Do you support the MLS?

it is an outrage in the aspect that CA is trying to make the Earthquakes a farm team. I would be fine if they bought them for financial reasons, but with the comments that the president promised Mexicans on the team and a name change is going too far. I don't doubt Moore resigning. It looks like Garber is drivin MLS fans away and tryin to build a brand new fanbase, instead of working with the one he has now.

 

I'm amazed at the overreaction. It seems as though this Quake fan would prefer lousy or NO ownership to Mexican ownership. But that's not racist ???

The Quakes attendance over the last couple of years is a disgrace. Why in the world shouldn't MLS do SOMETHING to try and improve that situation?

Mexican League teams know a lot about managing and marketing soccer and MLS stands to learn a lot from them. Regardless of what the CA president may say, he can't assemble a roster of mexican players. Can't and won't happen, either in SJ or with Chivas or anywhere else in MLS.

As for starting over with a different fan base, it's a big boat with a lot of empty space. If you don't want to share the space with Latino fans, then prepare to step aside when they come on board.

 

rkupp, i don't think (i hope they arent) Quakes fans are protesting new ownership because the people buying it are Mexicans, they are protesting the changes the group wants to make to the Earthquakes. I have to agree with them, I don't want the Earthquakes to be renamed and moved. But I guess its Eartquakes fans fault for this, because if they actually went to games, they wouldn't be running into this problem.

 

i think people have to remember that one of the most basic of the mls mission statements is that this league is charged with providing a place where u.s. players can play, grow, and eventually contribute to the "u.s. national team".

personally, i don't care if mls starts marketing more to the latino fanbase and puts a eye towards getting latinos (or any other ethnic representation) on the pitch [more specifically the non-s.i.'s i guess]. however, i want to see that these players will be trying to make their way thru the "u.s." national team ranks.

personally, i don't want to see mls willingly selling out to become a "significant" player development stream for another country. i think chivas is going this direction. i'm not getting the feeling that club amer. is jumping in that far.

i'd almost rather see the u.s. and the mex league form and nhl/mlb relationship than to see some mls teams become a training ground for another country. u.s. soccer fans already feel a rivalry with mexican teams at most every level. although the logistics for a shared league are likely too big to overcome....it might have an instant impact on gates when mfl teams come to town....probably by parties with either rooting interest.

 

Not to pick nits, but it's not the MLS any more that it is The Manchester United or The Real Madrid.

Now, I don't claim to know the deal, but at least some of this is the same knee-jerk reaction to the Chivas USA crap. Time and time again, MLS officials have said that if Chivas were to play in this league, they would have to play by the same rules as everyone else. It will be the same for Club America de San Joes Torrenos or whatever they will call themselves. You may have 3 Mexican SIs, but there will be plenty of Yanks on the team. If they foolishly stock the roster with Mexican- or Hispanic-surnamed Americans instead of competent MLS-level players, be they Gringo, African American or whatever, they will suck and people will stay away. I hope for the sake of the league they understand this.

I know Quake fans loved Johnny Moore, and it's easy to read into these things, but did it occurr to any of you that a new ownership is going to bring in their own people, no matter what? Why assume when you don't know?

I, too, hope they don't change the name, or at least call them San Jose Club America Earthquakes or something like that. It takes a lot to establish "brand identity" and granted, the first name (like most MLS names) was pure and utter shite, and needed to be changed (along with about 1/2 the other names), but the 3rd name in less than 10 years isn't going to establish it as a recognizable name.

Finally, the 2 problems there are 1) that Anschutz can't/won't keep all his teams and will eventually sell them off to someone, so why not the one guy who is showing interest, and 2) the stadium. If a rich owner, regardless of ethnicity, comes in and will address your stadium situation, what are you complaining about? We have a brand new stadium that is horrible for us, and guess what? We are stuck with it forever. You and the Mutts and everyone else at least has the chance of playing in a proper place, even if it won't be for a long time. That will nevah, evah happen to us.

Tom

 

All excellent points, Tom.

There are no championship caliber Mexican teams looking to buy the revs, but I don't think revs fans would mind to much if there were.

See https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52820
for evidence thereof.

We're owned and operated by an American football family, watching our team play in an Americal football stadium, looking across the pitch at nothing but empty seats. And it will be this way as long as anyone can forsee.

 

i think i'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this statement, tom. in whatever community they end up in, i believe the "premise" of chivas will carry it further than you're imagining....regardless of W's and L's.

it really is time that u.s. soccer sheds the stereotypical suburban skin its been wearing for quite awhile now. you can see that the younger nat teams are at least looking and feeling more and more "diverse" .....whatever that means. i'm just hoping that whatever non-s.i. players end up on chivas that they'll be looking to make an impression on the nat team coach here in the states and not elsewhere. that's what mls was created for.

 

Pet Peeve

It is NOT "the" MLS

It's just MLS

Do you support the Major League Soccer?

