 |
| If you know, you know. |
The U.S. Men’s National Team wraps January Camp 2023 with a friendly against Colombia tonight. Be there, or expand your cable package/antenna TV offerings (c’mon, antenna TV, old buddy, don’t let me down). That wee nugget is the biggest shit in domestic soccer today, but all that will change. And soon.
Since I started with the national team, I may as well finish the thought – though I have less to say than I thought I would (and I’ll have notes later tonight). A rash of consternation at the soap opera state of U.S. Soccer flared up across the twitters this week – one tweet flagged looming tournaments and other future events like a maid of honor staring at a wide-open to-do list through one eye and a calendar through the other – and...I just couldn’t give less of a shit about the comings and goings of Earnie Stewart, Brian McBride, and whatever the hell’s happening with Claudio Reyna. To offer some words of comfort to that hypothetical maid of honor, the big day will come and you’ll be ready for it or you won’t and you’ll celebrate or despair accordingly...and who knew this site would age into naked fatalism? I blame society, society is to blame...
After that, if you want to know what Walker Zimmerman and DeAndre Yedlin think about the state of the National Team, here you go. My main takeaway from that piece...gods preserve us, I forgot that the U.S. (and Mexico and Canada, right?) won’t have to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, courtesy of its (their?) hosting duties (I’m not looking it up). That makes me far more nervous than whatever’s happening in Salem (shout-out to Days of Our Lives...which I just discovered is set in the...Midwest. Did anyone else know this??). Oh, and this was a fun little nugget (from this):
“Setting aside the top five leagues in the world -- in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain -- MLS had the most rostered players (36) of anywhere else. It was represented by more countries (12) than any league outside the top five and, for the first time in league history, it had a player on the winning team: Argentina's Thiago Almada (Atlanta United).”
The U.S. had that midweek loss to Serbia, of course, and I queefed (sp?) out some thoughts, but Matt Doyle had a couple nice additions to my vague gesturing in his notes on the "shaky start" to the new cycle. Two things I didn’t talk about in my post: 1) I agree that Columbus’ Aidan Morris wasn’t great where he lined up...but did you expect him to be? and 2) how good could Brandon Vazquez be with the regular U.S. Men’s line-up behind him? And that segues nicely to...
This Week All Up in Cincinnati
FC Cincinnati played and won its first preseason game against Austin FC, thereby avenging the 0-5 blowout that started its 2022 season (no, not really). I didn’t see it (I mean, did anyone, even the players?), but word that Brenner scored one and that Nick Hagglund headed home another had that cozy, familiar feeling of a Hallmark Christmas movie (and congrats to Dom Badji as well). Outside that, the big news was probably the official departure of Ronald Matarrita. I saw stray tweets of sentimentality about that, and I guess here’s where I go full bastard. Matarrita had some moments for Cincy, but my parting memory of him comes at the end of this note on his future:
“Matarrita leaves MLS, signs for Ukraine's SC Dnipro-1: Longtime MLS left back Ronald Matarrita has gone overseas and signed for SC Dnipro-1. The 28-year-old Costa Rican international was a free agent after FC Cincinnati declined his contract option following the 2022 campaign. He was limited to seven games played last year due to an ankle injury...”
I’m more on, “we hardly knew ye,” basically. Other people’s sentimentality makes me worry about my lack of it from time to time...but maybe there’s a reason for that hard, protective shell...
This Week All Up in Portland
The Portland Timbers continue to idle on the trade/transfer front, which undoubtedly concerns people (like me) who aren’t feeling entirely confident about the state of things. On the plus side, it looks like the Timbers decided to hold on to Eryk Williamson...which won’t do him or them any good unless Gio Savarese plays him. But that wasn’t the biggest news out of Portland this past week.
Portland announced Heather Davis as the team’s CEO late last week. It did not go well, at least not in my fiery little corner of twitter. Davis was promoted to her new gig after coming on as general counsel in May of 2022...which might explain why she sounded like such a fucking lawyer in an interview with Soccer Made in Oregon. As the saying goes, twitter isn’t real life, and, in political terms, that goes double for “my fiery little corner” of it - which I’d characterize as forever yearning for Utopia, i.e., there is a collective belief that the world can become good with the right kind of striving.
I don’t say that disparagingly, by the way - I actually rather admire it - and I agree that Davis took a rather clueless pass at showing normal remorse and awareness. I’d go so far as to say that some of her comments bordered on dismissive...and here’s where I may lose some people.
