I think the biggest knock to SAF, was that he did ignore getting any real CM's in the last few years. Carrick is still one of the best, Evra could've used a backup to push for starting minutes. Rio has had back problems for years, and was on a special training regimen and when he'd play games to keep him in top form. Moyes walked in and threw all that out, and played him far too long running him into the ground until he eventually got injured. Moyes decides to take a freaking vacation until July, so that's on him for starting to deal with transfers late. I don't really blame the players at all in this. Moyes was using archaic tactics, and a crappy training program, and eventually the players lost the will to play. Could they have played better? Probably. But try going to work day in and day out with management that doesn't have a clue, and tell me how long until you're not giving 100% anymore. It happens to the best of us. Add to the fact that the one positive thing SAF had done, was put Rooney on a silver platter to be traded. He should've been gone last summer, and instead Moyes flat out catered to him day in and day out. Add in a ludicrous pay raise that he doesn't deserve. ManU has plenty of money to spend. They're constantly one of the top teams in revenue each year. I think this next season will possibly be a little rough, depending on who stays and who they're able to bring in, but I don't think we'll be sitting in 7th. The overall core is good enough to be top 4, but I can see where it'll likely take 2 years to get enough starters/squad players in to really push for the top again. Moyes was never someone that was going to be able to do it.
I think it's archaic when it comes to getting a NEW stadium, and not being able to change the field size for that. I can understand the rule being in place so you can't change the size depending on your opponent, but you'd think that something like the opening of your new stadium would allow you to start with the field size you desire, then be unable to change it again until the end of the season.
I still would have kept the field the same dimensions as it was at RES. The players were accustomed to that size and the team had been built and had been practicing with those dimensions (and were starting to gel). Change that, along with going form turf to grass, different locker facilities, and all the rest… Change what you must, don't change what you don't need to change.
Imagine the possibilities if the league were to vary certain conditions between games. If the league did it, you couldn't argue that the home team was trying to get an advantage. They already do it in golf with different pin placements on the green. I have thought that the NBA would be a lot more fun to watch if they randomly changed the height of the basket each quarter. How about the height of the net in tennis or volleyball? Racing clockwise in NASCAR? No predetermined winner in boxing? Think of the possibilities...
It's in French, but still interesting. Click on the teams you want to compare for attendance figures. http://www.mlssoccer.com/blog/post/...s-affluences-en-mls-depuis-1996-club-par-club
That seems about right. The article was basically saying that ManU has fallen out of the top 3 teams worldwide for revenue for the first time in 2012-13, with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern at the top. On top of that, Chelsea, Man City, and PSG all have oil money backing them that ManU can't compete with. That puts them behind 6 European teams in terms of resources, making it increasingly unlikely that they will win the Champion's League. But they should be in the top 4 in the EPL for sure.
I want someone to correlate those numbers with team performance. Seems like people here on BS always pick out Utah fans for being fair-weather, but just eyeballing the graphs it looks like all fans everywhere are pretty fair-weather. Cases in point: NE, DC United, Chivas, Toronto, etc. For all of the teams, attendance peaks dramatically when the team is doing well, and falls dramatically when they struggle.
This reminds me of when keepers used to kick the goal posts to change the width of the goal. Everyone is trying to find a way to gain an advantage.
Do the Browns and Indians fall into this category? The Browns never do well, but they always seem to have good crowds.
As a fan, I wanted to see a wider pitch. Soccer is meant to be played on a wider pitch...it opens up space and allows for more creativity.
Money that is not spent can't do any good for the team. Last year's transfer window cinched this year's outcomes.
Well, it is Cleveland we're talking about here. What else are you doing to do there, besides go down to the river and watch it catch on fire.
This was interesting, but what I found even more interesting from a US soccer supporter standpoint was the link to another graph showing how average attendance in the MLS compares to the top European leagues. For all you non-Francophones out there, the Bundesliga, Serie A, EPL and La Liga all lead the MLS in average attendance and the MLS is more or less tied with Ligue 1. As for the rest of Europe (Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey), the MLS is way ahead of these leagues in average attendance. Ergo, when some Euro-poseur tells you that "you colonials don't know the first thing about 'football', so eventually, the MLS will fold due to lack of attendance", you can point to this statistic and tell them, that apparently, neither does most of Europe.
Yes and no. We're a bit of a confusing team in that we need space to exploit our midfield dominance. But we also dont' want a wide field to get hit on a counter. What kind of fields really serve us well? Fast wide ones. Water that ish down and make it max length. Then we'll kill you.
How much of the data for those top leagues is thrown off by the extra large stadiums of the top clubs? When you look at the top leagues (Spain, Italy, England, Germany) a lot of the better teams have huge stadiums that are generally sell outs. It seems like most other teams in those leagues have stadiums around 25-30k. I'd say in general we're doing really good, and as the league grows and we start seeing more stadiums around the 30k range, it wouldn't surprise me to see those attendance numbers getting awfully close to the top leagues in the world.
Much more lighthearted commentary on Mr. Moyes dismissal. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/socce...r-getting-sacked-by-man-united-212109823.html For the record, I think the only reason ManU did anything lasts year is because RvP was finally healthy for an entire season. An elite striker can carry a sub-par team in the Premier League (and also hold one back, see Chelsea). I think ManU was just really lucky last season. Sorry to bring this back up.
While RvP was brilliant, there's no way ManU finishes 7th last year without him. The funny thing is that the top 4 this season hasn't been all that convincing like it was the last couple of years, which makes being this far down that much worse. None of the teams at the top have looked great. They've all had stretches where they've slipped, or the gap would be much larger. There's even more reports coming out that there were players lined up to be purchased over the summer and he came in and cancelled it all. Flounders around after taking a freaking vacation before starting the job of his life late, cans all the staff that would've massively helped in the transition, and people wonder why it was such a mess? All we got out of it was Fellani, who never should've been purchased, and Mata, who only came because he wanted playing time before the WC. I'd love if we could somehow lure Klopp away from Dortmund, but he seems pretty set to stay there for a few more years. Front runner appears to be Van Gaal, which should be pretty great. It'll be nice to have a manager that won't cater to Rooney's whiny bs, and will have the team playing with an actual plan and progressive tactics. My hope is that someone is stupid enough to buy Rooney, because it'd solve a number of issues.
Well, in those smaller countries clubs from very small cities (not cities really) are in the top league. I think a more fair comparison would be to compare attendance of clubs in cities of similar sizes to MLS cities. Except for Seattle, MLS pretty much shows poorly across the board. An earlier post spoke to stadium capacities, but MLS stadium capacities are pretty much spot on. If RSL had a 30,000 seat stadium, it's average game attendance would not be more than it is.
http://t.foxsports.msn.com/nfl/49er-fan-sues-nfl-for-dollar50m-over-playoff-tickets Sounds a lot like last years finals game ticket situation. if any of you guys ran into this same issue last year and he wins I might find a lawyer fast to get rich.
Truly a modern day miracle http://www.mlssoccer.com/video/2014...ollin-shown-straight-red-card-studs-challenge
ironic that he gets a red on one I wouldn't' say is a red... I mean, hell, the ********ing New England commentators didn't think it was red. That's telling. "he seems to go in low. He seems to go in high" is that possible?
i thought it was a terrible tackle and if the leg was planted he could have easily broken it, i despise seeing tackles like this because serious injuries are usually the result. i'm glad he got the red, he clearly caught the NE player above the ankle, was extraordinarily late with his tackle, and was nowhere near the ball. it was a reckless play that endangered a player, the definition of a red card. he gets away with that crap so much, it's nice to see him actually punished properly for it.