost away (OK, it was away and to the best team in the division), it won’t mean a dang thang till the Portland Timbers start winning games. They get their shot tonight with the first of their final two road games of the season. After the Virginia Beach Mariners this evening, they’ll roll (hey, it’s just a little hop!) to Toronto, where they’ll take on the mighty Lynx Saturday night.

Yeah, the A-League’s road schedule rises to the cruel and unusual range, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Timbers can only reach the playoffs by doing their bit.

With the action out of the way, I thought I’d close with a odd pair of articles. The first comes, once more, from The Soccer Daily’s J. Hutcherson, who puts out a quick survey of candidates to fill Brian McBride’s shoes. Most of the names are familiar - Eddie Johnson, Brian Ching, Taylor Twellman, etc. - but he sneaks in a pair who went missing during the The Bruce Regime. That pair - Ante Razov and Jeff Cunningham - are good players and I admire both of them enough that I found myself quietly wondering during the World Cup whether either (OK, only Razov came to me at the time) could have helped our squad in Germany 2006.

Then again, as much as I love Hutcherson’s work and value his opinion, those two will be damned long in the tooth come 2010; Razov will be 36 and Cunningham 34. It’s better, I think, to build for the future. It could be that Hutcherson does as well; he does mention Conor Casey toward the top.

The last article is a wonderful piece of bum-fluff. It turns out the New England Revolution’s Jay Heaps is a fashion whore with a shoe fetish to boot. So, yeah, it’s fluff, but I learned something in reading it:

"'It’s tough for soccer players to shop,' [Heaps] says. ‘We talk about it in the locker room. Soccer players have big butts and big thighs. Seriously. It’s hard to find pants that fit.'"