In Case Anyone Wanders By

Seattle Speaks: A Case for the Sounders

I broke my long hibernation over at Pitch Invasion to write the aforelinked (is that a word?) piece on Seattle MLS' name-the-team vote.

The take-away message: if you haven't already, go here and write-in "Seattle Sounders." Voting is open until tomorrow night, Monday the 31st.

Can I Admit the Following?

1. I just didn't care about last night's DC game. That is, of course, much easier to say the day before rather than the day of, when you still find yourself going to ridiculous lengths to watch the game and then fuming over score updates when you fail at the former. Such is the force of habit. But really, I care about CONCACAF right now, not our tradition season-opening loss. We will, however, leave last night's implications for said important game alone for now. There's only so much you can take in one weekend. And speaking of which...

2. I am having heretical thoughts about Juande Ramos. Already. Like, has he really done anything for the winning mentality of the players, who put up a very nice Potemkin village of resistance today? Or, has he been some lucky swings away from an Avram Grant-like substitution record instead of a tactical genius? I can't tell. Certainly he didn't put out the first team today, and it showed in spades (Michael Dawson, that will be quite enough, thanks). But it's now been two awful, embarassing home defeats since the Carling Cup, and it makes you wonder if he has in fact done those Jose-like magic tricks with the mental toughness and heart of the team. It didn't look like it today.

US Soccer, brought to you by Bic

Nothing kills your appetite for the last fifteen minutes of a game like knowing they're scoreless and probably fairly ugly, so I bowed out of the US-Poland replay right after Eddie Lewis' fantastic free kick goal. Someday we'll score from the run of play again, but apparently we also don't need to, so hey, what the hell. A collection of random thoughts from the game:

• 3-0 was definitely more than we deserved. Not unfair, but not wholly accurate.
  
• Nice game from our defenders/forwards, especially from Cherundolo and Heath Pearce, who were defending well and getting forward effectively. This was especially nice seeing as Clint Dempsey was on sabbatical for this game.
  
• Bradley was kind of "eh" today. Not bad, certainly productive but Clark seemed more effective and took an aggressive role whereas Bradley kind of hung back. On the other hand, he was zipping some nice passes around and showing off what Dutch coaching has done for his touch.
  
• Forwards? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Which leads me to:
  
• Can we buy a large quantity of bubble wrap in which to place Jozy Altidore until, say, mid-2009?
  
• Finally, it's not that the new uniforms look bad. In fact, Nike is putting together a nice little streak of surprising me with shirts that look nowhere near as goofy in person as they do on ussoccerstore.com. But that blackish-greyish color is just...unnecessary. What's wrong with a blue or red shirt? Do we really needed to be reminded of nothing so much as mechanical pencils during our away games? Leave the crazy off-colors for club soccer.
  

Canadians Are People, Too

MLS is Canada's top-tier soccer league, but you wouldn't know it from looking at Canada's U-23 roster (scroll down to find it). Of the 20 players they brought to qualifiers, only two (Tyler Hemming and Andrea Lombardo) are MLS players, both members of Toronto. But there are also two American U-23's playing for TFC alone without bringing in the rest of the MLS players on the U.S. team, who make up the vast majority of the roster.

All of this is by way of saying that Canadian players are being screwed by the international players rule in much the same way that young Americans are being screwed by the salary cap and developmental contracts. No team wants to waste an international player spot on a developing Canadian, just as few young Americans want to choose the low MLS entry wages, meaning young talent from both countries is being choked off from the league. The salary cap situation can't be realistically fixed for some time, but it's easy enough to declare that since MLS is an American and Canadian top-tier league, both countries' players count as domestic signings. It won't happen, but Canadians, especially college players like Jakovic and O'Brien White for whom MLS is the next logical step, deserve a greater chance in the league than just Toronto.

The Joys of Live Text Update

Manic mouse clicking is possibly the worst way to "watch" a game of soccer, but let it never be said that the Live Text Updates page doesn't have a weirdly satisfying drama about it. Click refresh, wait anxiously for the page to cycle while holding your breath, and then live or die with the boring one-line summary of the latest play. No build up or sense of flow, just repeated dice-rolling and mild anxiety.

And even when it looks bad, you still have the devoid-of-any-negative-knowledge chance that your next click might read: "GOAL!! Tottenham 4 - 4 Chelsea."

Well done, boys.

One Man's Trash...

In this summer's north London garage sale, PSV will apparently be the overzealous, "bargain" hunting old lady who shells out for damaged knick-knacks:

PSV Eindhoven are interested in taking Tottenham full-back Lee Young-Pyo back to the Dutch club, according to technical director Stan Valckx.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And yes, Juande does have a bag for that, dear.

Game Review: DC United 5 - 0 Harbour View FC

The sound we were hoping to hear tonight was "click." So we settled in for the first half and nothing was really audible. All of the ideas were in plain view, most being solid and beautifully crafted, but the execution lagged far behind. And then suddenly when the dam burst in the second half, with all of those gorgeous late runs and multiple-man rushes and more of Fred than we would have ever thought possible, it was still hard to tell if a "click" had floated in over that long-missed roar of the crowd.

One of my favorite things about soccer is the beauty of an unrealized play, and tonight was a showcase of frustrating art. It was impossible to watch yet another broken-up pass without salivating over the missed play that was just inches from fruition. That changed in the second half, with passes finally paying off and combination play picking up, but Harbour View's disaster of an offside trap seemed to say almost as much about the result as did DC's own performance. Whether the team has to adjust to Gallardo's passing or vice versa, the future certainly looked good provided, as usual, just a little more time to gell. In that respect, nothing has really been answered, since it was what we were saying before this series started as well.

As The DCenters would have it: "[W]hile the score may flatter United, it flatters United only in the same a nicely tailored dress flatters an otherwise beautiful woman: It's just that much more." There was much to love in the second half, especially the realization that I was happy enough actively root for Tino Quaranta to score a goal. The defense was uniformly solid and aggressive, the work of Wells reassuring, and fitness seemed to tick up from last week. With all that in mind, I hope and suspect that tonight was the first flash of coming brilliance. It also could have been nothing more than an exposure of Harbour View. But for now, there's really no way to tell and nothing to do but enjoy ourselves.

MOTM - Fred in a landslide. I can always do without the pacifier celebration, but he would have been the Tasmanian Devil tonight if Niell didn't have that resemblance long since wrapped up.

First Things First

Just another blog, probably of mediocre quality, to cover soccer in general and DC United and Tottenham Hotspur in specific. More later if required.