As threatened in the welcome back post, I have spent the afternoon pawing through the soccer-related archives on My Very Brain; I'm trying to move the good (enough) stuff to archives on this site so's I can pretend I never, ever attempted the experiment with posting soccer stuff on My Very Brain.
Also in that note, I described this transfer project as reflecting a "Best-of-[insert month]," but that whole "of the month" thing came before remembering I talk so goddamn much (I mean, holy shit, am I verbose!). Before linking to the pick of the stuff I found for the week that started with October 1st, I want to add one thing: it's pretty fun looking back at what counted as the buzz for any given week. If you check out the links below, I think you'll see what I mean.
For instance, we all know that the search for the USMNT coach as something of a "blue balls" experience, but realizing that an announcement seemed imminent in the first week in October explains why, um, "things" got so blue. Everyone seemed a live choice back then - even New England's Steve Nicol. That sounds sillier now, what with the Revs sub-par regular season and a third collapse in a final (you got one more season, Nicol!)
Another semi-related hot topic helped keep the coaching situation on the front-burner: the now-real possibility of U.S. participation in the Copa America. The decision to participate in the Copa counts as one of the rare moments where everyone was on the same page - even Jamie Trecker.
October also happened to be the first month in which several teams' late season peformances started to serve as predictors for the post-season. DC United's late slump was a fascinating thing to watch - painful as it was for their fans - but I think I managed to nail down one cause for it: judging by comments from some of their players, they figured they'd done enough by winning the Supporters' Shield. Another reality that came into focus around the beginning of October was just how bad the Columbus Crew was in 2006.
OK, last few here. October happens to be the month I accepted D's challenge to make My Very Brain a New England Revolution blog. Naturally, this will continue with It's a Simple Game, though the some of the guarantees of that first post will almost certainly not hold.
On a personal note, I spent a lot of 2006 doing match previews - typically for the site ArmchairGM. I'll commemorate the lot of 'em by linking to the big sprawler I produced for New England's final game against DC United. All in all, the previews were kind of a curious thing to do - especially given how rarely I made the correct calls - so I don't know whether I'll do this for next season. I expect I'll wind up doing more post-game reviews in 2007 because those are "newsier." I suspect those will look a lot like this, but I'll be sending them to Write On Sports instead - assuming they'll take them. For all that, though, ArmchairGM is a pretty cool place and I don't remotely regret discovering them; they just need people to build their database.
Anyway, all for now. More filling in the past three months tomorrow.
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