Are you saying that 90 minutes of drums and quiet chants from 17 supporter groups isn't the way to go?
Would it make sense to ban the people that are saying this chant? In my mind that is just as bad as a racist chant, which will earn you a lifetime ban now.
Other than public perception, it makes no sense to implement policies that MLS and/or the individual clubs aren’t going to enforce.
Hey, fellow RSL devotees... I’m hoping you can help me figure out what to do. I want to buy lower row tickets to the 3/21 home game versus NER. It’s my son’s birthday present. I hoped to get Row 1 near centerline tickets. But, when I went to the RSL ticket site there were none available. As a matter of fact there were only a handful available in the lower bowl between the 18’s. That includes both East and West stands. My question is this: are all of these seats actually taken or do you think more will become available as we get closer to the game’s date? TYIA!
They usually open up more closer to the game, as a bunch of these are "locked" for potential STHs. Best bet is to find an STH that sits near where you want to, and ask them to buy the tickets for you.
shoot any of the ticket reps an email - those seats are typically locked for potential promos and such but become available the week of the game
Being in RSL marketing must be an adventure. Things like locking seats down while the stadium is half empty for many games would stress me out. Another example was the duplicitous "Get on the STH waiting list" pitch when there are observable empty seats everywhere you look. When I was a STH, there were games I couldn't give my tickets away. Makes you wonder from a supply/demand standpoint.
the marketing technique of creating a demand through false premises (the waitlist) is something that really needs to go away.
Probably not the right place for this, but I can't think of a season that I have felt more ambivalent about than the upcoming one. It's not solely RSL's fault, but I feel like the team has already hit their all-time high water mark and that with MLS's expansion and DP rules, MLS has become just like every other sports league: big markets and big money rule all.
I'm feeling very much the same but with perhaps a different emphasis. I'm sure that the DP rules, expansion teams, and everything else has an impact on RSL and smaller market teams but for the most part that's how it goes in sports. The real issue for my ambivalence is really the team itself. How can anyone be excited for the season when they go out and hire a coach from La Raza or Boca Roca or West Side United FC and snack bar kids league to coach the team. The player moves and signings have not been much to write home about even if they did get rid of Bofo which makes me happy. I'm sure Freddy is a good coach but for me and the last 3 RSL Coaching hires they have gone from bad to worse to worserest. I guess I'll just start to EMBRATSU from the get go.
The weird thing about this off season is that the club has made some very smart moves. McMath and Meram immediately come to mind. But this team wasn't in a spot last season for those to be your biggest impact signings. I realize Ramirez is supposed to be a bigger signing, but at 18 and still not with the team... I'm not expecting much of anything from the kid before July. Which brings up the point the RSL Show guys alluded to in their 3 part series this week: You can always sign players in the summer. Yes, you certainly can... but what is the point of the offseason if you're going to just wait until June to be competitive with the roster? I know the league loves to talk parity and how a team can start slow but then make a rampant comeback in just months... but is that as likely with how much better the league is getting? Is that not just admitting the whole goal of the squad is to make the playoffs and hope lightning is captured? I don't expect this team to be SS contenders, but resigning ourselves to playoff contention, at best, before a ball has been kicked is a bit of a blow for a club that used to be the premier team in the league (albeit quite awhile ago now). I guess my point of this long rambling post is that the club certainly doesn't have any sort of identity - at least not one their willing to commit to. Are we trying to spend and compete? sometimes, I suppose. Are we going to be the team that plays youth? At moments, sure, but then we sign Luke Mulholland and release the rights to a guy for LAFC who plays in their champions league game. Can anyone, from fan to front office, tell me the identity of this club?
I don't fully understand the roster rules, but assuming we sign Rossi and loan one of our players to the Monarchs, is it possible to sign someone in the transfer window?
imo it has NOT been evolving slowly. It happened as soon as we got a new operating owner and that guy got rid of Kreis. There has been neither an identifiable identity nor vision from that moment.
I'm seriously sick of the talk that RSL plays their homegrown players the most in the league therefore they are a youth squad. This is not true. The academies in this league (especially ours) have been around long enough that hyping playing guys from them as some novel thing is gone. The focus should be on teams not playing guys from their academy, not those that do. Justen Glad is 22 and has played in this league long enough that he should actually be looked at as an experienced player. Aaron Herrera has two seasons under his belt and over 4000 minutes. He turns 23 this year. Baird is 24. Unless this team has serious plans to play guys like Arriaga (19) Garcia (17) Iloski (20) Ochoa (19) and Vazquez (18) then we're not a young team. We're not a team that looks to its academy as growing the talent. As @irondeepbicycle always points out very well, after the class of 1997, this club has done jack and shit in terms of seriously playing academy products. Also, I knew this was the case but hadn't looked at the club's roster page recently to piss me off until now: We have Maikel Change (28) on the roster instead of an academy product. We have Douglas Martinez (22) on the roster instead of an academy product and he occupies an international slot. We signed Luke Mulholland again despite playing only 4 more games than Rossi over the last two years. Pablo Ruiz (21) is still with the club and occupying an international slot despite showing zero growth. We used another international slot on journeyman defender Ashtone Morgan and in preseason are preferring to play Justin Glad and Herrera out of position instead of playing him. I've heard numerous people talk about how well constructed this roster is. I completely disagree. This roster is a shit show. It is nonsensical. Using our limited international slots on the players we are is super confusing. Picking up who we have from the Monarchs makes next to zero sense. Signing two players over 30 (Rossi and Meram) to be the biggest impacts with the other signing being 18 and not with the team yet... What in the actual ******** is going on? I said I would hold judgement on Elliott Fall until the end of the season. I will honor that commitment. As of now, though? I have no idea what the approach is and I'm not convinced he does either.
One possibility is that he’s getting mixed messages (or NO messages) from the top of the org chart, and/or has been told not to spend much money, and/or has not otherwise been given the freedom to do what a GM typically is supposed to do. My sense is that RSL is a Top->Down organization and what we see is a reflection of the Top.
I don't disagree with most of your points in general, but the first 20 spots on the roster are for senior team members. The remaining 10 are for homegrowns and draft picks and such. There were lots of players who left the team that occupied senior roster spots. I don't think our backups should be occupying international roster spots unless they were starters and someone came in and supplanted them. I want to know what the team is going to do since there are now 31 players on the roster and supposedly they are looking to add during the summer. I'm looking forward to see who is assigned to what slots on the roster.
I can see that as the situation Fall is in, sure. But that doesn't mean he's being told to sign Ashtone Morgan or keep Pablo Ruiz on an international slot. That is 100% him or DLH is actually the GM and Fall is a literal puppet
I've been pretty plugged-out for a bit so I missed the first game. But honestly I don't see this as a playoff team, and I think we totally botched the offseason. I can't believe we're still jerking around Glad so we can start two 31+ center backs. I can't believe we traded a homegrown central mid for nothing, then have a squad where our youngest central mid is 27. Our new attacking savior is 33 and hasn't played in two years. It feels like we're admitting that our academy-centric growth didn't work and we're just all-in on a new direction.