Not to mention the only reason to consider LA a "rival" is that for the past few years we've both been atop the league. If LA should fall and RSL stay atop, or vice versa, the "rivalry" would go away. Where as RSL vs the Crapids will always be a rival game whether they suck or not. Maybe if we keep meeting LA in the playoffs over the next few years and we keep exchanging wins will we have an acutal rivalry created. Which would be a more "honest" rivalry created in the eyes of some of you. The fact the fans went out of their way to help create the rivalry between RSL and the Crapids only shows how big of a game it is and how important it is. If some of you can't see that or don't feel it, well, I'm sorry but you're wrong. I'm pretty sure the Riot Squad nor the Angel City Brigade or any other teams supporter groups made Nat Borchers urnal cakes or vanalized a team bus of ours.
just an fyi, there is a Hollywood united... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_United_F.C. And I echo the sentiment that those wanting an LA "rivalry" are much like Jazz fans. The true rivalry for the Jazz is the Thuggets. I don't get how you can say we don't have a rivalry with the cRapids. Everything outside of the actual game screams rivalry. And the games themselves? well they tend to be pretty fiery as well. Against LA there have been heated matches, but it doesn't have the feel of the cRapid match. Everyone wants to be rivals with LA. They are the Lakers of the MLS. Nobody likes them, we get that. But lets be realistic, our actual rivalry is with the cRapids. Do we have a piece of silverware on the line when we play LA during the season that only one of the two of us can win? Didn't think so...
No, but let's be honest here: If there were 6 fans that wanted to create a piece of silverware to play LA for, they could. And it would have as much legitimacy as the RMC. Let's face it - the barrier to entry for creating a trophy is pretty low. Not saying there's no rivalry with Colorado. Just saying that the existence of a trophy is not enough to validate the quality of a rivalry.
which proves my point even more if it were so easy, and y'all felt it is a "rivalry" why hasn't anything been done about it?
I think this is exactly right. In response to aosthed's statement that the rivalry is contrived, the argument seems to be that it's not contrived because we "created" it. Which is exactly what contrived means. A real rivalry is not created by anyone. It just happens. That said, the bullshit with Mastroeni et al was the kind of thing that could be part of the creation of a true rivalry. But unless and until Colorado and RSL develop a history of competing against each other (for something other than the last playoff spot), I can't really see Colorado as a rival. I think LA is more feasible as a rival right now since we beat them in the 2009 final, they beat us in the 2011 conference final, and we have more-or-less competed for the Supporter's Shield in 2010 and the first several months of 2011. But it remains to be seen whether this will turn into a real rivalry or just go by the wayside.
The problem is still that LA doesn't consider us a rival. A rivalry takes two. A one-sided "rivalry" is spitting in the wind. IMHO, eliminating one or the other from a spot in the playoffs is just the thing that sparks and sustains a rivalry, at least as much as anything that's gone down with LA recently. The key difference is, especially now that LA got "revenge" on us for 09, we are just another team to them, of no special consequence. As far as the RMC goes it doesn't matter how the Cup came into existence. What matters is the significance given to it now. As we've all seen players and fans from both sides believe it to be important and an eternal symbol of a "gotcha' last" mentality.
Lets get a club in Vegas and we can call it the I-15 Cup, and a hell of a fun road trip to boot. That would be a fun rivalry.
I don't get how people can say nothing has really been on the line with the cRapids in this rivalry, especially of late. Sabo's 2 goals at the end of regulation, Espy's offsides but not offsides goal. The crossbar this last year. BORCHERS!!! Yeah, it's been one-sided lately in terms of who wins, but it hasn't been a blowout by any means and it hasn't been a fun loving, lets all get along in happiness affair. How exactly does a rivalry have to start in order for you guys to accept it? LA is rivals with SJ (and chivas if you buy that shit) Dallas with Houston Seattle with Portland and Vancouver Toronto with Montreal New York with DC and Philly noticing a theme? These guys are located close to each other/same state/region We share nothing with LA or Dallas.
We are closer to both LA and Dallas than the LA Lakers are to the Boston Celtics. Or the Dallas Cowboys and anyone else in their division. Anyway, while Colorado is the closest MLS team to here, they're still not really close. As a practical matter, Denver isn't really that much closer to Salt Lake than LA is. They are both an all-day drive away, or a short flight away. I think for the most part, a true rivalry requires a history. In my view (and I see how others may disagree), There is not much history between RSL and Colorado, because RSL has little history, period. RSL has played only seven seasons.