Give it time. See if the Timbers/Thorns Org can go a week without scandal. Then see if they can go a month, then see if they can go a year. Both things and people can change, so maybe sit back and hope they do. That doesn’t mean sitting silently (which ain’t gonna happen, not among the people I follow/like); I mean it in the sense of managing expectations in the spirit of the serenity prayer (“Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other”). The new chapter didn’t start with what you’d hoped it would (a full-body fucking cleanse would be great!), but that doesn’t mean it can’t end well.
Best case, Merritt Paulson sells the team(s) because, yeah, he’s a prick. (And yet, what is his most likely replacement but another rich prick?) Decent case, he becomes the team’s ATM – i.e., something that sits silently in a corner and hands out money on demand – he gets off social media and generally gets out of the way and, to tip my own toe into Utopia, Davis does what she says she wants to do, the team fixes problems instead of burying them, etc. Gods willing, the organization will come to the understanding that they can walk around the world without a perpetual black eye.
And now...
Since I started with the national team, I may as well finish the thought – though I have less to say than I thought I would (and I’ll have notes later tonight). A rash of consternation at the soap opera state of U.S. Soccer flared up across the twitters this week – one tweet flagged looming tournaments and other future events like a maid of honor staring at a wide-open to-do list through one eye and a calendar through the other – and...I just couldn’t give less of a shit about the comings and goings of Earnie Stewart, Brian McBride, and whatever the hell’s happening with Claudio Reyna. To offer some words of comfort to that hypothetical maid of honor, the big day will come and you’ll be ready for it or you won’t and you’ll celebrate or despair accordingly...and who knew this site would age into naked fatalism? I blame society, society is to blame...
After that, if you want to know what Walker Zimmerman and DeAndre Yedlin think about the state of the National Team, here you go. My main takeaway from that piece...gods preserve us, I forgot that the U.S. (and Mexico and Canada, right?) won’t have to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, courtesy of its (their?) hosting duties (I’m not looking it up). That makes me far more nervous than whatever’s happening in Salem (shout-out to Days of Our Lives...which I just discovered is set in the...Midwest. Did anyone else know this??). Oh, and this was a fun little nugget (from this):
“Setting aside the top five leagues in the world -- in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain -- MLS had the most rostered players (36) of anywhere else. It was represented by more countries (12) than any league outside the top five and, for the first time in league history, it had a player on the winning team: Argentina's Thiago Almada (Atlanta United).”
The U.S. had that midweek loss to Serbia, of course, and I queefed (sp?) out some thoughts, but Matt Doyle had a couple nice additions to my vague gesturing in his notes on the "shaky start" to the new cycle. Two things I didn’t talk about in my post: 1) I agree that Columbus’ Aidan Morris wasn’t great where he lined up...but did you expect him to be? and 2) how good could Brandon Vazquez be with the regular U.S. Men’s line-up behind him? And that segues nicely to...
This Week All Up in Cincinnati
FC Cincinnati played and won its first preseason game against Austin FC, thereby avenging the 0-5 blowout that started its 2022 season (no, not really). I didn’t see it (I mean, did anyone, even the players?), but word that Brenner scored one and that Nick Hagglund headed home another had that cozy, familiar feeling of a Hallmark Christmas movie (and congrats to Dom Badji as well). Outside that, the big news was probably the official departure of Ronald Matarrita. I saw stray tweets of sentimentality about that, and I guess here’s where I go full bastard. Matarrita had some moments for Cincy, but my parting memory of him comes at the end of this note on his future:
“Matarrita leaves MLS, signs for Ukraine's SC Dnipro-1: Longtime MLS left back Ronald Matarrita has gone overseas and signed for SC Dnipro-1. The 28-year-old Costa Rican international was a free agent after FC Cincinnati declined his contract option following the 2022 campaign. He was limited to seven games played last year due to an ankle injury...”
I’m more on, “we hardly knew ye,” basically. Other people’s sentimentality makes me worry about my lack of it from time to time...but maybe there’s a reason for that hard, protective shell...
This Week All Up in Portland
The Portland Timbers continue to idle on the trade/transfer front, which undoubtedly concerns people (like me) who aren’t feeling entirely confident about the state of things. On the plus side, it looks like the Timbers decided to hold on to Eryk Williamson...which won’t do him or them any good unless Gio Savarese plays him. But that wasn’t the biggest news out of Portland this past week.
