Soccer in America

On Tuesday evening I watched game 7 of the Caps/Flyers series at the 51st State in Foggy Bottom. Yeah, that's right... I got on the Caps bandwagon hard. And it hurt. It was Chad Barrett scoring at RFK last November, it was the Cavs outpacing the Wiz by 30 on Monday night and then it was an OT goal at the Phone Booth on Tuesday night. And then I went home, turned on the computer and had pocket aces cracked by pocket jacks. Brutal all around. But this isn't the point.

My friend S, who is very smart and observes all, made an interesting comment to me as we made our way through too many pints. He said, "Look at baseball, which is the most popular sport in America, but is, for the most part, a boring game." True. He pointed out that American sports fans seem to have a preoccupation with statistics and that maybe baseball is so popular because there are so many statistics to throw around while you are trying to make your way through three innings of shallow pop flys and slow roller ground outs to the second baseman who has chewing tobacco juice on his shoes. You are always hearing about "on-base percentage after the 7th inning with runners in scoring position by lefties against righties from Spanish-speaking island countries" and "slugging percentage". And all these statistics have fun, convenient abbreviations, like OBP(A7RISPLvRSSIC) and BB and HBP.

So maybe MLS would do well to create (invent?) more statistics for viewers to track with the hope of keeping the American sports fan occupied through 0-0 draws and defensive bunkering. Perhaps teams stats like "most team passbacks from the middle third to the keeper" or individual stats like "percent time of possession spent with back to goal". In fact, in all seriousness, I heard on last Thursday during the CLB @ DCU match that Alejandro Moreno was the most fouled player last year. It wasn't immediately obvious to me what it was about AM's game that would put him in a position to be consistently fouled. I don't know that he is a big flopper.

Do you have ideas for more stats that MLS could track? Is this plenty? Discuss your ideas in the comments and be sure to give some thought to how too many numbers being tossed around may cause Eric Wynalda's head to explode.

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Only tangentially related to this topic: Mike and Mike, on ESPN2, spent a TON of time on their show Tuesday morning talking about how Andrei Kirilenko had flopped (OMG!) and drawn an offensive foul call at the end of the Game 2 of the Jazz/Rockets series. The foul call waved off a made 3 pointer and allowed the Jazz to steal a road win. Golic was absolutely astounded that such an injustice could be allowed to stand. Green was more practical, trying to figure out how to punish a player who flops within the current NBA rules of fouls and technical fouls. It was hilarious to see two grown men so upset at how a blown call or slight embellishment by a player could effect something like 3% of a team's total point instead of, as any soccer fan knows, perhaps 50% or 100%!!

Priority and Strategy

Or, why I don't give a damn about Nationalism when thinking about United's starting XI.

Emphasize your strengths, minimize your weaknesses. It is one of the most fundamental rules of achieving success in any endeavor, and it is true of soccer as well. It is true in terms of how an individual plays his game, how a team adopts tactics for another team, how a manager plans for a season, and how a front office establishes a long-term plan. D.C. United has, in this off-season, placed this plan into overdrive with its acquisitions from CONMEBOL countries. At first, United was thought to be working a primarily Bolivian connection with Etcheverry and Moreno. But the scope expanded from country to continent with the arrival of Christian Gomez (Argentina), Luciano Emilio (Brazil), Fred (Brazil), Facundo Erpen (Argentina) as well as some of the non successful plays with Matthias Donnet (Argentina) and Filomeno (Argentina). Not that United abandoned other locations for players. Casal came from London, Steve Guppy was an English International, Rod Dyachenko may be from the East but we only knew him because he played college soccer in Las Vegas. Still, the largest return on investment is from South America.

United's South American focus is inherently logical from a business perspective: It works for us, it makes sense. Yet we can tell that people are not entirely comfortable with it. SF at The Offside Rules wrote the following:

DC has always had an international line-up that matched the city's multicultural populace. But being that they operated under the league's strict policy regarding foreign players it never seemed over the top. But looking at the names linked to the team in the transfer rumors this off season, it's almost like Tommy Soehn & co. have forgotten about the leagues role in developing American players entirely.

Well, yes. Kasper, Soehn, and Payne probably don't care about developing American players. That's a method to success, not an end in and of itself. And, to be frank, we're not particularly good at it. Some, such as Steve Nicol in New England, are rather good at taking their college picks and putting them on the field, developing their talent. We're not. But the important thing is that at the end of the day, for all that development, the only thing the Revolution have won is a U.S. Open Cup (fittingly enough.) I will not engage in the cliched United fan's behavior of reciting our trophy cabinet.

Still, there is a sense being promulgated in various places that somehow this is unamerican, that somehow we are off-shoring jobs to South America. In most places, writers have the good-grace to not openly engage in race/nationality-baiting on the issue. SF writes "I don't think it's a bad thing, just a curious development in the the leagues evolution," which is perhaps one step up from "not that there's anything wrong with that." Ridge Mahoney in MLS Confidential is willing to go one-step farther.

