The hate is back. It never left, really, but for the past year there was something worth hating more than DC United. It was Alexi Lalas. He caused my team more pain, set us back further on and off the field than any loss or series of losses could have. The big, red-haired assclown may have bought us free beer, but he'd have done us a bigger favor by giving us cyanide-tainted Sierra Mist or heavy doses of oxycontin in preparation for his tenure. Charlie Stillatano was stupid. Nick Sackiewicz was delusional. Alexi was both. And he was a liar, a bad liar, to boot. Even his BFF Waldo said as much. So for the past year my hate, which is substantial, was directed not at traditional rival - yes, RBNY and DC are rivals, though more in the way of Ike and Tina rather than, say, Notre Dame/Michigan - but at one man. A man who'd bought me and my friends beer. That says something. But it's all gone now. Ok, that's a lie; it'll never be gone. I still hate Lalas with a passion and want to see him fail at every step in his career. If he hadn't had the good fortune to hire a competent coach and luck into the best player in the league, I'm sure he'd already have done for the Galaxy what he did for San Jose (fold) or Metro (sold). And that would have been so, so sweet. But as long as Yallop and Donovan are there, the Galaxy will be competitive. And I'm sort of ok with that. I have strong faith that Lalas will get his comeuppance, which he deserves as much for his lying, grandstanding pomposity as he does for Woodland, Jet Lag, and Ginger. If you're wondering, those are his three studio albums with his band "The Gypsies". I've never listened to so much as a note, but I feel comfortable proclaiming them satan-inspired a-tonal anti-music best launched into the sun a la the world's nuclear arsenal in Superman IV. The reason I don't hate Lalas anymore is simple: There's too many positives going on with RBNY right now to be negative. I never thought I'd say it, but it's true. Bruce Arena may have proved himself to be less than a great coach in Germany this past summer, but his previous 20 years proved him to be more than just an above-average soccer mind. His recent, excellent Grant Wahl interview may have been bitter and vindictive, but he was typically spot-on. Suddenly my club has ownership with a plan, and a guy who's had as much success coaching as anyone in the history of North American soccer (yes, you read that correctly) steering. So, no time for hate, now. I'm taking my cues from Il Bruce. I'm now smugly, arrogantly confident. So now that I'm not busy hating Alexi Lalas 24 hours a day anymore, I can go back to doing what Metro fans do best: Hating DC United. They were always the polar opposite of us (save for the Rongen years), in that they found, nurtured, developed and kept young American talent. They made smart moves with their SI slots, had a dedicated, intelligent front office, and the two best coaches in league history. We, on the other hand, had giant dogs with plastic ********ing bowler hats and Sasha Curcic. We had forwards who rarely scored, and when they did dedicated it to incarcerated Colombian drug lords. We had a guy who was an all-time MLS first-11 talent in Clint Mathis. Three years in Jersey turned him into a beer league fatty. They had Jaime Moreno, the best player in league history until he blew out his back. So they offloaded him to us for a year, a season he spent in the stands with his ridiculously hot wife watching a young, promising Metro team recover from the Mess Octavio Zambrano left. At the end of the season everyone thought he was done, so when DC offered... geez, I don't even remember. Was it a bag of chips and yearlong subscription to Maxim? Anyway, when DC offered anything, we were more than happy to see the back of Jaime. He was a wobbling, not even walking, corpse at that point. Naturally he led them to the championship the next season and has been a paragon of physical fitness since. So I hate DC United. I hate their pompous, fat, ignorant fans, their ChiCom-run board here at BigSoccer, and the horse they rode in on. I hate Ben Olsen, Freddy Adu, Jaime Moreno and that little rat Eskandarian. And for the first time, I have confidence that they'll have reason to hate us back. In closing, I'd like to leave you with this image of the two respective fanbases. That'd be Metro on the left and DC on the right. Which one looks more likely to have a worthwhile future?
It must kill you to know that any success RBNY has is thanks to importing people from DC United (Arena, Harkes, Kovalenko). You had to figure that would be the only way. By the way, I wouldn't start talking fan bases until you draw 16,000 without a team from another country and/or concert.
