The level of officiating, in general, has made me question my spend on patronizing the league as a whole.
Hey, I feel like I've asked this question before but I don't recall the answer. If I watched another league, like for example the Bundesliga, would I see VAR butchering my love for the game? Or is this just an MLS thing? It seems to me that putting more control and discretion in the hands of the one person on the field who already has too much control and discretion is a systemic problem. But maybe the refs in the Bundesliga are just so much better that they don't utterly ruin games every week like they do in MLS? I honestly don't know. It used to be that watching a goal was like having an orgasm. Now your enjoyment lasts for the slightest of moments. Then you have to wait to see if some stranger thinks it's acceptable, often giving you the ol' tap on the shoulder for some imperceptible wrong you probably didn't even knew about. If sex had VAR, we'd all be celibate.
Some leagues do it better than others. That said, reviewing every goal is a bit much. You don't know how far they go back, which plays are involved, and what the particular league's definition is for incidental contact. I still don't see what is added other than the legal and illegal gambling gets more assurance of accuracy (maybe).
If VAR was used in this way, it could be great. In MLS at least, it's far more often used to see if a ball touched a defender's fingernail in the area or whether a defender's shirt brushed against a forward's body before he threw himself to the ground and did a 3x barrel roll. I would argue that sooner or later VAR will hurt gamblers because a referee can now pull a penalty decision out of their ass at any moment. That's bound to cause problems.
A field not good enough for FIFA matches but A-Okay for MLS/LigaMX. Cash grab. People should boycott this level of stupid.
I like the clips I have seen from the A League in how they execute VAR. I had thought that it's also part of the broadcast in real time so at least the TV audience hears/sees in real time. - And I love an interview with the match official as part of the broadcast. This should be the norm in every match when VAR comes into play. These guys are held to a much lower level of accountability than any of the players. - I hate the vagueness of clear & obvious. I also don't like it on offsides where they need a freeze frame and the lines drawn to find out the guy was off by 1.7". If you can't see it definitively in a regular slow-mo the call should stand. And then there's the inconsistency of it all. I get that one ref will see it one way versus another or maybe they have different lines of sight on similar types of play, but VAR should eliminate that, but it doesn't.
Say what you will about the Sounders, but this a ********ing great commercial 🗣️ Marshawn Lynch is ready for the Concacaf Champions League! @MoneyLynch 🤝@SoundersFC(via @SoundersFC) pic.twitter.com/RNSgVhVybL— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) April 26, 2022
will take another lifetime for our ad dept - they dont know the difference between "this month" and "in a month"
Say what about Seattle? I'm completely jealous of cascadia because they don't have their head completely up their ass like we do.
Watching Seattle last night, makes it look like we're a 3rd division organization comoared to them. I think it was the first time I've rooted for them. It was hard not to marvel at the atmosphere and making it impossible for a Liga MX team to play in the U.S. Its a landmark moment but of course MLS is still MLS and DC is still DC so nothing will change now because of it but it was great to see. Man, i just want an ounce of that atmosphere here but they have to make us want to provide it. Its so sad, it used to be so fun to go to games (way back) and then we had glimpses with DeRo Rooney and Losada (for a while). So depressing to watch the rest of the league (mostly) pass us by. Just an old guy who's been around long enough to go to Diplomats (I booed Pelé fer cryin out loud) and Stars games and 4 DCU Championships reminiscing about the good old days. Time to hit the Metamucil.
For me, the singular event that showed me this club was going to the bottom of the shitter was the thread we had on DC United marketing around town. We had signs that I guess people had forgotten about that were a decade old, with players no longer on the team. At one bus stop there was a poster for DC United that was 12 years old. Someone in that thread mentioned Five Below denied our logo appearing on their products, while the caps and nats and wizards got in. We're just a small ball club now, barely above USL.
great win for Seattle. Not for nothing, but is anyone else a bit annoyed that they keep saying "it's an historic first for the league" when in fact DC is the first team to win such a cup, the '98 Concacaf Champions Cup which put us into the Copa InterAmericana? CONCACAF Champions Cup Final: D.C. United (MLS) 1 Toluca (Mexico) 0 08/16/1998 (socceramerica.com) D.C. WINS INTERAMERICAN CUP - The Washington Post [where's my metamucil?]
It IS slightly annoying but it's factually accurate in the CCL was technically a different competition from the Champions Cup (which the Galaxy also won, in 2000). I'm more annoyed that we are never even in these competitions anymore!
yeah, and UEFA Champions League isnt the modern equivalent to the Cup Winners Cup it replaced. And I forgot about the Laxatives winning that - they doubly aren't breaking any new ground.
I was looking that up. How much different? The winner of both these competitions go to the club world cup!
When DC won the entire tournament was played in DC. When LA won the entire tournament was played in LA. Without any away travel it was closer to Superliga than the CCL.
The final 8 was played in DC and certain teams, including the 1997 MLS Cup winner, qualified directly to the final 8. There were games elsewhere (Central America, Colorado, Mexico) to win some of the spots in the final 8. You can only win the championship the way CONCACAF decides to hold the championship. When you do, you are CONCACAF champion. Sorry you don't love the way things were done before soccer was invented.
More memories of 1998... MLS helped Seattle by giving them a week off between the CONCACAF final games and between the semifinal games (they did the same for NYCFC in that one), which I think is great and would certainly want and appreciate if DC was in the same position now. But MLS wasn't so helpful in the old days. DCU had to play the 3 CONCACAF final 8 games over 6 days -- August 11, 14, 16 -- but did MLS give us off the week before? No, DC had to go play in the Dallas August heat for a game on August 7th. Bruce started all our regulars, beat the Burn 1-0, then came home to start CONCACAF play on the 11th! That Dallas game was a Friday. At a guess, it would have originally been scheduled for Saturday, so maybe Dallas or MLS gave us a one-day bump for help.
Sorry, that's dumb. Firstly, DC could only play who was in front of them. It's not United's fault that CONCACAF went for the moneygrab instead of competitive fairness. Secondly, if you want to claim that DC (and LA's) championship shouldn't count because the format wasn't the same, have fun explaining to Real Madrid fans that their first five Euro championships are no longer valid. Thirdly, those Superliga games were silly friendlies with highly corrupt officiating. Nobody took them seriously; not the fans, not the players, not the teams. I remember those CONCACAF games and all parties were taking it •very• seriously.
And the Champions League doesn't have group play at the moment (it did and will again) so is currently in traditional cup format. Edited to add: none of which matters, of course. Seattle is CONCACAF champ. Congrats.