...uh...no....but I DO support Major League Soccer

 

Every now and then we should probably remind ourselves that the team that we root for is an exciting, winning team that seems to be developing into a perennial contender.

For all of those who pine for that dreary, crumbling old "stadium" and it's "atmosphere", I suggest they are blinded by nostalgia. In general, the home team displayed some pretty awful soccer there and even worse, BORING soccer (oh, to watch Baba turn in fear at the sight of a defender and retreat towards his own goal, Burns blast a cross 20 yards behind the goal, Lalas let a critical cross go UNDER his feet, yadda, yadda, yadda) and the facilities ranged between bad and awful in almost every facit.

I love the stadium and I love the game that the Revs play "most" of the time. I'm not convinced that seats will be empty indefinitely.

Not for me those bad old days. And I wouldn't be eager to roll the dice with new ownership.

 

I think you misunderstood what I meant. My response was to the "typical" reaction to the fears that a Cub America and/or Chivas-owned MLS team would bring in a boatload of Mexican players to stock the team. That, league officials have said time and time again, will not happen. They will have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

If they want to bring in a Mexican coaching staff, fine. If they want their 3 SIs to be Mexican, fine. If they can get a TI or 2 who is Mexican, good luck to them. But the rest of the team will have to be US citizens or green card holders,and all of them will have to fit under the cap. Period. I'm sure they'd like to get Mexican-American players like Carlos Bocanegra, and so would all but a handful of teams anywhere on the planet. My point was if they'd rather have Johnny Torres than Jay Heaps based on ethnicity, they are doing themselves and all of MLS and US Soccer a huge disservice.

And I think we are in agreement here, that the makeup of teams should be more reflective of the country as a whole. League-wide, there are lots of second-generation Americans whose parents came from somewhere else, in addition to guys who are immigrants themselves, and those of all races who were born and raised here through the youth soccer/college system. There is no one sytem for producing good players, and anyone who signs players on anything more than merit (and how they fit in re: the cap) has no business running a team.

I just get tired of all these Chicken-Little types who get their undies in a bunch with the thought of Mexican-ization of MLS. If they play by the same rules as everyone else and understand how to do it, they are more than welcome to be part of our league. Garber and others have been very clear up front that this is a requirement, despite what some people are saying.

Tom

 

i understood what you meant by that tom.

i think i was disagreeing with the assumption that if chivas isn't all that successful on the field that their fanbase will get sick of it and leave. some clearly might. however, i'm thinking that we'll find some of the same hardcore mentality in the fans of chivas that we find when el salvador, jamaica, honduras, etc....come around.

what i don't like about the scenarios bandied about in press releases by and about chivas is that they're going to find ways to get latinos of some ilk....period. to me, i would think this violates SOME KIND of hiring practice laws in the u.s. i don't know. it'll be interesting to see how its all handled b/c mls will still be signing the contracts. if chivas is able to convince mls to hold the line for them....then, i'm sure some lawsuits will arise from current borderline players that find themselves between mls and a-league.

also, i'd really hate to think of a player like a daniel hernandez that thinks he's not getting his fair shakes with the u.s. nats and decides to pull a passport or whatever to get looks from the mexican side. i don't want an mls affiliated team to become a potential funnel for the mexican side.

also, vergara (sp?) has chivas (all mex), bought saprissa (made it all c.r.'s), bought ath madrid (kicked out foreigners i think there too)....but, is now wanting to come into the u.s. and NOT make it "all-american". (clearly that's not limited to anglo's)

and thru all this, there's not one single member of the soccer media out there that seems to be either looking for or getting to the tough questions about all this. not one single writer has taken it upon themselves to find out what's really in chivas' head, how they're really are going to be able to operate a team within the bounds of mls and meet their own objectives, and to figure out how this really affects the mission statement of mls..affects the u.s. nat team...and affects the soccer fanbase in the u.s. (larger sense).

mostly, i worry about the trickle down affect all of this might have on the u.s. player pool and the efforts to build a large u.s. nat fanbase amongst soccer fans of all ethnicities. personally, i'm trying to avoid the chicken-little aspect of all this. however, with the load of conflicting information that has hit the net....its not helping that mls isn't trying to tell their own fans EXACTLY how this thing is all going to go down.

 

This concerns me too and I think the reason we don't have a definitive response from MLS is that they aren't sure what will happen either. At this point all they can do is hold to the statement that ALL teams (regardless of ownership) must operated within the rules already in place. Whether they can hold this line is in question.

What I hope won't happen is for the leadership of MLS to start making "concessions" to Mexican owned teams. One example that comes to mind...

Chivas identifies a Mexican youth player that they feel would benefit from a few years experience playing in MLS and advise the player to sign with MLS. Then, once he has developed, MLS sells him back to Chivas (MEX) at a considerably discounted price.