Re: team logos No need to pretend that MLS will actually ever do something of that sort. Fact is that FIFA wouldn't allow it and MLS would comply. You can talk trash on the internet all you want but the fact is that MLS would never do it and the league is better for it.
yeah, it will never happen. but to me, there is no field prettier than the Rose Bowl field all marked up on January 1.
Yeah I kinda find the center circle a bit boring. You don't have to have the entire center circled all painted out, but the logo right in midfield would add a very nice touch of Americanization to the field that most Americans can identify with and you wouldn't be changing the rules or anything like that (aka NASL) and it wouldn't be hurting anything. of course if they did this you know big soccer would blow the hell up at how bad it is because we are trying to put our own twist on the field and how it would never happen in Europe! hence blasphemy!
Really? I was not aware of that. But it does seam logical. You realize what some of those fields in england would look like if they allowed markings on the field lol. there would be some 540 sponsors all over the field. honestly though, Fifa is so anal to not even allow a team name at center circle? sad..
I like this idea. Though not color, just put the crest on the field but in white only. Sort of like a watermark on the field or maybe one on each half.
Re: team logos The fact is that FIFA is largely this toothless, powerless organization that exists mainly for the funneling of money from here to there because that flow of funding in the sport is necessary, and is largely regarded by the fans of the sport as feckless and incapable of doing anything largely tangible beyond the bureaucratic. This perception remains constant regardless of circumstances...UNLESS purists want to kill something that's different than their perfect idea of what soccer looks like. Then FIFA is this all-powerful empire that everyone must follow under threat of severe penalty. Its reach is so overarching and its force is so awe-inspiring, that it can turn back one of the biggest economic engines with which it has ever come into contact, and with whom has engineered one of the largest successes - namely the 1994 World Cup - in the modern history of the game. So massive is the power of FIFA, that when one wants to destroy a brand new idea, one looks past all the corruption and bloated bureaucracy, and sees FIFA as a pure entity that must not be defied. Designs on a soccer field, FIFA will definitely dispose of the United States. But docking a nation's points in World Cup qualifying because of racism or violence, that's ridiculous. That's the fact.
There are a few shots in the documentary "Once in a lifetime: The unlikely story of the New York Cosmos" of different teams fields that had the penalty area painted ala basketball courts. It was seriously different... but added a little "flavor" to the field. I personally just wish each team would follow Houston in having team color nets. I really wish FCD would get some "hoop' nets made.
Oh my God, they did that here in Washington for the Diplomats games and it looked like hell. The goals areas were red, the penalty areas were red, the penalty arc was black and there was a huge soccer ball in the center circle. This has been a recurring nightmare of mine for 25 years! Please do not let this happen again. It was truly dreadful. It looked even more vomat inducing as the match wore on and as the season wore on. In general, Football end zones just don't get quite as much wear and tear.
Re: team logos Believe what you may but FIFA has had to deal with bigger football associations than MLS and USSF. Granted, FIFA is usually a highly corrupt organization and its operations always remain a cause for controversy but a league openly challenging its writ for no good reason will be dealt with accordingly. The fact remains that the glamour of international soccer is one of extremely high value and that is FIFA's advantage. Far bigger clubs and leagues than the Columbus Crew and MLS have been unable to have their way with FIFA and there is no reason to believe that MLS will be an exception. It will serve MLS no purpose to displease FIFA and as cited by a poster in this thread, the MLS head honchos tend to agree.
Yeah, lets put the home teams logo in the center circle, the stadium's name/sponsor @ the 35 yard line. We're (supposedly - another thread) advancing on/surpassing the NHL. Heck, lets make the pitch look like an ice rink....
which is exactly why FIFA is smart to ban it... every watch a rugby game? looks tacky as all hell. I do'nt see the problem with a team logo in the center circle as long as its simple... Illinois puts a simple Block I in the circle for its women's soccer games, and it looks pretty classy... I think a shield logo would look OK. but its not a big deal, and if FIFA bans it I don't blame them, because someones bound to get carried away with it
This may be a radical idea, but I always thought it would be cool to have some sort of demarcation lines for progress made as one advances through the field. Say...every 10 yards or so? Perhaps some sort of stripe or line to indicate? Now that would look good. And think of how cool it would be to be able to measure that, say, Beckham's pass went from midfield to Donovan on the "20-yard" mark...so a pass of 30 yards. Unfortunately, I don't think a club would ever have the courage to try something this radical. It's a shame, though. Might give our league a little "flair" on TV to attract viewers.
While FIFA most likely won't let us get away with team logos in the center circle, there is always the idea of putting team names on the ground behind the endlines. This is already pretty normal for basketball and pointyball, and I don't think FIFA restricts what is painted outside the playing area. Depending on the aesthetics (because the last thing we want to do is have really outrageously ugly fields), one could also consider a border around the edges of the field, maybe a yard thick, in the home team's color(s), which shouldn't interfere with play at all.
We could even make a rule that every four passes or dribbles you had to foray forward - let's say ten yards. (this is sarcasm for people whose Ameri-xenophobe meter is broken)
Why not? I think the center circle would be perfect for whatever artist has a new album coming out (much like any MTV awards show is now). I could just picture the center circle at HDC looking like the CD of the new Spice Girls album It looked better before it added AT&T, PS2, or Citi to it. Only if it's actually blue.
don't you think it would be better, also, if instead of kicking the ball, guys could just pick it up and run with it and throw it? and maybe if they do kick it they should have to kick it up in the air, over the top of the crossbar -- but not too wide, we'd need two long metal poles to mark the edges of the area you could kick it through. And given the lack of scoring in soccer, I'd give 3 goals for each of those kicks.
Roehl can say what he wants about FIFA being an organization that stinks worse than three-day-old mackerel rotting on a pier in the midday sun, and he would be largely correct. But believe it or not, there are some things where I am glad we have had FIFA. That little tournament they play every four years, the beauty of it is that you can take two teams from opposite corenrs of the planet and have them play the same game, no matter what their culture or language--it's the same for everyone. By contrast, there are different rules in the NBA and FIBA, the NHL and European leagues play under different rules, hell, even the two major baseball leagues in North America can't agree on the rules. If you had a tournament where the Dallas Cowboys played Penn State and the Saskatchewan Roughriders, no matter what, two of those teams would be playing by someone esle's rules. And don't even talk about the differences between Rugby League and Rugby Union, Australian Rules Football, etc. all which came from "slight modifications" to the rules of what we know as soccer. This does not happen in soccer, and that's a good thing. Anyone old enough to remember the NASL and early years of MLS will tell you what a slippery slope American soccer was headed down, and how, fortunately, that is not an issue any more. Say what you want about FIFA, but without the threat of heavy-handed sanctions, who knows what we would have.