Don Garber sent out a memo on Friday morning threatening termination and huge fines for whoever is leaking his memos to Paul Tenorio at The Athletic. Paul Tenorio had the memo on Friday afternoon. Garber is truly an idiot. https://awfulannouncing.com/soccer/...letic-immediately-leaked-to-the-athletic.html
"We would like to apologise for the leakers. Those leaking the information have immediately been sacked." #MontyPython
Actually, today features Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund in Dortmund.Two of the best teams in Europe. A Bayern win would clinch the title, IIRC. But since you're a fan and have mentioned the Bundesliga matches several times, let me make a couple comments: The matches haven’t been very good. Nearly all have been routs or poorly played. Some have been both. That said, it's understandable that the play isn’t exactly sterling. These teams haven’t had a lot of time to work together, and there were no practice matches prior to the resumption of the season. This is exactly why MLS wants to have a preseason training deal in Orlando so the play won't stink up the joint when they get back to league play. The players don’t wear masks during the matches for obvious reasons. The subs are required to wear them while watching. They sit more than six feet away from each other. The managers have the choice of wearing or not wearing masks. In the matches I’ve seen, nearly all opt not to wear them. Nonetheless, the nature of the game dictates that the players will be in close contact with one another pretty constantly. Close contact during goal celebrations is discouraged. Players aren’t celebrating by jumping on one another, as in normal times, but neither are they avoiding fairly close contact. However that may be, these matches seem to impose no serious health risk. It’s my understanding that players are tested often, so that even with close contact, the likelihood of infection is very low. Moreover, these players are young and healthy. If a few become infected, there is virtually no danger any will die. Nearly all coaches are also young enough not to fall in high risk categories. The Fox Sports commentators have been terrible, demonstrating the overall problem with US/MLS soccer commentary: as with both of those, the broadcasters seem more intent on having a conversation about German soccer than on calling the damn game. Exact same thing that makes people nuts watching MLS: some fool babbling on about Kaka highlights set to Queen's Radio Gaga for literally five minutes while the game is being played. They usually don't bother to tell us which player is on the ball, and sometimes don’t even identify the player who assisted on the goal. Between the absence of fans, the low caliber play and the abysmal announcing, these games are really not that much better than no soccer at all.
One of my categories for quality is how much the ball is kicked aimlessly or how many passes out of bounds are made (I'm not talking about clearances in the defensive end). There's a fair bit of that in MLS. Less so in the Bundesliga, especially at the higher levels. Lower levels? Not so much. A number of years ago, I went to two BL matches in succession: Gladbach-Wolfsburg and Koln-Kaiserslautern. The difference was clear, and one of the differences I noticed was the aforementioned criteria. At the end of the season, the first two teams were in the top half of the table and the latter two were both (deservedly) relegated. There's been a fair bit of that in the BL in the restart. But some of the play has been fairly good, with some nice goals. Still, the players probably are not yet match fit. Bet they will be after next weekend, though, with today's "English Week" matches followed by the weekend games being 4 games in 21 days (or so).
I watched only a little bit, but thought that the artificial crowd noise sounded good. The PBP/color analysis was pretty bad. But hey, nothing is as bas as having to watch Tom Brady play golf. 8 handicap, BS.
I tried to watch a couple of matches last weekend, and again this past Saturday, and I just couldn't make myself care. I'd rather watch This Old House on a Saturday morning than a league 5000 miles away going through the motions of playing out the stretch in empty stadiums. It might be a modicum more interesting if I spoke German - since you can hear the conversations on the field - but, alas, I'm no KG. At this point, I'd rather not watch sports than watch the sports that are available.
It is not easy to understand what's being said on the field. To be fair, that's sometimes the case at Crew games too.
Watching Dortmund/Bayern now, and I have to say... I completely disagree. I can't stand this artificial crowd noise. This isn't WWE. Why can't reality just be reality? I know it's not real; I know it's an empty stadium. The players on the field know it's an empty stadium. It's an insult to everyone's intelligence.
It brings me back to the old days of Fox Soccer Channel when you would hear Chicago's Section 8....during a San Jose vs Dallas match.
I didn't watch for very long, so maybe my opinion needs more time to test. Even before COVID postponement, TOH Hour was competing for my Saturday morning TV time.
I came to say that same thing. One of those moments was during a Crew home game when we weren't playing Chicagoon and TV viewers could clearly hear "fye-urrr" being sung.
Do they even try to vary the artificial crowd noise based on game events? Or are they playing the same chants at the same intensity during the build up to a goal as during a hydration break?
Yes, a very astute DJ/sound mixer appears to have done the noise for BvB vs Bayern yesterday. There were whistles mixed in almost immediately when Bayern back-passed to their keeper for example and they faded out as he played the ball forward.
ESPN's ticker says that MLS is altering plans for a return tournament, as MLS wants it to fit into a shorter time frame, but plans for Orlando are still on.
Since most areas are loosening up the governmental ban on activities, the league is now looking at having them all work out in their home cities until June 21, at which point theyd convene in Florida for a tournament/ preseason and a round robin match deal which would count in the regular season standings. Which would mean just over a month down there at the most. One possible issue is that the F*re, DC and St Joe are still locked down and nobody can say if thats going to change soon, in which case they might show up with zero conditioning work. Alternatively they could elect to move those teams across a state line to someplace which would allow some limited actvities. Its still up in the air, which is why the imbecile Garber is angry about leaks; he doesnt want public debate as plans are evolving.
It has a couple of verbs, a couple proper nouns, a question mark. It seems like a sentence but I can glean no meaning from it.
This virus crap needs to hurry up. I don't want Flu season interrupted. There is no in between. Zero. Cancel the soccer season and forward my season tickets to next year. I would love to have this option vs something halfway. It's not for everyone, I get it.
https://www.inquirer.com/soccer/cor...-mls-sarah-bouhaddi-utah-royals-20200527.html [MLS is in better shape with foreign players, because when the league shut down in March it ordered all of its players to stay in the U.S. Some teams have players loaned abroad, though, including the Union. Striker Cory Burke is at Austria’s St. Pölten until the end of June. Because he’s Jamaican, he would have been subject to the border restriction. At least he’ll have a shot at some game time before coming back to Philadelphia, since Austria’s league will resume on June 2 “The league has been very specific in that it didn’t want players from the league to leave because we didn’t know when we could restart [and] we didn’t know how easy it would be to get them back in,” ......]
" Japan’s app goes much further, allowing soccer fans to choose a range of reactions — from cheer, chant, clap or shout to groan and boo — with a simple tap of their smartphones. Personal messages also can be recorded, and all the noise then will reverberate around the stadium." https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...9cd7ec-9fe5-11ea-be06-af5514ee0385_story.html