If the players, organizations, media, etc. didn't pay attention to the trophy, it wouldn't be a rivalry either. But, the players on the teams play harder in those games, sometimes make asses out of themselves after the games and usually give props to the fans after the games. The organizations facilitate the handling of the trophies before and after the games. The media focuses on the trophy during broadcasts and in describing the games. I'm not sure what else is needed. Simply creating the trophy is not enough, the trophy needs to be respected and the Rocky Mountain Cup is respected. Note, there is also the Ben Cup (two fellows named Ben, one an RSL fan and one a DC fan), but there is no rivalry created just because the teams play for the Ben Cup. That's because nobody pays attention to it besides the two Bens. http://royalreview.blogspot.com/2008/02/early-ben-cup-info.html If nobody but the few supporters who created the RMC paid it any mind, it wouldn't be a rivalry either.
Rivalries take one thing that no fan or front office fabrication can create: Time. MLS "rivalries" are not good examples of rivalries. Most are like RSL's with Colorado: Fabricated media hype and/or a ploy by various front offices to sell more tickets. The only true rivalry in MLS is the one they've got up in the Pacific Northwest. Know why that one is so good? Because those teams have been going at it for 30+ years in the minor leagues. Think of the truly great rivalries in sports: USC/Notre Dame Michigan/Ohio St. Yankees/Red Sox Real Madrid/Barcelona River/Boca Utah/BYU They all have one thing in common, and it's not geography (see USC/Notre Dame). It's that they've all been playing each other for over 100 years. Colorado will most likely end up as RSL's rival. The seeds are there. But it will take time to have a true rivalry, and you can't shortcut it.
Except neither of these apply to the RMC. I'll just point out again how the RMC started. Both forums here on BigSoccer (and elsewhere on the internet) in 2004 were talking about how they couldn't wait to beat the other team and there should be some way to celebrate when they won. That led to me contacting SoccerPrime, who was active in the discussion on this forum, about getting something together, because it would be better coming from the fans who were already into the rivalry rather than wait for something manufactured by the Rapids and Salt Lake FO's (and based on their track record up to that point, probably screwing it up). From there we contacted people who would be interested in organizing it, conducted polls to gauge interest and name the competition, auctioned off items donated by the FO's, players, and fans to raise money to buy the Cup, and the fans awarded it to Clavijo and the Rapids at the end of the series in 2005. At no point were the front offices or the media involved in the organization of the competition or the trophy. We knew that it may take a while for the players and FO's to recognize the rivalry, but the fans were already recognizing the rivalry before any organization of the RMC had started. It was the fans already looking forward to the rivalry that got the RMC started, without that it probably would have resulted in something manufactured by the FO's that we all hated.
Except that they do. The RMC is the genesis of a dozen fans on the internet (as you pointed out). Once wind of it got out that a few fans had made a trophy, both front offices started pitching it as a rivalry game to sell more tickets. The media started calling it a rivalry too. But at the heart of it, pretty much only those original dozen fans think it's a rivalry. The proof is in the pudding: Here, on BigSoccer, where only the most die-hard fans congregate, only about 50% of us think this is a rivalry (hence the reason we're even having this discussion). Since there's about 20 regular posters on here, only 10 people think this is a rivalry. 10! How would you imagine it's viewed among the vast majority of our fans who are not talking about their team on the internet all day when they should be working? Give it time, people. Don't take the typical American "I want it now" approach. Rivalries take time. Colorado and RSL will probably rivals someday, but it will take more than 6 years. USC and Notre Dame weren't rivals after they had played football 6 times...why should this be any different?
Except, as I pointed out, there were more than a dozen fans discussing the rivalry before we organized the RMC. Without the discussion of many fans here on BigSoccer and other places, we wouldn't have started the RMC. Not to mention that we got hundreds of votes in the poll to name the competition. I dug back into the archives and the first thread in late 2004 in the Rapids forum I found regarding the rivalry had 87 votes for a name and 20+ posters in the first 3 pages (of 6).