Portland announced Heather Davis as the team’s CEO late last week. It did not go well, at least not in my fiery little corner of twitter. Davis was promoted to her new gig after coming on as general counsel in May of 2022...which might explain why she sounded like such a fucking lawyer in an interview with Soccer Made in Oregon. As the saying goes, twitter isn’t real life, and, in political terms, that goes double for “my fiery little corner” of it - which I’d characterize as forever yearning for Utopia, i.e., there is a collective belief that the world can become good with the right kind of striving.
I don’t say that disparagingly, by the way - I actually rather admire it - and I agree that Davis took a rather clueless pass at showing normal remorse and awareness. I’d go so far as to say that some of her comments bordered on dismissive...and here’s where I may lose some people.
Give it time. See if the Timbers/Thorns Org can go a week without scandal. Then see if they can go a month, then see if they can go a year. Both things and people can change, so maybe sit back and hope they do. That doesn’t mean sitting silently (which ain’t gonna happen, not among the people I follow/like); I mean it in the sense of managing expectations in the spirit of the serenity prayer (“Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other”). The new chapter didn’t start with what you’d hoped it would (a full-body fucking cleanse would be great!), but that doesn’t mean it can’t end well.
Best case, Merritt Paulson sells the team(s) because, yeah, he’s a prick. (And yet, what is his most likely replacement but another rich prick?) Decent case, he becomes the team’s ATM – i.e., something that sits silently in a corner and hands out money on demand – he gets off social media and generally gets out of the way and, to tip my own toe into Utopia, Davis does what she says she wants to do, the team fixes problems instead of burying them, etc. Gods willing, the organization will come to the understanding that they can walk around the world without a perpetual black eye.
And now...
 |
| Won't know where it goes till it gets there. |
The MLS Whip-Around
“There's still a lot of change coming too. Heck, as soon as Atlanta signs a new DP striker, they're going to rocket up this list. But for now, we can only work with what's already happened. And it's fair to say that some teams have set themselves up for a much-improved 2023 already.”
I lifted that from Sam Jones’ morning Kickoff newsletter. I like it as a good example of appearing to say something when you’re really saying nothing. Let us continue in that spirit....
As anticipated in last week’s Weakly, teams across the league have started their preseason – if fewer of them than I thought (this links to all results, for reference). Thus begins the filling in of blanks, amen, but it’s only the beginning. We won’t get a real temperature reading on last week’s hot U22 Initiative signing until the season kicks off, but at least the thermometer has entered an orifice. [Ed. – For the record, I don’t know what the U22 Initiative is and I don’t want to know. My team, like yours, will have players who will succeed or fail.] Now, let’s take last week’s trade/transfer news and the handful of preseason results and mash them together into some bullet points.
Today, I learned I will not be watching the 2023 Club World Cup, because I can’t (or won’t) buy every streaming platform, aka, the brave new sports media world and its discontents.
There was some light losing of shit when it briefly appeared that Alberth Elis was headed to Los Angeles FC. Some later tweets said it wasn’t going to happen and I’ll close this thought by saying, 1) I don’t know what’s going on with that, and 2) that doesn’t change my broad opinion that 2023 will pick up where 2022 left off, i.e., with the rest of the league chasing LAFC and the Philadelphia Union.
Philly further padded its stacked/effective roster this week when they exchanged MLS funny-money and futures market speculation with Club du Foot Montreal and Inter Miami CF for Joaquin Torres and Damien Lowe, respectively. All that movement hasn’t yet translated into dominant preseason results. With a very busy season ahead, the Union have been pre-funcing (sp?) harder for the regular season than any team in MLS, but have only a win over Austin (who are 0-2-0, if nobly) and draws against Minnesota United FC and St. Louis CITY, FC to show for it.
Related, I looked at St. Louis’ roster for that preseason game and it’s like 85% John Does, aka, men I don’t know from Adam.
The Colorado Rapids are currently perfect for preseason results, though both wins came against teams that, again, I don’t know from Adam – Celaya FC and Mineros. They also added two new players in (reportedly) box-to-box midfielder Connor Ronan (from Wolverhampton, former Irish youth international) and a Danish center back named Andreas Maxso (former and recent captain for Denmark’s Brondy IF). At any rate, this is just something for Timbers fans to eye nervously and hope The Inn doesn’t get full.
Other teams deep in makeover mode include Orlando City SC, who added a young Argentine named Ramiro Enrique (the write-up on him notes all of Orlando's moves, btw), and Houston Dynamo FC, who made the signing of former Moroccan youth international Amine Bassi official last week. Again, I can’t say whether those moves will come off – particularly for Houston, who have more psychic baggage to lose than most – but both teams have been busy. Unlike, say, Portland...