...in MLS, if Chivas USA wants to field eight Mexican players, plus however many more it can sign by trading for additional slots, it can do so. FCD could load up on South Americans. Red Bulls head coach Juan Carlos Osorio could open a pipeline from Medellin to the Meadowlands. “Trader Mo” Johnston could invite a slew of British retreads to represent TFC.

There is a panic one can hear in these words, "the foreigners are coming!" I do not think it is an accident that the words "pipeline" and "Medellin" are used so closely together. While SF at the Offisde Rules was simply making a jest with "DC United Love South America More Than Drug Dealers," it seems Mr. Mahoney is almost taking it as a serious concern. Am I being oversensitive? I think not. Mr. Mahoney continues:

Has the league gained anything by encouraging teams to sign cheaper foreign players, assuming they will be willing to play for MLS salaries, rather than Americans? And teams can certainly pay out more to additional international players while squeezing the Americans still further...Logic dictates if teams have more slots available for foreign players, who normally cost more than domestic players, and sign more of them, less money will be available for Americans, many of whom - even those on the regular, 18-man roster - earn the league minimum ($32,000 in 2008) or close to it. MLS contentions that the new international guidelines don’t impact American players don’t ring true.

The idea that MLS teams should operate a developmental system of U.S. Talent strikes me as naive. Certainly D.C. gained some valuable marketing material from John Harkes on patrol in the early days. But that was then, when the soccer crowd in the United States was much less sophisticated, and to the extent the average fan in the United States paid attention, it was to recognize the occasional world cup name from the 1994 campaign and might be able to identify the faces of Pele and Maradonna (but probably not Best, or Cruyff). After over a decade of MLS, and Fox Soccer Channel, and Gol, and Setanta Sports, the average soccer fan is much more sophisticated and we care about our league and teams not because they are here in America, but because we want them to win.

United's goals are to win trophies, and United has, as Oscar and Kinney have both written, a competitive advantage in South American scouting. So the Front Office has doubled-down on that theory. I am not rooting for a team to make the US National Team better, or to improve the general quality of U.S. players. I am rooting for a team to win. MLS, as well, may care about developing US players, but first and foremost it needs to put out a product that people will spend money on. And right now, with future expansion coming, and some fans a bit jaded when they compare MLS teams to the EPL, or La Liga, or what they see in Libertadores, they simply can't make developing US talent a priority over putting a non-amateurish product out on the field.

Am I disappointed that United has not done well in the draft, as we have documented on this site? Yes. Would I love it if some future US Nats came up through the academy of D.C. United? Oh yes. But when I think about my team, I care about them winning, and exploiting every competitive advantage they have in trying to win. For D.C. United, this is "nothing new", as Gregory Sica writes in a good overview at SI.Com. We have always been a team that has sought talent from around the world. Our early years saw Raul Diaz Arce and Etcheverry. Those years it worked. Some years it did not, as when Hristo Stoichkov came to United with his impressive pedigree at Barcelona. But we have always attempted to not simply be the US Under-23 team. Our goal was always to find a team that would win trophies. It worked more often than not, and now we see other teams doing the same (RSL) or being urged to do the same, as Bernardo Fallas urges the Houston Dynamo to look south, young men.

And perhaps that's why I detect the whiff of racism. Not with Ridge Mahoney, who I think unfortunately framed his language in his article, but otherwise shows every indication, but in the larger gestalt about how it might be easier for D.C. Untied to "Move to South America" as one writer put it, or the not so subtle slanders that somehow La Barra Brava will blindly cheer any South American (ask Filomeno about that). When Europeans are coming into the league, that's one thing. Hooray for David Beckham, and rule change that brings him here. But when the people aren't quite so white, or perhaps are motivated because of unstable economic conditions, well then suddenly we're bankrupting Mom and her Apple Pie business. It's unsavory.

Now, at some point, there will be no competitive advantage for United in South America. Everyone is hip to the gig now, so in ten years perhaps the draft will be the great overlooked deciding factor. Markets, and there is no truer global market than soccer, find ways of taking economic advantages that one team, or corporation develops, and exporting them elsewhere, so suddenly the tallest tower you built is hemmed in by sky-scrapers on all sides. And so we will look to the next place for an advantage. No doubt at some point, a strongly developed youth system will play a bigger role than it does now, and I hope we can keep our advantage long enough to figure out what we're doing wrong when it comes to developing players, and then turn that to our advantage.

Louder, louder

Whomever it is, they stood up and were counted. Good for them.

Although I don't know that I would have admitted listening to All Songs Considered (But you do listen to it? Yes, but I don't admit it, except parenthetically. That's important.)

Mike H Is My Hero

I meant to write this before I went on Turkey vacation but didn't get to it in time. I just wanted to let you all know Mike H is my hero for writing this amazing post deifying The DCenters. His blog does a lot more than just stoke our egos though.

When I went through the list of nominated blogs I thought that My Soccer Blog was one of the ones I thought US Soccer should have included instead of the third US Soccer run blog. If you ever want succinct analysis on all the important US Soccer issues, My Soccer Blog is the place to go. It is on my rss feeder all the time, but when work or life is just too busy and I don't have time to read through all 35 soccer blogs on my feeder I know I can get all the pertinent information from Mike H. And unlike this blog, he is even-handed enough that I really don't remember (or even know if he ever told us) what team he roots for.

