Bought my tickets 20 minutes after they went on sale. I can't wait. If Everton lose, and we lose, we play one another. That would be interesting! By the way, my Everton board is actually really excited about this. Great preseason tournament for us. P.S. My tickets were expensive, could care less. Gives me the opportunity to see a club I could only see maybe once a year in person.
Ditto. The folks I've brought to games have had a good time and I've converted a couple. The good ones get it (no offense to your friend).
Exposure and money. I'm with the post above by JBZTV. Look, when you're the star of MLS you play these games. It's the price of being us. This probably brings us more revenue than USOC.
Hey, since it is an exhibition, if LAG and Everton meet, maybe we could get LD to play 1/2 with each club. "Champions Cup"??? What is Everton "Champion" of last season. I missed that.
Undoubtedly. There's an old joke. A man walks up to a beautiful woman in a bar and asks, "Would you sleep with me for $10,000,000?" She says, "Sure." He says, "Since we have now established what you are, lets negotiate about the price."
The starters should not take part. PERIOD. This is the punishment for the reserves for playing USASA chickenshit football in the USOC.
There is actually NO money in the USOC unless you can make it to the final (Teams get a travel stipend for each round). There is no national broadcast rights sold for this tournament outside of the final being shown on national TV.
Not even the same thing. This is the reality of being a club and marketing yourself to generate funding to reinvest in the team. Building a brand takes work, effort, and thinking big. I like that our club gets included with the bigger clubs. AEG has had this aspiration for a long time, so let's not act surprised when we do things that show it.
Got it, and can see your point! You know it was a marketing person's job to come up with that name, and that's where we ended up (I'm in marketing, and this is one of the most painful parts of my job).
It is good to have aspirations. But that needs to be tempered by figuring out if you are or are not ready for prime time. There have been careers ruined by people thinking they are ready for the bigs, and then crapping out because they weren't. Wanting to be BIG and actually being BIG are two very different things. And since I am sure Bruce and Chris actually know this, they are whoring out the club for money and any damage done be damned.
I don't agree with this AT ALL. This is a summer tourney. Anyone who thinks we are going to beat the clubs in it needs to have a reality check. It's a good opportunity to learn, get experience and get some revenue. If there are plebes out there who think this is an actual tourney, they are probably not ready to be converted. But getting fans of these clubs over with some good surprising play is a good thing. There is cache from being involved. And I think there's upside here rather than downside. That's opinion of course. But in terms of history, Bruce and Chris seem to know what they are doing in terms of running our club - that's one area where I feel like we've always been good - marketing bigger and trying to expand our brand. Compare us to other MLS clubs in that regard. Yes, having Beckham helped, but we managed that and built upon it. Magee complimenting Klein and Bruce says A LOT to me. These guys are intelligent, and I for one like that they are thinking big to get us included with the likes of the clubs here. They are not damage be damned - there are no indications of that at all in our history. You play your three games, get some exposure, and call it a day. Let's all remember Man City 1, LA 1. You never know. Just play well, control what you can control, entertain some fans, and go home with your dollars that you put towards a 3rd DP to get even better.
Further Irritation Alert: If I'm reading that schedule right (and I'd like to think that I am): LA could lose two matches and then still have to fly to effing Miami for the ignominious 7th place match? Who do I punch about this?
******** that! I say we play them tough and hit the hard while they are still in the vacationing mindset. The combination of our mid-season form and some Argentina '78 officiating could see us win this whole thing, serving up the perfect propaganda pie for all the Euro snob doubters to choke on.
If we win, it will be awesome, but I have my expectations appropriately set, and I think Bruce will too.
I would rather lose every match and have the full first team squad come through healthy than win the whole thing and see a starter go down. And that goes for both of my teams. Happy for those who will get to see some good players and even a team they also follow in some cases, just want to see no injuries is all.