Category: Rugby

Oguchi Onyewu will be replaced in the middle by Carlos Bocanegra.

Johnathan Bornstein will start as the left side defender.

Maurice Edu will start in the midfield.

Herculez Gomez will replace the suspended Robbie Findley

Hey, remember that Landon Donovan interview I promised/threatened? It's coming. But at least now I can announce the product he's endorsing.

It's called FLOTV – I believe I'm supposed to capitalize it – although I don't think FLO stands for anything – and it's basically portable television. I was honest to God wondering whatever happened to UHF channels, and it turns out, the answer is FLO TV.

Vastly, vastly more interesting to you, the soccer audience, might be the World Cup games being shown on ESPN mobile, though. Every game, apparently. Every handball from the French, every dive from the Italians, every goal from New Zealand – all on your cell phone, if you have AT&T or Verizon. Or on a personal television. Or in your car. You can't call or text in your car anymore, but you can watch World Cup games. Finally, technology with no down side.

What about after the World Cup, though? Will you be stuck with a hunk of dead plastic, like TFC's old field? Of course not, silly.

At first I read that as "Playboy Disney," and I was like, "Finally!" But it's Playhouse Disney. Very very different.

How much does it cost? Um…it depends on how you watch. This might help you out.

So, this is what Landon Donovan is endorsing now, and we all want to be like Landon. I'm led to believe FLO TV and This Very Website will have some promotions available for you all at some point, but I'm not always right about everything all the time. (Hey…that sounds like a good place for a segue.)
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Case in point…a few weeks ago, I confidently predicted the 23 players that Coach Bob Bradley would take to the Antipodes. With Bob being so predictable, and the talent pool being so not deep, I thought I would only be off by three guys, tops.

And sure enough – it's just what we expected. Twenty-three American men. No women, because the USSF is sexist. No foreign players, because the USSF is racist. Some "national" team, excluding half the population right off the bat, plus barring immigrants and green card holders. More like Bradley's Own Old Boy Squad. (Needs a catchy acronym, though.)

Actually, at this point I should know better at this point than to crack wise about Bob Bradley's alleged failings. because Lord knows, there's nothing you can say about him at this point that someone won't believe.

Frexample:

A good question. Let's ask some people.

Well, okay, just because one guy was surprised, it doesn't mean that Bradley isn't staid and bland and

Paul Gardner, never ever change. Not that you were planning on it.

Christ, I even assigned uniform numbers, I was so cocky.

Well, in the words of General Custer, whoopsie doodle, chicken noodle.

Where did I go wrong?

Nothing against Troy Perkins, but…a fourth keeper as an alternate? What the hell kind of rectoencephaly was THAT? That was just STUPID of me. The third keeper is only going to be used in case of national emergency to begin with, what the hell was I expecting to happen that we would need a fourth? Why didn't one of you tell me? I depend on you guys to set me straight on this, you know. Yeah, you know what, this is on you, not me.

How quickly did the Buddle and Herculez bandwagons get rolling? Those two guys never came close to crossing my mind at the beginning of March, and I own jerseys with their numbers on them. So I don't feel bad about missing that call, either.

I've got, by my count, two definite misses so far, at least. Let me start with #9. I think it's time someone had the courage to stand up to the crowd and say what needs to be said about Charlie Davies. This isn't easy, but it's necessary.

Or it would be, if Bruce hadn't beaten me to it.

Okay, then. Glad I read that, before I made an irrelevant, overlong and unnecessarily strident post of my own.

In any case, I'm more shocked by Conor Casey being left off. No, he's not the prettiest sheep in the petting zoo, by any means, but he has at least contributed to the national team at some point in the last 24 months or so. I realize I was honking the form horn pretty hard, but I didn't mean to argue an illogical converse. Buddle tearing it up for the Galaxy qualifying him for camp does not mean that Casey un-tearing it up for Los Pids disqualifies him.

I think someone tried to tell me that Bradley wasn't going to take Conor Casey and Brian Ching, because they're pretty much the same player, cosmically speaking. So you put one in for the other as a sub, reasoned I, and then you won't have to change the game plan! Yeah, it's a good thing being wrong all the time never gets old.

