Tuesday Coffee is Bitter

IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE, IT MUST BE FRED: Steve Goff with a profile of Fred, which is a nice little morsel of reading.

...it was clear to those around him that he needed time to adjust to not only United's style and MLS's demands, but to a new way of life. His wife's arrival was delayed by visa issues, and he did not take well to the cold weather in preseason in Washington and in several of the early international and league matches. "He's cold at our team meetings in the air conditioning," Coach Tom Soehn said with a laugh.

I am still a Fred believer (or rather, a "da Silva" believer since I wasn't one of those who thought he should get the first name on the jersey just yet). However, one wonders how he feels as of today, and I get the sense that this article might have been written before the Dallas game, given that Goff is on vacation. But that's me being overly demanding. How he feels about the 3-0 to 3-3 collapse doesn't matter that much.

FRUSTRATION STATION: Over the weekend, the Washington Times ran a piece on United's efforts to spur the stadium deal onward. The article is specifically triggered by United's recent "contact the city" message. It is interesting to note that they declined to comment for this article, but that didn't stop some other jabberjaws from chiming in:

"If there's frustration, it is from the sense that United and its fans have been paying their dues for years now," said D...who runs "The DCenters," a D.C. United fan Internet blog. "Every year Mayor [Anthony] Williams, and this year Mayor Fenty, would come out on opening day and talk about helping us get a home of our own, and a season would pass and we'd still be no closer. That's frustrating year after year, especially when you see structures going up near Potomac Avenue."

City officials stopped short of promising a stadium would be included in the city's plans for Poplar Point, but claimed to speak with D.C. United officials at least once every other week.

Wow, that D is a real prick. Why didn't he mention all the positives for the city in the plan, or talk about United's community outreach? Well, he did, and I have a complete copy of my, er, D's conversation with the reporter on this story, which I might put up as a separate post. It was clear that the real focus of the story was on the "frustration" element, so my response to that question was what was quoted. And I wasn't misquoted or anything like that, it was completley fair and transparent. Do I wish more was said about the positive things for city in the stadium proposal? Yes, but that's okay. This article is marginally supportive as a whole, putting the idea of the stadium in the forefront. Plans that don't have the stadium are the "alternative" plans, while the stadium idea should be the main plan. That's a nice thing that the DC United efforts have accomplished.

MORE DALLAS: DCist weighs in, and a look at the Leafblower photo gallery is always time well spent.