Thursday Night Soccer Thoughts

For a 1-0 game, Thursday Night Soccer was entertaining enough. ESPN's coverage was decent. The digressions for the most part did not interrupt the run of play, except for the obligatory 30 at 30 update during a corner kick and the interview with Don Garber, which was consequential enough that it warranted being shown either at half time or pregame, not during the run of play. The Eddie Pope tributes were decent, though perhaps a little thin given what he gave to this league. Stone, Wynalda, and Smyth were solid and perhaps overly subdued in the booth, but work well together. I say this knowing that Stone gets over excited anytime a player uses his back heel, he still calls a decent game. Wynalda's halftime segment could benefit from perhaps an additional minute, as it never goes beyond "Messi, handball, I don't like it. Don't do that. Yellow card." But hey, at least he didn't red card NASA for the computers failing on the international space station.

As for the game, I will say this. Mehdi Ballouchy should pay half of Freddy Adu's salary. Quite simply, Mehdi was invisible for most of this game, had a number of poor decisions and touches, but since everyone was quick to get their opinions out on Freddy, no one noticed how awful Ballouchy was for most of the game. RSL's back line isn't much better. I admire Kreis for putting out the line-up he did, and the team played well against Dallas. I mean, that defense is going to allow Rimando to get peppered even with six in the back, so why not try and get some goals since Rimando's reactions might be good enough in any given game to keep you in it. Kreis is probably the first coach who has learned how to implement tactical changes with RSL, as they came out much better in the second half than the first. They truly are snakebitten somehow, and things seem worse than they probably are. Kreis may have been ejected, but official Ricardo Salazar seemed to mentally check out of Rice-Eccles Stadium about ten minutes earlier, so perhaps that was the only way Kreis could find a way to talk to him.

Dallas did not look particularly good missing Cooper and Ruiz. Abe Thompson is a nice enough guy and a Maryland product, but simply brought nothing to the table as the loan striker. Toja is a great defensive midfielder, but as a playmaker seemed average at best. That they got three points at the death seems fortunate for that team. Especially considering that if Esky doesn't find Dario Sala's shin, I think RSL could easily have claimed their first win of the season.

Thursday Night Soccer Reviews I I: MLS Game of the Week

Didn't catch as much of this one, since my attention was focused on the National Team, but Houston didn't look bad minus Brian Ching and DeRo, while Colorado looked less dangerous without Terry Cooke out there. Still, this is really a thin veiled attempt to discuss ESPN's production of the game, so let's get into that.

I have no problem with the NBA Finals getting a special preview, since it really didn't interfere with the game. However, taking a ten minute phone call from DeRosario (in which he kept apparently trying to dial in a third party) in the middle of the game was an odd choice, especially since the game was moving at some pace for those minutes.

And let's talk about Red Card/Yellow Card, shall we? When the spot debuted, it seemed like a good spot for Eric Wynalda to let loose and be Eric Wynalda. He could call out the Powers that Be, or other MLS players. Did you hear me object when he took aim at Facundo for a perceived cheap shot? Nope. That's what I want to hear from Eric.

But either he got bored doing such topics, or ESPN felt it as a bit too inside Baseball, because talking about Roger Clemens and Paris Hilton is ridiculous (and judging from an email I got from a reader, some of you feel the same.) I want to hear Eric be a soccer analyst, not a cultural pundit. That's not what he does best. In fact, he doesn't even do it particularly well. Does that mean he should stay on soccer all the time? Nah, if he has strong feelings. But honestly it has the feel that he just wants to check a box and get through it. Sad. Especially when there are so many things worth talking about.