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| Massive lint ball on fire. Who knew? |
To get the mechanics out of the way, I’ve sprinkled the final results for every game in Major League Soccer’s Week 7 somewhere below in this post; I’ve also embedded links to The Mothership’s roundup/data in the final score for each. The commentary includes three featured matches – one of which will always be what FC Cincinnati did that weekend (and almost all good stuff so far), and I'll note how much and where I watched of the other two games – plus a round up the rest at the end in a section titled, “Now...The Rest Of It.” And, yes, I do watch too much Last Week Tonight, but aren't we all aging together in the end? After that, it's whatever insights and agreements I get from Matt Doyle's weekly roundup, whatever stuck from Sam Jones' Daily Kickoff and a bunch of brain lint from previous posts that somehow stick in my head. For good or ill...
Up next, some bullshit...
The Red Bull New York/San Jose Earthquakes game exploded into chaos and ended far, far later than it should have courtesy of a now-confirmed use of a racial slur from Dante Vanzier. I don't want kick around the fact patterns overly - at least not behind noting how much sentences like this, “Further information will be provided upon completion of that investigation,” piss me off, and the fact that the highlights skipped the incident entirely, even as The Mothership gently buries it - but I can't think of one meaningful question that needs answering. Vanzier said what he said or he didn’t and that doesn’t take much investigating. And, per this press release, it’s pretty goddamn clear that he did. What to do about it is less simple.
First and foremost, unless you can prove a toxic culture with the Red Bull organization, the main thing I want is a punishment that communicates to the player, in the clearest possible terms, that he crossed the wrong goddamn line. I saw people call for Vanzier's expulsion from the league and, sure, that's an option, but I would also gently suggest that most foreign players don't fully appreciate just how fraught race relations are in this country right now - and I make that point with real fucking firm opinions as to who's making them fraught (the right wing, the rural and the religious). My own thought is, so long as you believe that even a rabid skinhead can be rehabilitated – and I do because it does happen – you treat Vanzier like something less than an unreconstructed racist. I’m fine with a chunky suspension, something along the lines of a quarter of the season (8 games, basically) and a very rigid probation period that results in the termination of Vanzier’s contract if he fucks up again. And I’d suspend Gerhard Struber for at least four games for his refusal to sub Vanzier out as a gesture toward restoring calm. And, hey, maybe a suspension feels too much like collective punishment for a one-(ish)-man crime, so I'd also be okay with fining the bejesus out of Vanzier; hell, maybe that's what you go with because that's what Vanzier, personally, will feel most. He fucked up, so kick him, but then see where things go from there. [Update: I'm still kicking this around, so think of the above as thinking out loud.] [Update to the Update: Charlie Davies made a case, and a damned good one, for a season-long suspension. Hit this link and scroll down to the video. He's right in my mind.]
Up next, some bullshit...
The Red Bull New York/San Jose Earthquakes game exploded into chaos and ended far, far later than it should have courtesy of a now-confirmed use of a racial slur from Dante Vanzier. I don't want kick around the fact patterns overly - at least not behind noting how much sentences like this, “Further information will be provided upon completion of that investigation,” piss me off, and the fact that the highlights skipped the incident entirely, even as The Mothership gently buries it - but I can't think of one meaningful question that needs answering. Vanzier said what he said or he didn’t and that doesn’t take much investigating. And, per this press release, it’s pretty goddamn clear that he did. What to do about it is less simple.
First and foremost, unless you can prove a toxic culture with the Red Bull organization, the main thing I want is a punishment that communicates to the player, in the clearest possible terms, that he crossed the wrong goddamn line. I saw people call for Vanzier's expulsion from the league and, sure, that's an option, but I would also gently suggest that most foreign players don't fully appreciate just how fraught race relations are in this country right now - and I make that point with real fucking firm opinions as to who's making them fraught (the right wing, the rural and the religious). My own thought is, so long as you believe that even a rabid skinhead can be rehabilitated – and I do because it does happen – you treat Vanzier like something less than an unreconstructed racist. I’m fine with a chunky suspension, something along the lines of a quarter of the season (8 games, basically) and a very rigid probation period that results in the termination of Vanzier’s contract if he fucks up again. And I’d suspend Gerhard Struber for at least four games for his refusal to sub Vanzier out as a gesture toward restoring calm. And, hey, maybe a suspension feels too much like collective punishment for a one-(ish)-man crime, so I'd also be okay with fining the bejesus out of Vanzier; hell, maybe that's what you go with because that's what Vanzier, personally, will feel most. He fucked up, so kick him, but then see where things go from there. [Update: I'm still kicking this around, so think of the above as thinking out loud.] [Update to the Update: Charlie Davies made a case, and a damned good one, for a season-long suspension. Hit this link and scroll down to the video. He's right in my mind.]
