Hehehehe... I'm gonna have to go with the "Military Issue Don't Ask Don't Tell Camoflauge"...afterall, it looks like he's wearing a t-shirt with cupcakes on it. If that's not a sign of sweetness, I don't know what is!!
Not just any cupcakes, but cupcakes with feet. And his shorts have some other normally inanimate object given unnatural arms.
Y'all can talk about whether Dallas currently is a rival now or not all you want, but to say that the Dallas rivalry was (A) contrived, (B) especially "because we were new and just looking for a rivalry without letting one develop naturally", you need to go look at the when, how and whys of that rivalry. Again, I'm not here arguing about now - I'll leave that to others more qualified. But let's get the facts straight about the past.
Greatest. Compliment. Ever. Thanks man. However, DC has us all beat on the hate scale. FWIW, I've really hated your coach since he said something like "we should have stood on top of the ball until all of our players got back and set up" after the ECF and then used it as a ploy against us in our home opener. It took two or three instances of Fire players picking the ball up and walking away with it until a yellow was issued.
What he's really saying is that a rivalry takes time to develop, and Burn fans and Fire fans jumped quickly on the bad blood that their players had for each other over the course of a couple of seasons. Now the rivalry is propped up largely by the fans. Chris seems to be questioning how good a rivalry is when the players are no longer the driving force, and if a couple of heated seasons that have since cooled can legitimately be claimed a rivarly today. A legitimate point. Me, I hate Dallas, but I also hate New England, just a tad less. Except for Franchino, he top 'o the list. I wouldn't piss on Joey Franchino if he was on fire...I would, however take a **** on him...on fire or no.
Well, from 1998 to at least 2002, Chicago-Dallas was quite the rivalry. That was pretty much the whole of Chicago's existance at the time. And also remember that the Brimstone didn't get fired up (sorry...) until 2001, so you had three years to really get things going. So it wasn't as if there was one game and people just said, "wow, let's create a rivalry around this." You had the last second Zarco goal and the New Orleans game in 1998, the playoffs in 1999 and more great stuff in 2000, including a game where y'all went down a man real early, and I believe down 3-1 before winning, 4-3. It was so good that I promised a friend from Sam's Army who came in from Florida that the Chicago game would be awesome because Brimstone just was that way. What happened? Dallas comes back from being down 2-0 to win 3-2 (sound familiar?) in the first ever official Brimstone match. Then the next game in Chicago, Wynalda gets into the act by scoring an extra time goal for y'all to win. Then the 2-2 game where there were all kinds of ambulances and Lubos Kubic getting red carded from the bench.... That was greatness. That was a rivalry. Now, I must admit that there is something to Dallas hating Chicago in part because The Inferno and current/past players has worked hard to make sure that new players are educated on the subject. It helps that we had enough players left over from the old days stay around enough to help bring the new guys up to speed. I don't know what has been done on your end to fuel that fire, or whether the players here just were more amenable to it. But oh well.
The Chicago Fire's surrender is hereby accepted. And New England is now Jimmy Curtin's favorite new rival now that his team's having some success against them? Imagine that.
Honestly though, as much as it will ruin the rest of Dustin's night, I agree with Curtin, and I'd say that DC could be used instead of New England's place in that same quote. From a fan's perspective, if you were a fan of the Fire in 1998 and 1999, then you probably have plenty of hate in your heart for Dallas, and that's fine. But for many of us who weren't fans back then (my first Fire game was on 5-20-2000), then it's quite possible that it's New England, DC or even New Jersey/New York that gets you going. I know that's the case for me-- I've seen the Fire play NE and DC 15 times each, and I've only seen 5 Fire vs. Dallas games. I've been to New England twice, DC four times...and only once to Dallas. Seeing the Fire play all of those games against New England and DC has made me really, really want to see those teams go down. I don't get that same kind of feeling about Dallas. To me, Dallas is barely any different than any other Western Conference team that we only play twice and we hope to beat at MLS Cup. The eastern conference team, specifically NE and DC, that's where it's at for me.
Dallas was a fun team to hate. Especially when we were in the same conference. I don't really hate any team any more except LA. The Hernandez stomp incident and their winning our USOC cup still sticks in my craw.
