Dylan Hernandez wrote an article about Eddie's being out for the season. Ann Killion wrote an article about how Adu isn't a quick fix for MLS, and how she doesn't really expect him to do much for a couple years. She writes: "This is why I'll buy my ticket to see Adu in a couple of years." Oh? Since when do media need to "buy a ticket"? Yeah, I'm sure you and Dylan and whoever else pay your own way into Quakes games to support the team in their time of need. Piss off, Ann. Why no links? Because the ******* Mercury News web site (www.mercurynews.com) now requires you to set up an account, which is free, to access any pages. I logged in and was going to include the links anyway, but the URLs display personal information about your account. Screw that. So, if these articles are of interest to you, by all means create yourself an account.
Hmmm. FWiW, that's the first thing I tried this morning. I also tried it last week, and mentioned in a different thread that it doesn't work. I type the above in, click Log in, and it hangs on the login page. Perhaps I'm having browser difficulties, so I'll clear cookies and all that crap and try again.
Thanx for the link; it worked okay for me. I didn't take nearly as much offense as you did re Killion. While I agree with you that she herself probably won't be buying tix, she's really just using a metaphor, i.e., when would she want to take the time to go see Adu play. And I largely agree with her answer: right now Adu is more of a novelty than anything else, but in two or three years who knows how good he could be. And beyond that, the Quakes, champions two out of three years and with America's best young player (if not America's best player, period), should be getting much larger crowds already, and beyond that, that Adu is not the savior of American soccer as American soccer doesn't need saving, but instead needs to experience the slow, steady growth it's been experiencing the last decade already. All of which has been said before but which I largely agree with. As an aside, this was interesting: In the short term anyway, Adu is great for MLS, no doubt, especially the bottom line. Hopefully both he and the Quakes will put on a show on Saturday, and more than 20,000 will make their way to the game.
Beyond bizarre. I can get it to work in everything but IE, which I tried first. In the future, I'll include the generic login info when posting links to articles. Thanks, Noah, Ringo and Flash.
I found the article quite good, one of her better ones about soccer, particularly MLS soccer. How many other non-soccer writers say the following about 'saving MLS'? "Adu, D.C. United's 14-year-old soccer sensation, has been anointed the savior of a sport that doesn't need saving. What American soccer needs is more of what it has had for the past decade: steady, sustained improvement. Young phenoms who turn into bona fide stars."
Yeah, I liked the article too. I do feel a little uncomfortable about the whole Freddie-mania thing. It has a bit of a gimmick feel to it, and seems like a lot of pressure for a 14-year old. Seems like MLS is trying to speed up the growth process by taking a Freddie steriod instead of just working hard and growing steadily in a more organic way. Yeah, he can play at this level, but so can a lot of other people who aren't 14. She also made the "ahem, what about LD?" point (why aren't people coming to see LD?) which is a valid one.
Well said. And "a Freddy steroid" is a great metaphor!! OTOH, I don't think MLS was in any position to look a gift horse (Freddy) in the mouth and turn away. I just hope there isn't a backlash or that Freddy one day has trouble handling it all. The most important thing for him is that he develops on the field; everything else is secondary in the end (though the I/Os may not think so when they look at the bottom line).
Yeah, I think MLS has to walk a fine line on this one. If they don't make the deal, he might get a contract from a European club. Then they've wasted a big opportunity. And there's only so much you can do about all the attention he gets from the media. But there's probably been more hype coming from the league than I'd like to see.
part of that is 4 out of their first 5 games (or is it 5 out of their first 5 if you include FSW) have been on national tv. they need to take the young Adu out of the hype machine for a few weeks, even if they have to stick Convey and Olsen out there in his place and no media show up.
At the same time, it's just a matter of reality that they have to have the hype to draw the rubes in. We keep complaining that they Quakes don't get enough hype, and it's true, they don't. It could be worse--it could be like one of those reality shows, such as "The Makeover," if you really want to barf at the attempts to work for the lowest common denominator and the attempts to use people.
True. And I think this is the first time I've witnessed someone other than my dad use the term "rube". This probably means you're from the midwest and you're uh, ...well, "of a certain generation".