Friday, July 14, 2006

US Soccer on the rise?

While watching the Italia - France world cup final the topic of "how good is an MLS team" came up. We concluded that the best MLS team could maybe finish above relegation in the Premiership, but would most likely be an average League 1 team.

Quick .nerd background to Soccer Leagues in Europe; they have divisions of professional teams and at the end of each season the teams that finish at the bottom of the main league are “relegated” to the lower league and the teams that finish at the top of the second tier league make the jump to the “Premiere League”… so you don’t have the L.A. Clippers / Cincinnati Bengals of the early 90s or the Pittsburg Pirates / Indiana Hoosiers gimping around year after year… teams come and go as their talent / cash flow changes.


Back to the point… two days ago DC united defeated Celtic 4-0. Celtic is the equivalent of the New York Yankees in the Scottish Premiere League. DC United rested a few of their starters and I’m not sure who played for Celtic but scoring four goals and giving up zero to a top flight team is impressive (I’m sure Celtic have guys riding the bench that make more than several DC united starters). So there is hope… one day your average Columbus Crew game could be exciting!

In further MLS propaganda their All Star game will be played on August 5th just outside of Chicago (Bridgeview, IL). In another international twist the MLS all-stars will play against Chelsea FC (the winners of last years English Premiere League). Being an allstar game I’m not sure what to expect effort wise, but playing against one of the best clubs in the world would be a great opportunity for a MLS player to get seen and jump to a fancy Euro club to earn more cash. Anyhoo soccer post over… we can all return to fantasy football / basketball / baseball / hockey land. (Who wants to play pick up soccer this Sunday?)

3 comments:

  1. Good lord .nerd, you are quite the fountain of "futbol" knowledge. Thank you for that clarification. I don't know if that was enough to make me want to watch but at least I can engage in some sort of intellectual convo on the European league-tiering.

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  2. Thanks for the vote of confidence!

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  3. LoL I had to reply to this as i am a "Celtic" Fan here in Scotland, without degrading the score - Celtic were extremley tired, not used to the heat - and the pitch wasnt in the best of states, but no excuses well played DC United, I must also add - Freddy Adu is amazing and even if he came to celtic on loan for a season would do him the world of good, - If you guys are to Play Chelsea, Chelsea are about the best soccer team in the world it will be a tough match but tbh i wouldnt be surprised if you's won it -

    American soccer is good,

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