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| My li'l all-Homegrown team, in my head. And who they'll face... |
To start with a happy thought, preseason dates are now bubbling
up to the top of the crawl on MLSSoccer.com, and that means people will be
kicking balls and people very, very soon (maybe even people’s balls). Wait! I’ve
just received word of people kicking with intent! Sporting Kansas City knocked around Sporting AZ FC pretty good only yesterday, and thus the ball rolls
forward for 2019. (What?! Rodney Wallace moved to SKC? Was this in between black-outs or something?) Based
on the crawl, my personal preseason starts on January 30 when FC Cincinnati
plays L’Impact de Montreal (show it, plz?). I’ll delve into all (available)
things FC Cincy, and Portland Timbers down below and, after that, take a tour
by all personal points of interest around MLS. But, with a big date on the
domestic soccer calendar coming before everything that isn’t SKC getting amped
(Peter Vermes is involved, obviously) for the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL), let’s
start there.
Meet the New Boss, Nothing Like the Old Boss (and thank gods
for it)
This time next week, I’ll be getting on my giddy about the
U.S. Men’s National Team for the first time since U.S. Soccer finally and
correctly terminated The Jurgen Klinsmann Experience. It makes sense to restate
my beef with Klinsmann, briefly – i.e., I felt like he never prepared the team tactically,
never mind conceptually, and that, like most self-help people, he had a
horrible knack for blaming everyone but himself when things went wrong – because,
per some soccer porn put out by U.S. Soccer (Behind the Crest, I think they
call it), Gregg Berhalter takes a different approach, maybe even its
micro-managing opposite. When the U.S. Men play Panama next Sunday, then Costa
Rica the following Saturday, I don’t need to see the U.S. beat both teams badly
enough to have to peel their boot out of their collective asses after the final
whistle; I just want a team that doesn’t take the field seized with existential
doubt about what the hell the coach actually meant by “expressing yourself" and
“getting a little nasty.” Hearing Tyler Miller talk about Berhalter’s system not
as gospel, but as a plan to “fall back on,” played in my ears like a chorus of
angels.
We’re All Getting a Baby Brother (mom and dad have been doin’
it again!)
Now, back to MLS, I have a couple league-wide notes. First,
the league confirmed Austin FC as the league’s 27th team – and one
with a much firmer plan/vision for the future that New York City FC or whatever
the fuck they’re calling Miami’s boondoggle. Austin will officially join in
2021, and without shivving the hearts of another city, and, if all goes well, playing
in a privately-funded stadium of their own. Don Garber said something about “a
non-linear process” for getting a team in Austin, but all the above strikes me
as doing things a damned site better than the two “glamour teams” named above.