I didn't think Torres would be called in, and you know what, I still don't think he's going to be on the roster. Who do you drop? Who? Name one guy on the roster you'd drop for him. Who plays the same position Torres does. I dare you. Name one player you'd replace for Torres.

Okay, yes, I'm trolling for Michael Bradley hatred. And I've got the same response. If it was some guy named Michael Smith playing in the Bundesliga, you wouldn't blink at him starting. He still wouldn't be your favorite player – I don't think he's ever going to score goals like he did with Heerenveen, either, certainly not this summer. But that ain't his job, man.

On the other hand, the guy apparently takes criticism personally, and usually responds with solid performances followed up by "No one believed in us", i.e., himself. Since I care much more about US wins than Michael's feelings, by all means unload on the guy.

Because really, it's all about the US winning. How that happens, and who makes that happen? Totally beside the point. I don't care who Bob Bradley names to camp, as long as….

Wait. Eddie Johnson AND Sacha Kljestan?

That's it. I'm cheering for England.

If there's one thing you can always rely on it's the dead certainty that no matter how bad any particular situation may look, FIFA Grand Klaxon Sepp Blatter can always find a way to make it worse.

Or at least stupider.

Blatters' latest descent from tragedy to farce came yesterday in South Africa where, as FIFA dutifully reported, he went to "thank the South African Organizers for a successful World Cup".

If this sounds like a load of horse hooey to you, well, you've obviously been paying attention.

The running-for-reelection-in-January Swiss shyster is in desperate need of some good press after the absolute shellacking he and his merry band of thieves and scoundrels have been taking in the Western press ever since he opened up those envelopes with "Russia" and "Qatar" inside.

Sepps' hastily cobbled together itinerary was to start with a meeting with South African Presdent Zuma, who has always been good for a heaping pile of slobbering Sepp love, but that was mysteriously canceled at the last minute. No explanation was provided but my money is on Zuma not wanting to be seen in public with his former bosom pal now that there's nothing much else he can do for him.

(He also reportedly tried to get a photo op with Nelson Mandela. Madibas' family, who were visibly angry about all the pressure FIFA put on him to make appearances that his doctors were saying were not in his best interests, did not even respond.)

The other major item on Blatters' agenda was to meet with the local organizing committee and indeed "thanks" was on the menu.

Unfortunately, as we all know, Sepp feels that nothing says "thanks" quite like a big old pile of money as far as he's concerned, so he grandly announced that each and every member of the committee – and there are a whopping bunch of them – could come on up and collect a check for 500,000 Rand, (about US$75,000.)

And since the South African media has now fully awoken to the fact that SA got royally screwed over by this whole deal – they spent billions on the white elephant stadiums Blatter insisted on and then FIFA gathered up every last dime of income and sailed for home leaving all those sick, hungry and impoverished local citizens, well, sick, hungry and impoverished.

So of course Sepp handing out money to a room full of guys who gave him a standing ovation – they're nothing if not gracious down there – went over like a lead balloon with the general public.

At this point, with the trip having become just one more dismal PR mess for FIFAs' flack gerbils to sort out, he should have gotten back on his twin engine custom Gulfstream and headed back to Zurich. But See must have figured that he could use his great personal charm and wit on the once-tame SA media one last time before jetting off to the Alps.

So he agreed to meet with some reporters and, of course, the topic of Russia and Qatar came up almost immediately.

Unsurprisingly, one query was centered around the fact that certain activities – drinking and what used to be called sodomy being prominent among them – are considered criminal activity in Qatar as in much of the region.

Blatter, in what may have been an attempt at humor, replied:

"I would say [gay fans] should refrain from any sexual activities."

As it was, various gay footballing groups had already publicly condemned the Qatar choice, and have been working on organizing a boycott, saying reasonable things like:

"We do not feel the World Cup should be held in any country that abuses and disregards the basic human rights of LGBT people.

Of course at this point all that FIFA could have done, after dragging Blatter off the podium and stuffing him into a car for a fast trip to the airport was issue a "clarification" of some kind which would have been bad all by itself.

