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| Isn't this what I'm doing here? |
The good news: 22 men finally kicked a ball in anger yesterday morning.
The bad news: the Seattle Sounders lost to Egypt’s(?) Al-Ahly in the Club World Cup on an own-goal that pinged off a recycled shot. Basically, Al-Ahly put Seattle into the “murder box” – i.e., they pinned them in their 18 and Seattle couldn’t clear – just as Seattle has done to countless opponents over their better seasons. Will that specific manner of doom will prove to be an omen for the Sounders’ 2023? We’ll see...
It wasn’t a great game, honestly, and neither team wowed me. I thought Seatle played too conservatively, at least in the second half (the only half I saw, for the record), keeping too many dudes behind the ball in defense and committing too few in the attack and too rarely. Ah well, maybe MLS will make a stronger showing when it sends a better team...
...I kid, I kid. Between the time of year they play the Club World Cup and the opposition, I expect any MLS team that makes it to struggle, even in the play-ins.
And yet that wasn’t even the biggest news of the past week: the launch of Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass app last Tuesday kicked up a hell of a lot more chatter. People all over twitter wandered around the big, ol’ digital playground, picked up the toys and generally treated the whole thing like some communal unboxing. I’ll do the same at the tail-end of this post, if on just one feature, and thank gods the chintzy bastards gave me something to talk about between today and First Kick 2023. I’d rather they streamed preseason games too, but we only get what they serve us...and aren’t they all closed-door scrimmages, here, in 2023?
Then again, teams haven’t played that many preseason games as yet – and last week was pretty damn thin until yesterday’s games larded it up. To round up the points of interest so far:
The two most impressive results from the past week (and here's all of 'em, with recaps for each available) saw Orlando City SC beat Minnesota United FC 2-0, with new signing Martin Ojeda reportedly involved, and freshly-minted St. Louis CITY FC (never forget ALL CAPS) smack Inter Miami’s CF’s gob 4-0 – and, just to note it, Miami is winless in preseason and with a -7 goal differential (that’s zero scored and seven allowed). Colorado’s perfect preseason came undone courtesy of a 1-3 loss at Queretaro, while New York City FC finally earned “preseason points” (non-fungible) with yesterday’s 2-1 win at the Los Angeles Galaxy. Charlotte FC started the week brightly with a 3-2 win over DC United and ended it tolerably with a 1-1 draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps – and DC appears to have played Vancouver to another 1-1 draw the same day they lost to Charlotte and that’s weird, right, playing two games in one day?
The bad news: the Seattle Sounders lost to Egypt’s(?) Al-Ahly in the Club World Cup on an own-goal that pinged off a recycled shot. Basically, Al-Ahly put Seattle into the “murder box” – i.e., they pinned them in their 18 and Seattle couldn’t clear – just as Seattle has done to countless opponents over their better seasons. Will that specific manner of doom will prove to be an omen for the Sounders’ 2023? We’ll see...
It wasn’t a great game, honestly, and neither team wowed me. I thought Seatle played too conservatively, at least in the second half (the only half I saw, for the record), keeping too many dudes behind the ball in defense and committing too few in the attack and too rarely. Ah well, maybe MLS will make a stronger showing when it sends a better team...
...I kid, I kid. Between the time of year they play the Club World Cup and the opposition, I expect any MLS team that makes it to struggle, even in the play-ins.
And yet that wasn’t even the biggest news of the past week: the launch of Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass app last Tuesday kicked up a hell of a lot more chatter. People all over twitter wandered around the big, ol’ digital playground, picked up the toys and generally treated the whole thing like some communal unboxing. I’ll do the same at the tail-end of this post, if on just one feature, and thank gods the chintzy bastards gave me something to talk about between today and First Kick 2023. I’d rather they streamed preseason games too, but we only get what they serve us...and aren’t they all closed-door scrimmages, here, in 2023?
Then again, teams haven’t played that many preseason games as yet – and last week was pretty damn thin until yesterday’s games larded it up. To round up the points of interest so far:
The two most impressive results from the past week (and here's all of 'em, with recaps for each available) saw Orlando City SC beat Minnesota United FC 2-0, with new signing Martin Ojeda reportedly involved, and freshly-minted St. Louis CITY FC (never forget ALL CAPS) smack Inter Miami’s CF’s gob 4-0 – and, just to note it, Miami is winless in preseason and with a -7 goal differential (that’s zero scored and seven allowed). Colorado’s perfect preseason came undone courtesy of a 1-3 loss at Queretaro, while New York City FC finally earned “preseason points” (non-fungible) with yesterday’s 2-1 win at the Los Angeles Galaxy. Charlotte FC started the week brightly with a 3-2 win over DC United and ended it tolerably with a 1-1 draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps – and DC appears to have played Vancouver to another 1-1 draw the same day they lost to Charlotte and that’s weird, right, playing two games in one day?
