Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP MLS ins't that far behind the EPL. MLS teams can beat EPL teams. http://www.majorleaguesoccer.com/games/03/tracker.php?gamename=07232003_ZZZDC&version=recap http://www.mlsnet.com/games/03/tracker.php?gamename=05142003_ZZZDC&version=recap WUSA on the other hand...
This news just gives the Jim Rome's of the world more ammo and that's just plain a bad thing. That being said, this was the women's Serie A, ELP and La Liga all rolled into one and it was still dreadfully slow and boring. I'm sorry, but as big a fan as I am I could never drag myself to a Breakers game because of this. MLS may not be the EPL, but I don't expect it to be either! RC
Alright, I may be the only FEMALE posting on here about a female league... I went to a Breakers game once. Long time ago. It was a double header with the Revs. I was never so scared in my life. I was surrounded...simply surrounded... by screaming little blonde girls with giant braces and face painting. It also turned out to be one of the most boring experiences of my life. I play women's soccer, I'm not a fan of watching it. And a lot of females feel the same way. Why? Because we grew up watching MEN'S STYLE of play. Soccer to us before the women's leagues was and continues to be the Premiereship, Serie A, Bundesliga, and recently, MLS... So why should we play a completely different style? The WUSA was exciting at times, but that was rare and only when they played with a level of aggression and passion we see in the major male leagues. For the most part, everyone kept harping on the fact that women and men are different and therefore play different styles. Not true. We don't have to play like little girls because we have ovaries. Our game doesn't need to be slower, more cautious, or more predictable. And unfortunately, WUSA was mostly that. As much as MLS is amateur in comparison to the world's major soccer leagues, it has a spark to it, a certain passion to it that is reminiscent of leagues I admired growing up. Even the Revs...yes the Revs... have shown an aggression and desire that lacked in most of the WUSA (Ok, the Breakers were a damned good team... but the LEAGUE was lacking) Also, we must consider the fact that it took many tries to get a mens professional soccer league off the ground. Its not something that can happen right away. It was a good attempt, but in the end, the passion just wasn't there. But we all know there will be a next time. Alright...back to lurkdom and schoolwork.
Re: Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP What games have you been watching? Bottom teams like Fulham, Birmingham City and Bolton would go through MLS easier than a hot knife through standing butter. MLS's leading teams - Chicago Fire and San Jose Quakes - wouldn't be much more than playoff teams in the English Second Division or bottom teams in the First Division. That is the reality. If a MLS team beat an EPL team in a real competitive game, it would be a huge abberation. That is not meant to denigrate MLS. The standard in MLS is decent enough to produce some entertaining games and some talented individuals, but no MLS team has the depth to compete with the best European leagues. The difference is still night and day, and if you don't believe it, turn on a light and take a real look. The only real question in all this is does this mean that the Aly Wagner trade to Boston is now off? Maybe the Revos can pick her up.
Don't worry, it won't. And nobody is really counting on WUSA fans turning to MLS. Most were probably tied to the suburban girls leagues anyway, and seldom bothered with MLS from its inception. With Mexican league team owners interest in MLS on the rise --and Euro teams scouting the league for the next Tim Howard -- I'm hopeful a mature soccer culture will develop around MLS, including a broad base of Latino fans who are finally conviced the league has something to offer them. Eight years, and growing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP DCU-Spurs. Twice. With a trophy at stake. I think DC even beat them at their house on Boxing Day or something like that. And Spurs took a liking to Bobby Convey. Where have you been? You simply can't write off friendlies; these teams have SOME pride -- and NOBODY wants to lose to a Yank outfit. Not even Bayern Munich on hangovers.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP Trophy? What trophy? Completely meaningless. Friendlies are exactly what the word says. US Open Cup, how many MLS teams take that competition seriously? How often have MLS teams lost "friendlies" against college teams or USISL teams over the years? Plenty. And it means - NOTHING in the real scheme of things. MLS has players that can compete in the EPL. There are no MLS teams that could compete in the EPL. If you can't see that, then your optimism for MLS has completely clouded over your vision of reality.
It's really sad, to me, that the WUSA has gone the way of all things. I went to a lot of Breakers games and enjoyed most of them. I don't understand why so many Revs fans seemed to dislike women's soccer, but I guess there are an equal number of Breakers' fans non-plussed by the men's game. Personally, I feel lucky to have been able to watch (and cover) the best female players in the world. It will likely be a long time before I can say that about the men.
