Legends Cup Final: Chattanooga FC: 0 - Detroit City FC 3 The good guys lost. Let me start by saying, objectively, Detroit City is the best team in the league. Not necessarily by having far superior talent, but their coaching and discipline is just simply amazing. Especially for a D3 side. I will also get my "excuses for CFC" out of the way: the 9 day rest for being the top seed certainly seemed too much for them - they were out of sync and looked nothing like they did in the group stage; and the refereeing was atrocious. To be clear, the refs didn't cause Chattanooga to consistently pass the ball directly to Detroit's players and, despite how it looked from the stands, Detroit was not actually playing with 20 men on defense. However, when they missed the second flagrant handball in the box for Detroit, well... it certainly affected the game. Still, kudos to Detroit: they are an absolute machine. The scored first off of a corner and I unfortunately missed it because the beer lines were... very long 1386501519281885191 is not a valid tweet id Goal 2 was penalty as a result of contact in the box. No arguments there except how unevenly justice was distributed in this game. I need to revise my previous assessment of how boring Detroit is to watch. In retrospect, I think I came to this conclusion because I only ever saw them in the second half of their games. They started this game absolutely electric: they had Chattanooga completely pinned back, jumping at shadows, and the action was completely in CFC's defensive third. As I said, CFC was out of sorts anyway (they wound up subbing off their captain, Juan Hernandez, and there was an immediate, vast improvement - which is a bit of a shock to write) but once Detroit scored their second goal, they shifted to a more defensive position. This is, apparently, what I've had to sit through in every other game: it's just a completely stifling defense. They let the other team move all the way up to the 18, then there is just what looks like 50 people packed in on defense. Chattanooga looked much better after the half, but they (like everyone else in this tournament) simply could not get any good looks in front of goal. Detroit's last goal was a free kick off of a foul that (surprise surprise) had no merit. The final whistle blew as soon as they scored - literally - and you could see that CFC just had no fight left in them. So Detroit City is the Legends Cup winner and they did it by not conceding a single goal. It really is a pity that there is USOC this season, because I really would like to see how this team would stack up against other leagues. The spring regular season starts on Saturday with Michigan Stars hosting New Amsterdam and Detroit City hosting Maryland Bobcats. On Sunday, Chattanooga plays Cal United in Irvine.
Correction: Stars will be hosting NAFC... somewhere... 🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/PUAqzBf81a— Michigan Stars Football Club (@MichiganStarsFC) April 26, 2021 Announcing your stadium isn’t, uh, really even started 5 days before your home opener would probably be pretty embarrassing if they had any fans. We are fortunate to have been selected to build the stadium for The Michigan Stars. Here are the first pieces to the beautiful multi-million dollar facility @MichiganStarsFC are in the process of building! Going to be a beauty! pic.twitter.com/XPQ9xXkv1D— Turf of America (@turf_america) April 26, 2021
Congrats to Detroit City winning the Legends Cup by going 1W-1D-0L! Can't wait for the Grassroots Cup, a week-long cup tournament in Michigan where we judge the winner after playing two matches in group table overall!
Detroit won the Legends Cup by going 3W-1D-0L. They didn't just play 2 games, but you definitely tried there.
Uh huh. They didn't though. The group table determined the semi-final/final seeding. Which Detroit City won both of to actually be named the champion. I'm not sure what you're clowning on here. If it worked the way you are saying, Chattanooga would be the champions by going 2W-0D-0L in the group stage. Who cares if Detroit didn't win both of their group stage games? They finished on top of their group and won the extra knockout game they had to play because they didn't win them both.
I would probably just add more group stage matches into the mix. Instead of a one week tournament, it would be a month-long thing akin to NWSL Challenge Cup. My personal opinion, I don't think having two brief matches in the group stage is any sort of metric that a team is, well "good". It doesn't matter now since the only week-long cup tournament concluded and it was mainly due to COVID reasons, even though sports leagues aren't doing a "sports bubble" anymore. Although it was funny to see the twitterverse saying Detroit City's coach is the best coach in Division 3. John Harkes of Greenville Triumph coached in more matches than Detroit City's coach did in 2 years. His overall record is 32W-10D-11L while DCFC's coach overall record is 6W-3D-2L from my quick analysis.
