Sounders vs. Revolution

I went to my first Sounders league game on Thursday night against the Revolution. Even though the final score wasn't one that I was hoping to see (1-0 to the visitors), I still thoroughly the experience. Here are my thoughts concerning the fans, the game and the league.

The fans:
- There are have been a lot of people (Portland fans especially) who have slagged Seattle for getting behind this team so strongly and wondering why it didn't happen sooner with the USL Sounders. I saw several fans with old USL jerseys at the game, Sebastian Le Toux received the loudest ovation of any of the players (he was the star of the Sounders their last few years before being "promoted" to the MLS) and the recipient of the "Golden Scarf" before the game was a member of the Nordstrom who helped found the NASL Sounders (I believe, I can't remember exactly). The fans are not naive about this club's long and storied history.
- It really annoyed me when the big screens would read "scarves up" as certain points before and during the game. For starters, the fans aren't stupid. Also, let us create our own traditions and customs, not have some technician or PA person dictate what we should do.
- The Emerald City Supporters, the group of fans behind the south goal, are led in song and movement by a couple of guys in black "XBox Live" shirts who don't watch the game. I'm sure their getting paid to do this...which really bothers me. It creates a cool spectacle, but it's all staged. I was disappointed when I found this out.

The game:
- David Beckham was right about the MLS referees - they stink. The ref let the game get out of hand with rash challenges and dives all over the place. The 7 yellow cards is a sign that he didn't do a very good job.
- The Sounders were better than the Revs, but we lack that clinical finisher who can bury a single chance.
- On a related note, Nate Jaqua isn't very good. Fredy Montero had an off day by his standards (and the paper certainly agreed), but I thought he looked very sharp...until he got in front of goal. And we missed Freddie Ljungberg

The league:
- MLS should've come to the Pacific Northwest a long time ago. The fans here know their soccer (a guy a few rows in front of me had a Wolverhampton Wanderers flag next to his Sounders flag tied to the railing...you gotta know your soccer to know much about the reigning English League Champions) and are passionate about it. It's so hard to get tickets, hence why I was only able to go on a Thursday night in mid-August when people are out of town. I can't wait for Portland and Vancouver in 2011.

MLS All-Stars Lose First Game to International Competition

I've always been torn about the what the MLS should do for it's All-Star game. An East vs. West game, like they've done in the past, is rather boring and doesn't draw in an audience outside of the cult followers of the league. This is probably the main reason why the league scrapped this format.

For the last five years (I believe), the MLS All-Stars have played teams from international leagues, most commonly from the EPL (Fulham, Chelsea, West Ham and now Everton). This format attracts a much larger audience to the game and promotes the MLS by showboating their best players against some of the best teams in the world. But this current format also sets the league up for potential failure. If a group of all-stars from the 15 MLS teams can't contend or beat these teams, most of whom aren't champions of their respective leagues and aren't even regular competitors for the title, then what does that say for the rest of the league and the players who aren't "all-stars?"

MLS is certainly walking a tightrope here. If they lose, it shows just how much further we have to go to become a respectable league on the world stage. If they win, however, then the national sports media will rave how a bunch of (mostly) American players just beat Chelsea or Celtic and claim that we're on our way up in the soccer world.

Another thing the MLS All-Stars have going against them is that these players must come together and jell on the pitch in a matter or days. The teams they play have settled squads with players who know the system and understand what their teammates are and aren't capable of. Even though the game is part of their preseason training, that doesn't mean they've forgotten how to play with each other after a month or two apart.

For these past five years, the MLS All-Stars have pulled through and won. This year's game really shouldn't have been any different. The boys have nothing to hang their heads about besides all the missed chances they had in the second half. To lose on penalty kicks...that's really just a crap shoot anyway.

Except for when you're shooting against Tim Howard. He's damn good. It's bittersweet - I feel better for the USMNT after seeing him perform so admirably between the sticks.

Beckham's MLS Return

Unless you've been completely out of the news of late, you've heard about the controversy between David Beckham and Landon Donovan as chronicled by SI senior writer Grant Wahl in his newly released book titled The Beckham Experiment. This post will not be a commentary on that, however.

Tonight is Beckham's first game back for the Galaxy since declaring himself a part-time MLS player. He spent the first half the MLS season in Italy with giants AC Milan. We'll see how Beckham fits into this team who have won three in a row, and how he gets on with Donovan.

I like the Galaxy's chances tonight. They are playing the New York Red Bulls, after all. Kickoff is at 8pm ET (90 minutes from right now).

UPDATE: LA is up 3-0 going into halftime with David Beckham in the line-up. The game isn't being televised here in Seattle so I can't judge his performance, but clearly Beckham is not disrupting the Galaxy's momentum. It's against the Red Bulls, yes, but three goals in one half on the road is impressive nonetheless.

UPDATE #2: Full time, LA wins 3-1, Beckham subbed in the 70th minute. All signs point to a positive return on his part, but I haven't seen any highlights of the game to back this up.

UPDATE #3: Scratch that, apparently he had little or no effect on the game whatsoever.

MLS Announces All-Star XI

As I'm sure many of you who read this blog (if you exist at all) will already know that the MLS released it's All-Star team roster. If not, let me fill you in:

3-5-2 formation
Kasey Keller (SEA), Chad Marshall (CLB), Geoff Cameron (HOU), Wilman Conde (CHI), Guillermo Barros Schelotto (CLB), Freddie Ljungberg (SEA), Shalrie Joseph (NE), Stuart Holden (HOU), Dwayne De Rosario (TOR), Landon Donovan (LA), Conor Casey (COL).

Bench: Pat Onstad (HOU), Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (SEA), Jonathan Bornstein (CHV), Cuauhtemoc Blanco (CHI), Ricardo Clark (HOU), Osvaldo Alonso (SEA), Paulo Nagamura (CHV), Fredy Montero (SEA), Brian McBride (CHI).

For those of you keeping track at home, there are 5 Seattle players, 4 Houston players, and 3 Chicago players, the top three clubs represented.

There are four determinants that go into an all-star selection: fan voting, player voting, media voting and coach/general manager voting. It's very interesting to note the difference in fan voting from the other three groups, specifically towards Seattle Sounders players. (is anyone really that shocked about this though?)

The top four vote-getters from the fan voting were all Sounders. In descending order, they were: Ljungberg, Montero, Hurtado and Alonso. Only one of them (Ljungberg) is starting, however, signifying that the fans were alone in supporting these players, since they obviously didn't garner enough support from the other three groups to get picked as a starter.

On the flip side, the lack of a fan vote significantly hurt players on teams who have little to no fan support. This may explain why Jonathan Bornstein (who certainly could deserve it) isn't starting, or why no players from Real Salt Lake were chosen for example (their average attendance of 16,045 thus far this season just won't cut it compared to the 32,000 or so Sounders fans all voting for their own players each home game).

Of course, no Red Bulls players were selected. No surprises there.

The game is against Everton at Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday, July 29th at 9:30pm ET. It's on ESPN, so there's no excuse not to watch.

PS. Congrats to my boy Stuart Holden who made his first MLS All-Star team. That's how we do it.