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The “firsts” start to dry up as Major League Soccer’s history moves closer to the present – does adding a new team really count in a league that adds two a season? - but 2006 saw a few. The Chicago Fire opened the league’s third soccer-specific stadium up in Bridgeview, Illinois (per franchise tradition, it was a mixed bag) and the ridiculously-named New York/New Jersey MetroStars became the no less ridiculously-named New York Red Bulls (or Red Bull New York, I can never truly remember). Parenthetical specifics aside, both moves amounted to what the domestic top-flight needed more than anything else: long-term investment and stability.
The biggest on-field change saw the San Jose Earthquakes move to Houston, Texas for the 2006 season. It didn’t look great, but it looked nothing like the contraction that culled the Florida teams after the 2001 regular season (my notes here). In fact, a general failure to invest in the San Jose market prompted the move, not league-wide financial struggles. I’ll get to all that and more, but, to paraphrase a line from the Jaws 3 trailer, the 2006 season was unusually personal.
Soccer fans talk about “bleeding” for their teams all the time, and of “living and dying on every goal.” I don’t do that. In fact, I can count on the number of games that transported me to real rapture on two hands at most. To name two that should give you some idea of where I set the bar, the United States Men’s 3-2 win over Portugal in their 2002 World Cup opener and the Portland Timbers’ famous double-post victory over Sporting Kansas City make the cut. (Another is highly personal, a random league game that saw Liverpool put four goals past Newcastle in a back-and-forth barn-burner they ultimately won; I took a shot of gin for every goal Liverpool scored that season, and it took some work to talk the bartender into honoring the tradition). I’ve got moments where joy and rage boiled over by the hundreds, but it takes a lot to get me to transcendence.
The biggest on-field change saw the San Jose Earthquakes move to Houston, Texas for the 2006 season. It didn’t look great, but it looked nothing like the contraction that culled the Florida teams after the 2001 regular season (my notes here). In fact, a general failure to invest in the San Jose market prompted the move, not league-wide financial struggles. I’ll get to all that and more, but, to paraphrase a line from the Jaws 3 trailer, the 2006 season was unusually personal.
Soccer fans talk about “bleeding” for their teams all the time, and of “living and dying on every goal.” I don’t do that. In fact, I can count on the number of games that transported me to real rapture on two hands at most. To name two that should give you some idea of where I set the bar, the United States Men’s 3-2 win over Portugal in their 2002 World Cup opener and the Portland Timbers’ famous double-post victory over Sporting Kansas City make the cut. (Another is highly personal, a random league game that saw Liverpool put four goals past Newcastle in a back-and-forth barn-burner they ultimately won; I took a shot of gin for every goal Liverpool scored that season, and it took some work to talk the bartender into honoring the tradition). I’ve got moments where joy and rage boiled over by the hundreds, but it takes a lot to get me to transcendence.
MLS Cup 2006 was another one.