I love Du Nord because it literally has everything, but depending on how much time I have, sometimes that just means information overload. My Soccer Blog is the exact opposite, if Mike is writing about it it is almost always important for a US Soccer fan to know and he packs a lot of thought into some pretty short posts. I know I will be nominating My Soccer Blog next year for US Soccer's Best Blog Award. However, I reserve the right to vote for my soccer blog.

REMINDER: USA vs. SOUTH AFRICA - TOMORROW

That's right, come out at 9AM tomorrow to Summers for a showing of USA vs. South Africa. We know some bloggers will be there, including Bruce from Du Nord, Brian from "An American's View..." and perhaps some more. There will be a breakfast. It will be hot. It will be indoors, and it will not be chilly. And there will be soccer. This is how your MLS Cup Weekend should start. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there.

(Yes, focusing on things like this is helping dull the pain of thinking about RFK on Sunday without United).

More details courtesy of Du Nord.

Du Nord in Assocation With The DCenters Presents a US Soccer Production: "USA vs. South Africa"

The weekend of MLS Cup promises to be the social soccer event of the year. The Screaming Eagles have a ton of stuff planned, but if you're not heading down to RFK for the 2007 Supporter's Cup, we hope you'll consider hanging with Bruce from Du Nord and some of us out at Summer's, for breakfast and the USA vs. South Africa game. We're not saying it's going to be anyone other than us there (although if you're a player, or fan, or celebrity, or media person, or anyone who's anyone, and given that you read this blog, well, then, you qualify) but it's going to be a fun time with a hot breakfast in the cold DC air.

More details available at Du Nord, and as we hear of people you might want to meet, we'll let you know. I, for one, am excited. So come on out!

UPDATE: We know this guy's going to be there. Why not you?

2007

The Post is writing up the most memorable moments of soccer over the past few decades, but I prefer my nostalgia in a targeted, concentrated form. And I think now, a week after elimination, it's time to start writing the first drafts of history. So I offer you the best and worst moments of the 2007 season, starting with...

The Best

#4: 9 August 2007 ESPN pulls out all the stops to cover the debut of Marc Burch on National Television, and their faith is rewarded as he assists on Emilio's goal.
#3: 22 August 2007 Jamie Moreno sets the MLS All time goal scoring record with a penalty, and Christian Gomez has the game winner as United defeats New York 3 to 1.
#2: 5 August 2007 United breaks away from a season of mediocrity with a comprehensive victory over New England, dominating them throughout the game. Josh Gros with a goal that may typify his career, never giving up on a ball that Matt Reis bobbles, and Emilio with a brace.
#1: 10 June 2007 Ben Olsen grabs a hat trick in the process of single handedly demolishing the Red Bulls. Each goal prettier than the one preceding it. I can't recall a regular season game where I left RFK feeling any happier, and if I had one game from 2007 to stick in the DC time capsule, it would be this one.

The Worst

#3: 14 April 2007 United follows up a lackluster opener in Colorado with a 4-2 drubbing at the hands of Kansas City. This seems like a lifetime ago, when people were starting to mumble about firing Tom Soehn and wondering how long this season could get. You can tell it was a long time ago because Eddie Johnson scored a goal.
#2: 3 April 2007 The game that no one would let Troy Perkins forget. A late goal in the rain that slips between Perkins hands is the difference as Guadalajara advances past United in the CONCACAF Champions' Cup.
#1: 1 November 2007 Watching from a bar in Buffalo, United seems to have completed the impossible comeback, only for the series equalizer to be disallowed. Whiplash of emotion is understatement.

Please Stand By...

If you have not made plans for the morning of September November 17th, hold off a bit longer. We may have a suggestion...

The Last Thing in Pandora's Box Is Also One of the World's Ills

There's something about crashing out of this tournament in particular that puts me in a more philosophical frame of mind. So I'm scrapping the debrief from the agenda (unless someone is really itching for it.) If you need something along those lines, go ahead and read the Bog Man's gamer. Your must-read is actually us, for once, as Oscar them all down for convenient use. For reference, I am Numbers 3,6, and 10. Also, my apologies to everyone for the lack of an audio feed via DCUnited.Com. We had asked the team about it, were told it would happen, and then it didn't happen. It's possible it was just technical difficulties or something, and maybe we'll know more later. Okay, there's the standard news stuff.

Here's the thing about cup events. The losses are profound, terminal, striking. You may try and say live-and-learn, but there's no game next week, or month, to apply the lessons to. Cup events bring out the emotions in a way that league games simply do not.

