Donovan in quandary with Germans-KC Star Coach kept Wizards on track after losing players-KC Star Wizards' Wolff looking forward to K.C.-D.C. final-Chicago Sun Times Nowak Is Finalist for Coach of the Year-Washington Post Galaxy Has Put Itself in Tough Spot-LA Times MLS Cup IX could be the dawn of a promising new road-North Jersey Herald News D.C. United Seeks a Final Thrill-NY Times Revolution stars worthy of national stage-Boston Globe MLS Wraps Up Disjointed Season-NY Sun You can always use www.bugmenot.com for username and password information...
God, Paul Gardner is ********ing clueless, and a Euro-snob sychophant at that; the dinosaur should do everyone a service and put down his pen for good.
Me neither. Gardner sometimes has the habit of running away with his valid points until he loses the general plot. But I didn't really see it here. Oh, and he's not a Euro-snob, but rather a Brazilo-snob. And his vision of the beautiful game is frankly a drum that someone should beat, even though Gardner often doesn't play it well and is too much of a one-note song. (Well, that metaphor got stretched to the breaking point).
Gardner (NY Sun piece in GPK's list) opens by pronouncing the MLS season "disjointed." To illustrate, he declares that "no one team managed to impose itself, to play consistently winning soccer." Immediately thereafter, he reverses course by bringing up the Crew's unbeaten streak. This leads into a tangent about Alex Prus's less-than-draconian refereeing, and things meander off from there. Eventually, he does make one or two interesting points, and his discussion of the Galaxy is actually pertinent to his initial claim. But heaven help us if MLS ever has a season as disjointed as Gardner's article.
Well, OK, valid, but that's mostly a style issue. Had he said "Case in point, Columbus started out crappy, went 18 games unbeaten, and then blew it royally in the playoffs," it would have been hard to argue with. Perhaps, though, introducing the comment about the red card might be interpreted as tangential to a review of the season, but still.
Well, Gardner's point about "consistent winning soccer" doesn't necessarily apply to the Columbus unbeaten streak. Stat geeks: how many of those games were ties? And, would you really put them in the category that Gardner is thinking of, the sort of team that dominates their league? Of course not. That was actually the closest thing to fairness that I've seen out of the guy in quite some time. His analysis of the Galaxy situation was 100% correct, and he gave credit where it was due. I don't have a problem with this piece at all.
This might hold water if Gardner himself hadn't described it as "an exception," terming it "a splendid 18-game unbeaten streak." Stan -- you're right that I'm mainly taking issue with Gardner's style. With other writers, I wouldn't bother, but it's just too ironic that the great American soccer aesthete should pay so little attention to his own craft.
So you are suggesting that firing one of the most successful coaches in league history and replacing him with a close personal friend of the GM who has failed at every professional job he has ever had was the right move for the Galaxy?
From the San Jose Earthquakes website: Earthquakes to remain in Bay Area for 2005 Earthquakes season tickets now on sale Earthquakes exercise options to retain head coach Dominic Kinnear and assistant coach John Doyle