This is both hard with 9 teams and would make it exceedingly more expensive the more games you added. Which would almost certainly cost more than a regular fall and spring regular season combined. Budgets are small in D3. And yet, I think we got a pretty good idea of who was good and otherwise. Two weeks. Chattanooga had 9 days off from their 2nd group stage game to the final. I'm also not sure what your issue is with them doing a "sports bubble" tournament, given that when they had to plan the season, it was pretty unclear how the pandemic would affect the ability to host games in several club members' states. But I guess "we aren't doing that anymore" so they should have just risked it. Really, I'm shocked that Detroit City fans have a bias for their coach. FWIW, he's: 9W-3D-2L if we're counting NISA only, which equates to 2.14 points per game, vs. Harkes' 2 ppg. although I don't put a ton of stock in that, given the sample size.
It's telling that a league has all these filler cup tournaments that they come up with, whereas they haven't completed a season, yet. Then do just that instead of another cup tournament, LOL. Should've delayed the regular season start date to now. I'm pretty sure travel costs were expensive. Sending all 9 teams to Chattanooga for one week and back increases the risk. Respectfully disagree. I mean, a lot of sports leagues were either pushing their starting date later in the year. Another sports bubble was a non-starter for any of these unionized sports leagues, including MLS and USL. Testing kits are widely available. Teams are vaccinating staff and players. The outlook has been more promising than a couple of months ago.
Yes, very telling. Clearly it was foolish for them to schedule their first full season just before an unprecedented pandemic hit. Then they wouldn’t have any off-season before the fall. There was basically zero danger of Tennessee shutting down or enacting quarantines. This was definitely the lowest risk alternative. Having watched at least one half of every game, the final table stacked up pretty much exactly to what I saw. This was borne out by the results of day 4, where there were no blowouts. Ok. While I’m sure you’re better informed of the specifics than those that are actually putting the money into this (I mean, how can they be trusted since they clearly missed the indisputable fact that “we aren’t doing bubble tournaments anymore”), we do need to at least consider the fact that the USOC had to be canceled, despite your assurances that everything is business as usual out there.
NISA should switch to a Spring to Fall calendar. Michigan still has the highest cases though. Since league transparency is rather opaque on these dealings, we don't know if the 9 (including DCFC, Stars) clubs has testing kits or the entire team and staff have been vaccinated. USOC isn't outright canceled. They're pushing the start date until later in the year, whether it will still happen is up in the air. Just another burden and layer that most people wouldn't want to partake which is understandable. Ironically 2022 US Open Cup qualifying began last week.
https://www.nisasoccer.com/news/2021/04/29/nisa-announces-bein-sports-xtra-game-of-the-week-schedule NISA ANNOUNCES BEIN SPORTS XTRA GAME OF THE WEEK SCHEDULE Apr 29, 2021
How much is NISA paying BeIN to broadcast their matches on their platform? I would've gone to the YouTube/Twitch route, BeIN isn't going to garner any draw or reach, especially on a set of filler channels people aren't enticed to watch (frankly BeIN did a solid for them since NISA are paying them to broadcast)
My understanding from interviews with John Prutch is that based on the viewing numbers of the fall tournament, they weren’t paying BeIN this year. I don’t think they’re making anything from it, but I don’t think they’re paying, either.
Prutch did say that BeIN isn't paying them, but an assumption that the league is paying BeIN instead for league exposure. One might think broadcasting on YouTube wouldn't cost an arm or a leg to broadcast.
Well, it would to get the production quality you get from BeIN. I could easily have misinterpreted his meaning - it could be that they are paying BeIN, but it's cheaper than trying to get to that level themselves. Owen Seaton talked about this a bit when he was on the Section 109 podcast talking about CFC's documentary series. Chattanooga had one of the better lower league broadcasting setups and he still confessed that it's simply unaffordable to get the equipment and production levels anywhere near a professional broadcaster. Historically, CFC did broadcast on YouTube (DCFC, as well) and until they had the local CW affiliate broadcast the first game of the Independent Cup last year I thought it was pretty all a club at their level needed (e.g. ). And then when I got taste of the sweet, sweet 3 camera angle setup of an actual pro production, well... it was hard to go back, honestly. Seaton said they've upgraded from that, but it's still not what you would expect from a professional broadcaster. DCFC has a local broadcaster, so theirs should be pretty high quality every game.
BeIN is doing the bare minimum on the production quality front, basically plastering cheaply made in-house graphics with aspects of NISA's logo everywhere. Standard stuff, really. It's going to be pretty damn hilarious to see teams like Michigan Stars gather all equipment needed in a rented high school stadium. I think it's a case-by-case basis; established clubs like yours already have the broadcasting quality that others may not have.