If I can draw an analogy, the match last night was like being in the final months of a doomed relationship, provided the emotional impacts are compressed into 90 minutes. Nick Hornsby, by the way, has ruined this kind of writing for most of us, simply because he did it so well in Fever Pitch. But that ultimately was a fulfilling story, this was the opposite. I knew we couldn't play for a 0-0 draw, yet Tom Soehn and the team made a judgment that not surrendering a goal to Chivas was infinitely more important than putting pressure on Chivas. I knew this, I had the warning signs, and yet I still chose to believe. It's like knowing that the woman you are dating was a lesbian for three years before you dated her, but somehow convincing yourself that it didn't matter. And I clung to that belief, denying more own analysis and instincts and observations, even as Chivas continued to apply pressure and out players tired and found themselves straddling the ball, unsure how to untangle themselves and ultimately surrendering. I didn't want to believe my own thoughts, or facts, I wanted to believe that somehow it would be all right.

Part of me understood that for at least 100 minutes of this 180 minute encounter, Chivas had done more to earn advancement. But I didn't want to care about that either. Even after Chivas scored, I clung to the idea that somehow, despite the situation, we could come through. Soccer can do that, you know that teams get goals counter to the run of play, and you start looking for it, even expecting it, demanding it from a game that says "Sure, it can happen, but you'd be a fool to rely upon it." At this time, all your friends know the relationship is doomed, but you still think that there might be one last second moment where it will all be reversed and you can celebrate and laugh and say "So much for you, logic and analysis!" I wanted, needed, United to equalize, even in an event that I told myself I didn't care about. And it's true when I wrote that, intellectually there was nothing for me in this tournament. Even emotionally, until the starting whistle at RFK a week ago, I was fully invested in the Supporter's Shield and MLS Cup runs. But Copa Sudamericana was a pretty girl that turned my head around, and lust sometimes overwhelms. And even after it became apparent it would end badly, hope is a treacherous force.

My Own Personal Trophy

Wednesday, April 18. A day that will live in infamy. Well, for some at least. For the rest of us, it's good stuff all the way:

When NY finishes ahead of DC United at season's end, D will proudly wear a Red Bulls scarf and shirt to a DC United match. A photo will be taken of the happy event, and said photo will be posted on his aforementioned blog. Should be a great time.

Of course, should the opposite occur, I'll appear here in DC colors. The thought is really atrocious, so come on, New York!

At this time, United owns the tie breaker over New York, and with one more point won by United, or lost by New York, it won't even come down to that. United will finish ahead of New York. It is official. Mr. Fish, your shirt size and address please? Your merchandise will be bought and mailed in the start of October. Please acknowledge receipt with photos, preferable in front of several other secretly jealous Bull fans.

Poplar Point Positions

A few reader emails that I'd like to get to. First, James emailed us to let us know of a grass-roots group has an online petition supporting Poplar Point. Now, the more cynical among us will ask "what good will that do?" Forget that, ask yourself instead "Can do this any harm, and could it possibly do good?" If just one person looks at this and realizes that Poplar Point is not something wanted only by money-craving, poor-people-hating, baby-eating developers, then that's good enough for me. Consider me signed on board.

However, while I tend to support Poplar Point, reader Larry Leister emailed us these thoughts towards an argument that perhaps renovating RFK ain't a bad idea, and he's given the okay to reproduce his thoughts in-full here:

DCenters Folks,

Since you seem willing to take on topics of some length, I'll offer the following for consideration. I've not seen this discussed, but if it has been just delete this note.

I realize that the following idea will most likely not be to the liking of the owners of DC United since the profit potential would seem to be much less than a new stadium at Poplar Point (I'm sure creative developers can figure out how to work with this idea). However, if the issue at hand is limited to providing a suitable stadium for DC United, I would think this idea would have some merit. My guess is that part of the foot dragging on the part of the DC city government related to the building of a stadium at Poplar Point is due to the fact that the city would be left with a decaying RFK stadium with no tenants and no prospects.

So the proposal is for the city to sell RFK stadium, parking lots and all to DC United for some token amount.

• The cost to the city should be less than what would be required for the Poplar Point stadium.
• The revenue from game related events available to DC United should be the same as it would be at Poplar Point. Granted the ancillary revenue from other buildings/development would be much less or non-existent.
• The money that would have been spent on the Poplar Point stadium could be spent on refurbishing RFK. I have no idea what the underlying infrastructure of RFK is like, but if Yankee Stadium can be refurbished, I would assume that RFK could be also. As the refurbishing costs could be significant, funding from the city might be part of the deal since a city landmark would be retained and improved.

This seems to be a win-win (again not considering the loss of development profit).

• The city gets rid of a stadium for which there are no tenants nor little apparent future
• DC United gets the additional revenue from owning the stadium and concessions.
• MLS gets to keep one of it's landmark stadiums

One of the benefits of soccer specific stadiums is the seating capacity that is sized closer to the expected attendance.

Staying in RFK would seem to defeat that, although this does not seem to be as much of an issue for DC United as it is for many clubs. However, I have a suggestion for that as well.

Part of the refurbishment, in addition to aligning the seats so that they actually face the pitch, would be installing a retractable roof, actually more like two awnings made of waterproof and sound-reflecting material. These would cover the seats in the lower bowl. This would have the following advantages:

• The field would be uncovered but the seats would be at least partially covered
• The crowd noise would be reflected down on the field and would be absolutely incredible
• The seats in the upper deck would be largely removed from view, thus giving the feel of a smaller stadium
• For big events, MLS Cup, national team games, foreign club friendlies, dramatic increase in MLS regular game attendance, the awnings could be retracted and the upper deck could be used.

