I heard the Show last night. and I have say that Cohen didn't sound like a snob at all. he made very good points on how the MLS is cutting their own throats. it was a very good interview. p.s. Hey Jade, you only gave a link for the second hour. I was on in the first hour !!! Ah, I'll find the link for the first hour on the Sports Animal.......it's all good.
Glenn Davis has the biggest balls in soccer radio, that's one guy that will always stand up for MLS and he tells it like it is! I wish Sean Wheelock was more like him, just because he has a bigger profile on the world stage with the BBC!!!!
Can someone summarize the audio for me? I can't get it to work. I'm intrigued at this "cutting their own throats" business.
Somebody who's more eloquent than me at English can give you the PBP. what I can tell you is that Cohen was telling Glen that for one MLS game on ESPN every Thursday, you can get like eight EPL games. That when he turns on the T.V. and sees a Green Bay or Patriots game from this last weekend, he feels like he wants to be a part of it, that he wishes he was there at the game. but he turns on to a Red Bulls playing infront of maybe 12,000 people at a stadium that holds 80,000 with gridiron lines on the field.........he wants no part of that. He also hates Donovan and feels the MLS over promised and under delivered on the Beckham arrival.
I don't know if it was more of the same, but only because I tend to stay at my own Dynamo Forum. I'll have to say that I had seen a thread here about Cohen trashing the MLS. it was closed, so I didn't read it. At the time I was like: "Screw that Euro-snob" but after I listened to him, I was impressed. he doesn't seem to hate the MLS, just the decisions the League has taken to promote the sport in America.
I agree a lot with Steve: The gridiron lines have to go. And Glenn being worried about the use of terms like "pitch", "football", etc stuff is silly. No UK commentator would call an American football game as if it were a soccer match. Glenn is a good guy and a great commentator, probably the best American that has been on ESPN, but he is old and holds on to some of the NASL stuff too much, "when I was coming up we called it soccer and we called it a field."
I agree., Cohen turned the tables on my boy Glen and pointed out to him that maybe people that think like that are themselves elitist. what Glen was talking about was many Americans that never have been to a match in England, they've just watched it on t.v. and start to use those terms. but it did sound silly.
I just listened to it and I agree that Cohen didn't completely trash the league irrationally. But he still made some really stupid points. He sees a game at NY that's boring and he doesn't want to be there and it's the league's fault? Wouldn't that be NY's fault? What about the sellout's at houston or the games at DC or toronto? He just talks alot and says very little.
Before there was a Dynamo the MLS didn't mean anything to me, now it's my life. so maybe Cohen needs to have a MLS team that he can really follow. Before the MLS, I was a MFL team supporter, and still am. maybe Chelsea is Cohen's only team and can't get himself to follow any other team. I've been lucky to be at every Dynamo home game but more needs to be done to get people into the stadiums, be it Houston, Washington or Toronto. We have to do our part as soccer lovers and MLS followers to demand from our teams, media and fellow fans their full support of the sport. I've been part of the MLS for only two years, but if I wanted now, you can only imagine how the people that have been around here since day one feel.
Cohen has seen a few DC games and he told me on the show that "When I look at DC United games, I want to be there." I don't want him picking DC though. I think he ought to get with fellow Brit Morrissey and support Chivas USA. I think they will have a big season this year and bring a lot more to the stadium on non-SuperClassico days. If he hates the high ticket cost and Beckham Hype then join the anti-Beckham club and support them. What Cohen wants is to be part of a big game atmosphere and unfortunately he only looks at LA Galaxy and New York as representatives of the league. Poor as they are they for many people represent the league more than Houston, or DC United or Toronto because they (NY and LA) are big cities which have big egos but lack a big atmosphere in this league.
The day Red Bull Park opens to a full house Cohen will declare himself a RBNY supporter stating that it's the only proper football ground in the US. It won't hurt that they will probably have another aging Euro star in the lineup .
I'll worry when Cohen stops talking about MLS. Until then, he can carry on. There's no such thing as bad publicity.
Not true, ever listen to BBC Radio 5 live's coverage of the SuperBowl? I suggest you tune in this year. British people calling the game as it should be. It's a field, not a pitch, etc. The average Brit may not like American football but they show respect for the game in that they use american english terms.
I haven't listened to the interview yet but if Glenn Davis is questioning the use of British sports terms in MLS broadcasts, good for him. It is one thing to hope or even expect sports fans in this country to eventually see the beauty in the beautiful game. It is something quite different to expect fans to learn a completely new language to follow the sport. This country has totally serviceable terms for things like the field of play, the uniforms players wear, players stealing the ball from opponents, how to describe a 1-0 score, or going to a bar after the game. If fans are told they have to imitate British sports language and culture to be into soccer it will take generations for the sport to achieve mass appeal and soccer will continue to be an object of ridicule on Sportscenter for years to come. I'm an old Cosmos fan and currently follow the Red Bulls and I can tell you when soccer had its highest profile in this country it was acheived without forcing fans to speak British. Listen to some of the European sportscasters in this country who have lived here a long time and you don't hear half the Britishisms as you do from Sean Wheelock for sake of argument. I love going to Red Bulls games and hearing the public address announcer refer to a scoreless tie at half-time as nil-nil then hear the Spanish langage announcer refer to the same score as zero-zero. I guess Latin folks didn't get the memo about true soccer terms. PS - Great blog Jade. Read it religously every day, sometimes more than once a day, keep up the good work.
My respect for Davis has just increased tenfold. The game is called soccer, its players wear uniforms and play on a field, several NASL team-names are absolutely worth preserving in MLS (San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, New York Cosmos, Portland Timbers, Vancouver Whitecaps and so on), etc. -G
Honestly, I thought it was a great conversation, and the two men agreed on a fair amount. The best part of the exchange IMO was Davis pushing the point that the media and fans had to do more to hold teams like Colorado and Dallas accountable. Both have these new stadiums, but needed to do more in the community to fill them, specifically noting that Dallas had to do a better job reconnecting with the Hispanic community.
Actually, I spent the first 6 months of 2007 studying abroad in norf London. ITV and Five were showing the Super Bowl with American commentators and it wasn't the CBS feed. I have plenty of British friends who are getting into NFL and use some of the American terms but they still mess up plenty of the terms and use some non-American football terms all the time.
Glenn Davis will never pass up a shot to diss FC Dallas. Much like his posting of the rumor that Kenny Cooper wanted out of Dallas a couple of weeks ago which was complete fabrication. Not saying the stuff about hispanics isn't true, but Glenn Davis is about the most biased source you can get when talking about Dallas.