At any rate, it's primarily giving the nod to the work of others, though I'll sneak in my share of comments. Here goes:
- To lead with what I led with, fans of some Major League Soccer (MLS) teams that endured tough weekends laid into their clubs. Two personal favorites:
+ The Real Salt Lake Offside blog writes:
"We now, officially, have a worst team in the MLS. It was a hard-fought battle for the basement spot, and at times, both sides played like they wanted it, but congratulations to the LA Galaxy … you’re slightly better than the worst team in the MLS."
+ My favorite hit, however, appeared on FC Rocky under the title "Plenty of Goats to Go Around":
"When it comes time to make FIFA 2009, the video game's programmers should create four difficulty settings: easy, medium, hard and Rapids."
In other news, commentary, and drama....
- Ian Plenderleith posted something (that I can't link to; c'mon USSoccerplayers.com, let's get that permalink situation squared away) on Toronto FC (by way of commenting on Chicago) that I thought worth noting:
"Teams above [the Chicago Fire] have more points, and have mostly played less games, while Toronto FC is breathing down its neck (or more likely tugging at its shirt and kicking at its calves), also with a game in hand."
Yeah, I think he's implying that they're thugs...
- Speaking of Toronto FC - or rather FC Dallas - The Offside blogger for that team (that's Toronto, not Dallas) noted something in his match report of the Texas team's blowout loss to TFC that has puzzled me quite a bit this year: Dallas' mysteriously condensed schedule - e.g. they've played 14 games, while no other team has played more than 12; naturally, they're griping about fatigue, arguably with justification. The thing is, I checked out Dallas' schedule and I'm not seeing many gaps in there outside of August. Between Superliga, exhibitions, and (presumably) Open Cup play, these cats are nearly as busy as LA. So, if the current roster can't handle the workload, I'd expect this team to stay close to .500.
- Down the Byline's offered a good perspective of the PK that allowed Red Bull to equalize:
"While the PK was a bad call in my opinion, Jose Burciaga Jr. has to be smarter then that in those situations, the ball looked to be going over John Wolyniec's head, and Burciaga went clumsily into the challenge, even if it was a bad call you can't go into the challenge like that."
- As explained in a taunting post by Ives Galarcep, New England could have signed Guillermo Barros Schelotto. These are the days Steve Nicol frustrates me.
- It sounds like the LA Galaxy's signing of Honduran forward Carlos Pavon is as close to official as one can get without actually being official. That should be interesting....
- Finally, with a hat-tip to Offside Rules, who checked one of the few political blogs I normally visit, Slate.com ran a cool feature on our lack of tradition where our uniforms are concerned. It's a cool, quick trip through the past and sharply written as well. Well worth the gander.
1 comment:
I agree. I've always lamented that we don't have that "look" that Argentina, Netherlands, England, etc pull off. I can't think of another country that has been as disjointed as us. I like the pinstripes, but it's too busy and will lose its appeal way too quickly. There's something to be said for simplicity and solid symbolism.
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