Even more . . . Stuff from other MLS Teams

The good news today is that Monterrey absolutely throttled SKC in CCL, agg 10-2.

 

Kudos to SKC for thinking they could play open against one of the best teams in the region. Also, WHY THE ******** did they think they could play open against one of the best teams in the region?

 

I usually support any MLS team that's in this competition. SKC is the exception

 

The ones I will not support are SKC, Colorado and the Canadian teams.

 

I'm too much of a homer. I only support RSL, screw the rest of the MLS.

 

Update on the MLS Territories: At the end of week 7 there are only 5 teams remaining with territories. With a lack of rules on splitting territories out for wins, there won't be any more than 5 teams with territories for the remainder of the season. I wonder how long it would've taken for the land changes to happen if the territories only changed hands after away victories. Maybe I'll analyze that later...

 

That LA Hegemony...

 

So Garber announced that the league will next expand to 30 teams. The Supporters' Shield is quickly becoming meaningless.

 

Did it ever have any meaning?

It's kinda like winning the NIT Championship in College hoops. Nice but no one every remembers who won that tournament unless it was back in the 40's.

 

To some fans, the trophy for best team over 32 games outweighs the one for our version of a cup tournament. But in popular imagination, the champion of that tournament is definitely the preferred outcome.

 

Of course he did. Nobody expected him to just stop at 28 teams.

 

I mean Garber has less power than the Queen of England but sure, it was his decision

 

I just had an image of Garber singing "You'll Be Back" while dressed as the king of England. Thanks for that!


Imagine how bad I'd be if I drank...

 

While I often lament our low goal numbers, today the Revs had their first shot on goal by a Center Forward this season. How can this happen?

 

If you ask Brad Friedel its because the fans don't threaten his players enough or something like that (obviously stated with an "acquired" British accent)

 

I guess his British accent helps his players take him more seriously?

 

It's because their forward has been shooting away from goal up to this point.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/baauyh/teal_bunbury_amazing_shot_in_columbus_crew_vs_new/

 

Carlos Vela with LAFC has scored just as many goals as our entire team (of course he's had an extra game to do it). He's scored more goals than Columbus, Montreal, Cincinnati, NYCFC, New England, NYRB, Atlanta, Vancouver, and Portland.

Add in his assists and he's contributed to more goales than most teams in the league.

 

He is one of two must-watch players in the league this season, the other being Alejandro Pozuelo of TFC. I put Zlatan right behind them, but the players around him make a big difference; he remains most likely to do something mind blowing. Right behind them is Alberth Ellis of Houston, and Josef Martinez should return to last year's form soon.

I actually think we have the most players on the same team who are capable of something remarkable, though without the same regularity as those others.

 

While the sample size isn't big enough to really say for sure, he has proven to be one of the best DP's in league history to me. And that's just focusing on production alone. The market he's in, with his background, is pretty much a grand slam.

I'm still very shocked and annoyed that this club hasn't gone after a big time Mexican international player.

 

Or a Brazilian and not for the reason that everyone expects. We have heard many players from Europe talk about dealing with the long distances involved for games in MLS. I would go for a Brazilian due the fact that Brazil is also large country and travelling long distances for road games isn't all that unheard of. Currently, in the Brazilian Serie A, there are teams located from Fortaleza (Ceara and Fortaleza) all the way down to Porto Alegre (Gremio and Internacional). To travel from Fortaleza to Porto Alegre involves a plane change along the way (probably Sao Paulo or Rio) and almost 6 hours (or more) of travel time. Flying non-stop is around 5 hours so I would think that players who are used to that kind of road trip would have no problem dealing with long MLS road trips.

Now, dealing with altitude, that would be a different problem....

 

What about Jaded Borgetti?

 

I don't know Brazilian soccer well at all, but I thought they kept things fairly regionalized and then had the "state champions" play each other towards the end of the season. Am I way off on that?

edit: Brazilian Serie A picks up this Saturday for Match Day 1, talk about timing. And it looks like the distances there are very similar to MLS for the furthest away teams. However, most of the teams are fairly centrally located (around Sao Paulo and Rio) as opposed to MLS where a majority of the teams are on opposite sides of the land mass (west coast and east coast). It's an interesting contrast.

Brazil does a balanced schedule of everyone playing home and away, so I wonder if travel turns out to be similar/less/more than MLS. I'm sure someone has done this research somewhere...

 

I think as MLS continues to expand, we'll see more regionalization. I'm an advocate of going to three conferences when the league hits 30. Play everyone in your conference twice and everyone outside of your conference on a rotating basis home/away just once. Top two teams from each conference make the playoffs with the next two best teams earning a wildcard.

If MLS went to 32, I'd have no doubt we'd see an NBA/NHL style setup with East and West divided into regions. SLC is kinda screwed because of its isolation so even if RSL is in a region with Colorado, Sacramento and Phoenix, road trips for fans are going to suck.