I'm not talking about the graphics - I'm talking about multiple cameras and all of the filming production. That's the expensive part. Graphics-wise, I think most people watching a team at this level would be happy with anything as basic as what MyCujoo does. It's the camera work that makes the difference: (taking a currently playing game on MyCujoo at random) The major problem with MyCujoo, of course, is that it's flaky AF and hard to get on TVs. Yeah, exactly. Perfect example, although they are building a fancy pants stadium in their quixotic quest to get into USL, so that might just get rolled into the mortgage somehow. But it's hard to imagine a fairly large, established organization, like LA Force, having the resources for this, much less 1904 or a club they bring up from the amateur ranks. It's also hard to standardize the production quality as the league grows, as well, and while YouTube is cheap and pretty easily accessible, it's really hard for NISA to set a standard (or, at least, keep the stuff held at a standard isolated from Teamsterzzzz streaming from a cell phone or something).
Yeah, it's up to the individual clubs responsibly to assign various equipment needed for broadcasts, just another expense that clubs have to make in a professional setting. Of course it's not cheap. Michigan Stars thing is kind of odd to me. They market as "Metro Detroit's Professional Team" but they play out in the boonies for games. Their ownership is seems overzealous too. Highly doubt they will be a draw for any fans in that region anyway. USL already denied 1904 FC application, mainly because lack of local investors, this was before they were admitted to NISA. I'm sure they vet any ownership group before they get accepted into the league. YouTube is a more accessible platform than BeIN though. NISA has done their marketing and production "in-house" through NISA Media, so either broadcasting on YouTube shouldn't be a problem.
I'd argue that it's not a particularly good use of their money and that they would be better off deferring to an entity that already specializes in that (e.g. BeIN). Realistically, the people that are likely to tune into a D3 soccer game would have tuned into that game, anyway. If you want to increase your audience to those that aren't already fans of a team, BeIN Xtra is just as easy to link to from social media as YouTube. I am hugely skeptical that there are enough people "browsing" YouTube (or ESPN+) that stumble across a division 3 match and go "oh, my Saturday evening's plans are now settled". Stars are definitely an enigma. The running narrative is that it's a vanity project so Juncaj's sons can be pro soccer players, but that doesn't really add up. It would be cheaper to tell some existing club that you'll pay your sons' salaries than field a full club (with U-23s, a women's side, and a women's reserves side); build a multi-million dollar stadium; etc. It's not just about his kids at this point. Stars are definitely poster child for NISA's whole ethos, as well. They are exactly the sort of reason you don't want territorial rights (see also: Charlotte Independence; Charlotte Eagles) - if my choices were support the Stars - and all their ownership stands for - or nothing, well... I'd have a lot more free time. On the other hand, this is what we consistently say we want: clubs to have identities by representing communities. "Community" does not mean the same thing "market catchment area" - communities have values. Monopolization means that you water down any convictions to reach the most of the market. The Timbers are a pretty good example of this. The Stars leaning into the Kid Rock set may or may not work, but there's no shortage of potential fans that align with that in Michigan (it's the "soccer" bit that's going to be the hard sell for their base). So while my values definitely swing more in line with Detroit City's, I fully realize that that's not going to appeal to everyone. And as someone who lives in a place that's much more likely to get something politically more like the Stars or the Independence, I appreciate the opportunity for other options. There's a side note about the Red Wolves here that I won't go into here, but there's definitely a similar dynamic (not that CFC is always idealogically where I'd prefer). Oh, definitely. They're franchises, so it's completely at the discretion of USL HQ. That said, the Miami FC has very little real following and USL let them in. It might not take much for Stars to convince USL that it's worth letting them in just to destabilize NISA more. Why not both?
So BeIN has to be responsible for all broadcast equipment for NISA teams instead of team's own responsibility to provide those resources? That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. BeIN only carries the live broadcast feed from cameras that professional teams provide, this is standard in professional sports. They only provide league provided graphics and b-rolls. Did you think that both of those clubs you provided would be successful in the same league instead of cannibalizing each other? If "monopolization" means the Timbers are engaging in anticompetitive practices, then I fail to see how they are not letting a second professional soccer team in Portland. The Timbers are an embodiment of community based soccer club. Not having a second or third professional soccer club in Portland isn't because of anticompetitive practices, it's because there isn't enough support or demand to warrant another club, which relies on spectator support and community engagement. Also, good luck competing with the Timbers who more or less had a 20+ year head start compared to a new "start-up business." Miami is a fair-weather sports town. Attendance even struggles with the Miami Marlins.