As it was, Sepp decided to try and extricate his foot from his mouth on the spot. Guess how that went.

Blatter was quoted as saying: "this gives me the opportunity to say that in FIFA, and this is in the statutes of FIFA, whether it is in politics, whether it is in religion, we don't want racism, and we know what this means, and neither do we want discrimination".

Well gosh, Seppy, that's good to know. Now about that 2022 World Cup….

One prominent Gay Footballing Fan organization responded this morning:

"The statements and the position adopted by Sepp Blatter and Fifa regarding LGBT fans who would pay the enormous ticket and travel prices to attend the World Cup in 2022 should have been wholly unacceptable a decade ago.

"Instead, with little more than an afterthought Fifa has endorsed the marginalisation of LGBT people around the world.

"Anything less than a full reversal of his position is unacceptable and if the FA and football and sporting associations around the world fail to acknowledge this insult, they too will be complicit

"If sport cannot serve to change society, even temporarily during the duration of an event like the World Cup that invites the world to participate, then it is little more than grown men chasing a ball and we should treat it as such."

Not too much anyone can argue with there, so FIFA has decided not to try. Earlier today they issued a media release announcing hat there would be no further comment on this whole ugly mess.

As for Blatter, his parting words to a stunned media assembly deserve to be writ large on every soccer page around the world, just in case some of you may have gotten the wrong idea about this whole World Cup bidding deal:

"This has nothing to do with money"

That'll be the day, Sepp. That'll be the day.

As I noted a week or two ago, the news that FIFA IS GOING TO DISMISS ALL CHARGES in the "Voting for Dollars" kerfuffle will, unfortunately, likely be greeted with worldwide yawns.

Was there really some question that it would turn out any other way?

In fairness, it must be noted that in a US court of law the same result might obtain; you're simply not allowed to solicit someone to break the law and then slap them in jail for it.

But of course this isn't a US court it's a FIFA tribunal, and the standards are a bit different. Or, if you prefer, non-existant.

Sadly, the fact of the matter is that if these same guys were filmed chasing representatives for the USSF bid down, tackling them in the street, beating them with iron pipes and demanding large cash payments from them as the victims screamed "No, no, we can't, it would be WRONG!!!" the result would likely have been the same.

Because of course while this isn't the dreaded "government interference" it's in fact ten times worse: it's "journalistic interference". And it'll be a cold day in hell before Sepp Blatter lets a lowly newspaper corner him like this.

As I've noted many times over the past year, only one thing matters to Blatter and that's getting re-elected early next year. Everything that comes across his desk gets weighed with that one scale. And the fact is that the 220 or so guys who will be voting in the election don't much like reporters prying into their business either.

At the end of the day, the equation is not Blatter vs. FIFA. It's Blatter and FIFA against the rest of us in a battle where no one – not governments, not the media, not the players, not public opinion, nobody – has any particular leverage. Or relevance.

Blatter is like some cinematic Mafia chieftain being led out of the courthouse into a waiting Cadillac after being acquitted for the 20th time, sneering at the reporters and police as he is whisked by:

"You guys got nothin".

Closer to home:

Do you suppose that there's ANY chance that everyone is wrong about the "major announcement" tonight in Kansas City and that, in fact, the "Sporting KC" re-branding is simply the most utterly amazing, well-executed misdirection play in league PR history?

Wouldn't that be great? The ownership and management takes to the podium tonight, collectively grins into the cameras and someone yells "GOTCHA".

Then everyone has a good hearty laugh at how silly it was to believe for one minute that someone had found yet another embarrassing, culturally irrelevant and downright stupid sounding faux-European club name to slap on an MLS team?

Do you suppose that's possible?

Click:cnc machining shop
I was hoping to conclude my little series about rivalries with Barcelona and Real Madrid. But I still have not heard from any Real fans.

They do have the big game next weekend, so hopefully I will hear from then before then.

At any rate, enjoy the holiday and the super clasico tonight.

It’s not often I can write something in praise of FIFA and UEFA. However, last week, they may have helped to broker a deal to end a bitter dispute between two nations (in terms of playing football, anyway) and to bring in one of the largest European nations currently outside of FIFA and UEFA in from the football wilderness.

