Yay we'll probably get that crappy british announcer on the CONCACAF site again. I did notice he finally learned some players names by the end of the last Champions league. I'll still remember the one sequence where somehow Beckerman passed to Beckerman. Or when he'd get the name right then on the replay he'd call them Beckerman or Morales.
Strange HOW? It makes perfect sense to me. Note to self: set the ****** DVR so I don't miss another game.
Yes, makes sense to me, too. I have set a recording option to capture everything with "Real Salt" in the description. I'll probably get an heretofore unknown infomercial amongst all the RSL games... It did grab a repeat broadcast of a 2011 DCU vs RSL match. LOL!
Another update from Tico country: Herediano were supposed to play a league match at Limon this Sunday, but the game got suspended due to inclement weather conditions in Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. Thus, the florenses will head into Tuesday's game on five days' rest.
what about the weather for Tuesday, though? Is this going to be the hurricane game like vs Cruz Azul? (please have a different ending... ********ing McKenzie)
Looks to be fine on Weather.com... I went there when I saw they'd canceled their game and saw nothing to suggest bad weather was raging.
What I would expect our starting XI to look like tomorrow night: ---------------Nicky -Beltran-Olave--Borchers-Wingert- ----------------KB -----Ned---------------Will ---------------Javi -------Sabo------------Espy I'm hopeful Kreis has held Olave back with the intentions of playing him here as close to full strength as possible. A win in this game would really really start our tournament off well. I'm not expecting anything in terms of points, but what I am expecting is a very focused group that doesn't make stupid mental mistakes to give up goals. Make Herediano earn a win (if it must be) against us. The tie-breakers don't favor a team getting murdered.
Oh shit, we got a Mexican officiating crew. They tend to side heavily with other Spanish-speaking countries...prepare for some home cookin'.
After the cluster******** the American refs have made of the Olympics so far, not to mention weekly in MLS, we should probably be grateful for that.
Think their will be horns and drums outside this hotel late tonight? Bad news is this is rumered to be a favorite hotel of our own secret service.
- A Canadian referee worked RSL - Arabe Unido (and added 8 minutes at the end of the second half) - Costa Rica is the only country ever to defeat Mexico in a World Cup Qualifier in the Estadio Azteca. - Costa Rican teams are the most recent non-Mexican teams to be CONCACAF Club Champions. - MLS teams have a track record of losing to teams like Joe Public, W Connection and Tauro in this competition.
From a Houston Dynamo fan... Best of luck to Real Salt Lake and its fans in the CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. It's about time one of us (Houston, Seattle, Toronto, Real Salt Lake, LA Galaxy) steal the trophy away from Mexico and bring it home to the USA.
http://www.mlssoccer.com/ccl/news/article/2012/07/30/ccl-team-preview-rsl-get-one-more-crack-title Not that I don't appreciate the support from the league - but it is just our first match, maybe we could just chill for the time being. This is a very long tournament iirc....
Yeah, I'm with you. I get the feeling I'm not the only person here afraid of a sophomore slump in this thing. Is what we did our first time around a thing that will happen again and again? Certainly not. However, I'm rather afraid we won't have that 'surprise' element t his time around and thus struggle to even get out of group play. Also, we had, in hindsight, one of the nicest draws you could have asked for in the 2010-11 CCL. In our group we got a poor MLS team (familiarity) a semi-decent, though not amazing, Mexican side (allowing us to win the group) and a poor Panamanian side that we were lucky enough to get 3 off of here at home despite the theatrics. Then in the first ko round we get another MLS side. From there, because of the "this isn't rigged but man is it rigged" drawing process we avoid any Mexican side until the final and play Saprissa. If we can hang our hat on one thing from that last tournament, it is how we played against Saprissa (especially there). I am confident in our guys, but there is this nagging feeling of a potential reality check I keep getting when I read or view anything CCL related...
I've often had the same thoughts about this competition and a few other things that have caused me to temper my expectations a little bit for this go around. Also take into account that in 2010 we had the best defense in MLS history and homeboy was also playing out of his mind. This year our defense has been a weakness if anything and homeboy has looked indecisive and sometimes downright awful on occasions. the format is difficult, each games so much and anything less than perfection probably wont see us through. in a year where we have been anything but perfect, it's hard not to feel a little pessimistic. But I'm doing my best to hope for greatness, I want this damn thing so bad after that crushing loss in the final.