Sounds like Nashville is getting an expansion franchise since The Don will be there today for a "major announcement". At least I would think that was the case, but with MLS, you never can tell. They might just be announcing that that in the future, there will be another major announcement about something really, really important.
Of course the announcement is Nashville getting an MLS franchise, but until they actually announce it, they can still be Lucy pulling the football away from our Charlie Brown.
I will be surprised by that as an outcome. I think it will resemble Minnesota more than Atlanta. They have a sure thing in Sacramento and a very likely good thing in Cincinnati, yet they go for what appears to be a complete unknown in a metro pop 1/3 the size of Atlanta's. The region is generally unfavorable towards soccer. College football is king, queen, and the entire peerage. Basketball is how you pass the winter and spring. Summer is for tubing on the rivers with beer, then football again.
I don't know that the region is unfavorable towards soccer. Right next door the ACC has elite university soccer programs. Yes, college football is king. I'm from that region and I can tell you that the people need a professional sports entertainment to fill the time between football seasons. I would say the attitude towards soccer is similar to that in Northern Utah. Youth soccer is big. Its a University town and a State Capitol. The South is still a growing area and the only MLS clubs there are Atlanta and Orlando. Strategically I think its a good decision. Would Sacramento and Cincinnati have been good choices also? Sure.
I spend a lot of time in Nashville, and it's a stronger soccer town than most would think. I've watched a number of World Cup matches in sports bars there, and witnessed the support and knowledge they have for the sport first hand. They've also been strong supporters of the USMNT whenever its visited Nashville. It's much smaller than Atlanta, so of course it won't be anything like Atlanta. If that's the standard to measure against, all new expansion teams will likely be a failure - there are very few cities out there in that size range currently without a team. IMO Nashville a much better than choice than Cincinnati (which btw is less than 300 miles from Nashville and in that "region" you mentioned above). Nashville proper is actually larger than both Sacramento and Cincy, but both have much larger metropolitan populations - however, when it comes to soccer support, I'm not sure that's the best proxy for success. I'll be fairly surprised if Sacto doesn't end up with one of the other 3 spots. The other hidden factor about Nashville is the factor that local celebrity support can play. When you have Nicole Kidman, Kid Rock or Carrie Underwood on the radio or tv talking about how much they love going to the games, it creates an energy and excitement in the city that's hard to explain. I've marveled at this for years when it comes to the Predators and this hit a crescendo this year when the Preds made the Stanley Cup. I was in town during this, and it was a crazy scene on Broadway. If they can manage to capture even a portion of that early on with the MLS team, it has a strong chance for success.
I genuinely hope you are correct. As to Sacramento... we've seen the football pulled away by Lucy so many times now that I'm convinced MLS genuinely doesn't want them.
He is very high-payed player about bulgarian club, may our budget is lower than his year salary Its a little proud for us, that our forward is on top 3 goalscorer brazilians in Europe right now! Haha, i think in Real Salt Lake played one of CSKA bests defensive midfielders (Sunday). How he played in MLS?
1) On the third highlight, check out the defender he beats to the ball. 2) Alas, if he hadn't come back, then that highlight against Colorado to end the season and get us in the playoffs would have been my enduring image of him.
Stoichkov linked Dallas with our owner and staff, after that they signed left back from us. Two months ago, we signed Alberg from Philadelphia.. Anton is a great full back, who can play without problems in one of top 5 competions in Europe, but his choice was MLS. He has a skills to play in the best american teams
Kreis is apparently about to snag Sacha Kjlestan from NYRB. Loads of players in and out of the club - they will have the most roster turnover, by far, in MLS unless LAG doesn't re-sign several of their vets.
Interesting...for some reason Kjlestan seems like a Kreis type of player. A lot of work to do in Orlando. Will be interesting to see if Kreis can pull it off. Likely his last chance if not.
I would shit on NYRB but they seem to do this kind of thing each year and are still at the very least competitive if not good.
I'll probably take some criticism for this, but I would have gladly traded Kjlestan for Movsisyan. But then, I would have gladly traded Movsisyan for a box of rocks at this point.
there are few players I wouldn't gladly trade Yura for. Hell, I'd trade Yura for some solid corner flags