New England... and far more! Including a shot at a stupid Liewike comment! Read here if you dare! http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/grant_wahl/news/2002/10/18/mailbag/
Good read, thanks for the post. I must admit that I know little of this Wuhl (avoid SI like the plague) so my personal fave is still either Bradley or Connolly. But this is a good article. Go read it people. While Tim L. probably should not have made that comment publicly, I'm not sure it is a bad one to make. I do want MLS to carve out a spot in the American sports landscape and could care less if they ever eclipse NBA, NFL, or MLB in popularity. However, twenty years is a long time. A lot could happen in twenty years. MLS has come a long way in seven seasons, who knows where they can be in 27. As many people have said before elsewhere, nobody could have guessed at the NBA's meteoric rise back in 1982, when the Finals were broadcast on tape delay at 11 pm. (at least we get to watch MLS Cup live) or NASCAR getting so big nationally. While I can't say it will beat out those other sports, I do say I don't know for sure and I look forward to watching the league grow. MLS best way to grow is to concentrate on soccer and not worry about the others. Screw ratings. The league is only seven years old people. No pro league bursts onto the scene here and becomes an overnight success. These things take time, and with the bias against our sport here by many fans of other events, it will be a tough hill to climb. But averaging over 15,000 in seven years is good. The arenas that house NBA and NHL teams barely seat more, so our average in live gate is not that far off from established leagues. Love the article. Thanks for the post. Oh, one more thing: as a DC United fan, I wonder aloud to all if they can think of a bigger flop then Chris Albright. I truly despise him for how much DC gave up to get him (whether by choice or forced by MLS) and how extremely very little he gave back. Do any other MLS teams have such a albatross on their record books? I've been a fan all seven years of MLS, and I can't think of many worse (although I do have bias since he directly hurt my club). New England has played well for their last ten to twelve games. But L.A. has too. I would like to see the Revs win in front of that crowd, but my gut tells me Galaxy three to one (with Ruiz netting two!)
The thing that really gets me is when we gave him to LA, Hudson was talking about how much United wanted to keep him and Sigi Schmidt was talking of how long they've been trying to get Chris. Amazing. What is the appeal to him. He scored a total of what? 3 goals or something!!!
Glad to hear I'm not the only one out there. My wife could never understand why I was so anti-Albright (she is far too nice though). I gave him a chance, even though he cost United Rocket Roy back when he routinely found the back of the net. But season after season of watching him miss easy goal chances just wore me down. I'm no soccer superstar, but I honestly believe I could have scored many of the goals he missed. I can't think of another single person who hurt United more over the years. Not sure what Schmid was thinking (but I'm personally glad he did take Albright), but I question Hudson as United coach if he truly wanted to keep Albright. Hopefully he was just trying to make the kid sound better so someone would take him away. I've picked L.A. to win tomorrow, but if Albright sees any minutes I might have to change my mind.
The Albright issue is a sore one for me as I was one of the few people who actually appreciated the effort he put forth night in and night out.. Obviously it never amounted to much on the scoreboard (6 goals in 4 MLS seasons) but the utter disdain shown by United fans is a bit puzzling considering the lackluster efforts of such superstar players like Etcheverry, Lassiter and Moreno... While Albright doesn't seem to posess the scoring ability of Lassiter or Moreno, he more than makes up for his shortcomings by busting his arse off in every other way.. He tracks back defensively and puts non stop pressure on the opponents, something Moreno and Lassiter never seem to do.. Most fans see his low scoring rate and equate it to him being a terrible player.. Not too suprising as most fans probably have never played at a decent level of soccer in their lives and wouldn't know a thigh trap from a bear trap... It's a damn shame that Albright hasn't overcome his pre-MLS hype as he was a quite good youth international player (scoring 4 times for the USA during Olympic qualifiers and Olympic final matches).. With all that being said, Albright has been a major disappointment in MLS and no one feels worse about it than Albright himself.. With every game that passes by that he doesn't score a goal, the pressure increases and his stock continues to fall.. It's too bad because at one time he actually was a decent player but has lost his confidence completely.....