Soccer Sunday and Such

MLS Cup kicks off in about two hours, featuring the back-from-the-dead L.A. Galaxy, last year’s dysfunctional laughing stock, vs. hot-at-the-right-time Real Salt Lake – they of the many merry midfielders.  The news from Seattle is the locals have embraced the championship with nearly as much vigor as they took to their Sounders this year, and 40,000 are expected despite the crap weather.  Good news for MLS.  Even better news if the Galaxy pulls it off – what a fitting final chapter to this whole Beckham Experiment thing.  But Salt Lake has only beat two of the supposedly best/most talented teams in Columbus and Chicago to get here, and anyone who’s watched them the past month knows they are fully capable of controlling play and scoring goals.

 Of course Beckham is carrying an injury (say this for the man – he knows drama) and could be fairly limited.  He’s likely one crunching Kyle Beckerman tackle from being out.  The real key to this match of course is league MVP Landon Donovan.  Salt Lake will be completely fixated on denying him the ball, but that might not be enough.  And maybe it opens the way for someone like Mike Magee or Alan Gordon to be the hero.  I’ve been predicting L.A. would win it all for months (just thought they’d be playing the Fire) so I won’t change my pick now.

In other  news, FIFA denied Ireland’s request for a reply against France after now-infamous Hand-of-Frog, featuring Thierry Henry (video after the bump).  Of course what else are FIFA going to do?  Admit that it’s time to employ instant-replay and other technology to prevent these kinds of mistakes?  Yeah, right.  It’s going to take something like this at the actual World Cup before they move forward.

Some Leaves and Stuff

A beautiful fall weekend, the likes of which we rarely see in November, meant a lot of time outside for the kids and a lot of leaves being bagged by the grown-ups.  There was also time for football, soccer, partying, and even some basketball.  But mostly it was the leaves.  With three big old trees in the yard, you just take it in stride…

53 Bags

Illinois’ offense looked competent and borderline good for the second straight week, scoring 35 points against the Gophers.  We’ve said all along the O&B would need 30+ points a game to win; too bad they waited until the season was halfway over to wake up.  Of course the competition has been less stringent after that brutal September, but how much do we attribute to more manageable foes, how much to the Offensive Coordinator finally getting it together, and how much to having a quarterback who can actually pick up blitzers and hit open receivers?  And we note that Minnesota made adjustments at halftime (and the Zooker did not) and nearly caught up after that terrible blocked punt, but Charest hit McGee on a crucial third down and Illinois got that final touchdown.  To their credit, the Illini never gave up on the season and still have the Illinois rivarly with Northwestern and a winnable home game against Fresno State.  Win those two and we’ll forgive some of the earlier crap…

MLS Playoffs – Whoyagot?

Major League Soccer has survived the contraction of the early aughts to emerge as a league with 15 teams.  This goes to 16 teams next year with two more expansion teams waiting in the wings.  In the bad old days, 75% of the teams made the playoffs, but nowadays a playoff berth is actually an achievement so the final 8 are pretty solid teams.  And the fact that going into the last two weekend’s of league play only two teams were eliminated from playoff contention made for a highly competitive and exciting finish.  While the Eurosnobs would like to mimic the Old Country and do away with the playoffs, let me add to the chorus and assure everyone that our way is better.

MLS Stretch Run

With the dog days mostly behind us, Major League Soccer looks towards the stretch run and the playoffs.  September and October usually showcase the best of MLS, as teams jockey for position and try to gain post-season momentum.  Ironically, you often see your best soccer this time of the year, the kind a casual fan could enjoy, when most people are occupied elsewhere.

Houston Dynamo (40 points), Columbus Crew (39 points), and Chicago Fire (38 points) are locks for the playoffs.  Of these three, the Dynamo, who just signed Mexican forward Luis Landin and are starting to get healthy again, look the best.  Columbus seems a little shaky, and they have the distraction of the CONCACAF Champions leauge, but they continue to get results.  The Fire have plenty of points but haven’t played particularly well.  Starting defender, Bakary Soumare, seems to be on his way to France, and Coach Hamlett seems to have some issues.  Chicago could still put it together, though.

MLS Conundrums – Chivas et Chicago

Eight games in to MLS and as usual you have a few surprises.  D.C. and Toronto on top of the East while Columbus is in the basement.  Houston’s slow start and the surprising Seattle Sounders in the West.  But most puzzling are the strange cases of Chivas USA and the Chicago Fire.

Paulo 'Sweep-the-leg' Nagamura

Chivas, the less-glamorous but more effective LA team, is 7-1-1 with a commanding lead atop the West.  This from a squad appraised in the pre-season as mediocre at best.  So how has this happened?  Well, five of those games are against Dallas (twice), the Galaxy, Colorado, and Columbus – teams which are turning out to be pretty poor.  They’ve only played two Eastern Conference teams, and they’ve had six home games.  That’s helpful, but it’s not the whole story.

