It isn't torture when you can choose not to read it. If you continue to read it then complain about whats being put on here, there is another word for that..
1. Sure, so have you talked with Andrew at all or asked him why he wasn't invited? 2. 1st loss of the year at home, TP is a fortress this year, and the TIFO has looked great. If we go on a losing streak I'd be surprised as the one we did have we turned around pretty quickly. Unfortunately one of those games was @ the US Open cup. We did take 13 out of a possible 18 points over the last 5 games though. Which is better than the last two years, which I did have a problem with, but losing BB as a sponsor and losing Blanco and having McBride lose it well, everyone saw that disaster coming. Pretty sure people lost their jobs over that. 3. I'll look forward to my Steak dinner, what if we just tie for first? do we go dutch? I expect a BJ if we win the Supporters Shield. 4. This league is bigger/better then even 5 years ago, not to mention 10 or 15. 5. Unless you go ask Andrew himself over an HJ and Beer I guess you'll never know the answers to the questions you seek, otherwise you would have been in the club asking the questions yourself just like Ben was last weekend. 6. I'm angry over the non-dp signing as well, but hey, you don't just go blow money on "any" DP out there. Sometimes the cards don't align. I would still like to see Peter and Soccer "guys" as part of the club, but that might be a good question to ask Andrew as well. 7. I think you took my point about the MIami Heat proportionally out of context. They had the Best Team ever assembled in Basketball minus the original dream team, and still couldn't get it done. Sports is like that. If you are crying over 2008/09 Cup misses, well, move on man. From what I can tell it's a lack of motivation on your part to actually build any connections to the current ownership group to seek the answers you are looking for.
That was one game. We have won a few this year, you know. It was at the end of a pretty intense run of games, and even without their "stars," LA has a lot of talent. You do know that were in fourth place, and only 5 points out of first in the East, right? It isn't a pipe dream I don't know anything about this, but this really seems to be grasping at straws. It was a) years ago, b) probably hasn't happened since (or else you would have mentioned it) and c) probably not even the real story. Even if it is so what? Doesn't say anything to me. Says that the old owners didn't invite the new guy to a get together. Big ****ing deal And yet you want Hauptman to throw Keane money at the first washed up Euro-trash has-been that announces he is looking for a retirement check. Maybe there is a reason we haven't had a DP in three years, because when we did have them, they turned out badly, and we have soured on the experience. Has it ever occured to you that, unlike ManCity, PSG and other Arab-owned teams, the Fire are actually a business, you know, the kind of thing that needs a profit to stay in business. Hauptman isn't cheap, he's trying to run a successful business. You think Tradition is gone now, wait until an owner comes in who drives it hundreds of millions of dollars into debt, and has to enter administration (i.e. Rangers)
QF MOTHER****ING T We're sitting here talking like this club is a bottom feeder club and an embarrassment to soccer. It's hysterical, or it would be, if people weren't so serious about their pessimism
Watch and learn.....Your going to learn the hard way... I do not have a financial dog in this hunt.. I do wish that we had an owner who was interested in us being the best and not just HO hum..
Oh look, one of the people that actually worked for the Fire, and was subsequently Fired congratulating each other!
My happiness is filled with me taking my wife down to Naples for a two week vacation with the money I saved not buying season tickets this year.. 5,000 empty seats per game this season agree with me
Depends how you define "profit." Most sports teams don't turn profits or if they do they are very small ones. Good sports teams have tons of cash flow, and that is enough. Owners are in it to increase the value of the asset. Take the beast of all American teams. The Yankees do not make a profit on the baseball operations. When you add in the YES network, they do make about $10 million a year. But that isn't the point. Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for $10 million in 1973. Forbes listed its value at 1.85 Billion this year. The Fire have never turned a profit. But AEG bought in for a $5 million option at the start of the league on a Chicago team. I'm not sure what Hauptman paid, but my guess is the Fire are worth at least 50-75 million now? Running a successful business in sports is not the same thing as "making a profit." As to your comment that our DPs haven't worked out that well, I would disagree. Blanco was one of the better signings in club history and definitely within the last decade. On the field he was great and off the field, he was responsible for the Best Buy deal and a huge amount of exposure. Freddie Ljungberg was the lone bright spot on an awful team and it would have been nice to keep him. Nery was a bust, but many of us were calling that one on the day he signed and before the first firework lit up the night sky. That was Andy trying to recreate the marketing success he had with Blanco with no regard for the fact that he was fat, lazy and done at the age of 25. I guess Puppo isn't very good either, but that is a joke that he is an actual DP on the books.
I don't want a hand job or a beer from Andy. I don't want to be best buds with the owner of my club. I'm fine with not hanging with Rocky Wirtz either. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate him or that I didn't loathe his old man. I'm with ipinch on this one. I could ask him a bunch of questions like why his entire ********ing front office from the VP level on up has a grand total of three years of soccer experience before coming to the Fire (and that was three years at Chivas USA which hardly even counts). I could ask him why he hired a guy with zero experience evaluating professional soccer players as our VP of soccer operations. But really, what would be the point? He would give bullshit answers and he ain't changing anything because I ask him to. He will change when his asset starts losing value instead of gaining value. Nope. I'm not interested in having a beer with Andrew. Or dinner. Or sit in his suite. I want him to be a good owner of my club. Right now, he is not.
1. Sounds like you already made up your mind whether or not you met Andrew or not. Sounds like from what you've said it's all been second hand. More importantly, MLS is the one sport in the US where you actually have real access to ownership groups. If you don't want that access, or think it's bullshit, without even talking to the person to begin with speaks of your low value, not ownerships. 2. Sure, who are the soccer "people" you are talking about, and can we get them in the same room as Andrew so we can all hash it out? 3. 2008 and 2009 were banner years. The fact that you think it wasn't is more a reflection of you then the club. 4. 2010 and 2011 were shit. 2010 was a year in which could have turned out better, but with a poor choice in coaching turned to shit. 5. 2011 was a year in which saw one of the best second half teams in all of MLS after CDLC was shitcanned. 6. If you don't want to connect with this ownership group, that's up to you. If you want to sit at home and pout, go ahead. Let me know when you want to take a real step forward. 7. We almost won the U.S. Open cup trophy in 2011, and probably would have if not for Grazzini sitting on his ass with a hamstring issue on a shitty turf field. 8. I doubt I am winning the "pet fan" of the year award. I'll leave that up to SportsCrazed2 9. I'm not sure if your being intentionally stupid or what, but when a league improves, the general quality across the league improves, which causes parity. Not sure which world you are living in... 10. Why don't you come to a game and "Man up" to what you are actually saying?
I wish to avoid this interesting conversation between you two, but: 2011 US Open Cup Finals: Chicago 0 - 2 Seattle You might have been talking about 2010 when we lost to the Battery in Pk's. Regardless, our form in USOC has been shameful recently.
i think "7. We almost won the U.S. Open cup trophy in 2011, and probably would have if not for Grazzini sitting on his ass with a hamstring issue on a shitty turf field." tells us it's in reference to IPINCH. See my post above this one to see why.
Cochran "...ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!Gerald Broflovski "Damn it! ... He's using the Chewbacca defense!"Cochran "Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests."
He's probably not getting paid much to coach the team, Andy does like to low ball players/coaches. Maybe that's one way Frankie could make extra money.