Come One, Come All: Carnival of Soccer 5

Welcome to Carnival of Soccer 5!

It seems that my incessant whining paid off: in the end, I pulled in five posts, which brings the total to six once I chuck my post onto the pile. If I may say so, we’ve got a fine bunch of rambles on the topic. To refresh everyone’s memory, here that is again:

If someone asked you to describe the character of each of the 12 teams in Major League Soccer, what would you say? What’s the story of each Major League Soccer club from where you sit?

I’m going to begin here with a unique contribution. It came from Bonji, the creator of the College to Pros blog. Rather than talk about all the teams, Ben wrote an ode to his Colorado Rapids that covered everything from their history to their ready-made rivalry with Real Salt Lake. All in all, it's very thorough and very educational.

It’s a good thing someone stood up for the Rapids – Lord knows I didn’t. Neither, for that matter did DCenters’ Kinney, who explains all Major League Soccer’s teams by equating them to teams from America’s “other sports.” I’ll admit right now that I can’t hold a candle to his knowledge of the entire sporting scene (damn….). Mr. Fish, of The Kin of Fish fame, takes a similar, and equally sharp, approach to the subject. In both cases, the analogies are impressively tight – more so than I could manage trying to communicate between leagues. And Mr. Fish post has a hell of a clever title as well.

Mike H of My Soccer Blog examined MLS's teams through an entirely unexpected, yet very effective, lens: a cast of very recognizable human characters. This one takes the prize for creativity.

The award for tidiest post goes to Joe from We Call It Soccer (great blog title, by the way), who brilliantly and simply equates all the league’s teams to a brand of beer...not sure I believe the choice for Columbus is an actual beer, but I particularly admire his choices for Red Bull New York – I respect anyone, really, powerful enough to be familiar with the selected brand - and Real Salt Lake.

Rounding out the contributions is my own, which appears below. Since I can only be brief when being suffocated with a pillow – and because no pillows were handy – it is, of course, too damned long. It’s also a trifle indisciplined, but I like it well enough. I held up a player from the past or present to stand as a symbol for the history and tradition of each team; and because I became so fixated on using the word “hapless” to describe the Crew, I eventually added a word or phrase for each team as well. If I could give everyone a prize for reaching the end I would, but things are tight in my world.

Thanks to everyone for contributing. For the record, hosting is not as hard as I made it out to be. I’ll be trying to pass the torch shortly. Volunteers are, of course, welcome. Interested parties should feel totally free to contact me through email.