This is just a friendly tournament, about as meaningful as the Peace Cup in South Korea or the Carolina Cup, or La Manga. I won't be including it in my lists of official, meaningful matches. Basically, if you have players playing who don't even have contracts, then you know it doesn't matter.
The same was true for a new tournament called the World Cup a while back. Some teams even turned down the invites for the first few editions. Who would take a national team tournament with invited teams seriously? It was all about the club game. Every tournament starts somewhere.
It's a preseason tune-up for the MLS teams and Gamba (no matter how they "qualified" for the tournament), and a postseason promotional tour for Sydney FC. Nothing more. I'll watch the games if I can find them on TV, but I'm not going to put too much stock in the results. Not when three of the four teams are going to show up in preseason form with players who aren't under contract. More important for me as a Galaxy supporter is that it'll be two games against decent opposition, which should be good preparation for the season.
I find this kind of semantics to be silly and insulting. Look, I don't think anyone is suggesting that Sydney's qualification standard is rigorous. All people are saying is that there were clearly laid out rules for who would be the A-league rep and Sydney fulfilled them. If they had advanced in the playoffs, it would have been Queensland instead in the Pan-Pacific. The point is that something was established and followed. If MLS had said that the second Pan-Pacific bid would go to the team that finished in 11th place in the overall table and thus the Galaxy qualified, it would be cool. The criteria doesn't have to be rigorous, only transparent. That said, for LAG, I have no problem with them being there and I get that it was done that way to get this tourney some extra coverage. That's cool. But let's not pretend that they "qualified" in any way beyond having Beckham on their team. Some people seem determined to make it seem like the Galaxy earned their way to this competition and that just seems silly. We all know why they are there, let's just sit back and enjoy the games and hope they are entertaining.
i know i'm probably late to the party, but wow, that's a really ... really bad name for a team. i think that might be worse than 'the wiz'... well, it's definitely up there, at least.
It's interesting soccer involving MLS teams in February. What the hell is wrong with that? I'm really looking forward to it and hoping the games are on TV.
Apparently, the games will be carried on ESPN Classic. Of course, they'll be on in the middle of the night in the US given the time zones. And I agree -- it's actual games coming up soon involving MLS teams. That's cool to me.
Australia has the same sort of sports team naming tradition as the United States: CITY/REGION + NICKNAME. And have the same traditional soccer name vs traditional local tradition conflict for their soccer league. They even have some of the same "new" nickname issues. A-League Teams Traditional Soccer: Sydney United, Adelaide United Traditional Nickname: Central Coast Mariners, Newcastle Jets "New" Nicknames: Melbourne Victory, Perth Glory, Queensland Roar, Wellington Phoenix Looks a lot like MLS, doesn't it? And for the same reasons.
Nothing wrong with that and I'll watch cuz I'm a fan. Maybe next year we'll have all trophy winners, including the defending champs, a six team field and TV. Great. But until then, it's a training camp field trip for MLS with a trophy for motivation. By the way, has anyone seen the trophy?
I made a mistake on the A-League teams and just noticed it. A-League Teams Traditional Soccer: Sydney FC, Adelaide United Traditional Nickname: Central Coast Mariners, Newcastle Jets "New" Nicknames: Melbourne Victory, Perth Glory, Queensland Roar, Wellington Phoenix
I was about to correct you, but you did it yourself, good job. i dunno what its like over there but here its the Football Federation of Australia that seems to be pushing all these lame nik names. Fans generally want traditional names.
I like the "new" nicknames. It makes it unique to MLS/A-League since it keeps the City/Nickname format but uses singular nicknames, which very rarely happen in other American sports. There are no singular team nicknames in Major League Baseball. Miami Heat and Utah Jazz are the only ones in the NBA. Minn. Wild, Tampa Bay Lightening, and Colorado Avalanche are the only ones in NHL. There are none in the NFL.
