Children read names of the lost at ground zero - AP Baseball reveals options for Expos - Portland Oregonian potential expansion implications Playoff chances hurting - Boston Globe Soccer is better game for having known JoAnn Tigrett - Hagerstown Morning Herald, MD very nice story Fire must get red hot to contend for MLS Cup - Chicago Daily Herald Canadian WWC Broadcast News - The Globe and Mail, Canada Soccer programs flourishing in Brevard County - Florida Today just youth soccer article. YA Chris Karagainis' former club gets a mention. Wizards boast truly loyal fans - Kansas City Star
MetroStars confident they won't collapse once again - NY Daily News Revs' Franchino vows to keep his cool - Boston Herald Which Teams Go Still Up In The Air - Hartford CourantTrecker is up! finally. FIFA signs movie deal with acclaimed Hollywood producer - AP A lot of collegiate and prep stories out there today, just check your local to see if there's stuff you might be interested in.
An absolute great article detailing the KC fan base while also giving a breakdown of the Wizards' season ticket sales and plans. Well done. A virtual goldmine for those you (us) who love to crunch these types of numbers.
The KC article is very good stuff. This was interesting too. Stuff like this has got to help. I feel a tipping point coming on.
Heh you're sure right about it being a gold mine. Great article, it's amazing the disparity in the quality of reporting sometimes that we see. This type of trully researched and reported stuff is always great. I'm sure those figures are going to be discussed ad nauseum in the Attendance thread and in the Wizard forum but these are the ones that stuck out most to me. That 38.6 percent is amazing! Man, Lamar must really have been doing some hustling. However, I'm suprised that so few up that number were to youth soccer groups. That doesn't seem that high at all and I'm not sure what that means. Was that number low because of lack of interest, whether it be due to resources or schedualing? Or is it a more conscious effort on part of the Wizards to more away from what we assume to be the MLS rock solid ticket strategy of kids and families? If it isn't a purposefull decision, wouldn't that seem to be one area in which they can hopefully continue to improve upon?
At first glance, this seems to be a slap in the face of MLS. Why doesn't the latino player in this fictional trilogy want to play in MLS? Then I want to know how they will get this fictional character to play in the EPL without having played for the us nats? And will the movie be in English or Spanish?
In regards to the Franchino article in the Boston Herald, there's footage of it on the Revs Video News on their site. It's also being discussed with a link to the video in the Revs forum. Nasty nasty stuff. Not good at all.
You're very welcome. Kpaulson has been holding it down pretty well in regards to this too. Why don't you email Stephan Davis though and tell him he should write more often, it's a damn shame he doesn't.
They didn't make it clear which national team he would play for. If he's from East LA, one would hope the US Nats pick him up.
Since it is an against-the-odds Rocky type of movie, maybe they can use the UK work permit restrictions as a dramatic vehicle. "I know I won't be playing for the Nats until the third movie, but look, I have a cute smile!" "Approved!" *theater crowd cheers* - Paul
"Thumbs Down" -Roger Ebert When I opened the article and the first thing I saw was a picture of Joseph [sic] Blatter, I was afraid FIFA was producing a movie biography of Sepp Blatter! Just the same, with FIFA behind it I expect the movie to be a confused, turgid, FIFA propaganda mess. More "Jigli" than "Rocky".
I agree that a latino kid going to England without becoming a USMNT hero first is a little bit of a stretch. If he's from East LA, it would make more sense for him to want to play with a Mexican team or possibly in the Prima Liga. Here is my five-minute idea for a plot: If they want the cross-over appeal associated with an EPL team, they should go with a young blue-collar inner-city kid with a single mom who is a whiz kid at soccer. They could always give him a buddy that was another race - maybe a rival on the soccer field (a middle class black kid perhaps?) to broaden the appeal. The black kid could be the kind of kid that teases the poor kid whose mom can't afford for him to play on the best club team, isn't in ODP/Youth setup, etc. But secretly, he really respects the poor kid, because he knows how good he is. As a sign of his respect, he gives him a new pair of cleats before the big game in front of college and youth team scouts . . . Then an English scout (there to see the black kid or maybe he is a burned-out English soccer player reduced to refereeing to make a living) thinks he looks like a player somewhere in the back of his mind and it turns out that his father was an English soccer player of prodigious talent who crashed and burned in his career and died early. The scout has to convince the poor kid's mom to let him "reach his full potential", since she is afraid he will turn out just like his dad. His mom finally relents and the burned-out dude convinces an ex-teammate who is a coach in the EPL to signs the player, after he collects his passport from the Home Office. At first the "buddy" (black kid) is jealous and angry that the poor kid is getting the chance and the attention that he was looking forward to getting. The second movie in the trilogy could flesh out the buddy a lot more - they get to know each other at a few U17 type settings and ultimately the "poor" kid helps his buddy (now converted to a solid defensive player in the MLS) get along in his career - giving him some tips and tricks that help him take his concentration and commitment to the next level. Ultimately, they lead the USMNT to glory and compete against each other in a mythical competition between an EPL and MLS team.
yeah it could star Bobby Convey in a type of "Rudy" role. The '5 foot nothing, 100 pound soaking wet' plucky little guy with a dream finally manages to make his way onto the team of his dreams!
To make it even cooler, at first he is playing basketball and won't even look at a soccer ball. But then he just starts playing to prove its easy and that the "buddy/bully" is an idiot. He finds he likes it. It is only later that he admits it to his mom and she has an anxiety attack . . . Then when he gets to England, the culture shock is really bad. They can get some guy who looks like Val Kilmer (the Iceman/Maverick dynamic from Top Gun) to be "the bully" on the EPL youth team he is with. That guy knows stuff about his dad (his dad was a football player who knew him) and tells rumors about what a jerk the kid's dad was, how he wasted his talent and how the kid will turn out the same way. The poor kid prefers urban american image vs british stuff and he gets teased about that too. Even the coaches have a hard time understanding him and wonder if they have made a mistake in bringing him over. It gets so bad that he starts thinking about quitting and going back to the USA. But his "buddy" visits him in England "on holiday". In trying to impress his "buddy", he has a great game for the reserves, but still isn't sure about staying. The Buddy is blown away with how professional everything is and convinces the poor kid to stay, saying he could be the hero for every US kid who wants to star in the EPL . . . and that hardly anyone else has the chance he has - he just has to prove how good he is. So the poor kid redoubles his efforts, goes out and works hard on his basic skills (the classic working after practice in the driving rain/waking up in the middle of the night to do push-ups type scene/eating raw eggs to add bulk) and ends up being the only kid to be offered a first team spot from the youth academy that year.
I think the guy should pretend he's gay so he can live with two female roommates. But the landlord will be suspicious! Lots of mix-ups could happen.
Or he could dress up as a GIRL, and play on the team from Bend it Like Beckham, Rodney Dangerfeild could be involved somehow if he's not already dead.