Start with Zach Thornton.  Many had written him off as past the sell-by date, but big Zach has come in leaner (for him) and has shown some of the agility that made him an all-star with the Fire.  Chivas have also benefited from timely goals from a variety of players.  Especially helpful when some of their most talented players either haven’t played much or played well (see Kljestan S., and Galindo, M.).

MLS 09: Some Storylines

Amidst the crowded landscape of college basketball, etc., Major League Soccer kicks of its 14th season Thursday night when the New York Red Bulls travel to face the newest expansion team, Seattle Sounders FC.  This is my eleventh season of following MLS, and I always look forward to first kick.

Every year you hear a certain segment of sports journalists grousing about soccer and how it won’t last.  This year with the whole Beckham to AC Milan circus, you might hear it again.  But, the din and clamor is much quiter than it used to be.  Even with the current economy, MLS is on solid financial footing and has firmly carved out a niche in the American sports landscape.  That will do nicely for us soccer fans.  One big reason is the somewhat unique single-entity ownership, which you can read about here.  Seattle joins the league this year, Philly next year, and Vancouver and either Portland or St. Louis in 2011.  MLS has plenty of suitors willing to invest.

Another reason is, of course, soccer rules.  Now for some Beemsville MLS storylines…

Fall Classics

No, not talking about the World Series.  We could care less around here.  But a busy Sports weekend kicked off in Beemsville last night with the Chicago Fire’s 5-2 dismantling of the Red Bulls.  Chris Rolfe with the hattrick and two assists in a great performance that would seem to indicate the Fires are ready for their playoff run next week.  I’ve liked Rolfe’s game since he came into the league a few years ago and would like to see him get more super-sub  minutes with the U.S. team.  If he were 6-1 instead of 5-8 with his skills and quickness, he’d probably be playing in Milan right now instead of Chicago.

Tonight we head to Beardstown for the High School football regular season finale.  Nephew Jake’s Central-Southeastern team can clinch their first playoff berth in awhile with a win tonight on the river.  We’ve really enjoyed Jake’s games this year and will be there with our ponchos on and ready to yell and cheer.  CSE has had come-from-behind wins the past two weeks to keep their playoff hope alive.  Hopefully Jake and the boys can get rolling sooner tonight.

The Illini begin a key stretch tomorrow morning against Wisconsin.  The Badgers, with four straight losses, are tough to figure.  So are the inconsistent Orange & Blue.  The conventional wisdom around here is that the Zooker is good for one head-scratching loss a year, and we had that against Minnesota two weeks ago.  Crisis averted.  On to a decent bowl…  Right?  Right?  Which Illini team shows up?  How will the weather affect Juice and the passing game?  Are the Badgers really that mediocre?  I hope so.  A convincing road win would be nice, but we’ll settle for some consistency.

MLS Stretches Into Fall

While College Football ramps up, with baseball ready for the playoffs, and the NFL season in swing, Major League Soccer has entered the Autumn Stretch run.  For those of us in tune with the niche of American Soccer, this is a fun time.  The doldrums of mid-Summer are past and most teams can play their game again.  More importantly, it’s four more games until the playoffs and the intensity has once again risen.

The MLS regular season sort of reminds me of basball:  there’s a lot of hype an excitement at the beginning, followed by a long dour stretch, and then a push for the post-season.  Although games in July count for just as much as games in October, the urgency definitely increases.  Couple that with the fact that eight of fourteen teams make the playoffs, and nearly everyone is fighting at the end.

Donovan Tearing it Up

The MLS season is one month old, and your two lead stories are:

• Parity, parity, parity – No single team appears dominant; last year’s bad teams are better while the good teams have lost some players. Blame it on the outdated salary cap and the relaxed rules on foreign players coming on.

• Landon Donovan, the best American player (probably ever) is running roughshod through the league. With his hat trick last night against Chivas USA in the L.A. Clasico, he now has eight goals. We can partially attribute this to David Beckham playing for the Galaxy, absorbing a lot of attention and pressure and serving countless quality passes for Landon to finish. It’s probably also Donovan truly coming of age. He’s put Germany 06 behind him and is squarely focused on the present and future.  He’s in his prime, as Doc Holiday would say…

This development bodes very well for both the U.S. National Team and the Galaxy, as Donovan has been the closest player to World Class we have. For now we’ll just enjoy the show and hope he can keep it up. He’ll miss some games with L.A. while on National Team duty, and he can’t keep scoring at this pace, but it would surely be cool if he could make an assault on Roy Lassiter’s single season goal record (27 in 1996).

So how about some hat trick highlights…