Looking forward to our first real test of the season. Atlanta have a lot of questions surrounding Josef's absence, but they aren't dead, either.
Don't count this as a "test" just yet. With Atlanta playing AT Club America (Azteca) mid week with a return the following week, not sure we'll see much of a "full strength" Atlanta over the weekend. That being said, I don't mind that either. Not sure we have to be tested just yet.
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I wondered if as the season shakes out, I think it might be likely that we see the first two teams we played are the worst of the West. I guess San Jose and Nashville are fighting for that too, on an early look, but even still, we might have been a bit flattered by crushing some pitiful teams. Even if Atlanta isn't high-flying, they are always a very good test, especially in their home stadium. I think this game will tell us a lot more about SKC than the previous two really did.
Don't disagree with that Inca ... looking at our schedule, it's pretty soft to start out, which I think is ok due to new players building chemistry with the rest of our group. We have Atlanta (possibly 2nd team), San Jose, LA Galaxy and Nashville all coming up (with a home game with RSL in the mix).
I think any games against RSL, Atlanta, and LAG are expected to be at least competitive. So half the games are against solid teams and half against weaker sides... seems a fair setup. But I mean, SKC is working to prove otherwise, but we should have been penciled in as an easier game by the likes of Vancouver and Houston.
Agreed. I think they'll regroup as they have too many talented players not to be bottom of the barrel here, but they certainly are pathetic right now. I'll take it, though. Galaxy sucking is always pleasant. Half of the West sucking is also a big boon to us. Though our conference does look like the much stronger one this year, by a good margin.
I don't think Houston suck. I think they're meh and we made them look bad. I think we're pretty good.
I like that takeaway. I think we're pretty good too. That doesn't mean that, in my estimation, as this season progresses, we will see Houston as anything other than pretty poor. Didn't help that they have a couple crucial injuries. It's way too early to call anything, for sure. But I'd still be surprised if either Houston or Vancouver made the playoffs, no matter how positive they might have looked against LAG (who is apparently a trash fire right now).
I totally love that LAG is a dumpster fire. I mean, high end dumpster, but still. Yeah, by meh I pretty much meant that. I expect Houston will be making a run at the 7th spot but probably fall short, might squeak in, but could easily finish 10th.
Rescheduling ATLANTA game away from CCL and potentially after they find more of a replacement for Josef would be unfortunate.
Watching the CL games that were behind closed doors this week, I'm wondering if it might not be better to stage closed door games not in stadiums. It just looked spooky and oppressive. Probably not an option, and at least CMP doesn't have a towered second deck so the games won't look quite so post zombie apocolyptic. that said, MLS relies more heavily on gate revenue than clubs and leagues that have a ton of TV money coming in. It probably makes sense to postpone rather than play in empty and therefore cash-free houses.
Game looks like it won't happen. Breaking: Multiple sources at MLS teams have been told the league is is suspending games immediately in order to fully assess the situation.— Paul Tenorio (@PaulTenorio) March 12, 2020
I was looking forward to half jokingly repeating this post on as many Sunday post-game threads as it applied to, but not for this reason..... Everybody stay healthy and well!!!
So, the upside for us, Reid will be fully acclimated by the time we return. As high on him as Vermes was in his interviews, I assume he will be playing quite a bit. The downside, we were on a roll. Question: Will SKC continue to train each day? Or will they give players a couple weeks off?
Apparently teams are not allowed to have organized practices until at least Monday, but players can work out individually at team facilities.
I'm not trying to be negative nancy here, but given all that I know about the virus and the US' lack of preparedness, I see no reason why things should look better in 30 days. In fact they are almost guaranteed to look much much worse. In my mind, unless some scientist comes up with some miracle drug that somehow jumps through the regulatory hoops in no time, their decision will probably have to be to either cancel the whole season or play in empty stadiums. Given that some of the European leagues that initially wanted to continue without fans now moved to postponing, my guess is there won't be much soccer for quite a while
I don't know too much about virology, but I haven't gotten the impression that this bug will be a major concern for longer than a month or two. The real danger is how quickly it spreads and how problematic it can be for the elderly. Best of my knowledge, all this quarantine stuff isn't to stop the spread of the virus (fool's errand), but to slow it down and tamp the spike of hospitalizations to a rate that the medical world can keep up with. Since you only get it once and for the vast majority it's a pretty quick recovery, I can't imagine this really locking us down too long. But yeah. Absolutely no soccer on anywhere is the worst. And seeing that the USOC might actually not happen this year (MLS just said its teams won't participate, and that means the two biggest leagues involved have backed out), which is breaking a century+ streak. Lots of sad collateral damage to this one.
I see two scenarios - (1) either the social distancing strategies are working, meaning that only small percentages of people in the KC are affected at any given time, then authorities are probably going to enforce the bans for much more than 1-2 months (remember people infected with the virus have the potential to transmit for at least 3 weeks, maybe longer), or (2) they are not, then we are probably going to see quite a chaos and even more public pressure to have no mass events (though in that scenario it might not actually matter all that much). Maybe we could petition FSKC to have them replay the 2013 season, so we have something fun to watch?
The German Health minister has said to expect 70 percent of the popultation to be infected within two years.