Just some thoughts.

Larry Leister

Now, put aside our natural desires for a home of our own, special for us, and consider this idea. I think Larry recognizes the biggest problem with his scenario: It's not what MacFarlane and company signed up for. They want the team, yes, but they also want a piece of the ancillary development, and that ain't happened with RFK. However, since Larry asks us to set that aside, let's do so. Would this work for you?

It's tough. I want to say "No, no, a thousand times no" but perhaps that's just being spoiled. I personally think that rehabbing RFK as Larry describes would be almost as costly as building a new stadium (I mean, look at the state of the concrete...) and then throwing on a roof would just sky-rocket the price. So financially, I'm not sure it is viable. But perhaps part of me is just done with RFK. I want to move on. And that's not a rational reason for opposing Larry's idea. What say you?

Nike and the NFL Co-Opt One of Soccer's Great Attractions

Nike's most recent advertisement for their football related products is a stunning piece of work. I'm sure someone will post a link to YouTube in the comments (Please? It's blocked where I'm at). The ad is a stunning triumph of clever editing, CGI and other effects, and orchestration. Playing like one really long cinematic take, the ad opens with San Diego Charger Shawne Merriman leveling a ball carrier, only to promptly get up, continue running up the field, and level another. And another, and another, while the teams and weather change around him. Ultimately he levels a quarterback just after the ball is pitched to St. Louis half-back Stephen Jackson. Now the motion is reversed, and Stephen Jackson hurtles over would-be tacklers, or fights through would be defenders, spinning and dancing his way towards the end-zone where he's met by a group of five Steelers. The commercial ends with him stretching out his arms to break the plane of the goal line, and the Nike Swoosh with the slogan "LEAVE NOTHING" appears.

The ad is simply brilliant. Beautiful, stirring, inspiring, jaw-dropping... all of that. But even when I saw it for the first time, something nagged at me. And that something is this: It's a big lie.

The thing about football, which I was recently reminded of with the start of a new NFL Season, is that the actual action is ten seconds and then a break when the teams huddle up. Then five more seconds, and another break for thirty seconds. It's a choppy, awkward affair, like a poorly directed Pinter play, not the continuous fluid movement that the Nike ad gives us. The motion that the Nike ad shows is more like, well, soccer, than anything else. A football player will spring fifty yards and trot to the sidelines for oxygen. A left back will sprint fifty yards and then have to reverse directions and sprint back fifty yards to cover the counter-attack.

The clever thing Nike has done is repackage football in the tempo of soccer. And that, well, bothers me for some reason. It's not the misrepresentation, it's the feeling that one of the things that makes this sport special -- it's consistent, fluid action -- is being stolen for sport that doesn't deserve it. I like pointy-ball. It's discrete battles, it's overarching strategy, it can be fun to watch them play out. But it isn't about what Nike purports it to show. If that's the kind of action you want, watch soccer.

Wednesday Coffee May Cause Headaches

TAURUS DELENDA EST!

RBNY/DCU: The big news is tonight's rubber match against New York. A win or a draw sees United retain the Atlantic Cup again, a loss and it heads north, and once reaching the turnpike may start to corrode with exposure to the air. Of course, people are talking up the playoff implications, and trying to see the big picture. Not me. For whatever reason, I'm taking an entirely parochial view about this game. I want New York to be destroyed in our stadium, and if we have to play in a such a way that we're exhausted for the remainder of the season and miss the playoffs, well, it would almost be worth it. Normally I'm totally a big picture kind of guy, but today I woke up in a foul mood, so let it be noted.

JOSH GROS IS ALECKO ESKANDARIAN IN THE STEVE YOUNG STORY: Steve Goff reports that Josh Gros may be done for the year:

Gros said after Saturday's game that he has had between 15 and 20 concussions since high school. Most have been Grade I, or mild, but the fact that contact with the ball is triggering problems has alarmed the club.

I think we've all learned the hard way that concussions are a tricky business, and should not be messed with. If the alternative is shutting him down for the year or risking his career, then it is time for Josh to stretch out on the couch with an eye-pillow, scented candles, and the music of Jean Michel Jarre. Don't mess around with concussions. Team ramifications be damned on this one.

MORE ON REPRESENTATION: Over at Pitch Invasion, Max J has given us an addendum and response on what we wrote yesterday regarding MLS Represent campaign. I think part of our disagreement stems from the way we approached listening to this material. Max decided to evaluate this entire thing as a marketing tool with respect to getting good music. I simply went directly to the DC United site and said "Oh, Bad Brains did DCU. Perfect." Then I listened to DC song only, and thought that the song was decent. Part of this is probably genre expectations. The music for Bad Brains (that weird funky punk sound) was always more interesting than the lyrics (rare exceptions, usually in the more dub nuanced songs). But the delivery of lyrics and music felt right in line with what I expected. Not transcendent, but wonderful.

