MLS Weakly, 02 27 2021: Camp Opens, Cups Get Hideous & Getting Nervous about the Math

A statement on World Cup 2022

Let’s get the downer out of the way first. Both U.S. National Teams (that is Men and Women) announced their schedules for 2021 ($ site), and probably did a bunch of other shit I don’t really care about. (Related: does U.S. Soccer run the U.S. Open Cup; asking due to that tournament’s long, continuing strides toward irrelevance: I mean…who blessed this mess?) I rarely tune in for USWNT games, but that’s from lack of context, but it’s getting damned hard to get excited about USMNT games due to the sharp stench wafting over from Qatar.

Look, I understand that FIFA is crooked as 20 broken penises, but reports of 6,500 deaths associated with the construction of stadiums in a country that, frankly, should never have been awarded a World Cup pushes them several miles past vanilla corruption and into open criminality. I can’t, in good conscience watch an event built on top of so many dead, which will make 2022 the first World Cup I’ve ever skipped and the first I've missed any part of since 1982. If I commit to that (frailty being a thing), is there any point to watching World Cup qualifying when it starts later this year?

Despite everything above, I’ll likely tune in for friendlies, Nations Cup and this summer’s Gold Cup, and that entails some falling from the moral high ground because I assume FIFA gets a cut of all of that. I acknowledge the several rationalizations needed to make that leap - the way the body (qualifying tournaments) support the head (the World Cup Finals) chief among them - but I’d still love to see the Qatar tournament fall flat on its hideous face and sincerely hope it comes to pass. I’ll keep telling myself that failure of the marquee event would give FIFA the darkest possible black eye.

FIFA will always be corrupt, near as I can tell, so the only real moral choice is to stop watching international soccer altogether. I can’t see doing that. At any rate, I’m stepping away for a shower and 2,000 Hail Mary’s, and then I’ll move on the Major League Soccer.

And…we’re back. The 2021 MLS season has finally, officially started with a handful of teams reporting to camp. I’ll do the usual thing, i.e., talk about the two teams I follow (FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers) and then wrap up with some league-wide notes. And so, to start with the team that has…

MLS Weakly, 02 13 2021: Negotiations and Aspirations

I am, and always will be, open-minded.

I won’t post a Weakly next week, so praise the soccer gods for giving me so much material to work with this week.

First and foremost and, as assumed last week, there will be a 2021 Major League Soccer season. The regular season won’t start until April 17 (leaving me to wonder what the hell I’ll talk about every week for two months…which perhaps points to the wisdom of not posting stuff when there’s nothing to talk about), but it looks like (most) teams will report to training as of March 1, 2021.

The very next thought: will there be, like, an actual preseason - i.e., the annual ritual of MLS teams thrashing the kids from the nearest college and USL teams? More to the point, will MLS fans get to see one of my most cherished of preseason rituals, those little February (or March) mini-tournaments in Arizona, Florida and, in recent years, Portland, OR? If not, however will they get to see their team’s players from the deepest depths of the bench and/or that year’s draft picks before they go back under or to their team’s USL affiliate for the rest of the year? How else will fans see the players who will absolutely not feature in any part of the upcoming campaign? I know I want to know...

As much as I love the things (I like like them), hosting and arranging preseason games feels like one hell of a risk under the (fast COVID) circumstances. I mean, why risk players getting The Bad Bug before points are on the line - especially if it risks losing points later (but they’ll reschedule games…right?)? Going the other way, why not get ahead on managing game-day settings before the real thing? My guess is, most teams will play and, gods willing, live-stream at least two preseason games in 2021. Even if hitting the ground running isn’t in the cards, why not hit it at a solid trot?

Even if preseason doesn’t happen, fans of four* teams - Atlanta United FC, the Philadelphia Union, Columbus Crew SC, and my Portland Timbers - and general MLS enthusiasts have the treat of hot CONACAF Champions’ League action to look forward to starting on or around the first Tuesday in April. (* If Toronto FC can beat…whatever the hell Forge FC is, MLS will send five teams to the CCL, but, c’mon, who doesn’t want to line up behind Team Forge?) Because I’ve got nothing else for Portland, I’ll do the little CCL handicapping I can in the Timbers section below. Before that, though, I wanted to spend a little time dissecting the agreement/truce that made the 2021 MLS season possible. Yessir, time to talk about…

MLS Weakly, 02 06 2021: Sloppy Notes on the Season We're Apparently Getting...

My interest, leaving...

As of ____ p.m.*, February 6, 2021, Major League Soccer’s players voted to tentatively ratify a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that will govern relations between them and the bastards they work for through the 2027. In other words, barring another pandemic or its equivalent, we won’t have to go through this shit for while. [* They haven't done it yet, don't know when they will.]

The general consensus, at least among the (largely) pro-labor lefties I follow, was that the players got the short-end of the deal. As argued in last week’s post, I believe the players simply don’t have leverage equal to the bastards they work for, so I’m mostly hoping they squeezed some meaningful concessions out of the league before signing on the dotted line…

…speaking of signing on the dotted line, FC Cincinnati finally did something interesting and/or not sad! To celebrate that, I’ll give them the honors of starting the weakly review. Portland will come next, followed by a little league-wide thoughts and theorizing.

FC Cincinnati (Probably?) Gets One Right
On the timeless principle that one doesn’t get dessert until one finishes her goddamn vegetables (eat your fucking vegetables, Stacy!), a couple thoughts from MLS’s Matt Doyle on where Cincinnati’s roster build is right now…or was until a couple days ago:

“Jurgen Locadia's loan goes until June and it's probably pretty fair to assume there's little interest in bringing him back long-term given he managed just 1 goal in about 1,400 minutes. I'd say the writing's on the wall for Yuya Kubo, last year's other DP signing (three goals and zero assists in 1300 minutes) as well. Plus Allan Cruz doesn't seem to be a first-choice player by Stam's reckoning, and that's no way to spend a DP slot.”

“’No. 10 is a priority, winger is a priority, center back is a priority and No. 9 is a priority,’ he told media on a conference call last week, and let's parse this a bit…”

Yes, let’s - and Gerard Nijkamp is the “he” of that sentence. Bluntly, Cincy has a horrendous number of needs and all over the field. Several players they’ve signed - and, lest we forget, who thrilled fans before extended, disappointing reveals - have not panned out - e.g., Kubo and Locadia, but also Siem de Jong. Moreover, a couple players in key positions - here, I’m thinking mainly of Kamohelo Mokotjo - still should count as unknowns. And yet there’s still that long list of needs even with those players on the roster.