http://www.soccertimes.com/oped/2004/jan07.htm Although he admits to not seeing many games in person (for either league), he claims MLS is on a similar level. Interesting take, with some quotes from Hahnemann.
He makes MLS sound like crap. Why is it that you guys play your games over summer? that is the most stupid thing ever, your asking your players to collapse of dehydration!! You can't compare MLS and 1st Division. They are too different. For starters 1st Division isn't the top of our league system, secondly players aren't the cream of English football and thirdly teams are striving to achieve different things. And this guy has only been going to games since 2000! what does he know, he's only been a fan for 3 years!
He nailed that one. From late September on, the pace of play in MLS really did pick up. I don't know what to think about his statements of the physical play in both leagues. If that statement is true, I would say that MLS would want to crack down on that type of play because they want more attacking play, not because soccer is just a nice sport here.
He makes some good points, and seems to have at least some interest in being reasonable. He admits that his MLS experience is limited, both in scope and quantity, only having seen a few games, all at Crew Stadium. All in all, a very readable piece.
He ain't kidding about the physical nature either. Every old school trick (kicking players to bits, shirt-pulling, going over the top of the ball) is in use. I find myself at games, replying to "that's a foul" with "not in this division". MLS teams play the ball out from the back, which is almost unheard of in Div 1.
Over the past decade and a half the US has picked up on the Latin American style of most of it's CONCACAF competitors -- especially Mexico and Costa Rica. I've noticed there is less tolerance of above the waist contact in LA football; more tolerance of tripping and foot contact. The Latin toca-toca style is also better suited to our warm-weather season. And yet, we are not afraid to use the cold weather to our advantage in WC qualifiers. I think we are developing a blended style well suited to our players and our climate(s).
I agree with what folks are saying here to a point, but I don't completely buy what that author is selling. MLS is physical. There's a reason so many MLS players get cards in international play (in addition to shady refs). MLS is "fast"-- but nowhere near as fast as play in England. There is more passing on the ground, but how many times have you seen defenders (think Goose) launch a ball from the back? So it's not quite latin american. I think it's kind of caught between styles right now-- and honestly, there probably aren't enough spectacularly talented players to really play either style to full advantage yet. "High work rate" still seems to be the principal strength of a number of MLS defenders, for example...
Can I get away with just saying "Ditto" here? Several reasons including the following: 1. The US has 4 other major sports besides soccer, not to mention college athletics. Fall and winter are football season. Winter and spring are basketball season. Summer and fall are baseball season. Hockey is played from the fall till the spring, but doesn't really dominate. The spring to fall timeline for MLS is the best time, because it avoids a conflict with the rabid fans of football and basketball at both pro and college levels. 2. The winters in the Eastern states of the US make an English winter look like a fall breeze. It is nearly impossible to play soccer in Chicago, DC, New England, Columbus, and NY in the winter. Even when you can do it, you can't count on actually doing it.
Boy, are you off base on this one. I bet every regular on the board can come up with their own list of 5 even more stupid things MLS has tried in the last 8 years.
he's right on with the physical play comment, as our refs call everything. It is annoying to see fouls called that were nothing more than body positioning. Refs here need to realize that soccer is a contact sport, and not called everything and nullify a bigger players natural advantage. The result is that we'll get players that can handle the physicality, while retaining and improving their skills. i.e better players
Division 1 vs. MLS I'm starting to wonder if playing in the summer isn't a blessing in disguise. Am seeing too many bad EPL games these days, including the first 15 minutes (all I've seen so far) of this week's Liverpool-Chelsea match, which was an expensive version of kickball. These days, the players are so fit & so fast & so aggressive on defense that even very technical players, such as those in EPL, are often overwhelmed. MLS is kinda like the old days, when the players weren't so fit and they couldn't pressure balls-out for 90 minutes continuously. More room to play for the offenses, which often makes for a better game.
MLS Refs/ Good article I dissagree with his point saying that MLS refs call everything. In fact, I think they tend to miss a lot of calls. Also, they put up with crap from some players that would get you carded in other leagues IMHO. Overall, I think it was a well balnced article. He even gave a breakdown of the differences between the diets of MLS and Div. 1 fans. -Man, I could go for a meat pie right now.
a lot of that is due to poor refereeing though. It seems these days that fouls are only given if the player falls down. One result of that is a big increase in the number of players diving, especially in the penalty area, because if you don't fall you almost never get a penalty. If a player is being fouled, say shirt holding, and he stays up, it gives the ref the chance to dither and miss the chance to award a kick. If the player goes down it forces him to make a decision one way or the other.
Re: MLS Refs/ Good article Yeah, I agree. Compared to the typical Latin American ref, MLS refs are almost "nice" to players. In the sense that they do not get whistle happy and constantly foul players every 5 minutes causing the game to slow down its pace like in Mexico and South America even if the play could have easily gone on without it. A good example is the U.S. U-20 game against Argentina at the Youth World Championships.
Re: MLS Refs/ Good article don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Very little better than a chicken balti pie for warming you up on a cold evening. And also, if you knew how amazingly stupid most of the football ground catering staff are, you wouldn't trust them with anything that involved complicated culinary skills. Cutting a pizza slice would be right out. At the madejski, finding one who speaks fluent English is a bonus. If you ever wanted to know what happened to the people who were too stupid to work for McDonalds I can tell you. They were employed by Alexander Catering and got jobs at our place. I tried buying a pie once and suffered this exchanged. "Hello, can I have a pie please" She returns with a beer. "No, a pie" "Yes, here you are" "No (slowly) a pie" "Yes, here is a pint" I pointed at the oven full of pies. At the time we only did one kind of pie - chicken & mushroom. "oh" she say. She looks at our menu of one pie available and ask "do you want beef or veggie?" The other week I asked for two cheese & onion pies. "Two teas?" was the reply. "No. Two cheese & Onion pies" This time he understood and came back with them. Two pies should come to £4. He asked me for £6. I told him that two pies come to £4, for him to respond "yes, and two teas is £6". One girl didn't know what a hot dog was. I had to tell her a sausage roll isn't a hot dog. My favourite though was when I went for a pint of Guinness at the beer bar. Some young lad was at the till, his face a picture of concentration as he scanned the price list for every single order he took. Understandable perhaps until you realise that not only did that bar only sell 3 things (Guinness, Fosters, John Smiths), but all three were exactly the same price.
come check out the home depot center for slow service. although they can speak english it always takes 5 minutes at least to get a hot dog and a coke. ill take the service though for having a new stadium.