Hey - Metro may win the MLS Cup this season, but that's a 25-cent trinket compared to those tropies earned by winning the Cesare Ragazzi Tournament or the Gaetano Lonardi Benefit Tournament. The New England Revolution have won both: we own Italy's ass baby! The Magpie
George - it's nice to have your thoughtful and positive voice back on the Rev board. My point is that kids inevitably have heroes in the popular culture. I would rather have my daughters want to grow up to be like Kristine Lilly than Brittany Spears. Do you actually have a problem with that? OiRevArmyoi I think articulated the anti-WUSA argument as well as any. I think she could have made the same argument about MLS '96. I think, like MLS, WUSA was improving year by year, and as the game improved, would have become faster and less predictable. And no, MLS and EPL are not remotely on the same level. I cheered for DCU (for the first and probably the last time) when they beat Spurs, but if they played today (with full squads), Spurs - even Wolves - would eat them alive.
I disagree. At best, it is a slight positive for MLS. There is a finite amount of money in the economy for sports entertainment. The market for pro soccer is very small in the US. Splintering that market was not a good idea. So maybe now you'll see a couple hundred more school girls at Revo games. Not a big deal, but more tickets anyway.
Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP Jon, I'm with you. And, BTW, whoever made the comparison between Triple A baseball and MLB, I'd be willing to bet that "minor league" baseball outdraws MLB by a WIDE margin. And there is a message in that! High school soccer can be exciting, U-10 can be exciting, heck, pre-K soccer can be exciting - IF you have some emotional investment. If as a men's soccer fan, you watch some random WUSA game, all you notice is that they aren't as fast, can't jump, can't beat anyone one-on-one, etc. For that matter, now that I have FSW, I click on a random Argentine or Brazillian league game and often find it totally uninteresting - because there's no emotional investment. I took the time to learn who the Breakers were and how they played. I enjoyed watching them on TV and at Foxboro. (I rarely paid to watch them at Nickerson, so maybe I'm WUSA's problem!). I was a fan and really enjoyed the HUGE improvement they made this year - I felt they overachieved all season long. It's easy to sneer at it and dump on it. If it makes one feel superior, go ahead (just like the Euro snobs who can't lower themselves to watch MLS). But, I agree with Jon, this is a BIG loss for the Boston area, for the WUSA players, for the USWNT, for US soccer in general, but most of all for a lot of young female athletes who invested a lot of pride and hope in WUSA. [I sure hope we can find a find a way to lure Joe Cummings back to the Revs!]
there is no doubt in my mind that the WUSA would have improved each year. But the problem was MLS caught on in 3 years and WUSA never did. WUSA advertising was, as someone pointed out, more about little girls than it was about the game. It was promoted almost like an anomaly: "LOOK! WOMEN PLAYING SOCCER!" Americans shouldn't be expected to love a sport simply because its females playing it. That's normal to us now, this isn't the 70's. I doubt gender bias has anything to do with this. The league just didn't have the heart they originally hoped it would. When advertisers focused on the fact that women were playing soccer and not the actual game. The game conesquencely suffered because of it. The women's world cup was such a success because it was treated like any other major sporting event. It didn't scream "LOOK CHICKS!" It was good soccer full of heart and a high level of competition... and that's what we're looking for.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP I have to kind of agree with Frank here... I think one time when DC played Spurs, Spurs had retired players playing, it was definitely a friendly. That being said, I think that most MLS team could compete in the English 1st Division. I, for one, think that's amazing. Let's see another country try to create a league in another sport from scratch and make it that competitive in 8 years.
Ah, but you don't know that. There is no way to KNOW that until they actually play. We can only go by the facts: DC played Spurs twice, and beat them twice. And the Spurs weren't exactly understaffed at the time. As far as I'm concerned, any time two teams take the field, it counts -- often in ways that matter more than money or points or hardware in club cases. Yes, it pains me to no end when Metro loses to a lower division side. It matters to me, because the Metro shirt was on the field, worn by players representing the team. About the only thing I don't like about soccer is the arrogance and cynicism that shrugs off friendlies. Ive yet to see a 'friendly' match between the US and Mexico, no matter what it's called. If it doesn't matter, don't play the match. Don't waste my time, I've got a dozen really good books to read, and life is just too effing short to waste on people who don't give their best when the whistle blows.
