Ornamental wall shield with design going back to time of Charles V, looks like a good jumping off point--doesn't have to be exactly this way. A medusa in the middle with ornamental lion heads around the center.
This has way too many weapons in the shield to ever be feasible as a trophy design, however the shape of the shield itself is intriguing and presents interesting possibilities.
i think theyre meant to be bumpers (shock absorbers) and not breasts, but that's just a guess. Anyway if they must be breasts then i guess that as a somewhat belabored metaphor you could say that they are meant to symbolize drinking of the milk of victory (Nike the goddess of victory)? I'm not sure that even I believe that one...lol
I like that if it were silver. The engraving would make it pretty expensive, but I think it would totally be worth it.
good stuff. anyway, these shields all look nice, but why don't we just keep the shape we got, make it thinner, bigger, put handles on it, and put some simple engravings on the from toward its significance and past winners?
By your logic then the team with the best overall fifa rankings in a 4 year period should be declared champions. If you didnt realize it doesnt matter how you get into the world cup ( Ask France ) once your in, anything can happen.. But since u like to have seperate trophies lets have one world cup tournament champion and one Fifa rankings world cup champ based on there point scores...After all its the consistency of the qualifying that matters,you can call qualifying a grueling season. If the biggest sporting event in the world does NOT do it that way then why should we? Ya i thought NOT
I do think that MLS needs to give the teams with better records more of an advantage in the playoffs. A team with a losing record like RSL only had to play one away series, a home and home, and then a neutral site game. I can understand why they want the home and home in the first round, but the final needs to be at the home of the team with the better record, and the first round should have some advantage for the higher seed in the rules, perhaps a draw goes to the higher seed or somesuch. It really is way too easy a road for the low seed and too little reward for the teams that busted their humps in the regular season.
Wait, so it offends you that Real Salt Lake are the champions of Major League Soccer. It doesn't offend me at all. In fact, if you think about it, you could have the exact same result at the 2010 FIFA World Cup (not to mention other major tournaments like the UEFA Champions League). Argentina had a dismal qualifying record and could have a couple of bad group results and still progress to the next round. Then they could perhaps play well and win it all. Is that fair to national teams like the Netherlands or Spain who had better records and might have better group results? If you want to argue about qualifying groups like UEFA versus CONMEBOL/AFC/OFC/CONCACAF then we can make that same distinction about the quality in the Western Conference versus the Eastern Conference but I am not a fan of the "let's make everything like the rest of the world." Some stuff should stay American.
the thing i like about a round plate-style trophy is that it can be easily expanded when room runs out for engraving. just add a new ring around the edge
Although I agree with the playoffs, this is not a strong comparison. Argentina does not exist in a league structure. Structuring a league structure with any comparison to an international tournament is very baseless. International team lineups are set through caps and the personal don't change or trade from team to team and there is no parity structure. Usually the best teams win. I personally would like for our league's playoff structure to emulate other American playoff structures, where greater weight is given for regular season records. Besides which, Olympic basketball has a similar structure to the World Cup, but you don't see the NBA emulating them with one-off neutral playoffs. In the NBA, MLB, and NHL, home field advantage is a strong reward for regular season brilliance. Even in the NFL which has a neutral final, a wild card team still has to survive 3 full rounds on the road. MLS has very little incentive comparitively towards the teams with better regular season records. They only have 3 rounds in total, the first of which is an even home and home and the final which is on neutral ground. Only in the second round does the better regular season count. I'll not begrudge RSL their title, but I would have been more inclined to respect it if they'd at least have had to go on the road in the final as well as the semis. MLS needs to make that happen next year.
this is not a thread to discuss the validity, the should dos, or the should dones of the SS. please, this is not Pan-Am flight 73.
any further thoughts on this? or news? Like others have posted, I like the idea of an actual shield particularly if it included the current SS design in the center or in some regard. I think its a great honor to claim the SS and a bit of redesign of the award & hopefully eventually cash award as well would help identify it as so amongst fans, teams & outside viewers.
SS should eventually replaced by (regular season)Conference Champions, one from East and one from West.
I like the idea of not changing anything. If it is falling apart just to make repairs to make it more durable. Its ugly but it is ours.