Coach's/Commish/GM Forum Tomorrow

I feel your pain. My whole family still thinks my obsession with football is just a phase. Sure it's a phase that has lasted 4 years!!!

 

Both Dish network and DirecTV should have TeleFutura, depending on what packages they're in. There's an El Vaquero on the west side near I-70 that shows MLS games (so they might put it on), or soccer fans have also gone to Papa Simon which is on East Broad, for these hard-to-watch games.

Unless TW gets Telefutura, CCS seems to be no-go.

Are all the games on Telefutura? Aren't they owned by Unvision? And if that's the case, is there any chance of Univision showing games?

 

So they had to schedule this thing on my wife's birthday. For some reason the idea of me taking off for Columbus doesn't appeal to her, despite my offer of bringing her along.

 

Maybe, but they'd have to promise not to do that humiliating "gather the poor, overworked serving staff together and march them through the restaurant behind someone carrying a cupcake with a cheap candle in it while clapping their hands and singing some incomprehensible song with the word birthday in it" routine.

Hey, what a great way to celebrate grandma's 79th: have a bunch of bored-looking total strangers wearing ill-fitting corporate uniforms hollering at you.

My kids actualy did this to me once at an Olive Garden. It took all of my willpower to keep from grabbing a dinner fork and assaulting everyone in sight.

 

Olive Garden will now try this as a way to improve business.

 

Trust me, they hate it as much as you do. I had a friend that worked at Olive Garden and he said that was the best way to tell the rookies from the lifers; if you're out singing that stupid birthday thing you were a noob and didn't know how to be buried in the back room with food or making sure the complimentary water was cold and topped off.

At least we now know where to treat Bill to a pre-game meal...

 

I think we may have just heard the story about how Mrs. fid became Mrs. fid...

 

This is the day that the beautiful people are all born on.

I read that somewhere. It's a fact.


I'd go to this forum if I didn't already have plans to drink up in Cleveland tonight. They should have let me know earlier. (Fiddy don't jump in here and tell me we've known about this for months.. because maybe I didn't)

 

anybody go to this?

 

I went. Sigi, Mark M, Garber, Gaven, and Thomas took questions. First question was to Sigi about how interested he was in the USMNT job. He said it's a dream of soccer coaches to coach in the world cup just like players want to play in it. Says he hasn't had talks with USSF.

Garber was asked about stadium progress. Said RedBulls break ground in Harrison in September. Said the Philadelphia stadium at Rowan U in south Jersey was funded in the NJ state budget passed a couple weeks ago. Need to finalize the ownership group to add Philly. DC stadium deal is stalled in Congress.

I asked why we didn't get an allocation for Fraser's retirement. Sigi said he had asked the same question and it was based on whether the player was still under contract, and how significant he was to his team. He said Preki was grandfathered in and that there shouldn't be retirement allocations in the future for Kreis, Jones, Ralston, Meola, etc.

Sigi said he had a couple of forward prospects he was looking at. He said we tried to make some trades, including one for Brian Ching.

Thomas said he was going to try to be more of a leader on the field since most of our vocal guys are hurt currently. Gaven and Thomas were asked who were the team's leaders and they mentioned Hejduk, Busch, Pierce, and Kotschau.

 

Yes, it was sparsly populated though. Gavin and Thomas were the players in attendance. Most of the questions were directed at Garber.

Just some quick notes on what was talked about (I will try to write more later):

Stadiums: Garber said that the defeat in Sandy, Utah put RSL's stadium about a year behind but that they believe it will get done. He also mentioned that people from Rochester had looked into moving the RSL franchise there (unlikely to happen). All other stadium news was pretty positive.

Parking: Garber & McCullers spent a lot of time lobbying earlier today. They met with the State Legislature. They are trying to get all of the areas north of Black and Gold Blvd. paved in the next budget.

Concerts: They are trying to continue with concerts (yet mindful of the pitch conditions). McCullers also stated about swapping the North and South ends to facilitate better arrangements for concerts.

Beckham Rule: Garber says this is to codify what is already going on with players like LD and Adu. It is for more transparency to the player salary issue.