Then I listened to other bands, usually with a perspective of "Would I trade my team's song for theirs?" The answer was no. This was a purely parochial thing. Is Max wrong in his impressions overall? Probably not, but my expectations were met, probably due to how I approached the entire exercise. Now, if MLS puts a team in Montreal simply because they want The Arcade Fire to record a track, then the entire thing will have gotten much too silly.

LATER TODAY: We should write a RBNY preview, and we should also check in with the Official Unibond Premier League Team of the DCenters. They have an update. The army is marching.

True Stories

Two of them, both about the MLS Represent Campaign.

Around mid-May, I got an email (which I do not have permission to reprint) asking what references a cool indie rocker should use when writing a song about United, in a purely "hypothetical" sense. I wrote back with a few thoughts, and then I included this paragraph:

Depends on the sound of the particular kickass indie rocker too. Of course, I assume this isn't Calexico, but you know you'd probably play with different things for different sounds. If it were a Bad Brains type group, I think you could do a lot with referencing supporters culture. If it were more of a slowcore or alt-country group, I think you'd focus more on the concept of level of play.

Now, of course most of you have seen that Adidas has the new "Represent" campaign up and running, and who wrote United's song? Bad Brains, just as I was kind of hoping for when I wrote my original response. It may not be the greatest song, or even the greatest Bad Brains song, but it's real and authentic in a way that few corporately promoted anthems can be. It is very, very DC (yes, I know they decamped for New York. That just added to the mystique, see?). I started listening to them right around my freshman year of high school, paying attention only after someone passed me a copy of the Kick Out the Jams Rollins/Bad Brains cover (that I was also listening to the KLF/JAMMs/Space/Timelords/K Foundation/and other names Cauty and Drummond recorded under probably won't surprise you.) Needless to say, it was part of my personal high school soundtrack, which is probably the most influential music you will have for the rest of your life. So just the fact that Bad Brains is doing the DC United song, and doing a decent job of it, makes me almost giggly. In a hardcore (don't email me) sort of way.

As for the other true story, there used to be a record shop in Fredericksburg called the Blue Dog. When I would visit my future in-laws, I always made a point to drop in there, and I'm depressed it has since closed down. They had a staff to whom you could just rattle off a list of music you enjoyed and they'd find some bands you'd never heard of that would meet your fancy perfectly. It was the place I first heard Radio 4, among other groups, simply because I said I wanted something that sounded like The Fall meets Luna by way of Flock of Seagulls. Yes, you could get away with talking like that. Anyways, the only time they ever failed me was when they recommended The Rapture's album "Echoes." It was the only time I ever resold an album they had recommended. Squeaky, grating, pseudo-New Wave that never coalesced into anything remotely resembling something I could enjoy. Of course, guess who Adidas found for the Red Bulls song? My friends, that's a vindication of taste.

IN OTHER PLACES... Max J thinks the entire thing doesn't work. It's possible that nostalgia is overwhelming sense for me here.

United Force: La Barra Brava

The Washington Post has a great article on La Barra Brava in today's Style section written by David Montgomery. Every DC United fan, loud or quiet, young or old, black or red, should read it. There are also accompanying photos and video that you should check out, especially the photo montage with Barra narrative. The coverage is very well done and clearly shows how soccer supporters groups are different from traditional U.S. fans. The things I take for granted at DC United games, such as the drums, flags, seating, and singing throughout the game are seen as novelties by Mr. Montgomery, which reminded me just how different United games are.

The article shows the beginnings of La Barra Brava, including how important Kevin Payne was to the atmosphere we take for granted. It talks about some of the larger characters in the group with lots of quotes, and also has positive quotes from people outside the Barra that deal with them on a regular basis. Mr. Montgomery shows how the Barra has morphed from a South American supporters group to a melting pot of beggars for good soccer. The best quote of the article is:

"The Barra Brava works how America is supposed to work," says Conner, a recreation coordinator for Culpeper County, Va. "It's a great melting pot. We have 27 different nationalities there now. We have guys from Africa, we have guys from Europe, and South America, which is obviously our roots that we want to hold on to. What we want to be is the standard for American hard-core support."

To end let me just say kudos to Mr. Montgomery. Whenever newspapers run articles about subjects I am familiar with I can usually find some mistakes or glaring omissions, even in quality papers such as The Washington Post. This article had none of that, I had some minor quibbling with a couple of lines, but they probably say more about me than the writing. Plus, even though I hang out at bars with Barra members, sit right next to them, and always try to get their cheers going this article had little bits of information that even I didn't know. For example,

Someone holds up two of artist Terry's big white cardboard cutouts. One is a beer, the other is a man: Beer Man. It's a signal to Pow, who's been selling beer in RFK since 1980, to come on down.

I never knew that it was an actual signal to the beer man; I just thought it was a funny poster that somebody brought with them every game. Though it explains why I haven't heard any of the "Where is the Beer Men" chants in while.