Whoever said that the Carolina Challenge Cup is a pre-season friendly and nothing more needs to check themselves... The MLS Cup Winner or SS Winner has also won the ccc earlier that year, every year.
Actually, what do you do with "Newcastle United Jets"? Is it traditional soccer or traditional nickname?
Newcastle is an interesting case. The club (founded in 2000) was simply called Newcastle United in the old National Soccer League. When the club joined the A-league they felt the need to distance themselves from the English Premiership side to avoid confusion, therefore the 'Jets' nickname. Adelaide United and Perth Glory didn't change their name when joining the A-League.
Who can forget the Shreveport Steamer of the old WFL? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shreveport_Steamer Actually, quite a few people have forgotten them.
By the way, my preview of the PPC is on the NY Times web site: http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/battle-for-the-pacific/ Dave
I posted my thoughts about PPC on my site tMoS, but here it is too... With only a couple of days until the Pan-Pacific Championship tournament in Hawaii it really gets me geared up for the upcoming season. It is nearly upon us! Now don't get me wrong...the winner of this friendly tournament will hardly be a champion of anything. The invited teams are MLS Champions Houston Dynamo, Aussie League3rd place team Sydney FC, J-League 3rd place team Gamba Osaka, and then for publicity reasons...the Los Angeles David Beckhams. Last year's new tourney was Super Liga and also featured invited teams rather than actual champions...and I found Super Liga to be very fun to watch. While I'll be tuned in, I'm not as optimistic about overall experience of this tournament, though I do believe it has potential. But whatever...add Championship to the name of a tourney and then it is legit right? If the PPC turned into something legitimate that would pit champions around the Pacific together it could be tons of fun. If it were to take champions from the United States, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and Australia it could really be something. As it stands it is nothing more than good pre-season competition to fine tune the MLS invites. With so many little tourneys scheduled and now with the new CONCACAF Champions Cup it will be interesting to see if this thing sticks around. Now this CCC is something to get excited about, but I'll wait for a later date to go over that. Putting 'what could be' aside, there is the potential for some fun soccer. Houston vs Sydney in the first round will not only let us watch the reigning two time MLS champs at work, but they will be playing a good Sydney FC team that features Brazilian play maker Juninho. At age 34 he is in the twilight of his career, but that is a career that has included 50 caps with his national team and also suiting up for clubs such as Sao Paulo, Middlesborough, Palmeiras, Vasco, Flamengo, and Celtic. Not too shabby of a list. It will be interesting to watch the new Los Angeles Galaxy team play together for the first time against Japan's Gamba Osaka. Thanks to help from MLS LA now has three players that fit the designated player mold with David Beckham, Carlos 'Pescado' Ruiz, and Landycakes Donovan. Will these three play well together? Will it matter? In acquiring the dynamic trio the Galaxy also dealt away any proven talent the team already possessed. I'd like to think it won't matter and that our lower talent outranks that of Japan, but I admittedly know next to nothing about soccer in the Land of the Rising Sun. Normally I cheer on any MLS side in these competitions against international foes, but when you put Carlos Ruiz and Landon Donovan on the same team it makes it really hard to want them to win. Though what a combination...you have Pescado Ruiz rolling around on the ground for hours each game so LD can sweep in and score hundreds of PKs to convince people he is an offensive power. According to some posters in the 'Japan' section of Big Soccer Gamba Osaka will be missing seven of their starters because of the East Asian Championships and U23 stuff so this is really the perfect game for LD to come in and score a bunch of goals. So with the first game coming just this Wednesday I'm preparing myself for MLS soccer and despite the lack of importance this tourney holds...I'll still follow it like it means something.
Japan also plays a summer season, so Gamba Osaka will be in preseason mode. It's a preseason tune-up for everyone involved except Sydney FC (who play in arguably the weakest of the three leagues) so it's really anyone's tournament to win.
I'll give a leg up the Gamba though. They have been in Hawaii training a good week longer than anyone else. Sydney may have just finished their season, but they are going to have to deal with the time and climate change pretty quickly.