Wow. Huge news. Hope they're going the Expansion franchise route as we in KC aren't giving ours up without a fight. I'm pretty sure San Jose feels the same way. 3rd Degree coming through again with a huge scoop.
I hope it is for expansion. That would give Houston more time to get ready and have things set for a stadium. If they moved someone, even for next season, there would not be a stadium set, other than way to big Reliant, or Robertson Stadium, which is owned by UofH and would have hassles of it's own. Although there have been plenty of Mexican League exhibitions at Robertson. I myself, can't wait for it to happen. bford
Actually, I think there's one this Weds - featuring Club America, of all people: Hot Mexican Rivalry Comes to City Next Week
Houston plus Rochester as next expansion teams= 1/ Good rivals Houston-Dallas Rochester-Metros 2/ Good or decent stadiums 3/ Interested/ready to go ownerships 4/ One team west-one team east -- Why wait until 2007, how about 2006?
Besides 8 out of 14 making the playoffs sounds SO MUCH better! If Club America and CD Chivas is what it takes to get stadiums full for those teams - I'm all for it... I'm sure both would/will draw large crowds at RSL - nearly 20% of Salt Lake is latino (I kid you not), so even while I'd hope they'd be cheering FOR RSL, they know who Chivas/Americas are - they would definitely have some drawing power. I personally wouldn't care if MLS got a Euro owned team or two in the mix as well... I know some don't want foreign investment OR too much foreign investment, but it seems purely an emotional argument to me. In the end, it benefits the league and ALL the teams to have successful foreign clubs investing in MLS (money/brand/credibility). Besides, it will help settle the question if us Gringos really know how to play or not! (as if WC '02 wasn't clear enough... )
Well we all know we really don't need playoffs, but that has been beaten to death, and I will prob. be dead before that type of change is made. Change the MLS cup to a league cup MLS vs. USL D1 and that I could live with.
Probably not. But I do have a suspicion that insiders at the Chronicle (i.e. Davis) already had strong indications of this (damn, I hope it's true) and were able to subsequently convince the Chronicle Sports editors to add the "Soccer Page" as an exciting buildup to the announcement. Houston Eagles 2006!
Yup. Among other things, including a piece on Chelsea/Newcastle and the Mia-less USWNT: Cruz Azul Rejuvenated The Chron provides better soccer coverage these days than I'll bet a number of current MLS cities see: The Soccer Page on Tues Glenn's column on Thurs Glenn's column on Sun Regular mentions in the various news & notes section on page 2 Regular inclusion of games in the daily TV listings Plus the occasional column from John Lopez And the recent column by Dale Robertson arguing that Houston should get an MLS team and it should get its own stadium Not a bad a landscape for las Aguilas to nest
I just had a novel idea. The idea I came across was that Club America should be ALL Americans! The Mexican owners could buy the club but really try something new and different. It could really be "America's" team. It's an interesting idea that should be further explored. The jerseys could mimic the Nat's or have an American flag(not like the rev's!) the theme of it. I mean that would be really interesting!
Kind of like Vergara's teams elsewhere (Chivas in Mexico and Saprissa in Costa Rica). It'd be kind of weird if CA took that approach. I don't see it happening just since they'd probably want to bring in a few Mexican players to sell tickets.
sorry i just seen this thread and would absolutely love a team in H town. I'd buy season tickets first day with or without some Mexican player. Heck maybe i could get a tryout. OH yeah
And even that was just a date that they were apparently tossing around for grins. It's Texas Indedependence Day, although I'm not sure how many people would know. (My own informal survey of a handful of people who actually grew up in Texas found that most could identify the year, but not the day. Go figure.) Of course, the underlying qualification to all this current CA Houston talk is that we've been here before -- for CA last year, and for Chivas about two years ago.
Problem is, the date they told me the announcement would be made, I frankly found impossible. Really not realistic. It made no sense to announce it on that date. There are a few dates when it makes sense for MLS to announce this, and those dates were no where near what I was told. And the format for MLS making an announcement that big is NOT to do it the way they claimed. It's possible that I was given the information, just to see if it circulated. Since I was worried about having been given deliberately false information about when the announcement would be made, I published what I thought to be true, and did not publish what I thought could be false. I have no proof it was false. I have no proof they were trying to set me up. Nonetheless, I reported what I felt confident about, and speculated about what I could not be confident about. I hope you understand.
Now that would've made for some interesting naming options - Houston Litigators? Texas Asbestos? South Texas Plaintiffs? At least they would've had flashy uniforms.