So watching this mess and being a season ticket holder I'm going to say this. My current schedule at work means that I literally would only be able to attend two or three games this season. I was planning on taking off work on a few choice games (i.e. NYRB, D.C., etc). I told my wife and I told friends of mine that if the Union didn't get a win tonight, I was refusing to attend any further games until I was confident this team could win. The only thing that would make me take off work and lose some money as a result is if this team was able to get 3 points tonight. That obviously didn't happen. So yes, the Union have my money, they have the fact that I've bought tickets every season since 2011. I'm used to my teams sucking. I'm a goddamn Philadelphia sports fan for Christ's sake. But what I can NOT tolerate is the utter lack of effort, the sheer incompetence of my team's front office. SIX ********ING GAMES IN and I'm pretty much done with this team. That's a new record since it normally takes until the last month or two of the season for me to say the Union are garbage.
Well, if I'm not the only crazy and there are other people who feel the need to take a "Union vacation" as it were, then that's also an acceptable outcome to me.
Until this team is gutted down to the shell and rebuilt: owners, managers, coaches, players... everything, I'm not giving it any real thought. I assume they'll lose and I'm usually right, and I like to watch the post-game comments. But game day... I don't need to put myself through that anymore. I'm trying to stay ambivalent about the whole thing. It's the only way I can keep sane.
And we have to ask the next logical question...who would want to coach this dumpster fire for the paltry salary the owners can afford?
A TRADITION UNLIKE ANY OTHER David Villa's goal for @NYCFC came from 53.5 yards away, the longest @MLS goal in our data set (since 2012). pic.twitter.com/ymPatAFP5C— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) April 15, 2017 Remember Mike Grella?He scored the fastest goal in MLS history last night - 7 seconds! pic.twitter.com/R4G2LMnNFc— Footy Accumulators (@FootyAccums) October 19, 2015 Landon Donovan took his aggression out on @PhilaUnion by breaking MLS goal record in the Galaxy's 4-1 win: #Union http://t.co/wUeC6m9FY9— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) May 26, 2014
On the 88th minute I told my wife that NYFC was going to score again. Never did I think it would be the perfect summary of the season. This and that M'Bolhi gaff.
So we'd rather have Keon Daniel, Michael Farfan, and Danny Cruz in Midfield, with Leo Pajoy up top? I dunno that 2012 team just flat out did not give a sh!t for the majority of that season. Outside of the dead coach bounce when Novak was finally shown the door, that season was beyond brutal. Remember the finale against RedBull????
Parsing the levels of suck is one of the only pleasures of being a Union fan. Reminds me of the old joke about the wine expert. "This is piss!" "Yeah, but whose?"
So these guys were on the roster five years ago. FIVE. I know you've been watching and paying attention, so you are aware that this is a different MLS than 2012. It's all relative. This team is no better in comparison to what that team was, when you compare it to the other teams in the league. In fact, I really believe that we have fallen much further behind the average MLS club. The horrific part is that until the club actually starts spending money on infrastructure, scouting, player acquisition, coaching, etc., we will continue to fall further and further behind. It's become the new normal, just kind of hard to swallow. I love this team. It is really hard to watch what I was so excited about in 2010, become stagnant and be passed by, by other newcomers. The final nail for me was sitting in my seat watching the fading embers of another loss in my Andre Blake (arguably our best player) jersey, and having Villa chip him from 50 yards out to add Insult to the injury of another loss. Add to that, the Union get to be the laughingstock of the soccer world for the next few social media days. It is great to be a Union fan. Maybe our next tag line needs to be: Philadelphia Union - taking the suffering Philly fan to the next level of hell.
If they didn't win in 2012 and don't win in 2017, does it matter if it's Danny Cruz or Il$inho on the right wing? We are all Danny Cruz.* *Ok, I don't know what this means either, it just sounded deep in my head when I thought it