All looked lost. Our heroes once reliable source of information was burned by a traitor in the ranks. The magician who conjured victory from the jaws of defeat is recovering from wounds. The attack leader was out seeing the birth of a new child. And worst of all, the main rival appeared again, confident after their last encounter with our Crew was indecisive. Victory seemed impossible. But then, just as things looked their bleakest, one man stepped up. Once a regular, he was demoted after poor performances and a lack of confidence. He was able to break the strong defense, and lead them to victory. Now, in the summer finale, our protagonists face a reinvigorated group of soldiers from the north. Will their momentum carry over? Can anybody stop our Crew on their charge to glory??
Rumors are unfounded that the 3-1-Crew will be attempting to enter the stadium. An empty stadium should make Chicago feel right at home.
Hopefully Zelarayan is back at full go. Would also be nice to see Mohktar get his mojo back. I think injuries derailed both guys. Was really nice to see Alashe, Diaz, and even Adi play pretty well last game (albeit vs TidePodFC). Too bad USOC is cancelled this year. Thought we had a real shot. Guess we'll have to settle for a double. I think we win regardless.
Yes. I believe because it's on Univision and TUDN it's considered a national broadcast, so no local broadcast. Hopefully they'll give instructions on how to watch the game in English.
In normal times the league's broadcast strategies are laughable. In the time of COVID they're downright embarrassing.
I continue to hope for the 2022 relaunch of the league, total rebrand like the move from league football to the ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE. Something like Amazon Prime Soccer. All games live on Prime Video, all camera feeds available to Twitch Streamers. The cross-pollination with stats, gambling, advertising are endless. That Seattle just signed a streaming deal with Amazon (the Athletic had a nice piece about it and potential for more a few weeks back) makes me hopeful that something like that may be in the works. We'll have 30 teams, can set up divisions like the NFL, inject some Bezos Billions and change the salary structure and turn the teams loose to succeed or fail on their own merits with a fairly level playing field. I love parity and want to avoid super clubs. TV rights money distro, a focus on home grown talent (would love for academy products to be salary cap exempt for life as an example) is the way to make this thing work long term.
Eh, what they have done so far in MLS has tended to avoid super clubs as compared with other major leagues. Sure, LA and NYC have gotten some advantages. But the championships have been pretty reasonably balanced. For example, NYRB has 3 Supporter Shields. That's it. If you "turn the teams loose", I'm betting it would not stay a level playing field for long. I'm not sure Homegrowns make that much of a difference (and if you "turn teams loose" would you still have Homegrowns?).
Yes, the league's parity efforts have been good and I don't want that to be thrown out if the league re-brands. By "turn the teams loose" I mean more removing much of hamstringing imposed by DP and Garber Bux funny money. Let teams spend a fixed amount, maybe a salary floor and ceiling. The homegrown or academy product idea is to encourage teams to focus on developing talent by giving them a mechanism to help their roster building. If you have a $20M salary cap, but can have 3 starting 11 guys that you are paying $3m a year that don't count at all, that gives you a real advantage. Similar to the DP mechanism now, where all DPs are not created equal, if a team can hold on to a home grown that has more value to them than he would on the open market by paying him off the books, that encourages player development, which I want from the league and don't want them to turn in to a just buy middling foreign talent with the extra money. I know that the league is really wanting to put a full package together with the new broadcast deal. They are telling teams not to sign local deals past 2022. The current deal only pays each team like $3.5M a year. I don't know that a piecemeal deal of many broadcasters gets them any more than that with the dismal ratings. But if they sell a whole new package with a new collective bargaining agreement and a big boost to salaries, maybe we get something new and exciting.
I know we will play again in under a week from our last match, but the compressed schedule makes me feel like we should already be playing tonight.
I know, seemed weird that there were a ton of games last night but we weren't involved. Letting Mensah, Williams and Nagbe get a week's reprieve is good. But when things are rolling I want to...keep them rolling. Saturday can't get here soon enough. Glad it is a short work week. It is Thursday already. My son has a game tonight, so I'll get to watch a little live soccer to tide me over.....
The return of Artur, Nagbe, Zelarayán on Saturday? Does Lucas get another game off to heal up because it's Chicagor and Nagbe did fine last time out? I think you have to get Diaz and Zardes out there are starters for sure. Santos or Mokhtar; Diaz or Etienne. Would love another shutout and a ZZ Top combo goal to get us the win. Voted win by 1, road games are tough, this year in particular with the in and out same day scheduling. Not sure if that is how they'll do it this game with it being a 3:30 kickoff. But, I see no reason we can't blow the doors off and crush these stumblebums.
Close to the airport, at least, these days. Wonder if they'll rent a couple of cars on the Orange Line...
If Lucas truly is "questionable", I'd say rest him this weekend. Nagbe did well in that role last weekend. Mokhtar, hopefully, is returning to full fitness. Diaz had his best half in a while. Zardes only played 30 minutes. Sanch got a goal and an assist. Berhalter and Alashe played well. Oh, and the Fire suck.
So far they haven't announced games for the next phase so the next match would probably not be until a week after this Saturday. Lucas needs game time so, if he's available, he should get 60. Same for Mohktar. Give Mohktar 45 and bring on Diaz for the second half. Depending on how the score is looking, make the double switch at 60 taking out Santos and Lukas and leave the other two subs for later.
Are the next games against the same teams? Has that been announced? Do we get a trophy for winning the first half of the second half of this weird season?