PBP: The Greatest Team The World Has Ever Seen vs. William Tecumseh Sherman's bitches

It's the "all or nothing" deal our culture is becoming accustomed to doing.

 

True--however, I do like the slight change to that acronym some fans on my college team's board have made--to ESPiN...

 

This is my biggest rub with Twellman, Holden, Lalas, etc. You don't learn anything from listening to them. I realize you have to appeal to a broader audience and more casual fans to an extent, but just yelling and cycling through the same three basic talking points becomes obnoxious when done for 90 minutes. There has to be some thought and analysis eventually. And especially when it comes to Twitter, which has been the source of a lot of hate for Holden, taking 15 seconds to do a little research before hitting send would help. As an example, he deboarded a plane last year, looked up the Crew halftime score, and immediately declared Columbus a trainwreck. Nevermind that a quick search would tell you the Crew had had a good goal called back AND a bad goal awarded to the opponent by incorrect use of VAR...no, just shoot the tweet off and get the reaction. Aly Wagner during the WC two years ago was an example of someone who struck a good balance between information and energy. I knew nothing about Jordan Angeli before this year but have thoroughly enjoyed the breakdowns she does. In pointyball, I enjoy Todd Blackledge for the same reasons. Give me something other than hot takes and belaboring everything to death.

 

I love how even when we're in absolute disagreement we're in agreement.

 

FCC have ridden their innovative 8-2-0 formation to a 1-0 halftime lead against the MetroCows.

 

Complete objectivity is something I don't expect from fans. Certainly not here.

But when I see folks drifting too far off the reservation, I say something. That was the case the other night.

Look, if everyone wants to hate Stu/Tweety for being pro-move, fine. I'm with you.

But when everyone hyperventilates over (largely inagined) slights on every thing he says, you all just end up sounding ridiculous.

"Oh my God! Did you hear TT refuse to declare Nagbe & Artur the best CM duo in the league! Eff him! He sucks! He's so anti-Crew!"

I mean, Jesus. I'm a fan but I try to be objective. I fail sometimes. But I think taking LAFC's midfield trio as tops is perfectly reasonable, given what they accomplished last year. Yes?

There is plenty of stuff to attack/belittle Holden/Twellman about without inventing outrage over the reasonable stuff they do say.

 

For Pete's sake! The question he was asked was about midfield duos! Even his broadcast partner was noticably frustrated with him not addressing the question posed to him! TT was asked a question about there being a better duo and waxed at length about a trio instead. A trio that was not even in the game. He was asked to provide insight, positive or negative, about a couple of players playing in the game that they were covering at that moment and he dipped again into fawning over LAFC.

And I might speculate that the question was asked in order to get TT to talk more about Columbus because a bulk of his talking was around Atlanta. As I posted earlier... my wife, a fan but not a die hard fan, who was barely paying attention to the TV made a comment about how much TT kept regurgitating the same one or two comments about Atlanta over and over and over. And then again for good measure.

"So Taylor, so who has the better chicken sandwich: Popeye's or Chik-Fil-A?"
"I really like the Baconator hamburger from Wendy's."
"Yes, but I was asking about chicken sanwiches."
"Baconator. I mean the beef is just the right amount and the bacon is not too much..."
"But for chicken sandwiches, you would like?...."
"A Baconator without the cheese."
"And there we have it, no answer about chicken sandwiches at all...."

 

Ragging him for dodging the question is fine. Ascribing some anti-Crew bias to him everytime he opens his mouth is something else.

Every post you make demonstrates you have difficulty discerning between them.

Anyway, game over. We get Minnesota. And an extra days rest compared to the Loons. ANTI-Crew bias! They gave us extra rest! With the way we are playing! Might as well put us in the cooler!

 

????? on that last part... I can discern just fine. Did I ascribe anti-Crew bias everytime somewhere? I would say my critique has been more along the lines that he has a select few teams he fawns over and usually has just 2-3 points he just repeats over and over again... And, usually once or twice a game, he makes some observation about an event that is strange if you are someone watching the game.

 

So Lalas is right to have doubts about professional soccer succeeding in a college town, yet he prances and preens his way around Austin Texas?

As for Twellman, he's a shill for the league. LAFC is the team they're promoting right now, as is his employer. Weren't they originally scheduled to be on the national broadcast 17 times this year? Something like that.

So his bosses, and the league ( which, per the contract, has announcer approval) want him talking up LA.

Nobody is interested in promoting the Columbus Crew. Not what he's being paid to do.

Ale Moreno is an honest man. He's not owned by the suits and doesn't have Don Garbers hand up the back of his shirt. The other 2 are trained seals.

 

It's gotten worse, though. But I was thinking here about Lalas and Twellman in particular, specifically because of their views on the move. I am not saying I liked where they were coming from, but I could understand it. Here, they will be PNG for the rest of their lives.

 

That one I did notice--and it's a very fair critique.

 

[sarcasm]That's because they were expecting us to finish second and the majestic AUFC first.[/sarcasm]

 

Five of those 17 (29% of the schedule) games were on broadcast TV. A few times were on Spanish-language TV which may or may not have been broadcast alongside FS1, ESPN or whatever.

We were on once. I can kind of see why, but not even at one of the teams Dawn Garbage is in bed with? Not at Orlando? Not even at Atlanta?

https://www.lafc.com/es/post/2019/12/19/lafc-announces-2020-regular-season-schedule

As far as OSU, I've been watching those games for decades. (Many of the games in the early 90s weren't televised outside maybe 1-2 per year that weren't a bowl game.) There may not be as big of an anti-OSU bias as some like to claim, but there is definitely an SEC bias, undoubtedly due to the SEC Network being part of ESPN. I've also noticed that, for whatever reason, Chris Fowler tends to say "Mighty Mee-shee-gan" and especially when talking about the OSU-TTUN rivalry. He'll say something like "Mighty Mee-shee-gan awaits in just three weeks" like they're some sort of threat to OSU's bowl chances.

 

I think, to me, Lalas is playing a character. He's, dare I say, the heel to MLS and its fans. I would say he's trolling, but that's not even right. Lalas is just contrarian and, well, the heel.

Maybe that's why I don't have a problem with him - I expect him to disagree with the majority most of the time.

I'm still soul searching about why I like Twellman. I'll get back to you.

 

Because he's the Face to Lalas's Heel.

 

So Lalas = Hang?

I'm here all week folks.

 

This is where my scrapple analogy comes in. I love the stuff--but I don't expect others to. It's a matter of taste--and tastes differ.

 

Scrapple fans represent!

But we've done this before...

FYI - I eat that stuff straight, none of that syrup on it