Cyprus is an island nation in the east of the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout history, Cyprus has been subsumed into the various empires that have existed in the Eastern Mediterranean, ending up as part of the Ottoman Empire. The population of Cyprus was split, mostly between people of Greek and Turkish extraction, with about 75% being of Greek origin and about 25% of Turkish origin.

In 1878 after a war with Russia, the Ottomans allowed Cyprus to become a protectorate of the UK, in exchange for UK military aid should Russia attack Ottoman territory. When World War One broke out in 1914, and the Ottoman Empire declared war on Britain, Britain annexed Cyprus (though they did offer it to Greece in exchange for Greek participation in WW1, which was refused), and after the war, it became a British Crown Colony and the British introduced football to the island. The Cypriot Football Association (KOP) was formed in 1934 and a league was organised consisting of both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot players and teams, who coexisted and played in a national league without too many problems. Cyprus was admitted to FIFA in 1948.

Post World War Two, civil war broke out in Greece. This had a knock-on effect to the Greek community in Cyprus. Cypriot clubs and footballers had to swear allegiance to the fascist Greek government if they wanted to play. This meant that a lot of players with left-wing political views ended up kicked out of their clubs and barred from playing by the Cypriot Football Association. Those players ended up forming the Cypriot Amateur Football Federation (CAFF) in 1948, and created their own football teams that played in a championship created by them. Six teams were formed, Omonia Nicosia being probably the most famous of them (and are still heavily associated with left-wing politics to this day).

After five years, the CAFF clubs were allowed to join the main Cypriot league, and Omonia Nicosia, Alki Larnaca, Nea Salamis and Orfeas Nicosia still play in the Cypriot leagues today (Orfeas have the distinction of being one of the few football teams in the world whose stadium is both adjacent to a medieval city wall and in a UN buffer zone). Unfortunately, this unified league was only to last for two years.

In the early fifties, the rumblings amongst Cypriots about the future of Cyprus came out into the open. Most Greek Cypriots favoured a policy of enosis (union) with Greece, and started to put pressure on Britain internationally to allow Greece to annex Cyprus. After Britain resisted, an organisation called EOKA was formed, with the aim of forcing Britain out of Cyprus and allowing enosis to take place; and they conducted an armed campaign on British and British-connected targets and were not averse to using bombs.

The Turkish Cypriot community were horrified by the idea of enosis, and responded by declaring they were in favour of the policy of taksim (separation), and set up their own armed group, TMT, and declared the northern half of Cyprus for Turkey.

This conflict had a catastrophic effect on lives in Cyprus, as both Greek and Turkish Cypriots were forced to leave their homes in the face of increasing violence. It also had a huge impact on football in the island. Allegedly, Cetinkaya, the most successful Turkish Cypriot team were prevented from playing and as a result, the Turkish Cypriot teams withdrew from the league and set up their own governing body, the Cyprus Turkish Football Association (KTTF) and their own league, the Birinci Lig.

In 1960, a compromise was reached between the Greek and Turkish communities on Cyprus and Britain, which resulted in the formation of an independent Cyprus with a power-sharing agreement between the Greek and Turkish communities. Cyprus was allowed to join UEFA in 1962.

However, this peace on Cyprus didn’t last long. Some Greek Cypriots were not prepared to let the idea of enosis die, and in 1963 came up with the Akritas Plan, which aimed to remove all Turkish Cypriots within the government, thus allowing plans of enosis to be able to be pushed through. Violence broke out on the island, and most of the Turkish Cypriots fled to enclaves. In 1964, the UN, fearing a massacre of the Turkish Cypriots, intervened, sending peacekeeping troops to Cyprus, where they remain to this day.

In 1974, things got worse on Cyprus. A Greek-sponsored coup d’état tried to overthrow the government and prompted a retaliatory invasion by Turkey. After about a month of fighting, the Turks captured about 38% of Cyprus, most of the North of the island. During this time, there was a population exchange, where 200,000 Greek Cypriots were located to the South, Greek Cypriot controlled part of Cyprus, and 60,000 Turkish Cypriots went north.

