MLS Goal of the Year rivalry

The voting for MLS goal of the year is down to 5 finalists. That list of the 5 finalists does not contain the clear winner in my mind which was Gallardo’s full volley from an impossible (well at least tough) angle. That is a different story though.

The KC Wizards official blog has asked readers to vote for anyone other than NYRB goalkeeper Danny Cepero’s goal.

The Red Bulls Reader responds and says they want to vote for Danny’s goal 200 times.

I have to agree with the Wizards on this one. The Cepero goal was an amazing goal but here is my thought. If the opposing goalkeeper had just stood on his line he could have just caught the ball. It was more of a mistake from the other keeper than a great goal.

Watch all the goals and try to imagine what they would be like if there was no defense or goalkeeper on the field. What would the goal look like if a video editor could take out all the defense? Who gets my vote then? Blanco.

Don’t forget to go vote yourself - even if you think Cepero should win.

All Star first XI lineup

The first XI for the 2008 MLS All Star game was announced. This isn’t necessairly the starting lineup - coach Nicol will decide who starts. These are just the first 11 guys named to the team. If it were the starting lineup it would look something like this:

Donovan - Cooper

Rogers

Kljestan - Blanco - Joseph - Beckham

Parkhurst - Conrad - Hejduk

Reis

What other players do you think will be added to the team?  What will the starting lineup really look like?

MLS among the best in the world

This is from an article about Real Salt Lake attendance and American fans adopting MLS.

L.A.’s Landon Donovan, Chicago’s Cuauhtemoc Blanco and defensive shot-blocker Jon Busch are among the best soccer players in the world.

I guess if I were standing in a room with some of the best soccer players in the world, you could say I was “among the best”. I don’t want to put down Jon Busch or any other player in the MLS, they’ve proven themselves to be great athletes just to get a chance with an MLS team. Maybe it is a stretch to call Busch among the best soccer players in the world. He was just recently waived by Columbus and Toronto, two non-playoff teams. Maybe just being a professional soccer player puts your among the best in the world. Professionals do make up a tiny percentage of every person that plays, so why not call them all among the best in the world? Is Jon Busch among the best goalkeepers in Major League Soccer? To qualify for “among the best” for this situation you have to be in the top 1/3rd of all goalkeepers.

Do the DP’s have to be old timers?

In order for the LA Galaxy to bring David Beckham to Major League Soccer the rules had to change.  The salary cap was too small for Beckham to fit on any team by himself, so the league added DP’s which only count toward some of your salary cap.  After that the team can pay that player as much money as they want to.  The Galaxy were able to get their 32 year old man Beckham for a huge amount of money.

Later other teams got in on the action and New York Red Bulls even traded to get 2 DPs.  The have 32 year old Juan Pablo Angel and 34 year old American Claudio Reyna to fill their DP slots.  Chicago has 35 year old Blanco, DC United will have 32 year old Marcelo Gallardo, and Kansas City has now signed 33 year old Claudio Lopez to fill their DP slot.

The average age of the DPs that will be playing in the league at the start of this season will be 33.  In the past the average age of the whole league has been right around 27-28 years old.  So the average DP is about 5-6 years older than the league average.   These number may not be accurate today - they were based on some numbers I saw that were a few years old.  I would guess the league average might be a little bit younger today.

While the DP’s are great to have around, I can’t wait for the day they don’t have to be all these old timers.  There is no problem with them - some of them have been tremendously important for their teams (Juan Pablo Angel, Blanco) but some have made small impacts (Claudio Reyna, David Beckham).  Maybe that isn’t totally fair, both Reyna and Beckham were held back by injuries.

While these old guys are coming into the league, young guys like Eddie Johnson and Clint Dempsey are leaving the league.  These are young guys that could potentially hold a DP slot someday.  Yet they are leaving the league to go play in Europe.  I can only imagine that money and better experience are the main reasons these players are so eager to head to Europe and leave MLS behind.  Both are very valid reasons but this needs to start changing in MLS.

Our national team does just fine when they have an MLS dominated lineup so we can’t say our young Americans need to play in Europe to build a better national team.  I’m sure the experience doesn’t hurt, but I don’t really see it as necessary.  So if the money was there for MLS would they be able to keep more young talent?  Preston North End, a team at the bottom of the 1st division in England, recently wanted to bring Taylor Twellman to England.  Either MLS or the Revolution would not let him go which angered the striker because this low level team was going to pay him three times his salary here in the MLS.  I wonder it Twellman would have been ready to go for the same pay he receives now?  What if it had been a top notch premiership team willing to pay his current salary?

