owen to manchester united: nothing but upside
But now it appears Sir Alex Ferguson is ready to snap up a player who is fourth in the all-time goalscorers list for his country.
Newspaper reports suggest the contract will be purely incentive based, depending on minutes played and goals scored.
Sir Alex tried to sign the player – a boyhood Everton fan – as a teenager but instead he opted, on the advice of his father, to pen a contract with Liverpool where he scored 118 goals in 216 games.
United have been searching for a new forward since the departure of Carlos Tevez at the end of his loan deal. They had been linked with the likes of Karim Benzema and David Villa, but now it seems Owen will be arriving.
This makes perfect sense for both sides. Owen gets a fresh start with a marquee team — he remains in the spotlight and gets to try to recapture his magic without the pressure of being the best player on the side. United gets a new forward on the cheap with nothing but upside.
champions league final: it’s about maturity
If you were a casual sports fan tuning into yesterday’s Champion’s League Final and seeing these two teams play for the first time, you can be forgiven for thinking the game was a pedestrian affair.
On the field, the play was solid, but ultimately forgettable. The drama in yesterday’s match was all in the subtext. The subtext of two European powers from vastly different leagues fighting, not just for European primacy, but in many ways for the soul of the game. (Thus is the power of European football.)
There was Manchester United — stacked with power from back to front and power to spare riding the pine — poised to win through brute force. And there was Barcelona – uncompromising style and flash, maddening defense and dreaded inconsistency — looking for one last chance at magic.
It was consistent power pop versus experimental jazz.
The setup — the context — made what happened on the field all the more surprising. Manchester United came in with a solid game plan. They would press early, score a goal within the first 20 minutes and exploit the shaky Barcelona back line as the Catalans were forced to press the attack. Barca, as always, had the simple mission of possession — possess and force United to submit.
United’s plan likely would have worked had they not surrendered an early goal against the run of play. A defensive breakdown allowed Samuel Eto’o to score and the goal transformed United into moribund chaos.
Cristiano Ronaldo went from creative genius to impetuous teenager, Ji Sung Park crawled into an oyster shell and Wayne Rooney simply took his toys and went home. Even Sir Alex Ferguson seemed to check out, failing to make the obvious move of shfiting Ronaldo away from Carlos Puyol in an attempt to exploit the aged and untested Sylvinho.
Meanwhile, Barca stuck to their mantra with zen-like obsession, possessing and breaking down, possessing and breaking down…
In the end, what won the game for Barcelona and what proved to be United’s undoing was as simple as maturity. Barca had the maturity to execute a game plan. Manchester United, when faced with the slightest adversity, folded like a cheap suit.
The dynamic was summed up midway through the first half as Carlos Puyol and Cristiano Ronaldo chased a ball headed for the Barcelona touchline. As it rolled harmlessly out of play, the two pulled up and Ronaldo through an elbow that connected with Puyol’s chest. The act earned Ronaldo a yellow card for repeated infractions and he shot the ref a glare like a chastened teenager fighting back tears. Puyol jogged past, back to work.
There they were, exposed to the world: The spoiled teenager and the old professional. There was never a question who would win.
barca v. manchester united at halftime
classic footage from 10 years ago, via. WaPo Soccer Insider
notes an barca v. chelsea 2nd leg
Riding on the metro this morning, I jotted down a few thoughts on the Barcelona v. Chelsea match from last night (last night for me, in that I watched it on the DVR). It was certainly one of the most memorable matches I’ve watched in quite some time. From a club soccer perspective, probably second only to the Liverpool’s Champion’s League comeback against AC Milan match from two years (?) back. Here are my thoughts:
Barcelona was off their game. There were only five players in yellow worth a damn: Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Pique and Valdez (who truly kept Barca in the match). But five players proved to be enough.
Chelsea’s defensive game plan was nearly perfectly executed and not as ugly as everyone says. A perfectly executed tackle, and there were many, is a thing of beauty.
Eto’o and Danni Alves were terrible. Eto’o was nonexistent for the majority of the match and Alves had a negative impact on Barca’s chances doing more harm — through loss of possession, penalties and bad psychic energy — than good.
Perhaps Chelsea deserved to win, but they did not score goals and they did not do enough to posses the ball. In the end, soccer is about scoring goals more than it is about preventing them. It is an inherently positive game, and a team trying to score — even if they are down a man — will defeat a team only trying not to be scored upon.
Barcelona’s inability to finish highlights how important Thierry Henry has become to the team. A year ago they were ready to throw him to the dustbin and now he is the linchpin.
Essian’s goal was an individual stroke of brilliance. However, it came out of a bzarre deflection against the run of play. Iniesta’s goal was the result of a well crafted, well exectued attack. (It is not lost on me that both Alves and Eto’o were involved in that attack.)