Speaking of the surprisingly inert, I don’t think I’m alone in wondering how/whether NYCFC and the Los Angeles Galaxy will field full teams when First Kick 2023 rolls around. Even if I didn’t see as many departures as I expected when I checked MLS's handy all transactions page, both teams have shed and failed to replace some regular starters – e.g., Sean Johnson just left NYCFC for Toronto FC and is Matt Freese even close to a like-for-like replacement? One can make a pretty strong case that the Galaxy have been a wild card for the past half-decade or so – so this could be more of the same – but NYCFC has lived in the mix for just as long. As such, I’ll be watching for their additions with heightened interest.
To pass on some other preseason results/notes, Minnesota (now with Zarek Valentin!) is now 1-0-1 and against some (recently) strong teams (Philly and NYCFC) while Nashville SC is 1-1-0 with that win coming against a group of talented children (aka, the U.S. U-20s). Elsewhere, FC Dallas lost their one and only preseason game, but they played that one without their head (i.e., no Jesus Ferreira, no Paxton Pomykal and no Paul Arriola, all with the U.S. Men).
Finally, Florian Jungwirth announced his retirement on Friday. I can’t fully account for why this interests me beyond the thought that Jungwirth always came off as one of those players who did fairly well absent obvious, eye-catching talent – and that makes him kind of a rare breed in professional sports. I guess I just find players like that admirable. Maybe playing above his apparent level speaks to a good brain in the noggin.
Oh, and I just noticed that the San Jose Earthquakes (also 1-0-1 this preseason; draw against NYCFC, win over Toronto) re-signed Tommy Thompson after letting him go in December and I will never, ever get him as a player.
That’s it for this week...well, except for when I dip back after tonight’s friendly versus Colombia.
“There's still a lot of change coming too. Heck, as soon as Atlanta signs a new DP striker, they're going to rocket up this list. But for now, we can only work with what's already happened. And it's fair to say that some teams have set themselves up for a much-improved 2023 already.”
I lifted that from Sam Jones’ morning Kickoff newsletter. I like it as a good example of appearing to say something when you’re really saying nothing. Let us continue in that spirit....
As anticipated in last week’s Weakly, teams across the league have started their preseason – if fewer of them than I thought (this links to all results, for reference). Thus begins the filling in of blanks, amen, but it’s only the beginning. We won’t get a real temperature reading on last week’s hot U22 Initiative signing until the season kicks off, but at least the thermometer has entered an orifice. [Ed. – For the record, I don’t know what the U22 Initiative is and I don’t want to know. My team, like yours, will have players who will succeed or fail.] Now, let’s take last week’s trade/transfer news and the handful of preseason results and mash them together into some bullet points.
Today, I learned I will not be watching the 2023 Club World Cup, because I can’t (or won’t) buy every streaming platform, aka, the brave new sports media world and its discontents.
There was some light losing of shit when it briefly appeared that Alberth Elis was headed to Los Angeles FC. Some later tweets said it wasn’t going to happen and I’ll close this thought by saying, 1) I don’t know what’s going on with that, and 2) that doesn’t change my broad opinion that 2023 will pick up where 2022 left off, i.e., with the rest of the league chasing LAFC and the Philadelphia Union.
Philly further padded its stacked/effective roster this week when they exchanged MLS funny-money and futures market speculation with Club du Foot Montreal and Inter Miami CF for Joaquin Torres and Damien Lowe, respectively. All that movement hasn’t yet translated into dominant preseason results. With a very busy season ahead, the Union have been pre-funcing (sp?) harder for the regular season than any team in MLS, but have only a win over Austin (who are 0-2-0, if nobly) and draws against Minnesota United FC and St. Louis CITY, FC to show for it.
Related, I looked at St. Louis’ roster for that preseason game and it’s like 85% John Does, aka, men I don’t know from Adam.
The Colorado Rapids are currently perfect for preseason results, though both wins came against teams that, again, I don’t know from Adam – Celaya FC and Mineros. They also added two new players in (reportedly) box-to-box midfielder Connor Ronan (from Wolverhampton, former Irish youth international) and a Danish center back named Andreas Maxso (former and recent captain for Denmark’s Brondy IF). At any rate, this is just something for Timbers fans to eye nervously and hope The Inn doesn’t get full.