Here's an experiment for you: Put on your favorite kit and dress as if you were about to play in typical January weather in England. Then hop on a plane and fly to Chicago. You're question as to why they play in the summer will be answered about 5 minutes after you walk out of O'Hare Airport. Let's imagine the Fire have a 6 PM home game midweek next Wednesday. Here's the Chicagoland Forecast for next Wednesday: High of 18 degrees Fahrenheit (-8 degrees Celsius) Low of 4 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 degrees Celsius) Winds at 16 Miles Per Hour 25% Chance of snow. Figure it's already dark by 6 pm, so by half-time you should be rapidly approaching that low temperature (it'd be maybe -13 degrees Celsius), maybe there's some snow falling. How'd you like to play in that one? How many folks you expect to be out at the park to watch that one? Sure in the summer they have to avoid dehydration. In the winter they have to avoid their noses falling off from frostbite.
Re: Re: MLS Refs/ Good article Hilarious! Actually I was being serious about the meat pies. My fiance is from South Africa and every once in a while when she needs a taste of home we go to the Cape Dutch Bakery in Maryland. You can get all sorts of meat pies, sausage rolls and other goods you can't find in the average American grocery. http://www.capedutchbakery.com/ Savory Foods such as sausage & boerewors rolls, Cornish pasties, steak & kidney pie, and many other savory meat pie flavors. Boerewors (beef or beef & pork farm sausage with coriander & other spices), biltong (South African jerky), Droe Wors (dried sausage).
I do NOT agree with the author saying English first division is faster. It seems fast but it isn't. Real Madrid doesn't seem "fast", but they are extremely fast. Their midfield makes perfect first touches and move the ball from side to side with ease. They pry open the defense with fast ball movement and off the ball runs. English first division doesn't have the technical and tactical ability to be fast. Punting long balls back and forth at neck breaking speed isn't fast. I call it "pseudo-fast" If they make a 60 yard punt against a technically good team, they probably won't see the ball for next 20 minutes. High work rate yes. Fast, not really. He is right about English first division being a lot more physical though. When everyone was whining about MLS being too physical last summer, I said MLS is not physical at all, everyone was acting like that was the most outragous comment they ever heard. They thought I was trolling or something.
No, he dose not say he has been a fan for three years. He says he attended his first MLS game in June 2000.
Great post Richard L Top post on service at the Madjeski, Richard L - a classic. It's why, despite my ever more demanding schedule, I make the ocassional effort to wade through BSB threads to enjoy the ever more rare gem like that. You should be doing that journalist's job, bringing a scene or topic to life in a way that he can't quite achieve, try though he does. The best selection of beers and service I've ever experienced at a football match was at the Cyberrays: maybe six or seven hand crafted West Coast and Rockies beers to choose from, served by good looking women only too happy to help out someone who actually seemed interested in something beyond another crappy Bud or Coors or whatever the taste-bud challenged choice of urine was. Also, I liked the LA Victoria Street ground's bars - lined along one side, bar after bar - we got served quickly and efficiently and there was at least one drinkable brew available (Sam Adams?), albeit the cost made even Premiership rip-off prices seem tame. Another cool thing about American footie games is that you can bring the beers into the stands. The article does make a good point about the pace and sense of urgency in the English league that I find lacking in the MLS. As he says, MLS games do seem like a Sunday stroll in the park a lot of the time, whereas English league games look like the players' lives depended on the outcome. Indeed, the outcome is critical for most of the games, with the promise of untold riches from automatic promotion, the tantalizing promise of a playoff place, or the grim reaper of relegation and financial catastrophe beckoning with its chilling, bony hand of doom. It's that adrenalin, from the players and the fans, that I miss in MLS. In MLS the pre-playoff season equates to pre-season friendlies in England in terms of casualness and lack of intensity. The only time MLS has come to life for me was the MLS Final which was the first time I felt that football "buzz" over here in the States: props to the Quakes players and (us) fans for bringing it to life. On the subject of crowd participation, it would be cool to have English clubs do what the SF Giants do on their video screen, having a bouncing ball land on words scrolling across the screen that the crowd is supposed to sing, only instead of "Take me out to the ball game" it would be "Stand up if you hate Arsenal", or "Fukc em all, fukc em all, United, West Ham, Liverpool, we are the (etc) .... so fukc all the rest."
It depends heavily on your basis for comparison. MLS refs call a lot more than European refs, but a lot less than Latin American refs. People who are used to watching European soccer think MLS refs call too much, but most of the Latin American fans I know seem to think MLS refs regularly swallow their whistles. Actually I would modify the comment on Europe a bit - European refs are more permissive of upper-body contact than MLS refs, but MLS refs tend to permit more hard tackling and will rarely call a foul for something like a kick in the shin (which most Euro refs will call whether it was intentional or not).
I remember seeing Ronnie Ekelund getting sent off when he was trying to bring the ball down with his feet and collided with the opposition player accidently. It could have been construed as dangerous play, could have been contrued as an accident. He was sent off. In England, it'd have been a foul, if anything.