The result of this was the Cyprus was divided by a line called the Attila Line (it’s also called the Green Line in Nicosia), which separates Turkish Cyprus from Greek Cyprus and there is a UN buffer zone between the two sides. In 1983, the Turkish zone declared itself to be the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is only officially recognised by Turkey, and is under heavy embargos from Cyprus.

During this time, Cyprus’ football team, which is solely made up of players from the Republic of Cyprus (the Greek part of the island), were regularly participating in international games, and qualifying campaigns for the World Cup and European Championships, though they didn’t qualify for any tournaments.

Northern Cyprus also has a football team that was playing internationals, usually against Turkey, but, crucially, they weren’t officially recognised by FIFA or UEFA. In 1975, FIFA general-secretary Helmut Kaser granted permission for Northern Cyprus to play friendly internationals against FIFA countries, but not competitive games. Technically this agreement still stands; but after the formation of the TRNC in 1983, no FIFA team apart from Turkey would play them.

In recent years, Cypriot football has become much stronger. Though they had a poor qualifying campaign for the 2014 World Cup; Cyprus’ national team has improved a lot in recent years, and was ranked in the top 50 of the FIFA rankings a few years ago.

During that time, club football has seemingly improved. APOEL FC have become regular participants in the Champions League and Europa league, and they reached the Champions League quarter-finals two seasons ago.

As football in the Repulic of Cyprus has been steadily improving; football in the TRNC has been stuck in limbo (Steve Menary’s excellent book Outcasts, explains it really well). The Birinci Lig isn’t particularly competitive or of a high standard; the best players often opt to play in Turkey (Galatasaray have an academy in Northern Cyprus), where they are counted as overseas players and can struggle to find clubs, or worse (from a TRNC perspective at least), play in the Republic of Cyprus. Some TRNC-eligible players have represented Turkey (Muzzy Izzet and Colin Kazim-Richards being two examples) and one, Everton’s Leon Osman, has played for England.

The TRNC did join the NF board for teams not affiliated to FIFA, winning the FIFI Wild Cup in 2006 and were runners-up in the VIVA World Cup last year, losing to Iraqi Kurdistan in the final.

However, football fans in the TRNC are fed up with the football world passing them by, and want the situation to change. There have been attempts to reunite the KOP and the KTTF in the past. In 2007, FIFA opened talks, which were tentatively progressing before a change of government in the TRNC put a stop to them.

FIFA and UEFA tried again, and last week, after several months of discussion; KOP President Costakis Koutsokoumnis and KTTF president Hasan Sertoğlu announced that, in principle, a deal had been reached, which if ratified, would mean the KTTF would become a member of KOP, which would allow Turkish Cypriot sides to play in KOP competitions, but retain the right to organise competitions between TRNC clubs, should they wish to do so and arrange friendlies between TRNC teams and foreign sides, meaning money-spinning games with some of the large Turkish club sides are a real possibility. Also, the KOP and KTTF have agreed to set up a committee to find a way to allow Turkish Cypriots a substantial say in how the game is run in Cyprus.

"Today is a historic day for football in Cyprus, but also for the Cypriot people in general," said Koutsokoumnis. "After 60 years of separation, it is now possible to reunite football. The fact that we have got to this stage, under the auspices of FIFA and UEFA, and drawn up and signed a road map for a united Cypriot football gives us all hope that we can solve all of the issues that lie ahead, provided the good will shown until now continues"

This deal wasn’t universally welcomed in either side of Cyprus. One Turkish Cypriot newspaper described the deal as “Political Treason”, and TRNC President Dervis Eroglu has spoke out against it. There were also reports that Sertoğlu wants to change some aspects of the deal, which Koutsokoumnis insists isn’t up for discussion, and the deal does contain a clause which allows both parties to terminate it at any time. But, for the first time in a long time, there is a real possibility of things changing for the better, in football terms at least, for Northern Cyprus.

It’s way too early to talk about a unified Cypriot football team, but such an idea has moved closer than it has been for nearly 60 years. Sepp Blatter recognised the significance of this deal by saying

"Both the Cyprus Football Association and the Cyprus Turkish Football Association are today providing the whole world with an excellent example of how football can build bridges and bring people together after a long period of conflict. I would like to thank both associations and UEFA for their outstanding contribution to this milestone arrangement."