Other teams deep in makeover mode include Orlando City SC, who added a young Argentine named Ramiro Enrique (the write-up on him notes all of Orlando's moves, btw), and Houston Dynamo FC, who made the signing of former Moroccan youth international Amine Bassi official last week. Again, I can’t say whether those moves will come off – particularly for Houston, who have more psychic baggage to lose than most – but both teams have been busy. Unlike, say, Portland...
Speaking of the surprisingly inert, I don’t think I’m alone in wondering how/whether NYCFC and the Los Angeles Galaxy will field full teams when First Kick 2023 rolls around. Even if I didn’t see as many departures as I expected when I checked MLS's handy all transactions page, both teams have shed and failed to replace some regular starters – e.g., Sean Johnson just left NYCFC for Toronto FC and is Matt Freese even close to a like-for-like replacement? One can make a pretty strong case that the Galaxy have been a wild card for the past half-decade or so – so this could be more of the same – but NYCFC has lived in the mix for just as long. As such, I’ll be watching for their additions with heightened interest.
To pass on some other preseason results/notes, Minnesota (now with Zarek Valentin!) is now 1-0-1 and against some (recently) strong teams (Philly and NYCFC) while Nashville SC is 1-1-0 with that win coming against a group of talented children (aka, the U.S. U-20s). Elsewhere, FC Dallas lost their one and only preseason game, but they played that one without their head (i.e., no Jesus Ferreira, no Paxton Pomykal and no Paul Arriola, all with the U.S. Men).
Finally, Florian Jungwirth announced his retirement on Friday. I can’t fully account for why this interests me beyond the thought that Jungwirth always came off as one of those players who did fairly well absent obvious, eye-catching talent – and that makes him kind of a rare breed in professional sports. I guess I just find players like that admirable. Maybe playing above his apparent level speaks to a good brain in the noggin.
Oh, and I just noticed that the San Jose Earthquakes (also 1-0-1 this preseason; draw against NYCFC, win over Toronto) re-signed Tommy Thompson after letting him go in December and I will never, ever get him as a player.
That’s it for this week...well, except for when I dip back after tonight’s friendly versus Colombia.
I know many believe Merritt's last name is Palpatine and, yeah, nobody seems to like rich kids in charge, but we are seeing the end result of emotion-heightened pressure on our team owner. A new, legal counsel-CEO of the Timbers is in place, maybe chosen primarily to deflect the non-stop criticism of the organization. A soon-to-be-spun-off Thorns, whose best possible situation was to remain part of a bigger soccer organization where business synergies abound, will now have to reinvent the wheel in many ways, just to hope to stay where they are now.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the out-for-blood critics just end up warping the organization rather than improving it. The revisionist history now has Merritt breezing into PDX in 2007 and taking over a thriving soccer franchise with deals already done with the City and stadium remodels completed. In reality, the guy did accomplish some very crucial things that made the current Timbers and Thorns exist. Before him the Timbers were owned by a succession of underfunded, minor-league baseball owners who thought AAA baseball was far more important than second-tier pro soccer in Portland.
The MP hatred is visceral, so me pointing out the realities of the past won't change anyone's mind. But the Timbers are a business venture as well as a mystical avatar of Portlandia. Proposed MLS membership was never a sure thing in 2009.
Can't deny that felt like 3-4 years of an angry couple fighting over who gets to keep the kids. And your points/arguments are neither far off nor unfair: the man made a smart investment and carried it through. He'd do the world a huge favor by stepping back, but I'd still be stunned to see him step down. As such, I'm moving on to treating him like a boss I hate at a job I love. Or something to that effect.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't you go and make me nostalgic about the USL days again. The rinky-dink vibe of a minor league team gives me a greater sense of ownership somehow - and I still remember the game where I knew all that was ending - but the big time has been fun in its own way. Think prettier and classier, but less endearing.
Thanks for reading and commenting, as always!
Glad my spleen venting didn't bother you.
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying about the USL days; I was there for the whole thing: 95% of stadium being GA seating. You could bring in food from outside the grounds. Timber Jim, Mr. Original, still the official team mascot. Watching with awe as the supporter's group went from 50 to 1500 in a handful of years. Actual Timbers open tryouts where young guys from local amateur leagues in the West could occasionally impress enough to join the squad. A squad where if you were an exotic Timbers foreign player from Japan, Korea or New Zealand, you'd feel real gratitude from us fans that you'd play in our soccer Siberia.
My big USL negatives? The truly awful turf field. If it wasn't the original NASL Astroturf from 1982, it looked like it was. Oh, and the year of coach Chris Agnello- 2006.