A few weeks ago, I volunteered to cover the Columbus Crew for The Offside. At the time, I assumed I would drop coverage of the Portland Timbers (others doing it better anyway) and that I’d follow the Crew on The Offside, while continuing to cover the New England Revolution in this space. The assumption added up all the way up to the beginning of the regular season, at which point I realized I had obligated myself to watch two games involving the same two teams every week; and I just couldn't do it.
More than anything else, it was the issue of fighting my entire household to watch, not only those two games, but some of the more interesting match-ups that crop up on a weekly basis (for instance, Colorado v. DC this weekend), that pointed toward a fateful decision: I’m no longer going to cover the Revolution in this space,. In all honesty, I think two games per week is more than fair in a one-TV household. Moreover, the more this site and The Offside feel like a job, the less I’ll enjoy either of them, not to mention the stuff I do for Write On Sports - especially seeing as I'm not getting paid for any of them. So, something had to give and that something was the coverage of New England.
This site will continue, though, with a focus on MLS in general, as well as the U.S. Men’s National Team. I’ll chuck in USL Division 1 stuff whenever I actually see a Timbers game, but, otherwise, that should do it. The one thing that will remain the same from previous announcements is that I won’t be linking back and forth between this site and the Crew material on The Offside. That was just a pain in the ass when I did it for the Revs. Hopefully, what I'm doing will be interesting enough for people to check both spaces from time to time.
As you can see, I’ve already made changes at the top of the page. And, in the cases where I knew they referred to me as such, I contacted bloggers who linked to me in the sidebar as a New England Revolution blog to inform them of this change. If I didn’t contact you, you have my apologies.
On a personal note, I’ll kind of miss the idea of having “a team,” even though my affection for the Revolution continued as more of a habit once I left the Boston area. That MLS continually considers planting a team in the Pacific Northwest only reinforces the reality that I don’t really have a home team; if and when a team arrives anywhere near my neighborhood (we’re talking the entire Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Canada corridor), I’d be shocked, frankly, if I didn’t immediately adopt it. Given that, becoming a “free agent” only makes sense.
It also didn’t hurt that I like the Crew well enough and on a number of levels. To begin, there’s my sense they’ll do well this year and nothing gets me interested as much as seeing if a hunch of mine pans out (my choice of Liverpool as an EPL team grew exclusively from this). My Ohio roots also played a role and a lingering connection to the state remains; my wife and I even briefly discussed returning to Ohio (long story), which got the Crew on my brain before all this happened. If you think for a second I hadn’t concocted elaborate fantasies of road trips, etc. well...let’s just say they got pretty advanced and involved.
In any case, so long New England - and good luck this year. To that rookie class, especially. I’ve got a good feeling about a few of them. And, for what it’s worth, y’all should have let Shalrie Joseph go or paid him more. You haven’t heard the last of that one...
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