Allocations: They are moving away from the arbitrary mechanism for awarding allocations towards a formula (which supposedly could be published). Ultimately not a satisfying answer on how some allocations are still awarded.

Allocations (Crew use of): McCullers again reiterated that he wants to make sure to bring in the right guy. He is extremely patient with using allocations

Player movement (future): Sigi is still searching for people to bring in and score goals. Jansen may be a possibility. Eberson (sp?) is a player that may figure into next years plans. He also alluded to more moves that have not made the paper or the rumor mill.

Player movement (past): Sigi looked into bringing in Brian Ching. I would imagine the price was too high. He said that Marcos Gonzales was a move that was working out and that Sebastian Rozental was a move that was not working out.

Crew Training Facility: The Crew have put out a request for information regarding building a new facility with an indoor training and sports medicine building. Additionally, there would be 10-20 fields for to create a large soccer centric complex. McCullers compared the idea to Pizza Hut Park's surronding fields. He said that there have been discussions with several communities in the area.

 

I guess it would be an improvement over the old one out in Obetz.

 

Thanks for the reports, guys!

I won't hold my breath, but it's nice to hear that they're still actively working on this.

Speaking of which, I wasn't able to go to Saturday's Galaxy match, but I was very pleased with the condition of the parking lots at the Wednesday Red Bulls game. There was some nice new pavement on some of the roads, and there was some nice asphalt/gravel on the road/grass interfaces.

hmm, maybe it would help if he was on the field

 

I attended as well. Always curious about the low turn-outs to these deals. If you have the opportunity it is a great chance to get some answers.

On Garber, I have not always been his biggest fan but the guy accounted himself well. He didn't dodge any questions (mostly gave the same answers as he has in press conferences on typical questions), he didn't talk down to or patronize the audience. He actually looked like he was enjoying the chance to talk to fans. As he said afterwards it's what he does for a living.

I like him a great deal more after tonight than before.

Some quick highlights that I recall.

1) There is no time frame for moving away from league controlled player contracts. It has to do with the movement of the league in general it sounded like it will come with the break-up of single-entity. No real surprise there.

2) The subject of contracts and pay incentives for wins was brought up and discussed in the meeting with players earlier in the day. So the subject is being actively pursued and discussed with the players at this time.

3) In a brief discussion afterwards he said the bargaining agreement with the players union ends in 2009 and there is an expectation that the players are going to want their cut of any profits generated at that time. As of this time the league has yet to show a profit.

4) We are stuck with USSF ref's. I asked him if there was any chance MLS could take it over. A flat "no" was the response.

5) U.S. players will be considered internationals for the purposes of the Toronto franchise (no big surprise). But he did say that to incentivize Toronto to use their 3 international spots on U.S. players they would release four more international slots if the initial 3 are used on U.S. players.

Garber went on to say that getting the ownership group on board was a good move because of their other professional sports ownership experience.

6) The way Garber discussed future expansion it sounds like Cleveland is dead or at least a long way from having anything real happen. Assumption on my part taken from his lack of discussion concerning Cleveland when discussing expansion and then adding at the end that perhaps eventually Cleveland. But it sounded like a throw away to me.

7) The league big wigs were brought to WC as guests of Addidas. Addidas is strong behind the league. MLS took Addidas over Nike because of the Addidas commitment to soccer in general and the U.S. market in particular. He recalled that MLS/soccer was number 50 on the list of Nike sports focuses.

8) While at WC Garber/MLS, ESPN, and others were made to have an audience with Sep Blatter during which Sep pretty much tore them a new one about how the league needs to get itself in line with standard FIFA procedure (seasons, players acquisition, league structure, etc.). He didn't seem that concerned and wrote it off as Sep's just not understanding the U.S and the approach to soccer over here.

9) Garber didn't sugar coat or dodge the fact that Columbus isn't a big market and that through sheer need of footprint we are going to be somewhat less important than NY, DC, or LA. But he does realize the balance needed to keep these markets viable while building those. Sound business talk, never certain how true it is.