Again, it is apples and oranges. By the reasoning many folks have employed women's golf and tennis should just go away but the haven't. If the economic imperative for WUSA to exist went south, or was mishandled, so be it. But to denegrate women's soccer as second rate is to miss the point. It may not be functional as a spectator sport, as "oirevarmy" points out, but crossing the line into trashing women's soccer generally is nutz. For example, in most high schools the talent pool of players on the boys side has been drained by gorrilla ball and skateboarding by the time they are teenagers. On the Belmont High varsity last season only five of the 25 kids played club soccer. Ten of the kids who had played on the top level town team at 14 now played pointyball. 4 others disappeared. On the women's side, many of the varsity also played club and the team drew from the best female athletes in the four grades. For sophistication of play, it was no contest, the women were yards better. For strength and speed, of course, it is a different game. Does this translate to the professional level? I don't know. The best WWC games in 1999 were great but it might have taken years for WUSA to get to that level. MLS has improved every year, despite the nay-sayers. It may be that only one Div I league can survive here. Women's soccer in the rest of the world is attached to already extant clubs (Fulham Womens, etc.) and I should think that MLS will be very sanguine in that regard. But, most important for us Revs fans, to echo RKUPP.....[I sure hope we can find a find a way to lure Joe Cummings back to the Revs!] Should we start a thread about this? JIM DOW
Re: Re: Re: Re: WUSA RIP I'm confused by the first item ... did you mean between Triple A baseball and MLS? I'm not so sure that minor league baseball outdraws Major league baseball ... even with the large numbers of teams out there. Those teams don't play anywhere near the number of games that MLB teams do. Just an FYI over 62 million people have seen regular season major league baseball games this year. There's no way that minor league baseball comes close (A, AA, AAA and hell, rookie league). And on the second item, not that I believe Joe would, but I'd love to see it. monty
It's apples and oranges and pears. The big difference why women's tennis and women's golf can make it and the WUSA and the WNBA are gone or going is a simple one. Individual sports versus team sports. It seems as if men have no trouble being interested in watching Venus and Serena Williams or Steffi Graf play tennis or Annika Sorenstam or Nancy Lopez play golf. The scores the golfers shoot can be appreciated by all of the duffers of the world. Same as the competition between the best women tennis players. That hasn't translated to women's team sports. For whatever reason, men don't seem to be interested in paying to watch it when there is a higher calibre of men's team competition available. I'd bet that the majority of men at the Breakers games were fathers bring their daughters or young guys more interested in meeting girls in the stands than what was happening on the field. OK, that might be a little extreme, but how many men attended matches by themselves or with a group of men to watch the soccer? The WUSA would probably admit that this was never going to be their core audience, yet a recent study showed that NFL audiences are approximately 85% male while baseball, hockey and basketball games are also played in front of predominantly male audiences. Sure there are a lot of women that go to these games and really enjoy it. There has already been one post in this thread from a woman that prefers to see the men's games. Fair enough. Everyone makes their own choices. The WUSA and the WNBA, being women's team sports leagues, probably had a much narrower constituency to draw from which hasn't interested sponsors who believe their money could be better spent elsewhere. It is a shame that the WUSA is folding. I enjoyed going to a few Breakers games each year. I never compared the quality of play to MLS, only to other WUSA teams. Given the choice, I would choose to see a MLS game over a WUSA game, but there is no reason why both couldn't be enjoyed and accepted in their own right.
Of course it was motivated by something more, Mike -- the absolute jealousy that so many male soccer fans felt in 1999 when the USWNT swept the nation and gave soccer a "feminine" image in this country. Some people just couldn't tolerate a team -- little more than a decade old at the time -- surpassing the longstanding Men's National Team (and the Division 1 men's pro league here) in popularity. I guess it was an understandable gut reaction, but it was still petty, misanthropic (I'm not going to say misogynistic, because that word has undertones that I'm not sure apply here. But maybe they do.) and ill-advised.
There might just be some truth to what Beez says. Not that I saw the Breakers, WUSA and the WNT as anything more than just another flavor of soccer that could/would/might/did appeal to a different audience, but some people obviously felt a threat by it. Part of it had to do with the overly simplistic view that the US National team "women are better than the men" which is folly. Being the best among maybe 3 really good teams or at most 6 solid teams is a far different comparison than being among the top 30 or so teams in the world. I will admit that it irks me to see the T-shirts in the soccer catalogs that say World Cups: Women 2, Men 0 or whatever. Granted, these shirts a, female palyers for the most part, but it's hardly a fair comparison. Can't we just leave it alone and accept that these are really two entirely different animals and let people enjoy either version or both? It reminds me of the arguments of whether basketball or hockey is the better winter sport. Let people choose their preferences and as our amis in France would say, "L'un n'empeche pas l'autre." Tom