The ref was terrible. This fact mars the result in retrospect, but it added to the drama during the run of the play. I never like to see the ref play a part in the final result of a match — and in this case it certainly did — but if you look at the match as a whole both sides had ample reasons to complain about bad calls. In a way, it comes out in the wash — but don’t tell that to Didier Drogba I suppose.
The final 20 minutes of the match was glorious chaos.
links, we have links
Beckham planning to buy MLS team (BBC): It’s David’s world, we’re just paying rent.
Portland officials OK plan to lure MLS team (SI): Solidifying the PAC NW as the new hot bed of soccer. “After the meeting, one fan asked Paulson to autograph her scarf.”
Seattle’s Ljunberg recovered from surgery (ESPN): But Seattle’s underwear model is unlikely to play in the team’s emerald opener.
Blatter: MLS should switch to traditional schedule (SI): Proving once again he’s never experienced Colorado (or DC for that matter) in January.
The Special One
In honor of today’s decisive Inter Milan v. Manchester United Champions League tilt.
Be sure to check the New York Times profile of Jose.
Becks is (Coming) Back
Beckham returning to Galaxy when loan ends (ESPN Soccernet)
David Beckham is coming back to the Los Angeles Galaxy. The English midfielder will return to the MLS team next month as scheduled after his two-month loan agreement with AC Milan ends despite his wish to stay in Italy.
Ultimately, Beckham’s presence on the field will not make or break MLS. This is little more than an interesting development for the league and provides some interesting subtext to the season.
The Beckham drama will likely draw in some more viewers in the short term, to see how he reacts.
Sports is about drama, and this adds some drama to what would otherwise be a rather ho-hum MLS season.
Is Major League Soccer in Trouble?
Major League Soccer is a little over month away from starting its 15th season and I have to say I’m feeling a bit more pessimistic about the league’s future than I have in awhile.
Let me say from the offset that I do not think the league is going to fold, nor am I predicting another round of contraction. However, I do believe this season could prove to be a turbulent one for the league and its teams.
here are some of the storm clouds I see gathering:
Stadium issues: Paying rent to play in a stadium designed for American football is a major money and energy suck for MLS teams. Playing in a converted minor-league baseball stadium is even worse. While the league has made good progress on the stadium front seven of the league’s 15 teams continue to play in less than ideal circumstances.
New York was supposed to move to a soccer-specific stadium this year, but will continue to languish in God-awful Giants Stadium, where sparse Red Bull crowds look simply depressing, the team plays on turf and football lines are almost always present.
DC United’s stadium hopes — particularly any hopes of having a stadium in the city — seem completely dashed, but at least the club doesn’t have to share the crumbling RFK stadium. Barring a surprise announcement, the crumbling battleship looks to be our home for the foreseeable future.
The other clubs either have stadium agreements in place (Kansas City, San Jose), are playing in smaller football venues (Houston) or don’t have to pay rent in their over-sized digs because the clubs are owned — at least in part — by the same groups that own the football teams (Seattle, New England).
Regardless of the arrangement, the stagnation in stadium development is not a good sign for the league.
Loss of talent: MLS must participate in the global transfer market in order to be successful and respected as a player in World football, so you won’t see my complaining about selling players like Jozy Altidore or Clint Dempsey for multimillion dollar transfer fees.
However, losing out-of-contract players and college players eligible for the MLS Super Draft to second-tier leagues in Scandinavia is a highly troubling trend in the league. If MLS can’t afford to sign the likes of Charlie Davies or Marcus Tracy or provide proper incentive to convince them to stay in the U.S. than it will never truly compete for top European talent.
At the very least, MLS needs to have better talent than smaller European leagues and the second-tier of the larger nations (e.g. The Coca Cola Championship). To get there we will need a broader base of talent — both foreign and domestic — not aging superstars.
The international calendar: While MLS grows,the U.S. Men’s National Team continues to get better, and with that better performance comes the opportunity to play in more international competitions. This is good for the USMNT and potentially very bad for MLS.
This year, the national team will take part in the final round of World Cup Qualifying, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and the Confederations Cup all during the regular MLS season. All three of these tournaments will sap the league of its best talent and distract its hardcore fan base throughout the season. However, none are big enough to draw the attention of the casual sports fan who might then be persuaded to give soccer a second look.
This situation reinforces the fact that MLS must try to find a way to work within the international schedule, rather than against it. What that probably means is a season that starts in early March and ends in mid-November while suspending play from mid-June through late July.
Tournament overload: Adding to the scheduling difficulties noted above is a potential overload of club tournaments. This year, MLS teams are slated to take part in the CONCACAF Champions League (both the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 editions), the SuperLiga and the US Open Cup during the regular MLS season. In addition, MLS clubs will likely be in the mix for the Copa Sudamericana as invitees.