UEFA President Michel Platini added “We live in a world in which it is easier to divide than to unite, which means that today is all the more exceptional. It is a historic moment for Cypriot football, and I would like to congratulate the presidents of the two associations, who have shown exemplary courage and perseverance."

This deal probably puts to an end the TRNC national team, as them playing a game would probably prompt the KOP to tear up the agreement, but players from the TRNC could now in theory, appear in the World Cup, or other FIFA competitions. An appearance by a Northern Cyprus team in the UEFA Regions Cup (a competition for amateur teams) is a possibility.

What? Oh, of course you made the right choice, Peter. Why would you have wanted to go to South Africa? Assistant coach – where's the glory in that?

Besides, you didn't want to hitch your wagon to Bob Bradley and Landon Donovan, did you? Where was the job security in that? With a three and out, and Sunil likely to bend to pressure and finally hire a foreign coach, there's no way you would have been kept on. Assistants are only considered after successful World Cup runs.

Okay, there was no way for you to have known that the US group was going to be THAT winnable, but you knew more than anyone that the US didn't have a real goalscoring threat. What, was some guy in MLS suddenly going to turn into Pele or something?

Oh. Sorry.

Okay, but, you were offered a spot at history. A franchise can only have one first coach ever. What other coach can have the opportunity to form the direction of a club for the rest of its days? What's better – a job, or a legacy?

Plus, you weren't stuck with whatever the American national team program could scrape up. You could find your own players. A team you could build from the ground up, with players you wanted, playing the way you wanted. A team that told the world, "This is Peter Nowak soccer."

No, taking the Union job was absolutely the best move. As the poet and philosopher said, "This is the one. This is the one I'm going to be remembered for."
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Nery should go to a real league, like Greece. I nearly wrote "Like MLS," but I'm above such childish trolling.

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So Peter Vermes called Davy Arnaud's red card against the Dynamo "ridiculous." Fortunately, MLS has a state of the art website with video highlights, so we can see the play and judge for ourselves.

Okay, I eventually did find it. I was in a locked filing cabinet in a basement with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard" – wait, that was the bypass plans from "Hitch-hiker's Guide." The Arnaud red card was stuck in the highlights of the Houston-Kansas City game, about 1/3 of the way through, after Landin's incredibly impressive goal.

Um…well, I had the liberty of watching it a couple of times, and I don't think it was a bad call. The angle made it look a lot more 50-50 than it was. Onstad didn't have the ball totally wrapped, but he was a lot closer to it than Arnaud. Onstad was on the ground, too, which means he had zero means of protecting himself. If that's not the sort of play that gets red cards, then we will just see a spate of horrible goalkeeper injuries until the rule is changed so it is a red card.

Link to the video? How the hell am I supposed to figure out how to do that?
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This post brings up a very sensitive subject.

I'm led to understand that there will be a televised soccer tournament this summer. Even though this particular tournament is nothing but a big cash-grab, the promoters have really tried to make it seem like a big deal. Just more schedule congestion, if you ask me.

Anyhow, not all of these games will be played at times convenient to all of our readers, what with jobs and time zones and stuff. So many of us will resort to technology known as "DVR," which is Afrikaans for "watching the game later."

So we should probably get on the same page as to giving away results. Four years ago, I remember making heat shield posts before my actual, in order not so spoil any surprises. That was a little ponderous, looking back.

I think this time around, BigSoccer should be R-rated. The front page is going to be loaded with World Cup stuff, we'll be talking about it on every forum, and, well, it'll be the biggest story in the world for a couple of months.

And it's not 1990 anymore – the games are being shown live, not blacked out and tape delayed, which was really the point of the [R] policy back when the Internet was just a couple of e-mail lists.

So if you just LOVE the [R] policy, well, better make your case.