All New York/New Jersey guys. Only way you folks ever won anything was by stealing our best talent. The fact that we can draw even half that after 10 years of Stillitano/Sackiewicz/Lalas is a testament to the amount of violent head trauma suffered yearly in the Tri-State area. PS - That's you in the picture, right?
wow, up until now i had only watched RBNY casually (as im from Long Island, its my team by default), but seeing your irrational passion has stirred something deep inside me. I am one step closer to being rabid redbull supporter. I will be at the stadium asap.
So true, Gros and Alecko are Jersey through and through and even played on some Metro youth development teams. They should be our guys. Harkes is also a Jersey kid. Arena is a New Yorker. I all read lately from camp DC is insults masked in fear. They know all to well what waits for them in the future. A team with limitless resources in NY, run by their former golden man Arena, whom apperently is no longer the greatest MLS coach ever since he signed with NY, a team with a blossuming youth academy just waiting for MLS approval to start flooding the club with young professionally trained talent, a team opening the best stadium in the league in 2 years, and a team that by all accounts just ran them off the field last night (no goals, but they deserved the points). DC lately has really steped up the excuse machine and the masked comments. There is real fear in them, they will never admit it but its there and it shines through in almost every post they make.
On the bright side, it seems like the Atlantic cup's rebranding has been more successful than the Metro's.
Not to nitpick, but Kovalenko is from Ukraine by way of Rochester. Rochester is about as close to the NYC area as DC is. And your best young player, Seth Stammler, has DC ties. I have no doubt Arena will get MetroBull playing much better - he's a great coach. The shape and organization on the field were significantly better last night than they have been. But they also happened to play against a DC team that had by far its worst performance of the season. There are still too many crap players on RBNY to make them a significant contender.
Um, which Gros are you referring to? The one born and raised in central Pennsylvania who happens be #17 on DC's roster? Going to college in jersey didn't erase the first 18 years of his life.
Rochester, New York. Doesn't mean he's not a New Yorker. Seth's not that young, and he's not that good either. He's not bad, but he's hardly a future all-star. In fact, he's older than Philly's own Jeff Parke, who's a much better player. Philly is just a suburb of Staten Island, by the way.
Thankfully, I've managed to avoid anything between Princeton and Massachusetts up til this moment in life. Maybe once you guys build that new stadium, I'll make a trip to almost new york.
You're kidding, right? Why don't you claim Connecticut, Rhode Island, and northern Pennsylvania while you're at it too? Rochesterians identify with the tri-state-area about as much as Bostonians do.
In related news, that means DC gets to claim everything east of Louisiana and south of northern Pennsylvania and Ohio. I'll take that trade.
So hot you can't see her face in the picture. Nice. First, your daddies were paying to bus you down here for road games, and now they're paying for your dates? FOR SHAME, SIR!!! you kids get 2 points off of us in a season and start lightin up the pyro!! LEGITIMACY!! FINALLY!!! WOOHOOO!!
Matrim: unfortunately I'm not able to rep that first post. Can we just send you an Earthquakes jersey?
Lets see... the girl is ignoring the metro... whilst holding the DCU fans hand and pointing in the direction of the exit. My guess is she is asking if he'd like to take her home.
I'm guessing the DC United fan turned down the girls offer. What's the difference between trash and Jersey girls? Trash gets picked up...
Not going to score PC points here, but I have to say there is always something obnoxious about a hot woman abusing the in-your-face taunt, since it innately skirts and flirts with the edge of violence. This is more than cancelled out, however, by my gratitude for the hot woman attending an MLS match in the first place, and showing up in a bikini on BigSoccer. So now do I get those points back?
In general I agree with you, but this instance is different. DC "Fans" - mostly hermaphrodites from what I can tell - have a tradition of coming into 101 (the ESC section) during our games, trying to start fights and in general being petty douchebags. I'm not accusing all DC fans of this, mind you. Most of them are just douchebags, not petty douchebags. The image captures one of those instances. This poor fellow had consumed half his weight in $7 Budweisers and thought it would be fun to come into the ESC and cause trouble. He proceded to get his ass kicked by a girl. For what it's worth, RBNY moved the DC supporter's section to the upper deck last night for the first time. There were still two attempts by their "Firm" to initiate handbags with the ESC, but the yellow-shirted jackboots known as NJSEA security stopped them quickly. First time for that.