What a douche. I watched an LA-SJ game a couple weeks ago that made the passion in this match seem like a Sunday afternoon U-40 match.
So many of these guys listen too much to eachother that they forget to think on their own... they're have been PLENTY of passion filled games in MLS this year. LA Derbys (particulary the first couple)... and many more. Not all but enough.
Grant isn't stupid enough to say the game was "perhaps the first real taste of what really passionate soccer feels like here in the USA."
Well, he's got his points: the match was played with real intensity, and, yes, it was better than most regular season MLS matches I've seen. But when he starts talking about the lack of atmosphere at this match (which didn't set any attendance records but certainly had a much better atmosphere than regular season games because so many people there were knowledgeable and into the game), he just loses me again. It's simply not true-- like his attendance decline claims and like his claim that the crowd at US-Mex was 50-50.
I don't know, I thought the DC vs Revs match last year in the playoffs was passionate. So that's one game prior to this one. And honestly, who even reads his articles? It must be like 10 people total.
Well, 12 have posted in this thread. I haven't clicked on the link - because I suspect he says a lot of what he does to get posted here on big soccer under "What a douche" and then get a ton of hits from people who want to see for themselves how big of a douche he is. I hate that kind of baiting, manipulative writing. And frankly, Rome does it better.
I don't read Trecker that often and am not a big supporter. That said, I think people are nit-picking here. His comment about "perhaps the first real taste of what passionate soccer..." actually isn't far off. Here's why. When LA goes to SJ and the SJ fans passionately and creatively taunt Donovan, where are the LA fans? Mostly watching TV. This match had a significant contingent of Chileans. School just started in the DC area this week and it was a midweek game. So basically the only folks who showed up for this match were pretty serious soccer fans. And they chanted like crazy, there were flares in the stands. Now when an MLS club visits another, they're lucky to have 100 visiting fans attending and the bulk of the attendees don't spend much of the match standing, chanting and taunting the opposing fan groups. I was at the Revs-DCU semis last year and would say that match was better, more electric, had a louder game. But how many Revs fans were in that stadium that night? And I"m not bashing Revs fans. Just that this match (UC-DCU) did feel like a serious match in Chile or elsewhere probably feels like. Not Chelsea-Arsenal or Ajax-Feyenoord. But two serious clubs with something at stake and committed supporter groups there in force. And that is what I think Trecker is getting at.
Having grown up with the SJ-LA rivalry, there were always a fair amount of LA fans in attendance (and, judging from the recaps, SJ-Chivas had even more opposing fans), that, if not jumping and yelling the entire time, would wear a jersey and cheer for their team. The 50/50 split only happens for the US national team. For MLS games, I would never expect more than a couple hundred people to make trip to a regular season away game. We're a little bigger than those other countries
I dunno. You raise good points about why the atmosphere was so good, but it's not exactly the first time we've seen two sets of fans cheer. MLS teams have played CC matches against Mexican teams, with vocal Mexican fans in attendance. MLS clubs participated in Merconorte (basically half of the forerunner tournament to the Sudamericana, the other half being the Mercosur). But his comments weren't even really along the lines of "Now TIHS was atmosphere"-- he was saying the soccer itself was passionate, but that the crowd was not: e.g. "what little atmosphere there was at RFK was deflated" after the first goal. He's absolutely right that the standard of play was a cut above, but, as you're pointing out, wrong about how good the atmosphere was. Is this nitpicking? After all, it is just one line in an otherwise very good article. But at the same time, I wonder how his perception can be so far off of reality.
Trecker must have missed the first CDCUSA @ LAG game. Passion on both sides and (if not 50/50) surely a material number of visiting fans. The one-sided nature of the competition this year made the later games less intense, but when the on-field battle becomes more even, this rivalry will top anything MLS has seen in terms of passion in the stands.
I guess when you continually write from the perspective of 'when will we be like other countries', you will always have something to complain about. You'll complain when we're not like other countries. Then when we become like them, you'll have even more to complain about. MLS and US soccer will be their own animal. Because as Americans, and as American soccer fans, we are unlike any other. Not that we're better. But the sport has a different set of challenges here. Like the press. Where else in the world would they put coverage a soccer game with over 22k in attendence on page 6 in the sports section? (I think this is where the SJ Mercury News put coverage of the Quakes/Chivas match.) Then you have douchebags like Trecker who... well, enough said.
I'll take your word for it. I never read the guy, but for someone to write about a game played this year as being the first with passion is just stupid. So I have to chalk it up to the great media conspiracy to destroy soccer in this country - why else would a news organization pay someone to write this crap? It's really idiotic. I mean, he's writing for a mainstream media organization and doesn't even know what he's writing about. Maybe I could get a job writing for Fox. There's obviously no qualifications required. Either that or Trecker gives Hoovers to the CEO under his desk or something.
Hey, some of the games at D.C. when a few thousand Salvadoran fans were still ticked about Raul Diaz Arce had a lot of "passion," with fans cheering for both teams. Probably not the kind of passion MLS wanted to keep, unless booing the national anthem is your idea of a good time.
As a note, I wouldn't mind if Jerry Trecker pointed to were he wrote vs his son in the column, considering that it states at the bottom something to the effect that Jerry contributes to Jamie's column.
I don't have to read someone who agrees with my positions on things. In fact, I like to get different perspectives. But that doesn't mean I'll waste my time on any old crap. Getting basic facts right is important in my opinion. When writers play loose with the facts, don't do a little research, and pull too much content from their own opinions, I stop reading them. I stopped reading Trecker years ago, before I even heard of Big Soccer. I remember seeing a column of his in a soccer magazine and thinking it strange that they would hire a writer who seemed to hate soccer. If I wanted that, there's plenty of other sources I could read, some who even get their facts right.