I guess two things probably need to happen before these DP slots don’t have to be filled by these near retirement old timers.  First we have to get rid of the idea that Europe is so massively better for the payer’s development.  I’m not arguing that Europe isn’t better for our young talent - but I do believe that a young player can have a successful career in Major League Soccer and be competitive with the national team.  If people start to believe this it just comes down to money.  If it is just money I would think that more teams would fill their DP slots with young talent.  Claudio Lopez should be pretty awesome this year, but who would you rather have for the long run, Eddie Johnson or Claudio Lopez?

Predictions typos

The sun was in my eyes before the game tonite when I predicted the Fire to win. It was really windy and my fingers were slipping all over the keyboard. That was an accident that I said I predicted the Fire to win.

How about that goal scored by TT, was that the goal of the year?

So Blanco - his main job was to tell the ref what was going on, and he was pretty busy with that one. When he wasn’t explaining things to the ref he was playing some awfully nice balls into the penalty area. It is just too bad that those were going towards Paulo Wanchope. I’m pretty sure if you got Blanco and Brian Ching together that no defense in MLS would stop them. If I was in charge of the Fire I’d do whatever I could to get Ching. Houston has a lot of stars, they could let one of them go.

Now the Revolution are in another MLS Cup. The defending Champions Houston Dynamo will probably show up to play a re-match of last years MLS Cup, but they have to get by the Kansas City Wizards on Saturday first. It is too early for me to give my prediction for the other semi-final. I’ll probably wait until the last minute and pick the Wizards just because I’ll be cheering for them, be totally wrong and embarrassed. Oh well…

I really did think the Fire were gonna win.

Blanco vs. Beckham

The Chicago Tribune has a somewhat interesting, somewhat funny article titled Blanco vs. Beckahm.  They compare the biggest 2 names in Major League Soccer today.

I bet you can’t guess who gets the edge after all the comparisons.

Read the whole Chicago Tribune Blanco vs Beckham article here.

My First Impressions Of Blanco, Denilson and Wanchope

Last night was my first chance to see Blanco, Denilson and Wanchope in action as the Chicago Fire traveled to Pizza Hut Park to take on FC Dallas.  This was a big game for both teams as the Fire are fighting for the last playoff spot and FC Dallas would like to get back up to the top of the Western Division.

Chicago has been on a good run recently and FC Dallas has been on a bit of a slide since their wonderful start to the season.  I had predicted a Fire victory in this game and for a lot of the game it looked like I was going to be right.   Chris Rolfe scored a really nice goal in the 56th minute which gave the Fire the lead well into the 90+ minute.  Then finally Carlos Ruiz got behind the defense and tied the game in the 93rd minute.  Both goals were very nice but Rolfe’s could be a goal of the week candidate.

As I said this was my first chance to see some of these big name newcomers to the MLS and none of them impressed me much.  Blanco looked okay but just didn’t impress.  I probably expected the most from him.  Denilson did a couple fancy footwork moves that only ended in one of the Fire taking the ball the other way.  He had one or two decent looking shots that usually got blocked before getting close to the goal.  Wanchope looked like he was ready to play a full 90 minutes, but he was on the field the full 90.  The most disappointing moment for the Fire was Wanchope and Calen Carr passing back and forth on a semi-break away that should have either resulted in a goal or probably more importantly one of them taking the ball to the corner and using valuable time.  That probably would have kept a lead and a full 3 points for the Fire.  Too bad for Chicago.  At least Wanchope should have enough experience to know what to do in that situation.

Beckham Has Arrived

Well kinda.  He was in LA yesterday and was officially introduced to the media and fans at a press conference yesterday morning.  Everyone is over-reacting, including ESPN.

I do hope this does work out well for the Galaxy and more importantly the whole league and even more just soccer in the US in general.  But we have to wait and see if that is the case.  I can’t wait to see how it all works out.

PS - When is this Blanco dude coming to Chicago?  I wonder if we’ll hear anything about that, or is the rest of the MLS done for the season and LA is going to replace all the regularly scheduled games?

Blanco coming to Chicago?

I read this weekend that Blanco was supposed to be signing a deal with the Chicago Fire on Tuesday.  He would not be joining the Fire until the end of the current Mexican season which ends at the end of April, but his team could be involved in post-season play.

I guess I’m not real up on my Mexican league soccer, but I know Blanco is good.  Is he a DP-spot good though?  I was a little bit surprised to see that he was going to be the leagues 3rd designated player brought into the league after David Beckham and Caludio Reyna.

What do you Fire fans out there think about Blanco in Chicago?