To my mind, this is one too many tournaments to be split among 15 teams and dilutes the specials nature of club tournaments.
I’d like to see MLS scuttle the SuperLiga — which the league’s marketing arm conceived to stoke the natural rivalry between US and Mexican clubs and provide some excitement during the summer lull. The Champions League and inclusion in the Copa Sudamericana essentially solve both problems.
Something also needs to be done to reinvigorate the US Open Cup — the oldest cup competition in the country. Despite it’s long history and a similar format to the storied FA Cup, MLS clubs have only begrudgingly taken part in the US Open Cup and the league has done nothing to promote it. This has resulted in embarrassingly empty stadiums during the late rounds and “championships” that are unheralded at best, and close to meaningless.
MLS needs to put some marketing muscle behind the US Open Cup and treat it like the special tournament it truly is. The money and talent needed for this effort could easily be found by shelving the SuperLiga.
The financial crisis: This is the elephant in the room. While MLS is no longer solely dependent on three or four megawealthy benefactors, MLS owners are still taking substantial losses in the hopes of future gains from their investments.
These guys are businessmen, and they’re businessmen with other interests — very few, if any, are in this because they love the game. If they find their MLS investment is becoming too big a drain on the balance sheet and the upside isn’t forthcoming, you could see them cutting their losses if the financial situation doesn’t improve.
The league has already made some cost-cutting moves this year as a reaction to the financial situation. They’ve shelved the reserve division and trimmed their overall rosters from 28 players to 24, upping the number of senior roster slots to 20. This allows owners to get more of their money onto the field now, but means less investment in a future product.
This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of the problems facing MLS this season and it doesn’t account for a lot of things the league is doing right (I’ll cover these in a subsequent post) but it shows that despite 15 years of survival, MLS still has a lot of growing up to do.
MLS Exec Hops the Pond
It’s always a hopeful sign when a U.S. player leaves Major League Soccer to ply his trade for a club in a major European league. It shows our players are getting better and the league is producing players that can compete at the highest level.
But what to make of a top MLS executive leaving for Europe? That’s the scenario that presented itself today, as MLS Deputy Commisssioner Ivan Gazidis leaves to become chief executive of Arsenal.
Gazidis will be a big loss for MLS. He was truly the “footballing mind” of the league — which is why the Arse hired him — who paid attention to the product on the field, while the more flamboyant and attention-seeking Don Garber worked the money side of the league — the television contracts, the stadium deals, and securing new investors.
Together, Garber and Gadzidis were a great team and have helped MLS make huge strides in its 12 years of existence. Gadzidis’s contribution to the equation can not be over-stated. Because MLS owns all player contracts and the league — not the individual teams — has final say over which players are signed and how they are signed, he has had tremendous sway over the quality of play on the field.
Gadzidis was also instrumental in forming Soccer United Marketing, the league’s lucrative marketing spin-off which owns the World Cup broadcasting rights in the United States, has negotiated MLS TV rights deals and brings Mexican clubs and South American national teams onto US soil for friendlies.
If MLS is to continue on its upward trajectory, Don Garber will need to find a player personnel man who can replace Gadzidis quickly. This is especially important now as MLS’s designated player rule has tempted several teams into making unwise and costly investments in foreign players that are past their prime or otherwise ill-equipped to withstand the physical play (and August temperatures) of the league. MLS desperately needs a strong, knowledgeable hand to guide player acquisistions and transfers — especially as the league continues to excellerate its participation in the world transfer market.
Garber has proven to be a great salesman, but if the league is giong to contine to succeed he needs someone to build a solid and durable product.
Technorati Tags: mls, major league soccer, ivan gadzidis, don garber, arsenal, designated player rule, soccer united marketing, arsenal, europe, european soccer, transfer, transfer market, signings,
Face It: Landon Donovan is an Asshole
It appears that Landon Donovan is headed to Bayern Munich on loan. I hope this will be a good experience for Donovan and I hope he does well. I hope he can finally get the European monkey off his back. I hope he demonstrates that American players can perform at the highest level. But I also want to say this: Landon Donovan is an asshole. Need proof? Check out his quote below from the LA Times on why he wants to move:
“Every player here [in Germany], from No. 1 to No. 22, is a better player,” Donovan, the five-time U.S. player of the year, said. “American teams have only one or two really good players.”
Is this true? Maybe — although I think it’s overly harsh to say US teams only have one or two quality players. Even if it is true, you don’t say it and you don’t say it in reference to an unfinished transfer or loan deal.
What you say is, “Major League Soccer is getting better every year — we have foreign players coming in from around the world and our domestic players are moving overseas. We’ve entered the world soccer market. That said, at this point in my career I want to test myself alongside and against the world’s best players.”
What you don’t do is insult the league that fucking made you, or the players that you’ll be playing with for the rest of your career. That is, unless you’re just an asshole.