Really? Because I didn't start going to games till mid-2006, and several of my friends who are now season ticket holders didn't start going till 2007 or 2008, and all of us consider Colorado a hated rival. Several hundred have traveled to the away game (well, from RSL at least) every year for the past few. Tell me, how many fans usually travel to LA for an away match? But you're right, only a few people care about the Rapids... You're confusing "only die-hard fans post on BigSoccer" with "all die-hard fans post on BigSoccer." BigSoccer is a place for people who always have to be right to argue on the internet; soccer just happens to be the subject. Most of the die-hard fans I know couldn't give two shits about BigSoccer, and acting as though snobby online disagreements over what makes a "proper" rivalry translates into whether or not fans in the real world feel that a particular team are our rivals is thoroughly ridiculous.
The point is you guys are giving examples of 100 or 300 or dozens... There are literally 50,000+ Facebook followers for RSL and probably 5 times than many people who consider themselves "a fan" of RSL. You're talking about a minuscule number of people in comparison. When I can ask the 25 guys I play futsal with (all RSL fans, some season ticket holders, some attend a few games a year, all different ethnicities and socio economic backgrounds) on Saturday morning who they think RSL's biggest rival is - TWO said Colorado... and both of those guys are diehards like me. It's anecdotal but so are all the contrary examples.
Absolutely, I'm just pointing out that it wasn't 10-12 guys hanging around BigSoccer. At the same time it wasn't 10,000 fans either. But then most things start with a core group and grow from there. Most "organic" supporters groups started as a group of people numbering in the 10s, regardless of what size they are now.
Sure. So overstating the rivalry of RSL-Colorado doesn't help you to get "there" any faster - it just seems desperate.
Funny how only in the off season does a subject like this take center stage. Colorado vs RSL is a rivalry period. How big it is?: or how big it will become? is open to speculation, for now who the ******** cares its just good that for the time being RSL owns Colorado.
1. Which way/how fast do you drive when you drive to LA that it isn't that much of a difference?! 2. I agree with the history thing. The last 5 years of RSL-cRapid games have had PLENTY of history attached to them
I'm curious as to why you guys that don't view Colorado as a rival are so opposed to it. If you weren't, you wouldn't throw such a fit over this. So RSL can't have a rival because they don't have history. Yet, somehow, over these coming years, they'll create one. But during it you can't call it a rivalry. Not until it's a 100 years old (at least) and then every RSL fan has to absolutely agree that it's the rivalry game. And if one or two games with a big team have a heated nature to them or carry some significance, they will suddenly eliminate the previous 5-7 years of games against the other team... Some of you guys are some serious debbie downers.
I think you are partially right. The league has clearly focused on creating geographic rivalries since its inception. Why? It's good business. However, I think geography plays a HUGE part in rivalries. Anybody who knows anything about Alabama/Auburn or even the Utah/BYU rivalry knows that there are many nuances of the geography that come into play. I can't stand anything about Colorado. Absolutely hate the state. Hate the Broncos. Hate the Avalanche. Can't stand John Elway (see this link). Don't recognize the Nuggets as a pro team. Hate that they think their skiing is on par with ours. Well, you get the point. RSL has the potential for a natural rivalry with Colorado because of this, but it requires a spark to ignite that. I think that thanks to Pablo Mastroeni we have that. RSL/Col. is probably one of the stronger rivalries that exist in MLS - if you attend one of these as an away supporter you'll get that - however, in order to be on the level of rivalries in other sports it needs more time as you pointed out. Over the years, the hatred, and the legacy will build and I'm confident that my grandkids will hate the Rapids even more than I do. Fortunately we know that it will always end the same way...with an abusive parent filming their 5 year old wearing Rapids gear, and crying that they are sad because their team lost to those meanies with Real Salt Lake.
By the same token, I'm curious as to why you guys that do view Colorado as a rival are so bent on making sure we all see it that way. Bottom line is we are full of ourselves. This isn't a rivalry...yet. In 50 years it will be. You don't automatically have a rivalry just because somebody says so (or fabricates a trophy). These things develop organically - you can't force them. The fact that creating a rivalry was being discussed before the teams had even played once just proves that it's not a rivalry - it's contrived. Eventually it will be a rivalry. But it's not there yet.
I haven't seen anyone throw a fit. Well, you used an exclamation point or two in your response before the one I quoted. Does that count?
