Eric Wynalda's "Howard Beale moment": FSC employees rant against MLS at the NSCAA Convention

Kensington, stick around a few more years and you'll find endless complaining about MLS.

 

Sorry Eric, pointing out that your planned schedule is 31 weeks compared to the current 39 week MLS schedule isn't being a jackass, its being able to look at a calendar and count.

 

Wow. You've managed to illustrate you're a hypocrite in less than 140 characters. Impressive.

...and if there was any doubt, you hammer the point home an hour later.

Takes me back to the time my neighbor stopped by while I was watching the WC in 2006. He wasn't in the room 5 minutes when he asked, "Who's Mr. Know-It-All?"

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGJO8fffmTc"]Betze Legends 1992/93: 1.FC Saarbrücken vs. 1.FC Kaiserslautern - YouTube[/ame]

Don't worry Wynalda! I still remember! (2:03)

Honestly, don't you guys think this a bit much about nothing? His idea's may be out there ,but, he really cares. I don't think his character should be questioned. It's Fine if you disagree (like I do).

And yeahm forums by definition can be pretty mean spirited to the subject of their discussions. This thread definitely has been.

 

You't never know until you actually do it so its business analysis based.
What if its never happens due to the weather.
And what about more TV competition with NFL, College Football and College Basketball.
For sake of arguement if answer to question 1 is greater than 2 but you have a hard time televising your games? Doesn't that enter into equation?

 

For anyone who wants to try:

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1870989

 

I can't remember finding a youtube clip?

Of course I disagree with him but this is just turning a ant hill into a mountain.

 

Thank you. Must spread rep.

 

To be far, it's not always that a "regular" feels "you're a moron because you don't agree with me." It's more often, "You're a moron because your position is unsupportable, or flies in the face of the facts, actual experience, common sense or all three."

And Waldo has apparently now quit Twitter over this. He's not exactly Galileo in all this, is he?

And, oddly enough, those countries in the Southern Hemisphere who adhere to the (cough cough) international calendar play through their summers as well.

 

you're obsessed

for a guy you think is crazy you sure like to know what he's saying

 

Sure. But changing the calendar isn't necessarily one of them.

MLB has been maturing for over 120 years and it has always played through the summer.

The NFL is nearing a century and has always been a fall into winter league.

It's possible MLS could try a different schedule, but it's equally possible that it won't. I don't see any inevitability here.

 

Not very long. Wynalda is the US soccer version of Charlie Sheen. He called me out on twitter for asking someone on Big Soccer who saw him in a restaurant about an obscure Harkes reference. It was so buried in a Houston forum thread that all I can think is he goes home, rants about Big Soccer posters, then does a search for his name and gets back on it.

The guy is delusional. You'd have to have an intervention and some mental counseling specialists to sit down and go over his last 60 days of tweets and make some sense out of it.

His twitter account reminds of Adam Sandler's lengthy "lost puppy" answer at the end of the Billy Madison movie. We are all dumber for spending time reading Wynalda's tweets.

 

Absolutely. (there's no inevitability as to what MLS will or won't decide to do with their business and operations.)

And for as much as MLS is "similar to" both the NFL and MLB, there are things that separate the business (and global marketplace) for soccer that may cause MLS to blaze a slightly different trail than those historical paths of the NFL and MLB (perhaps or especially in terms of maintaining a seasonal scheduling consistency).

 

It is possible for MLS teams to (continue to) play friendly and exhibition matches in the summer, even if that period becomes an off-season or a pre-season.

Starting a season in the early fall and ending it in the late spring doesn't mean that summer club soccer will disappear or be impossible. And there's regularly international soccer in the summer to potentially hold one's interest and to fill such league off-season periods.

Does playing through their (Southern Hemisphere) summers cause them to play league matches through World Cups or against regular extended Fifa international periods?

 

Absolutely, there are challenges and concerns in many (or all) MLS markets. But not all markets get Denver's weather (although a fair number of MLS markets do have harsh Decembers and late-Febs/early-Marches).

MLS will likely only make (or try to make) operational decisions that will be overall positives for their full business.

 

re: NSCAA Session Taping - we do not video record lecture sessions but we do audio record most of them. I do not know for a fact if Eric's session was recorded and will be released for purchase, but I'll take a look in the office and get back to everyone.

 

Are you sure similar sentiments are not expressed elsewhere, or are you assuming? Previously in these discussions I remember people rhetorically asking if they had such debates in Russia. They very much did have these debates in Russia, and they sounded exactly like the debates that happen in the US soccer community on this issue. And Russia's now switching to a fall-spring calendar.

From what I've seen, much of the fan bases in leagues around the world have inferiority complexes vis a vis the top 4-5 leagues in the world. It's not just American soccer fans. Many of those folks are on the lookout for ways their leagues can be more like the Premieship, La Liga, etc.

I am not saying the powers that be should cave in to this thinking, in this issue or any other. But I've never understood the suggestion that such thinking is unique, or nearly unique, to American soccer fans and that fans of all other leagues are content in their leagues remaining exactly as they have always been in every way.

 

What will be telling is whether ExtraTime radio has Wynalda on to break down his idea as he did eloquently in this podcast:

http://www.beyondthepitch.net/podcasts/edition/index.cfm/beyond-the-pitch/2011/10/31/eric-wynalda/


I'd say they're probably too scared to have him on.

Sure, they love "controversy" so long as it is a fake controversy created by Simon Borg and within MLS HQ.

 

What bothers me about this is that Wynalda appears not to know the difference between an assertion and an argument. The first, who gives a shit? Give us the latter, Eric.

I think it's just hilarious that after his HBM he backs down and says it's his opinion, not Fox's, about how changing the schedule would make a difference.

Wait, so Wynalda is saying that if a player acts like a jerk, he can't be "sensational."

I'd be careful there, Waldo.

 

Simply mentioning it without having him to defend his position on would be weak. Very weak.