One of the recurrent memes we hear from various soccerspheric imbeciles, particularly (but not limited to) bloggers and fans affiliated with certain of our newer MLS brethren (I don't want to name any names cough*Seattle*Toronto*cough*) goes something like this:

"Yeah, sure, everybody's grateful that the Hunt family – in conjunction with Phil Anschutz – spent maybe hundred million bucks of their own money – cash that they could have used buying yachts and islands and stuff – propping up a soccer league which everyone said was a joke, but now that WE'RE here with all of our wonderfulness it's time to get rid of these old dumbasses because WE know what we're doing far better than stingy, miserly, hopelessly ignorant Hunt Sports does."

To all you you, let me just point out that for the second time in three seasons Clark Hunt has a team in the MLS Cup game.

What's your team doing next weekend?

Also worth noting – and again for the second time in three seasons – MLS goes into the Championship game with the guarantee that the team flying home from Toronto on Monday morning with the Philip Anschutz Trophy in it's own seat (fortunately, since it'll be flying out of Canada, it won't have to submit to having it's junk displayed to a civil servant via a backscatter x-ray) will an MLS "Original Ten" team doing so for the very first time.

Is this a great league or what?

Of course many of the same aforementioned brainless twatwaffles will also bemoan this turn of events, pointing to it as just another example of the pernicious "forced parity" which prevents our "scared little league" (actual quotes from actual witless clown) from joining the ranks of the worlds' great leagues, where three or four teams are the only ones who can ever hope to win the crown and everyone else engages in a season long battle to avoid being kicked downstairs to a lesser league.

So let's see if I have this right:

If the choices are a) the possibility of my favorite team winning a Cup next season or b) my favorite team having literally no chance of ever winning a Cup in my lifetime, I'm supposed to gleefully select "b".

That's not "forced parity". Rather, it's "willful stupidity".

And with all due respect to Los Angeles fans – which is to say "eh, who cares?" – who amongst us is cold hearted enough not to have been rooting for Dallas last night?

Back when Bruce Arena quit the US job and signed on with New York I commented that now we could all go back to the natural order of things, ie. hating Bruce Arena.

For eight long, lonely years we were forced to actually like that smug, arrogant, stick-up-his-ass jerk with the perpetual sneer on his face. Fortunately, those days are over and there's nothing more enjoyable than laughing at his discomfort.

Toss in a few complete wastes of flesh like David "How Does My Hair Look?" Beckham and alleged human being Dema Kovalenko, throw in the fact that they play in LA, world capital of We're Better Than You Land, and they're just not a very lovable bunch.

Plus, come on: lowly old Dallas, 15 years without even a sniff at a final, against the MLS version of Bluto (the Popeye one, not the Animal House one)?

In fact, as teams were eliminated one by one, the FC Dallas fanbase swelled, as soccer fans all across the fruited plain were able to console themselves with: "Well, if my guys aren't going to win it, then I hope those poor schmucks can finally get off the schnied".

(Sorry Rapids; it's not that anyone actively dislikes you, really. But they never made you play in Dragon Stadium, either. Anyway, you guys lost me when you switched from that awesome and unique green primary jersey color – remember the last Kappa version, the one cut exactly like the Italian National Team wore? Utterly killer – an went with that pedestrian blue. Little things mean a lot.)

It should of course be noted that unlike in 2008 when two finals virgins – as if anything and anybody in New York/New Jersey warrants that particular moniker – competed for the Cup, Colorado has of course been there once before, in 1997, when they lost to the leagues' 800 pound gorilla, DC United, coached by – yes, Bruce Arena.

(Note to parity junkies: the previous year they finished dead last in the league.)

That was so long ago that the team featured Steve Trittshuh, Denis Hamlett, Marcelo Balboa and Paul Bravo, a frightening thought all by itself.

Interestingly, the team that the Rapids beat to get into that final was Dallas.

One could also note that now that all of the leagues Fancy-Shmansy, High Priced, bursting with superstars teams have been sent to clean out their lockers – the two highest paid players on the field next Sunday will be Dallas' David Ferreira and Colorados' Conor Casey, neither of whom make $400k – they're left with only the same question once posd by a timeless prophet:

"Is that all you get for your money?"

Toronto, like Kurt Cobain, is all apologies. As a compromise, Toronto FC will lower the ticket price, and offer their fans fewer games. Wait a minute.