One question that has to be asked is how SJ move to Houston will affect our rivalry with Dallas. If Houston becomes Dallas' #1 rival (likely), can Dallas be our top rival? Would we even want that at that point? I think it's likely that NE will become are top rival because Dallas will stop hating us so much.
New England remind me of David Hasselhoff for some reason... Talent grossly inferior to their reputation, bad hairdos, bad skin and falsified masculinity stylishly masquerading as "attitude"...which explains the 12 year old girls. Dallas are just a bunch of clownish hacks, with appropriately clownish uniforms...all that's missing is the face paint and funny hats...which oddly enough can already be found in the stands... Kansas City go beyond vanilla right into ice-milk territory...and I prefer the barbeque end of the cow. They're a freakin' affront to the very sport of soccer. EJ and Wolff are there, huh? You could put Pele, Maradona, Cruyff and Garrincha on that team, and they'd still find their way to a 1-1 draw...and draw <10K doing it. Hopefully, they burn all the players and staff in a barbeque pit before they move to Philly. DC...well, they may be rivals in the competitive sense...It's a hard fight on the pitch, and rightfully so...but I don't find myself hating them or their fans...more like a grudgingly mutual respect. LA...are...kind of like that girl who's constantly taking showers, but still manages to smell funny...you know. Columbus Who...meh...who? NY/NJ BullStars...how can you hate a SuperClub? Colorado are kind of like the Padres...you always forget they exist until you see the name on the schedule. Houston wears orange. RSL is just kind of sad. Chivas was just silly last year, but now...I just can't put my finger on it, but I kind of like the way they play... Did I leave someone out? I kind of feel like I left someone out... Oh yeah... FIRE
As the only one on Earth who hates Columbus more than any other team besides D.C. United, I just want to say that it's too bad Columbus sucks *** and has done so for a while because it's the big road trip and could be the absolute biggest rivalry going right now for the Fire. They play each other for a friggin' cannon. I believe it's even a working cannon. How can we compete with that in the long run? No, New England is the most talented team in the league who can't do anything with said talent.
ultimately, the actual truth is that there aren't ANY real rivalries in MLS. real rivalries are the product of decades of competition and periodic significant confrontations during those decades. The creation of the Brimstone Cup was a conscious and intentional effort to artificially quickly generate the sort of widespread passion that genuine rivalries bring to sport. To admit that it didn't pan out, largely due to the fact that realignment reduced the number of meaningful matches between the sides isn't a cop-out, it's a simple recognition of reality. And frankly, consistently losing to a team - when it matters - is EXACTLY the stuff that real rivalries grow out of. So to claim that people are "bailing" on the rivalry because we've struggled against them lately utterly misses the point - if the rivalry were in any way "real," the run of bad form against them would INTENSIFY the hatred felt by Fire fans. Because the rivalry was ALWAYS largely contrived (which doesn't mean I discount the incidents and intensity of those early confrontations - hell, I still think Dallas are a bunch of pv$$ies for that "suspend Dema" campaign), however, the lack of significant matches has led to an understandable diminishing of passion about the "rivalry." I'm as suspicious of people who claim to still have a deep-seeded hatred for Dallas (soccer-wise) as I am of the people who decided to "love" the Fire before they ever saw a match. I do appreciate all the work such "fans" have done for every team in MLS, and for the league in general, but that sort of fandom just strikes me as odd and as contrived as the supposed rivalries we're talking about. For now, I hate NE the most, consider DC our main rival, and couldn't even name a player from FC Dallas. Of course, I still have more vivid memories of the Sting than I do of the Fire, so maybe it's just me. I am looking forward to the Fire catching up.
Actually, the Fire players have had far more altercations with the NE players than Dallas players over the last 2-3 years (some damn good ones too). But don't dispair, I still wish for your untimely demise daily.
Yeah, but can that even be considered a rivalry? It's not like there's any fans coming from LA...it's all the "Chicagoans" who are too stupid to realize that they aren't the real Chivas. Although I must admit that I have a special hatred for those individuals who have never supported their hometown team, yet come and pack the stands to support a name.