Los Gringos

Over at Off Wing Opinion, Eric McErlain had an interesting, and perhaps telling, post Gold-Cup screen capture. While he draws a parallel to the Houston 1836-Houston Dynamo situation when wondering about whether to take offense, I find the notion that he advances of reclaiming the word "Gringo" quite appealing. Putting aside the potential pejorative connotations (and, before I get people saying "there's never any negative connotation" to the word, just listen to how it is pronounced occasionally. Some people can make the word "respect" a racial epithet), the word on a simply interpretive level is reserved for foreigners, not even necessarily Yanks. It's not that the word is offensive, it's that even in the most benign usage, the word is being incorrectly used given that the USA was playing on home soil. Or is it?

There is a somewhat romantic notion to the idea of the USA Team always being the Gringos, of being foreigners even in our own country. While we trumpet how far soccer has come in the United States, the Gold Cup final saw US fans easily outnumbered. I do not put the blame for this on CONCACAF, USSF, the organizing committee, or the people of Chicago. It is simply a fact that the US supporters may have the individual pound-for-pound passion, there are simply more fans of Mexico in most urban areas than the United States. What's more, don't expect the USA to have majority US fans in any of the top 10 population centers in the next decade. It's not happening.

For years we've always hoped that we'll have majority US crowds at international matches, and sometimes we come pretty close. Still, I can't remember a match in a major city with our southern neighbors where the USA had about 80% support. And we should accept that, and move on. The US team, and the US fans, are los gringos no matter where we play. We are modern gypsies, traveling from town to town, never totally accepted. It's a romantic notion. I've never like the "Stars-and-stripes" for the US team nickname. In soccer, stars are earned for championships and we don't have a World Cup under our belt that I've noticed. But embracing Los Gringos? Yes, I can get behind that. If we are not at home when we are home, then the rest of the world should be our home as well. It's still an unreached ideal, but one I find intriguing.

Around the Tubes

DOMESTIC DOUBLES: Commenter John gave us the word yesterday night, and it is confirmed by the DCU media office this morning: Ben Olsen gets his personal domestic double of player of the week and goal of the week. With great accomplishment comes many text messages, and John Haydon in the Times catches up with Benny.

Both Haydon and Goff are noting that Olsen, with Namoff and Boswell, are possibilities for Copa America duty. This is, of course, in addition to Moreno who we know was recalled. Losing two more players would hurt, losing all three could be traumatic. But that's the price we pay.

MAX J'S SILVER HAMMER CAME DOWN ON THE OFFSIDE: The Offside's DC United coverage got a new addition with an additional blogger as Max J. joins Nando over yonder. What I love about this team is the way we may have 11 years of history, but new people feel quite okay about joining in:

As far as a little background goes: I started with DC United last year when I (briefly) lived in town and have quickly become a die-hard.

I bring this up as someone who appreciated this fact. As many of you know, I wasn't in town for the glory years, but tried to follow from afar (which is to say, Pittsburgh) until getting back to DC in 2001. Sometimes there is a strange tension between older, hardcore fans from back in the day and the newer fans from only a few years ago. I hope that United can continue to integrate both sets well, so head on over and read the perspectives of someone who may be newer than most, but is as hardcore as any.

SPEAKING OF FANDOM: The frisson between fan and analyst strikes again, this time in Atlanta. This is something we (and Aaron Stollar) were dealing with earlier in the year. Anyway, the Cupcakes are dealing with the same issue.

WHY IS DC STILL IN THE FREEZER?: Normally, I respond to things in comments, but I wanted to elevate this to a post. Some people are upset about United remaining in the most recent version of the Freezer. My fellow blogger Oscar even suggested that I was "being too cautious in not Moving DC out of the freezer, if only to protect your own feelings if they happen to stumble again." As much as I'd like to laugh that off as silly, he may have a bit of a point there. However, there are two larger reasons why DC remains in the Freezer: First, the draw against LA is still part of my memory. It was a bad draw, one that could conceivable have ended worse. One game does not erase that from my memory. Second, the Freezer also works as a function of expectations. That's why RSL is #3 above LA and Columbus. And why I may not expect United to run away with the East, I expect them to be in the top three. They are not right now, and therefore are still running cold a bit. In fact, United's resume includes 2 good wins (Houston, New York), 2 acceptable wins (Toronto and Chivas), a good draw (New England), an atrocious draw (LA), and one godawful loss (Columbus). I just need that little more to take them out. Yes, they win in Chicago, and I take them out, and they don't even go back in again if they drop points to RSL the week after.

International Incidents

CHINA: There is a debrief coming, but I wanted to touch on two things before I turn my attention to that project. First, the serious one regarding the situation with China playing the United States. Both RSLFM (who was way ahead on this topic) and Dan Loney have weighed in on this, and I think they're correct in the larger picture. Whether or not it is wise or unwise to engage China diplomatically or economically, the idea that people are being ejected for unfurling flags of Taiwan is repugnant. Does the stadium and the ownership have the right to do such a thing? Well, if it is private property, then they probably do. Yet it's a pretty cowardly thing to do. Loney writes:

Someday, China will be free. And when that day comes, they will remember who was on their side, and who wasn’t. Right now, MLS is making sure they have a very prominent role in a very dark page. Hopefully, when that page in history is written, it will be MLS fans who are remembered, and not MLS suits.

