http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20060926&content_id=73924&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp Had no idea that Red Bull was so messed up by Mo and that Chivas USA was so vastly improved this year over last.
Wait a second, Bob Bradley's brother is saying that Bob's former team became a mess after Bob left and that Bob's current team vastly improved after Bob's arrival???!?!??!! Wow!!! I'm shocked that Bob's brother would sell him out like that!
I'm missing something here, I think. Where did he say that Mo screwed up RBNY? IMO, Alexi's tinkering had the most profound impact.
But wait, there's more For a self-styled historian, he sure is loose with the facts. Cunningham has 16 goals - easy to look up there on MLSnet - and is thus two short of RDA's mark for a non-playoff scorer. I know it's not a huge mistake and the greater point is that a guy once scored 18 goals and his team missed the playoffs. I get that. But as we've learned with Trecker, you start consistently making niggling mistakes and suddenly your credibility is questioned. And Bradley is one of the better soccer writers out there, so that would be shame.
Frankly, Bradley has been mailing it in all season. I used to look forward to his insightful articles the last few years, but this year...well, he apparently has other interests, because it has been mostly recycled and boring crap. Too bad.
Horrible column. Half the items he lists aren't even "historical" because, as he states, they've happened before or they aren't going to happen this year because a prior team did worse. And saying they haven't happened in X years is somewhat meaningless when the league is only 10 years old. There are many posters here on BigSoccer than can do better. And nice job on missing the Rapids '97 title. I expect if he mentions it in his next column that he'll say he meant "regular-season title".
It's obvious he meant regular-season title. He mentioned Tampa Bay in 1996, who won in the regular-season but not the playoffs, and Miami in 2001, who won in the regular season in a year when there were no playoff conference champions, and he implied that Columbus and the MetroStars won conference championships, which they have done in the season but not the playoffs.
When you can see a Western Conference trophy with the Rapids name on it at their offices, it is confusing.
This isn't the only one where he's had some factual gaffes. Last month, he wrote this: It's a nice memory, 'cept he appears to have totally made up the bit about Hudson's kissing Welton because the Fusion were never "Ray Hudson's boys" in 1999 as Ivo Wortman coached the team that year. ALL YEAR. Wortman took over the Fusion midway thru the 98 season and coached them all of 99 and the first nine games of 2000 till getting canned after a 1-4-4 start, which is when the Fusion became "Ray Hudson's boys." You can look it up. It's all there, ironically, on MLSnet.com, the very site where Bradley's article ran.
Was the trophy made of silver back then? There's nothing but glassware in the Revs trophy case (the garbage bag of stuff Sunil left behind when he took the USSF post). Of course, most fans don't recognize a conference finals win as a trophy.
I don't. And I don't really think winning a conference or division regular season really merits a trophy either. IMO, only four trophies matter in this league: MLS Cup, US Open Cup, Supporters' Shield and CONCACAF Champions' Cup.
Yup. Although I am by no means militant about having a single table, I'd put the SS right up there with MLS Cup if we had one and the schedule was more balanced.
Its as much of a trophy as the AFC/NFC Championship trophies are, which is to say, not much of one. Heck, I enjoyed the Rapids winning the Rocky Mountain Cup the last two years more than the idea that they could win the Western Conference trophy last year. The appearnce in MLS Cup is more meaningful than the trophy.