It goes on like that, offering fans opportunities to further scream at them at various "town hall" meetings.

It's a much better letter than the initial season ticket renewal letter, which read:

But…geez. Vancouver is joining the league next season, Montreal the year after. There was no guarantee that Toronto was going to have a standing invitation to the CONCACAF Referee and Rodeo Clown Convention.

And if Toronto does make it to back to the Champions League, then whither the season ticket holders? They will either pay up or sit down. And season ticket holders usually hate to miss games – that's why they're season ticket holders to begin with. And they usually don't like the inconvenience of having to pay for added games – again, they're season ticket holders, as in, tickets for the whole season.

So after complaining about the price per game, fans who want to see every game will pay the same price. Now that's a good compromise.

Toronto FC is also forcing fans at gunpoint to attend MLS Cup, which is another reason the fans are burnt up about it. I would have thought that MLS Cup would have been included in this year's package, not next year's package, in any case. It's supposed to be a 2011 ticket package, after all. Toronto isn't eliminated from the 2011 MLS Cup yet.

Actually, in some way the "if it isn't us, screw it" attitude is admirable. But Fire fans still made the trek to Columbus in 2001 after buying tickets in advance. Dallas fans were amazing hosts, two years in a row, and were rewarded with two consecutive nightmare MLS Cups where deadly rivals won terrible games. Me, I had to watch Chicago, San Jose and DC United party in my house.

So sorry, no sympathy here. (Wow, it sure is Toronto fans' day for empty apologies.) Cheer for David Beckham to make it to the Final, so you can scalp your ticket. Or cheer for the Quakes to make it, so there will be at least one Canadian involved. Or hope for two Western teams, so you can kick back and party with teams who aren't your rivals, like LA fans got to do in 2008. Or tell Red Bulls fans "I think you're favorites to win the championship," and watch them put on their best "does…not…compute" face.

But wasn't Toronto FC supposed to have a yard-long waiting list that would make the Green Bay Packers weep with envy? Either the season ticket holder pool wasn't as deep as we thought, or MLSE pissed off everyone at once. And if that many people are that unhappy about having the league championship this year…well, then, that's the free market for you.

I'm glad the team acknowledged the fans at all – although early returns are showing that TFC fans literally aren't buying it. Stay tuned.

I am a big fan of NFL Films. My favorite period are the films they made during the late 60s and early 70s, culminating with NFL ’74, the Championship Chase. I happened to catch their film of Super Bowl VI the other day. Dallas exorcised a lot of ghosts in their defeat of the Dolphins. As Films put it, a team that had more games than any other for five years were defined by defeat.

I couldn’t think of a better way to encapsulate the historical and current state of Mexican futbol.

Defined by defeat.

It’s true that every team will lose cups than they will win, but Mexican teams seem to raise losing to a sublime art form.

The National team is defined by defeat. It’s true that the Tri has made it to the knockouts in each of its last 6 world cups. But they only have 1 win in that round. The Copa America has been a great addition to Mexico’s schedule, but they have lost both finals in which they appeared.

Cruz Azul has won a ton of titles back in the 70s, but lately their reputation has been formed by their lack of success in cup finals, as they have lost their last 5 in the past few years.

Mexican clubs have done well participating in the South American club tournaments, making 5 finals appearances. But again, they have only been able to win one of those. Chivas was the latest to fall short in their bid with a 3-2 (5-3) loss last night at Internacional’s Beira Rio stadium in Porto Allegre. Chivas fans still talk about their Campeonisimo days of the 50’s. But As those days fall back further into the distant echoes of memory, frankly, it sounds a little disingenuous. Like Yale laying claim to all those National Championships they won in college football back in the 1910's and 1920s.

There is no doubt that Mexican futbol, at the club and National team level has improved immensely over the past generation. It would be nice if “Gana Mexico”, “gana Chivas”, “Gana Pumas” can eventually replace the most common phrase uttered after a Mexican team plays a big game: “Jugamos como nunca, y perdimos como siempre.”

And when that Mexican team does win that elusive big game, it will be as much to "earn the title as champion as it is to shed the label as loser."