I have no problems with US Soccer and MLS scheduling games against teams with autocrats as rulers. Hell, we're playing Copa America in Venezuela, and if the fates should smile on the USA and we get a lead in a game, I wouldn't be surprised if the media feed to the game was shut down. Just saying. But in the United States, to have US suits order people out of the stadium for daring to bring in another flag... it's sickening. The other writers have this covered much better than I do, but I am in full agreement with them. Politics over, now to fun.

MEXICO: Bob Bradley and the US Team were taking flack for not winning convincingly enough. Sure, they haven't conceded a goal, but 1-0 and 2-0 wins over CONCACAF minnows on US Soil wasn't good enough. Bradley himself even voiced his discontent with the results, and I was wondering if there was something wrong with me for not being upset with the US performance to date. Then Mexico has to rally against Cuba before actually dropping a game to Honduras. Kids, I'd much rather have two clean sheets (in situations where the US kept the other team's attack in check for most of the game) then be where Mexico is right now. Sure, Mexico's going to get out of the group stage, and a 4-1 thrashing of Panama wouldn't surprise me, but man, it was fun to watch them lose. Especially to Honduras, the country of the epically long national anthem. Good on them. And good on Bradley for being willing to say something other than "Results are all that matter." I wouldn't agree with him, but it's not what I expect to hear. And wouldn't it be sweet if somehow Mexico got knocked out? Not going to happen, but still...

Summers in Winter?

Since we're talking about DC soccer institutions, let's turn out attention to the soccer bar. At least through the 2002 World Cup, Summers in Arlington was The Place to catch the games. Now, the North Arlington All Stars says it ain't all that anymore:

Consider this the beginning of an informal campaign against Summers. The short version of my adventure in trying to get into Summers to watch the match was that they were not showing the DCU match, they were showing, in fact, NO SOCCER that night and there was a $10 cover for people to come in to watch some bullshit Ultimate Fighting Championship. huh?

I can think of many people (including a few at this blog) who have said something along the lines of "Summers, eh? Haven't been there in awhile." Part of this is that there are now several soccer friendly establishments around the area, but part of it feels like Summers own doing. The food was never exceptional, the service was average at best, and at times the sheer indifference to getting your game on the TV was infuriating. Now, the fact that they may not have HDNet and so couldn't show the United game is one thing, but you do get the sense that the times have somehow passed Summers by...

Wii are the biggest threat to the growth of soccer

I'd like to share a crazy, hair-brained opinion on what I think may be the biggest threat to the continued development of US Soccer: The Wii.

Video games are important to the context of modern soccer, and to sports in America. Many a US based fan played the FIFA or Winning Eleven series and got a taste of the broader world of soccer. Hell, I wouldn't know for the first thing about Huddersfield if it weren't for FIFA '02. Video games are intrinsic to US youth culture, and to many of us adults.

The Wii vs. PS3 battle that played out last year demonstrated that the was a huge desire for the experience of full immersion. When confronted with a choice between a better looking game or one that allowed for a participatory user experience, the market went for the new experience. Games that had felt like third person games suddenly felt more first person. Boxing and tennis do not have a great deal of traction in this country, but they in the forefront of the Wii Sports package with Baseball and Golf. The Madden football series now supports Wii control, and certainly once can imagine that pretty much every game executive wants to see Wii type play in their games.

The problem is that this interface works very well for games that deal with the hands, but not the feet or the head. And that's where soccer faces a problem. It's a game where the hands and arms are verboten, thus removing most of the technology that the Wii exploits.

That's not to say it is impossible. I recall hooking up a Dance-Dance revolution pad to a FIFA '03 game on my PS2, but the experience was more of a gimmick. Soccer is rendered in most games as a third person experience, from the point of view of the TV camera. It's not even an attached point of view like you get when you play from just over the quarterback's shoulder in an NFL game. That can change, but can you see a technology that allows for the feeling that you're actually in a soccer game? One of the advantages of the existing Wii controllers is that they are versatile across a number of activities, from swinging a bat, punching an opponent, and shooting an alien. But you'd need something different for soccer.

Custom interface devices can bridge that gap, as the guitar hero franchise shows. But they're expensive, and place one more obstacle in the way on the immersive video game soccer experience. I'm trying to imagine an interface that would give the feel of actually playing a soccer game, and given the requirements of being able to kick a ball and head something to the back of the net, it's a bit difficult to see a simple solution (even granting player movement to the traditional control stick method.) In fact, if I were FIFA or US Soccer I'd be working on some sort of solution for this right now.

I bring this up because I often see bloggers, soccer writers, and even sociologists write about keeping youth soccer players in the game. And we love our video games, and Goffblog indicates with the Drew Carey Invitational, and as Eskandarian reported in the (on haitus?) Esky's world. Even when we're not out on the field playing the game, we like to virtually experience it. It helps nurture our love for the game, and sometimes allows us to understand the game better. If soccer can't match that interface while other sports can, I wonder if we can really keep everyone interested?

It's a thought, and one I haven't seen elsewhere...