Should MLS Have Played This Weekend?

Being that this is an official FIFA international weekend and the US Men have a game, should we have had any MLS games at all this weekend?

Maybe the LA-Colorado game made sense as it was the HDC opening and let us have something in the ESPN2 slot, but should anyone else have played? I tend to think not. Perhaps we could have arranged a U-23 or B international for the FSW slot, something the FSW audience would probably appreciate.

And with both the Confed Cup and the Gold Cup this summer, why has any MLS team had a bye this year?

 

They easily could have though. Did Honduras play this weekend? That could have affected Amado Guevara of MetroStars if he wasn't suspended from the national team. Perhaps St. Vincent could have called up Ezra Hendrickson from Columbus (I think). You get the idea. But especially with us playing a warm-up for the Confederations Cup, it would have been nice to have a friendly in which our ideal starting 11 played.

I realize scheduling is tough with the (ridiculous) summer schedule we have, for which CONCACAF deserves as much blame as FIFA does, but a couple MLS teams have had bye weeks already for what seems like no good reason, so MLS isn't blameless either.

 

Exactly, or at least I do for the majority of the league. I understand that having the Galaxy play was probably necessary, and with the ESPN2 contract it made sense to have at least one game this weekend. But that one game or maybe two would have been sufficient.

It may be a "crappy" friendly, but I'm sure you would have thought it less crappy had Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Clint Mathis, and DaMarcus Beasley played.

Just because we played during the World Cup doesn't mean we have to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

In fact, I think it was more important to play fewer games this weekend than during the actual Confed Cup because of the TV situation.