10) Garber said that the revenues from LA pump enough money into the revenue sharing stream equal to 3-4 other smaller market teams.

11) The Beckham rule and paying Landon, Adu, EJ, etc. over the cap. Fiscal neccesity to draw crowds and build the reputation of the league for keeping and developing players. Reminded us that McB had been extended beyond the cap to keep him here for PR reasons.

When asked about the Beckham rule and why we don't get a mega-star player. His answer had mostly to do with financial allocation and availabiltiy. Again, he said that the issue had been discussed during the player meeting as well. I was pretty surprised by that, I wouldn't have thought the guys would have been interested in the point.

Bottom line Ranaldo isn't coming to C'bus anytime soon.

12) Garber is still impressed by the number of people we can get in the stadium for big events. USMNT, All-Star game, etc. But with the new stadiums coming in it will become more competitive for these events within the league. He still ranks the first US/Mex game here as one of his favorite.

13) Garber got pretty excited when discussing the new stadiums and there qualities. Looks like we ate still moving backwards in the attrative stadium discussion. My thinking, we are rapidly moving to being referred to as being "quaint".

It's late, so done for now.

 

You're killing me Myshap. You will see why when they put the notebook up on Wednesday.

Good call!

 

"You're not fooling anyone - you'll be stone dead in a moment"

 

yeah, i mean it's the Bucks and all, but he goes out and plays 90 minutes and gets 3 assists? Let's give the man another chance to start, expecially with some more quality play up top...

 

NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDS

Good to have you back Sirk.

 

Forgot to mention that Sigi calculated that bad goalkeeping had cost us 8 points in the standings. He didn't attribute all the lost points to the backup keepers.

 

I also went to this. I'd highly reccommend that everybody attend these in the future. If you're interested enough in the team and the league to post here, then you'd love it trust me. Plus, we need more people there. There was maybe around 30 people there. There were more people there wearing Everton jerseys than Crew jersey's, due to the fact that I was the only one there wearing a Crew jersey.

Anyway, here's my thoughts.

What I found interesting abou this is that Sigi started out by saying that "it's an honor to be considered" for the job, but then concluded by saying he hasn't spoken to US Soccer about the job. If he hasn't spoken to them, how does he know he's been considered? I could be wrong on this, but I don't remember US Soccer publicly stating that they were considering him. Although he was careful not to say one way or the other, I got the impression that he would take the job if it were offered to him.

On the 19th, I believe. He also said the stadium was designed by the same person who designed Schalke '04's stadium and it would be a similar design. He said it would be 30,000 seats and all stands would be coverd by a roof all the way to the front row.

And they also both mentioned Oughton.

He actually said that they are already using a non-arbitrary formula which could possibly found on mlsnet, but he didn't seem too sure about that.

This was the first I'd heard of this. It's pretty interesting, especially considering how new the Obetz facility is. McCullers didn't sound too happy with the team's relationship with the city of Obetz, but he didn't really say anything specific about it.

This wasn't the impression that I got at all. I thought that the fact that he mentioned Cleveland without anyone even asking about it was promising.

He didn't really hide the fact that he doesn't care much what Sepp thinks. He got a good laugh when he commented that Sepp's getting old, so we don't have to worry about him for much longer anyway.

Garber added that MLS/SUM has brought more soccer events (including National Team games, which SUM promotes) to Columbus than any other market, including NY and LA.

I can't really think of anything else that hasn't already been mentioned. This is the first time I've been to one of these events, so it was also the first time I'd seen and heard these guys in such an intimate environment. I must say, I was impressed by Don, Sigi, and Mark.

Sigi didn't have a ton to say (Garber did most of the talking), but I get the impression that Sigi is a guy that knows his shit. He talks about soccer like a financial analyst talks about the stock market. And I got the impression from McCullers that he's absolutely, 100%, dead serious about this franchise. I left this meeting ten times more confident about this franchise and it's leadership than when I arrived. And I felt pretty good abou things in the first place. Anyway, like I said, I'd strongly recommend that everybody make it to the next one. It's a lot of fun if you're a soccer geek like me.