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| All was right in New England the next season... |
“The 2007 season was often cited as the first season in the modern-era of Major League Soccer.”
This claim is currently under investigation…but the phrasing begs a question: did another season replace this one as the season “often cited as the first season of the modern-era of Major League Soccer”? Also, is that hyphen necessary?
Grammatical/verb tense cheap shots aside (to think, what someone else could do with any of my posts), Major League Soccer saw a handful of changes going into the 2007 season that stake the claim. For one, MLS allowed jersey sponsors for the first time that season (one of the sponsors hints at what might have nudged them over the line: “The international recognized brand, Red Bull became the shirt sponsor of New York Red Bulls, whom they owned.”). The long, uneven path toward standing up an international club competition in the CONCACAF region got a boost as well; while they wouldn’t switch to the CONCACAF Champions League until the 2008 season, MLS and Liga MX ran the Superliga up the flagpole – and, holy shit, the New England Revolution won the 2008 edition, beating the Houston Dynamo on penalty kicks. Turns out pigs can fly, man…
…but if I had to name the one thing that finally made these regional tilts worth playing, I’d go with the magnificent duels Houston played against La Liga’s Pachuca CF. They played the first during the 2007 season, back when it remained the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Houston, those beautiful bastards made it possible to believe a North American team might one day one it all.
This claim is currently under investigation…but the phrasing begs a question: did another season replace this one as the season “often cited as the first season of the modern-era of Major League Soccer”? Also, is that hyphen necessary?
Grammatical/verb tense cheap shots aside (to think, what someone else could do with any of my posts), Major League Soccer saw a handful of changes going into the 2007 season that stake the claim. For one, MLS allowed jersey sponsors for the first time that season (one of the sponsors hints at what might have nudged them over the line: “The international recognized brand, Red Bull became the shirt sponsor of New York Red Bulls, whom they owned.”). The long, uneven path toward standing up an international club competition in the CONCACAF region got a boost as well; while they wouldn’t switch to the CONCACAF Champions League until the 2008 season, MLS and Liga MX ran the Superliga up the flagpole – and, holy shit, the New England Revolution won the 2008 edition, beating the Houston Dynamo on penalty kicks. Turns out pigs can fly, man…
…but if I had to name the one thing that finally made these regional tilts worth playing, I’d go with the magnificent duels Houston played against La Liga’s Pachuca CF. They played the first during the 2007 season, back when it remained the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Houston, those beautiful bastards made it possible to believe a North American team might one day one it all.
Two new soccer-specific stadiums opened – one of them hosting a new expansion team (welcome aboard, Toronto FC!); the other was the Colorado Rapids’ Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, aka, The Dick (tell me they still call it that) – and MLS made some tweaks to the rules of competition (again; more below), but it was the arrival of the designated-player (DP) rule that really puts a spine into that “first season in the modern-era of MLS” claim. I think just about everyone likely to find this lonely post knows how the DP rule works (short version: “permitting one big-ticket foreign player to play for each team without going against the team's salary cap”), but it’s fun to look at who showed up in that inaugural class:
