On Soccer

BYU drops Home Opener to Fresno Fuego - 20 May 2011

2011-05-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

It's been raining most of the week, but the weather cleared in time for the game leaving conditions just about perfect for a night of soccer. Sadly, the recent bead weather seems to have scared people away. A lot of people missed an entertaining, if chippy, game.

Fresno put BYU on their heels with a piercing run and score off of the opening kick-off. The Cougars never quite recovered. Playing on a wet field that seemed to slow them down a half step, the boys in blue always seemed to be just behind the final pass, though they were able to rattle two shots off the woodwork. The Fuego adapted better to the field conditions and put two more balls into the goal.

One strike, the third, was particularly beautiful. With his back to BYU's goal, Tyler Reinhart chested down a pass from Gustano Cignetti. In one fluid motion, Reinhart spun and took his shot putting the ball past keeper Cory Cosgrove.

BYU should take away some positives from the game. They had several dangerous looking runs. BJ Pugmire was unlucky not to put away a goal or two. I'm sure the team will be looking to put things right on Tuesday when they play their in state rivals, the Ogden Outlaws.

It might not be the level of MLS, but I'm sure glad to have a PDL team in my backyard.

Interviewing the Pros, What Sports Writers Think about RSL and MLS

2011-04-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Back in 2008 I interviewed Michael Lewis (@RSLTribune) and James Edward (@DesNewsReal) about RSL, MLS, and what it was like to cover them. With all the changes in the world of RSL, I wanted to reprise that interview. Michael was kind enough to join me again. This time around, he's joined by Jeremy Horton (@RSL_Jeremy) who writes for Goal.com.

RSL and MLS have come a long way since the last interview, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Local coverage of RSL has exploded. Where do you think RSL and MLS sit in terms of the local sports scene? What about the national scene?

JH: I've seen big strides in not just the amount of coverage RSL is getting locally, but the quality of coverage has improved as well. Print and TV media are taking RSL more seriously, and their reporters are more soccer-saavy and knowledgeable. You still get the occasional "soccer sucks...why do I have to be here?" article, but there's a lot less of that. RSL still gets less love than college football and the Jazz, but the gap is narrowing. I think that's due to exactly one thing: winning.

Nationally, RSL has become the darling of American soccer. It's a feel-good story; small market team, no big names. People love this stuff. Right now I'm getting 5 times the normal amount of e-mail from soccer reporters around the country, asking questions about RSL. I think it's great for the team and MLS in general.

MCL: Judging by the traffic our RSL coverage generates, I would say that RSL sits a strong third in its local market, behind the Jazz and the two universities, Utah and Brigham Young. What's been most interesting to me is that the team seems to have forged its own niche of fans relatively independent of the other sports in town. Not that there isn't any overlap, but there's not as much as some might have imagined would have been necessary for this club to thrive. In fact, it seems to have a fan base that is very independent and dedicated to it foremost. Of course, it's not to the point that RSL can generate much interest among the sports-radio crowd — and Jeremy is right; surely every article includes some dullard's online comment that "soccer's dumb, can't use your hands!" — but that probably isn't the case anywhere in the U.S.

Nationally, I'd say RSL is a monster story within the soccer community. It has often been a major focus for national magazines and web sites the past 18 months because of its successes and the way it has achieved them — with its "team is the star" approach. That's an appealing storyline, as well as a difficult one to manage in the world of modern sports, so I think that helps. It also helps that RSL has built itself to this level from its very humble origins as an absolutely train wreck of a team, in its early years.

JH: Mike brings up a great point about insulation in the RSL market. I feel like a lot of RSL fans are more dedicated than your average Jazz or college sports fan, but that average sports fan isn't as likely to ever show up at an RSL game on a whim. So the insulative effect kind of goes both ways.

Last time around we talked a bit about RSL's potential for growth. James and Michael both pointed to growth/attendance as a function of success on the field. It looks like their observations have held true. What do you think needs to happen off the field for RSL to capitalize on it's current run of success?

JH: Off the field, I believe RSL need to keep finding ways to turn occasional attendees into regular attendees. I think RSL have made significant strides in garnering support from within the Latino community - success in the Champion's League has helped a lot. They need to keep building that relationship. I also think RSL need to strengthen their ties in the youth soccer community because those "soccer families" are a key support base. Their newly-announced relationship with Sparta is a great step. Finally, the team should do more to reach out to the college demographic. They won't take in tons of money now, but making them into fans now will pay dividends in the future when they have families and disposable income.

MCL: I agree that those are laudable and potentially effective goals, but I also believe that there is nothing any team can do off the field that achieves more than winning on the field does. It lures ever more casual fans who then might enjoy the games and become more dedicated, and their kids grow up with soccer as the same kind of authentic backdrop as baseball, football and basketball have been for generations of sports fans in the United States. Conversely, losing teams almost never, in my experience, enjoy great crowds because they have some partnership with a club program or great promotional displays at the grocery store. Winning sells, more than anything else.

JH: Obviously Mike is right on the money. I mentioned some things RSL can do off the field, but continuing to win will help RSL grow more than everything else put together. They're about to sell out the Champion's League final two weeks in advance with almost no marketing specifically for this game. That's what success on the field will do for you.

If you could change one thing about the way RSL's front office interacts with the media, what would it be?

JH: Honestly, nothing. I wouldn't change a thing. The front office has always been first-class with me, even when I was an amateur blogger. They used to drag players down to the Salt Lake library for us to interview on The RSL Show - one or two players every week for five years and counting! One day Robbie Findley was sitting there on the show rapping, and I asked myself, 'would Kobe Bryant ever be doing this'? Not a chance. Only this franchise would make players that accessible to a bunch of regular guys like me. And because of that, my name got out there and I eventually landed in this career. I will be forever grateful to the front office for that.

MCL: Don't think I'd change anything, either. Surely it owes in part to the team's origins as an entity trying to carve out a niche for itself in the marketplace, but it continues to provide fantastic service to those of us in the news media. Access is incredible -- miss somebody at practice? they'll have him call you -- the entire staff is approachable, friendly, honest and forthcoming. Don't think you can find that at many major sports organizations. At the root of it, I sense, is a feeling from the top down that treating the media well and respectfully begets a certain reciprocity. It also illustrates an understanding that we are there mostly to tell the team's story. Yes, that might sometimes include negative appraisals or difficult circumstances. But even then, it's not the end of the world, and this team as much as any other appreciates that greater access and availability allows a broader story to be told, and a greater inclination for media outlets to provide coverage. The hard truth is, if you make it too hard for people to cover your team -- especially when you're an upstart soccer team in the United States and not the NFL or NBA -- you make it really easy for people not to bother. This team has done the opposite, and I think very clearly have reaped serious benefits.

As for other teams, I have found most of them pretty accommodating and professional as well, though a few still sometimes make things more difficult than they need to be or act a little too self-important. Thankfully, that's pretty rare.

RSL's daily news roundup is including a lot more fan-produced, blog material. How do you think this kind of information impacts your role as a professional reporter? How do you interact with it?

JH: I love it. I love seeing fans producing material because they have a passion for the team that no indifferent beat writer can manufacture. It probably helps that I got my start in that same vein. The proliferation of social media means more people have access to players' thoughts, which increases the legitimacy of fan-produced material. I don't really feel like fan-produced material is impacting what I do because I don't really view us as competitors. I feel we're more like teammates. My opinion is there can never be too much coverage out there. And you're starting to see the major print and TV media outlets start to incorporate or quote these bloggers, which I think is the right thing to do.

MCL: Again, I think part of RSL's willingness to embrace that aspect of the media stems from the fact that it's hard for a soccer team in the U.S. to generate a ton of news coverage in significant portions of the mainstream media. But it's also true that the media landscape is shifting significantly to include more and more fan-generated content, blogs, etc., and I don't see how that's necessarily a bad thing. It might not be the prototypical "professional journalism," per se -- it's harder for fans and bloggers to invest the time and effort it takes to cover the team on a regular, in-depth basis, and I think there will always be a demand for those of us in the media who can -- but the opinions and analysis expressed in those forums are hardly any less valid. Some of those fans and bloggers are really very well educated on the team and the game, and I've found I've learned quite a lot from them. If nothing else, they inform the discussion, and as Jeremy said, I don't think there's any such thing as too much coverage.

I see a bit of grumbling from fans of other teams, and I remember grumbling about MLS' handling of the Galaxy leading up to the 2009 championship. What impact do you think being a media darling has on RSL's fans and potential fans?

JH:Sure, other teams' fans will grumble - that's the nature of being a sports fan. We always want our team to get the press and not the others. But for those who are RSL fans or potentially could be, being the "media darling" is nothing but a positive. Especially given the character and hard work that RSL's coaches and players display on the field, and their humility off the field, make them the kind of team that people like to get behind. The way the players get behind each other and their "team is the star" attitude is appealing to us average joes. That's how we want things to go at our jobs, but it seems like every company has its David Beckham, doesn't it? So the media attention is nothing but a plus for RSL fans and potential fans.

MCL: If you mean that people grumble because some teams in the league sometimes appear to be treated as the "stars" without the credentials to back it up, well, that's just always going to happen, in every league in every sport. But RSL has done so well that it has started to reverse that -- seems like you can't watch an MLS game anymore without the broadcasters raving about what a great job they're doing at RSL -- which surely satisfies a fan base that has grown accustomed (and weary) of the big-market teams getting so much of the attention even before they have done anything. There are so many potential fans who might become interested now, too, because RSL is being mentioned all over the country (and the region, with Champions League) by virtue of its increasingly impressive performances. Many of those people might never have known RSL had existed, in the past.

What are your favorite RSL memories of the last couple of years?

JH: Obviously the MLS Cup run was great, as has been the Champion's League so far, but my best memories center around the nondescript moments: warm summer nights at the stadium, working with the front office, getting to know the players. The fans obviously know we've got great soccer players here, but they may not understand that these great players are also great people. So I'd say watching this team grow and come together over the last few years has become the most indellible memory I've got.

MCL: I must say that I won't soon forget how quickly a roaring sellout stadium in practically a shantytown of a neighborhood in Costa Rica can fall almost entirely silent, courtesy of RSL's Jamison Olave the other night.

My other favorite memories include wondering just how long it was going to take his teammates to finally reach Robbie Russell to mob him after the winning penalty kick at the 2009 MLS Cup — their rush to do so seemed to take FOREVER! — and sitting stunned at how RSL came roaring back in that playoff game in Columbus that started their drive to the Cup. Most of all, I'd say I have really enjoyed getting to learn more about the sport — I was a total neophyte when I began covering RSL in 2005 — and the way the players, coaches and team executives have been so willing to help teach me, even if they didn't even really know they were doing it. Although I'm far from an expert, I do feel like I have a much greater grasp of the game, and a far greater appreciation of it.

How to deal with the CCL and Superliga

2009-11-17T07:01:00.000-08:00

With the Don's latest state of the league comments about the importance of the Concacaf Champions League (CCL) and the extra load that it puts on teams that do well in the MLS standings, I've been thinking about what the league could do. Let's start out with the commissioner's problem description:

We need to prove that we can be among the best teams in the region, and that means beating Mexico. It certainly means beating teams from smaller countries that don't have our resources. What we've got to look at, clearly it is almost a disincentive for clubs when they finish in the top four [in MLS] and they play right now in so many different tournaments and competitions. We are trying to mix that up between Champions League, SuperLiga and the U.S. Open Cup.

I've seen a lot of comments on blogs that suggest rewarding the teams that get into the CCL or Superliga either monetarily or with some kind of roster exemptions. I think that's a bad model to follow, because it increases the disparity between the haves and the have-nots in the league.

A better model would be to find a way to get every team extra playing opportunities and increase all of the teams roster sizes and salary caps. In fact, we might already have all the pieces in place (or at least in recent memory). What about something like this (for US teams only ... the Canadians have their own system in place):

CCL is handled per the current system; MLS Cup Winner, Supports Shield Winner, US Open Cup Winner, and the next highest finisher in the MLS Championship playoffs get to go. The first two get right into the main tourney, while the last two go into the play-in round.

The next four finishers in the MLS playoffs go to the Superliga. This tournament should be expanded to include other Concacaf teams that don't qualify for the CCL. It would become sort of an analog to the Euoropa League.

Bring back the Reserve League, sort of, for the rest of the teams. What about a third tier tournament that takes in all of the MLS teams (including the Canadian ones) not involved in the CCL or Superliga. Mix in some invited USL (and whatever the new breakaway 2nd division league becomes) and maybe a couple of non-US/Canadian teams.

With a three-tiered system like this, all of the teams would play the extra games needed to level the playing field. It would provide an opportunity for every team to get the extra player development that non-league games provide. Every team would have similar loads in terms of games/playing time throughout the year. Best of all, there are more opportunities for us fans to catch a game.

BYU Game Tonight (4/10/2009)

2009-04-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

In a third tune-up match of the pre-season, the BYU Cougars will be hosting the Weber State at the Stadium at South Field.

This should be a great chance to warm up for a big weekend of soccer, even if the weather is a bit chilly.

TFC @ RSL -- the TLA cup on July 28th

2008-07-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve been giving a lot of attention to the Cougars recently, and I’ll probably do one or two season wrap up posts about them now that their season is over, but now my attention is turning more toward RSL and the rest of MLS. Grabbing my immediate attention, RSL will face visiting Toronto FC in a battle of turf based, recent expansion teams this Monday.

RSL didn’t do too well against Santos in its last friendly, but has a chance to redeem themseves tonight against Saprissa. Their league record has been pretty good of late though, and their defense has been outstanding. With Fabian Espindola returning to the lineup tonight, I think we can look for some offensive spark to be added to the mix.

Toronto hasn’t looked good in league, tournament, or friendly play. They’ve not won a game since mid-June, and have dropped games (including the Canadian championship) to USL teams. I’m sure that pride and passion will be at the fore for TFC when they play in Salt Lake City.

RSL has a chance to pad their Western Conference lead with a win at home, and I think that’s what we’ll see. I think Rimando will extend his unscored upon streak, and that RSL will put a couple of balls into the back of the net, call it a 0-2 final.

RSL will probably need the full three points to stay on top since LA should beat FC Dallas. I don’t think Colorado or Houston will be taking any points from their games this week though, so (hopefuly) we’ll start to see some separation in the west.

Vancouver Whitecaps Residency @ BYU

2008-07-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

I wasn’t able to watch the game live Friday night, but I did record the BYU-TV broadcast to watch on Saturday. I really wanted to see how the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency program looked. I’ve got to say that it’s an impressive program.

For the most part, Vancouver owned the field last night—coming away with a 2-0 win. While the whole team looked good Randy Edwini-Bonsu stood out, with both great speed and nice control. At one point he turned on the jets and made up about 20 yards overtaking a BYU midfielder in front of him.

I’m interested in seeing which other teams (USL or MLS) might start up another PDL level residency program. I don’t know that we’ll see anything for another year or two. If the Whitecaps can capture a couple of solid players I think we’ll see more teams picking up the idea.

While BYU didn’t manage to put anything into the back of the net, they did have some dangerous looking moments. Steve Francis and Zack DeFrancis both had good looks at the goal but weren’t able to convert. Bryan Black started in goal and looked pretty good, his size and positioning worked out pretty well.

RSL Reserves @ BYU

2008-07-16T08:23:00.001-07:00

Last night was a rarity in soccer, a big game in which the final score didn’t really matter. RSL’s reserves beat the BYU Cougars in the Coug’s brand new Stadium at South Field in front of 3110 fans. Beat is probably too soft a word, RSL’s Robbie Findley put the ball past BYU’s Brandon Gillam twice in the stretch of two minutes midway through the first half, at which point RSL seemed to let off the gas. They continued to play very well in the defensive and middle thirds of the fields, but didn’t look like they were trying very hard in the final third. RSL put a third goal on the board minute when Quinney Varela scored in the 90th.

Oft injured Nathan Sturgis started for RSL and took a knock in the opening minutes, and was off the field by the fifth minute. I saw him at halftime with ice on his ankle, but not looking too put out. Hopefully it’s just a ding and doesn’t affect his return to the senior side or his olympic aspirations.

It was also interesting to see Clint Mathis in the midfield for RSL. A Real staffer I was sitting next to said that he was just a friend of Jason Kreis and was playing to keep in shape for the upcoming European season.

Kenny Deuchar and Robbie Findley both started the game. Robbie looked pretty good, but my first up close and personal view of the good Doctor didn’t impress me too much. His touch seemed off, his passes were often weak dribbles, and he put another nice chance over the crossbar. Hopefully he gets past whatever is holding him back, but I’m no longer convinced that he’s the answer for RSL’s front line.

Mattias Mantilla started in the back, and looked good and not-so-good by turns. By the tenth minute of the game, it was obvious that Mantilla was unhappy with the refs. He seemed to be getting awfully close to a card for dissent at several points in the game. His tough challenges also earned the displeasure of the crowd who were booing his every touch by the end of the game. He did come up with several big plays, but also had a couple of gaffes—misjudging a long ball and letting BYU get control in the backfield at one point in the first half, and being undressed by a BYU player (Jordan Cushman?) in the second.

One last RSL observation, it was interesting to see how intent Jason Kreis was even in the closing minutes of the game. Although he was very gracious in his post game comments (see Drew Daniel’s write-up for Kries’ comments), it was obvious he was ‘on task’ during the game.

On the BYU side of the ledger, they put a lot of players out on the field (working through four different keepers for example). I’m sure the experience was good for all of them, and they all seemed to have enjoyed the night. The usual suspects looked good. Jace Green and Zack DeFrancis both looked as though they might score at several points in the game.

The new stadium looks like it will be a great place for BYU mens’ soccer. The crowd was loud and fairly involved in the game. (They even drowned out the small contigent of RSL fans—at least from where I stood.) I don’t envy visiting PDL clubs, this place has the makings of a PDL fortress.

I also really enjoyed sitting with the BYU-International Spanish-speaking commentators. I loved hearing them call the game, and thought it was cool to hang it with them as they interviewed Javier Morales at the half. Javi seemed to enjoy being interviewed in Spanish, and it was nice to be able to follow along with most of the questions and answers.

Oh, and I’d like to thank Robbie Findley for being very friendly and posing for a picture with two of my former scouts who caught up with him right after the game. Moments like those go a long way in community building.

Good Weekend for RSL and BYU

2008-07-14T08:13:00.001-07:00

It’s been a good weekend for the teams I follow. Both BYU and RSL won their games, with BYU claiming the season series over Ogden 3-0-1 and RSL climbing into 1st place in the (somewhat weak) west. RSL’s U-17 team also won it’s final round game against DC United’s U-17 team, earning both the SUM U-17 championship and entry into the 2009 Trofeo Quixote U-17 tournament in Madrid, Spain.

BYU and the RSL Reserves will be facing each other on Tuesday night to open BYU’s new ‘Stadium at South Field. This should be a fun game, and I can’t wait to go and see it. (As usual, I’ll be taking my son—not quite as usual, he’ll be on crutches after dislocating his knee.)

One interesting bit is that RSL’s win put them at 1.43 ppg, good enough for first place in the MLS West, while BYU’s 1.64 ppg is only good enough for fourth in the PDL Northwest and leaves them out of the playoffs. The PDL might be a few steps below the MLS in terms of quality, it looks like they’re ahead of them in terms of competition …

US Open Cup 2008: Thoughts after the quarterfinals

2008-07-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

Intersting results last night. Crystal Palace Baltimore has to be a huge surprise, even in losing last night they were impressive taking the New England Revolution to penalties—what more could you ask from a USL2 side? I’m also glad to see both USL1 sides moving on (Seattle on PKs over the Kansas City Wizards after a 0-0 tie and Charleston on a 3-1 win over FC Dallas).

I’m not sure how I feel about the USL1 v USL1 and MLS v MLS semi final round. On the one hand, it guarantees an MLS v USL1 final, but it would have been nice to see two usl1 v MLS games in the semis too.

As the semi’s stand, I think we’ll see a very hot DC team beat New England and the MLS-bound Sounders beat Charleston. I’d like to pick Seattle in the final, but I don’t see anyone outside of the Super Liga stopping DC United right now.

Ogden at BYU: July 8th

2008-07-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight I’ve decided to try something new. I’m typing up this blog entry and will post it once I get home (I’d have posted it from here, but I can’t get any WiFi signal here at Haws Field). Hopefully this goes pretty well.

After last weeks loss, BYU coach Chris Watkins talked about using the remainder of the season to get younger players some time as the Cougars build toward next season. Given the rivalry between these two teams you’ve got to think that the grooming process might have to wait for another game. We’ll see how things look when we get to game time.

Okay, BYU’s starting lineup seems like it’s pretty seasoned. It looks like the rivalry trumps last week's comments.

Game starts

At five minutes in, the game has been fairly balanced BYU has had a bit more posession, but Ogde has looked more organized. I still think BYU loses too much posession on the long balls they tend to play out of the back.

Jordan Cushman is taking the right side corners tonight.

Drew took a bit of a knock in the 12th minute, but game back onto the field quickly and doesn’t seem ot have lost a step.

Fifteen menutes in and things are about the same, BYU seems more energetic but not as crisp as Ogden.

BYU is starting to look like they’re getting it together. Their passing is more crisp and they’re winning more balls and creating some chances.

at the thirtieth minute BYU is controlling most of the possession, but can’t put the final touch together. They look pretty solid on defense though, when Ogden does gain control and pressese the attack. Steve Fellows almost put in a beautiful cross by Zach DeFrancis, bu the effort goes just wide.

I can’t tell if BYU’s problems are chemistry or concentration. They show flashes of great play, putting together good passes and nice control, but then drop a cross into a slot without a runner coming on to it.

Ogden puts a nice attack together with about nine minutes left in the hald, but it comes to naught as the shot is over the crossbar. The Outlaws continue to come on strong as time is winding down, they’ve put together three or four good attacks while allowing BYU only one.

Maybe I spoke too soon, with about two minutes left, BYU get’s a great run from Steve Fellows resulting in a corner kick. Derek Taylor gets on the end of it, but puts a header high and left. They take the ball back just past midfield and drive again, only to see a beautiful ball go just left of the goal.

Britton Osborn earns a yellow with a minute left on the clock, but Ogden isn’t able to capitalize. Brit continued to jaw at the ref, and could well have drawn a red.

End of first half.

Overall, the center ref has been a bit hesitant to call anything, but the game hasn’t gotten out of control. Neither team has been able to put their stamp on the game. It's been great fun to watch so far, I'm looking forward to a strong second half.

Second half starts

Ogden has owned the game in the early minutes of the second half, controlling posession and forcing two corner kicks.

BYU is able to take back some possession and go on the attack, though Zack DeFrancis put the final shot wide.

(BYU) Curt Graham goes in for Derek Taylor in the fifty-second minute. The substitution pays of moments later as Curt puts the ball in the back of the net.

0-1 BYU

The Ogden bench is steaming abut what they’re claiming are non-calls. But they manage to put a sitter over the crossbar when it’s dropped in their lap. You can complain about the refs all you want, but you have to make those shots if you want to win a game.

Play has evened out a bit, both sides are attacking well and looking dangerous.

Ogden makes a double substitution, let’s see if it pays off as well from them.

BYU counters with a substitution of their own, brining Steve Magleby on for Jordan Cushman.

Ogden has been on the attack, but is a call or two and a big save from Brandon Gilliam from equalizing.

BYU just dodged a bullet with a goal line clearance on a a shot by Ogden 21. Ogden earns a corner from the clearance though.

BYU subs their captain off, with #26 going on in his place. It looks like a trade for fresh legs and a bit of height.

Ogden equalizes on a beautiful cross to an unmarked Kyle Christenson.

1-1 Ogden

BYU gets it right back on a quick goal by Steve Fellows (assist Brit Osborne). One of the Ogden players had stepped out of play with an equipment problem and BYU struck fast.

1-2 BYU

BYU nearly picked up another goal as Steve Fellows drove a nice pass just beyond a driving Zack DeFrancis.

Another sub on both sides are standing on the side just waiting to be signaled in. BYU’s Zack DeFrancis is coming of and being replaced by Jace Green. While James Jarmillo is being replaced by Zach VanWagenen for Ogden.

BYU misses wide left on a nice shot by Jace Green. Brit Osborn is coming off and Scott Heaton replaces him after the shot.

Steve Magleby is able to take a shot, but it’s a low roller that’s easily stopped by Ogden’s keeper.

BYU has controlled the last 10 minutes or so of the game at the end of regulation. The ref has indicated 3 minutes of stoppage time, and the Ogden bench is going crazy.

Jace Green gets another great chance, but the Ogden keeper is able to touch it wide.

End of game

This was a very fun game to watch. The Ogden coaches and players are obviously still unhappy, but I don't think either team was unduly favored by the ref tonight. As usual, there were more chances left on the field by both teams than potential scoring opportunities lost to bad calls or non-calls.

Interview with James Edward and Michael Lewis

2008-07-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve really enjoyed seeing more coverage of soccer in Utah (although it’s pretty RSL-centric). I wanted to get a better feel for the coverage, so I asked Michael Lewis from the Salt Lake Tribune James Edward of the Deseret News if they’d be willing to answer some questions in a joint interview. They were both happy to respond, and the following is the result:

Covering soccer seems like a dream job to a lot of fans, how did you end up in your positions?

Michael I’ve covered a lot in my 15 years at the Tribune, including college football and basketball, the Jazz and the Olympics. So when RSL came along, it was sort of something new that I hadn’t done. Plus, let’s be honest, they make some great road trips (though we don’t travel much anymore, with the slumping industry and economy) and nobody else really wanted the beat.

James I guess you would say I’ve been in the right spot at the right time each step of the way. I was a student at the University of Utah when women’s soccer was added for Title IX compliance 1996, and I ended up covering the Utes for two years for the Daily Utah Chronicle. That was my springboard to cover high school soccer for the Deseret News after college. Within a few years I’d established myself as the soccer beat writer for the Deseret News, so when the Utah Blitzz came to town that was my beat as well. From there it was a natural transition to Real Salt Lake.

What are the up- and down-sides to covering the game professionally instead of just being a fan?

James One of the reasons I love soccer is the unpredictability of when a goal will be scored, and thus the excitement when it finally happens. In journalism neutrality is one of our main responsibilities. You can’t be a fan, it’s a simple as that. There are times when I would like be excited about Major League Soccer in my home town from a fans point of view, but it’s just not realistic with my job.

Michael The upside is getting to know a little bit firsthand about why coaches and players do what they do, in terms of strategy, in particular. Not many fans have access to those guys, to ask them questions about the way they work. The downside? That’s easy. You can’t go right home when the game’s over; you have to stay and write your articles. Plus, no beer during. Ouch.

It looks like interest in soccer is on the rise in Utah and the rest of the country. What do you see as the next steps for the sport locally?

Michael I don’t know. I’ve grown a bit skeptical of the whole “soccer on the rise” story we’ve been hearing for a number of years now. Not that it hasn’t grown or won’t continue to grow, but I don’t know that it’s going to suddenly “explode” in the fashion that sometimes seems to be expected. Rather, I think the sport’s growth will be more gradual, as it slowly becomes more a part of the culture, particularly with children as they grow up. But the dominance of other sports in the United States is going to make that a very long road, in my opinion. However, if the U.S. men’s national team could ever become an elite team—that is, capable of regularly beating some of the best teams in the world, and not just Grenada and Turks & Caicos—I can see a bit more of a surge happening because of what I presume would be significantly more exposure.

James In actuality, attendance is on the decline for Real Salt Lake this year. If you take away the Chicago and L.A. Galaxy games, and their obvious draws, RSL is averaging several thousand fewer fans than in previous years—despite a better product than those previous years. I think the team is paying past disappointments. Fans are deciding to spend their money elsewhere (maybe on gasoline). There are probably countless reasons why, but Utah is a fickle sports town and fans won’t come if you aren’t winning. And when you aren’t winning local TV stations don’t pay attention, which only compounds the issue. In this market, it’s all about winning.

Since both of you are playing the skeptic card, do you think RSL and Soccer in the US are going to make it?

James As for being skeptical, I’m more skeptical about RSL’s current attendance predicament than soccer in this country. I am a soccer guy, and I believe it’s here to stay. But I just don’t see it becoming mainstream for another 15 or 20 years, until my kid’s generation become adults who are more likely to purchase tickets to matches because they’ve been exposed to it their whole lives. The majority of 40, 50 and 60 year olds in this country have never had any exposure to soccer so it’s completely foreign to them. My generation (early 30s) is much more accepting because it’s been around professionally and therefore we’ve been exposed to it for over a dozen years. I give it one more generation until our U.S. National Team is truly competitive, and MLS is playing in front of sellout crowds almost every weekend.

Michael Certainly, James is right about the waning attendance at RSL games; I do believe they ruined their chance to enjoy a greater degree of public goodwill with a stadium effort that was widely viewed as a boondoggle and a product that was atrocious for three years. I know a number of people who wanted to be fans early on, and bought tickets, but ultimately couldn’t bring themselves to do it anymore, because the team was so bad. That’s an element that might be hard to recapture. I would venture to say that most—not all, but most—people who would identify themselves as sports fans in the SLC market would not call themselves RSL fans.

How do you think the fans will respond to starting the ‘09 season in the new stadium?

Michael Very much like they did with the team itself. I expect a great deal of interest in what really will be a beautiful stadium—for awhile. But after an initial surge of interest, I think fans once again will attend or not depending entirely on whether RSL is any good. Nobody goes to games for the stadium, after all, with a couple of rare exceptions. Once fans get familiar with the new place, the novelty will wear off and the team is going to have to perform to fill it.

James Utah a front-runner town, everyone loves a fad. Beanie Babies, the Cheesecake Factory and the Utah Grizzlies just to name a few. Some anti-stadium people will never set foot in the stadium—until there kid plays a high school football playoff game there somebody and then they’ll forget about their lame boycott—but enough people will come each weekend to check out the novelty of the stadium many nights will be sellouts. If RSL treats them to victories and entertaining soccer, many of them will come back.

One complaint that I’ve heard is that the RSL front office doesn’t do a good job of marketing to the local latino population. How do you think they could improve?

James I honestly have absolutely no idea. It’s clear though that they would prefer to keep their affiliation with a team they can only ever watch on television instead of embracing a team where they live. At the end of the day, the overall level of soccer is comparable.

Michael That’s a good question, and one to which I don’t really have an answer. I’m not a marketing guy, after all. I would posit that even successful marketing might not show a tremendously tangible result here, considering that while the Hispanic/Latino population is growing in Utah, it’s still a small minority. That said, it might help to have some players on the team from Mexico and/or Central America, which I think is the region from which most of our local Hispanic/Latino population originates. In fact, RSL has never had a Mexican player, and its only Central American players of any consequence were Costa Rican—and there were only two of them, now gone. (Currently, I think all of RSL’s Spanish-speaking players are South American, from Argentina or Colombia.) It might also be that local Hispanic/Latino fans are accustomed to a higher level of soccer and/or more educated about the game, and perceive RSL to be a poor quality substitute. Certainly, the results on the field in the first three years could have reinforced that idea. And if that’s the case, no amount of marketing is going to “work.” Winning is the best marketing, always.

What’s your favorite RSL memory?

James For me it has to be that first game ever in New York in 2005. I was fortunate enough to be there, and excitement leading up to that game was unbelievable. It was surreal that an MLS team from Salt Lake City was actually taking the field for the first time. Then there was the weather. The wind and rain were so strong, it was really a comedy of errors. In reality, the game should’ve just been postponed. There were maybe 300 people there watching the 0-0 tie. It’s one of those stories I will always tell, one with a disclaimer that says you really had to be there to believe it.

Michael I think it’s probably the first game-winning goal they ever scored, by Brian Dunseth in RSL’s first-ever home game. Dunseth scored in the 81st minute to beat Colorado, then ran over and lifted the corner flag, theatrically “planting” it again into the turf, as if to “announce his presence with authority,” to paraphrase one of history’s greatest fictional baseball players. It seemed like great theatre at the time—the demonstrative start of a great story—but after everything that has gone on since then, it seems now so laughably impotent.

Other than RSL, what are your favorite soccer teams/leagues/events?

James I follow high school soccer for my job, but other than that there really isn’t time to get involved locally. I've watched the EPL and other European Leagues for several years now thanks to Fox Soccer Channel. I struggled to pick a favorite team until Bobby Convey helped Reading make the jump to the EPL. Now Reading is back in the League Championship, but I'm committed to the core when it comes to being a Reading fan from now on.

Michael I must say, I was pretty new to soccer when I started covering it (can’t tell, can you?), so I don’t have much of a built-in history with the sport. However, I have been to exactly one (1) English Premier League game, at West Ham, thanks to a player who helped my wife and I secure tickets. So I’m a big Hammers guy now, still angry at ManU for taking Carlos Tevez. :-)

If you had a friend that was headed out to his first MLS game, what would you want him to be doing/watching for to have the best experience at the game?

Michael For starters, I would hope that he gets to see his first MLS game at the Home Depot Center, or BMO Field, or somewhere that has a better atmosphere than Rice-Eccles Stadium. That’s half the fun, it seems to me, enjoying the excitement of the fans when they’re really geared up. Otherwise? Geez, I don’t know. The one thing I’ve always told people who ask is that watching soccer live is so much better than watching it on TV, if only because your full-field view allows a much better appreciation for what the teams are trying to do, strategically. You can see the way they try to set up attacks, or get back to defend, or what have you. Much of that is difficult to appreciate on TV. I guess I would tell him to try to appreciate the athleticism involved in doing what these guys do. That’s another thing I think is much better communicated in person.

James This is a tough question. I think everyone watches the game differently. If I had to explain one thing before the game to a friend I would let he or she know that the game might end in a tie. That’s just the way soccer is. Each game represents 1/30th of the entire season, and you have to treat each game as extension of the season. Explain why overtime isn’t played because of a fatigue. Soccer haters just can’t grasps this, but I think it’s because no one’s every explained it to them properly. I think most objective people will understand why a 0-0 draw wasn’t worthless if they have a little background.

Will RSL make the playoffs this year?

Michael Dare I say it? Yes. But just barely.

James That’s a tough one. I will say yes, because you’ve got to think RSL will find a way to win a few more road games. But that stretch in August and September when RSL plays 6 of 8 games on the road, that is going to be brutal. It will definitely make or break their season, which is why 0-0 draws against Kansas City and San Jose have the potential to be extremely costly in the long run.

Ogen Outlaws at BYU Cougars: July 4th

2008-07-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

Last night my family and I went to take in the Ogden Outlaws – BYU Cougars game, and watch the fireworks afterward. It was a hard fought game, though the Cougars (who have come to expect to beat the Outlaws) have to be disappointed with their play and the result. With the fireworks show after the game, and then yardwork that needed to be done this morning, I haven’t been able to get to my write-up until now. I was glad to see Drew from the Deseret News was able to get his story done, and Kim Christenson got her press release out on time … sometimes it’s nice not to be tied to a deadline though.

As I watched the teams warm up the Cougars looked more composed, though that’s probably just my bias showing through. I asked BYU coach Chad Sackett about two of his players suiting up for the RSL reserve game earlier that day—forward Zack DeFrancis suited up as a midfielder but did not play, while midfielder Richie Bindrup suited up and played about 30 minutes as a left back. Coach Sackett said:

Well, it’s better for us that Zack didn’t play and I think Richie could play three games a day if he wanted to. But really, anytime these guys can get that kind of exposure, well, that’s why we’re here. Originally, we thought the game would be yesterday but that’s the way things work out sometimes.

I was also able to catch Bindrup to ask him about the difference between an MLS reserve match and a PDL match. He said:

They play at a faster pace, and everyone is more involved. I came in as a left back, but I was able to get up into the attack. The biggest difference is that they just finish their chances. It’s like we played last year.

During the first half of the game, BYU controlled long stretches of possession, earning several corner kicks (and having one goal called back on an offside). Ogden seemed to play a prettier game though with more one touch exchanges moving the ball down the field compared to BYU’s over reliance on long distributions to start attacks.

BYU opened the scoring in the 51st minute, when Richie Bindrup scored on a free kick earned by Zack DeFrancis. Ogden answered with 2 goals in an 8 minute stretch, the first by Flynn Stewart (set up by a free kick taken by Matt Broadhead) and the second on a Matt Broadhead free kick.

As you’d expect in a game where all the goals came from free kicks, it was pretty chippy out on the field with 18 fouls and 6 cautions. I don’t think either side was really happy with the officiating though, as the crew seemed to lose control of the game a couple of times. Zach DeFrancis said that, “It’s always a physical game, this is out big rivalry. Both sides are probably unhappy with some of the calls, and we both started to lose our composure.”

Zach also said that while the team had talked about getting knocked off their game plan saying, “We’ll be working on it.”

After the game, I caught up with coaches Sackett and Chris Watkins to follow up on the RSL Reserve game. Coach Watkins said that the whole team looked tired after running soccer camps all week in addition to Richie playing earlier, and that being tired certainly affected them. Coach Sackett said that he didn’t think Richie and Zack’s involvement in the earlier game affected the outcome of this one because: “There was a whole team out there, not just the two of them.”

Coach Watkins also said: “We’re not a very good team right now. ... In the next several games.” He seems resigned to missing out on the playoffs this year, when asked about his plans for the rest of the season, he responded that “during the next couple of games, we’ll focus on getting some of the young guys in to get them experience.”

DesNews coverage of the Cougs

2008-06-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hey, it looks like the Deseret News has some coverage up from Thursday’s game. It’s not much, less than BYU’s own press release, but it is something.

I’d love to see more regular coverage of the PDL (especially the local Ogden and BYU teams) in our local papers. If you’d like to help make it happen, drop a line to the Sports Editor, Kent Condon. If he sees enough interest, maybe we’ll get to see some deeper coverage of the PDL to go along side their improved coverage of RSL.

Week Ten in the PDL Northwest

2008-06-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, the Cougars will visit the suddenly hot Cascade Surge. BYU has been playing well too, chalking up road wins at Ogden and Spokane. Zack De Francis is continuing to score with a goal in each of the last two games bringing him to a season total of 7 (check out my interview with Zack if you’re a De Francis fan). Brandon Gilliam has been excellent in goal, posting a 0.505 GAA (which would be good enough for 3rd place in the PDL if he had another 150 minutes or so of game time).

This is a tough, but winnable game for the Cougars, and a win could push them into a tie for 3rd place in the division with the Yakima Reds (who face a tough test at the Abbottsford Mariners).

Other interesting games this weekend include a Saturday evening tilt between the Tacoma Tide and the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency and Sunday’s Tacoma Abbotsford and Yakima Vancouver matches. Depending on how things turn out, Monday could see some new rankings in the PDL Northwest. For what it’s worth, here are my predictions:

BYU Cougars @ Cascade Surge 1-0
Yakima Reds @ Abbotsford Mariners 0-1
Tacoma Tide @ Vancouver Whitecaps Residency 0-1
Tacoma Tide @ Abbotsford Rangers 1-1
Yakima Reds @ Vancouver Whitecaps Residency 0-2

Interview with Zack De Francis

2008-06-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

Zack De Francis has been the most searched for name on my blog, and has played a big roll in BYU’s success so far this year. Over the last several days, Zack has been kind enough to trade emails with me to create the interview below. Read on to learn a little bit more about BYU’s star striker.

Right now you’re among the statistical leaders in the PDL, despite having played fewer games than the other players. Looking over your roster page at byusoccer.com, it looks like you’re in familiar territory. What do these kinds of individual recognitions mean to you?

Zack Individual recognitions of all kinds have served as motivators in my life. Many times, they serve as milestones. In soccer, I try not to dwell on the fact that I played well for too long. Instead, I feel more motivated to work hard so I can get better and better.

RSL has been known to pick up the occasional BYU player for their reserve squad, would you be interested in doing something like that? What value do experiences like that bring to a player?

Zack First of all, I feel lucky to be part of a program that is connected to a professional organization like RSL. I have been contacted a couple of times to work out and play in reserve games and think it’s a great opportunity. Being in that kind of environment introduces a new level of professionalism and commitment to the game. It’s very exciting. It has also been valueable in bringing me closer to friends I grew up with playing soccer, who are now professionals.

After your last home game, Coach Watkins said that you had velcro on your feet, and were able to create your own chances. What’s your secret?

Zack I feel like there are a couple of things that help me improve consistantly. First, I try to find time to do individual training each week. After evaluating my performance, I try to work on my weaknesses and fine tune the things I already do well. I feel like individual training is equally important to training in a team setting. Secondly, visualization helps me a lot.

Where do you see the biggest opportunity for improvement in your game?

Zack I believe the biggest opportunity for improvement in my game at the moment is getting more shots off, especially from a distance. Getting shots off tests the keeper and keeps the opposing defense honest. It also builds confidence in the entire team when we see scoring chances.

You mentioned evaluating your performance. How do you do that? Do you have video to look at, or are you working from your in-game observations and those of the coaching staff?

Zack Evaluating my performance mostly comes from in-game obeservations. My mind goes over many plays from the game where I made a difference or should have made a difference. The observations include plays where I could have done better and plays where i executed well. My coaches help all of us players recognize areas where we need to improve and spend extra time in training.

Can you walk us through one of your goals this season?

The most recent goal I scored was in Washington against Tacoma. I expected the ball to come to me and it did (in this case it was an excellent pass). At that point, you can sense where the defender, the keeper, and the net is. Then I just hit the ball where the keeper couldn’t get it. It happened without thinking as I had made similar shots in my mind and practiced them hundreds of times before.

The last couple of weeks haven’t gone so well for the team. What do you think the next couple of games (this weekend) hold in store.

Zack The games coming up next week are crucial for us and will most likely set the tone for the remainder of the season. We face two of the best teams in our conference at home and need wins. We will have had two weeks to build confidence in ourselves again and make adjustments to our game. We had our chances to beat both Yakima and Tacoma the first time around, so we are optimistic about our chances at home. Two wins this weekend will require a disciplined effort.

Finally, a non-soccer question. What’s your favorite part of being a student-athlete at BYU?

Zack My favorite part of about being a student athlete at BYU is the unique opportunities that we have in representing the University. We are able to participate in international trips where we play soccer as well as address the local communities. Each team member has the responsibility of speaking to a large group or contributing to the community in some way. I feel like i’m growing in several areas of my life, not just soccer.

BYU 2 games and 2 wins

2008-05-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

Just a short report for now, I'll post more on Monday when I have some time.

The Cougars got a big win (1-5) over the Cascade Surge last night. I was out camping with my scouts, so I didn't get to see it. It sounds like there were some injuries coming out of that game though.

Tonight, BYU took 3 more points in a 1-2 win over Spokane. Zach DeFrancis scored twice tonight, and was easily the man of the match. With three goals over two games, I wouldn't be surprised to see him show up in the PDL team of the week.

Coach Watkins didn't sound like a coach with a +5 goal differential and an undefeated team. In his post-game comments. He talked about the teams need to get better at finishing, saying that the cougars need to work on their finishing and that they should have scored 5 goals tonight. He also talked about a need to improve defensively.

I can't wait to see how BYU does if they're going to improve on this start.

MLS Scariness: 2008 Week 5

2008-04-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, time for another look at MLS scariness. I’ve settled into the formula I hope to use for the rest of the season (I’m not going to go back and recalculate scariness for the previous weeks, but I am scaling the scores down to match the current range). The formula is as follows:

pts (game) + gd (game) + opp ppg (last 5 games) + 1 (away team)

I figure a weighted average over the last five weeks (or as many
weeks as the teams have played) to come up with the current
scariness.

Enough about math though, here’s the current table:

Team	Scariness	Ranking	Change
NY	4.9	1 (3)	+2
CLB	4.14	2 (2)	–
DAL	3.76	3 (4)	+1
KC	3.75	4 (1)	-3
TOR	3.72	5 (8)	+3
NE	3.49	6 (7)	+1
CHI	3.29	7 (5)	-2
DC	2.94	8 (12)	+4
LA	2.93	9 (14)	+5
COL	2.22	10 (6)	-4
HOU	1.98	11 (9)	-2
SAN	1.75	12 (11)	-1
SLC	0.93	13 (13)	–
CHV	0.9	14 (10)	-4

LA and DC moved way up the charts based on lopsided wins. Toronto also moved up, but I think that’s based more on a three game winning streak (man, BMO is looking like a fortress and a great place to catch a game¹.)

Chivas and Colorado were the big sinkers. Chivas isn’t playing very well in general and got clubbed by LA, while the Rapids are settling into what I think i a more realistic ranking after some surprising early wins.

My only other thought is that being an RSL fan kinda stinks … oh well, I guess I can always get my kicks watching the ‘Fire Kreis’ folks get wound up.

¹ I’ve gotta say, I really envy a young friend who just got called on an LDS mission to Toronto—he was on BYU’s reserve list last year and is going to love being in a soccer hungry area.

USL1 Scariness: 2008 Week 3

2008-04-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, for a first post on Monday morning, I thought I’d put up my scariness rankings for the USL1 (now that they’ve got three weeks of games under their belts. I’ve also settled into a formula for each game:

pts (game) + gd (game) + opp ppg (last 5 games) + 1 (away team)

I figure a weighted average over the last five weeks (or as many weeks as the teams have played) to come up with the current scariness.

Team	Scariness	Rank
POR	4.27	1
MIN	3.9	2
CAR	3.05	3
ATL	2.88	4
MON	2.25	5
CHA	2.2	6
SEA	1.7	7
PUE	1.51	8
MIA	1.18	9
VAN	1.15	10
ROC	0	11

At this point, Portland is looking like the cream of the USL, unbeaten and untied in 3 games with a +4 goal differential makes them look awfully good. It will be interesting to see how they do in US Open Cup play.

Down near the bottom of the table, Miami and Vancouver are separated by only .03 points, and are ahead of only Rochester (who has yet to play a game).

Don’t look for a USL2 scariness post from me, but I am planning on doing one for the PDL Northwestern conference.

2008 Week Four Scariness

2008-04-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

Last weeks scariness rankings were impacted by an error I made in caclulations … This week I’ve tried to ensure no such wonkiness has occured. This week’s edition also contains a new feature—I’ve added a sparkline-style graphic showing points earned over the last several games (I’ll add a similar graphic showing scariness fluctuations as the season progresses).

Kansas City has really pushed to the front of the pack this week, with Columbus looking like a strong second. The third through sixth spots aren’t as firm.

LA has cemented a place at the bottom of the table, but I think the 7-13 spots will continue to see a lot of flux as the teams build a bigger body of work to be evaluated against.

Team	Ranking	Scariness
KC	1	13.96
CLB	2	11.25
NY	3	10.33
DAL	4	9.78
CHI	5	8.73
COL	6	8.25
NE	7	7.92
TOR	8	7.88
HOU	9	5.4
SAN	10	5.25
CHV	11	5.18
DC	12	4.73
SLC	13	4.6
LA	14	3.8

Javi And Kyle TV -- Good Stuff

2008-04-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’ve not been one to post other people’s stuff on my blog, but these are just too good to pass up. Javi and Kyle TV looks like a really fun look behind the scenes at RSL. Go on, you know you wanna watch ‘em.

2008 Scariness: Week 3

2008-04-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

With three weeks under our belts, the scariness rankings are still looking a little odd, but better than last week. Scariness is calculated from results versus the opponents recent points, and then weighted so that recent results count more than those in the past. Here’s where things stand today:

Team	Ranking (LW)	Scariness	Pts
KC	1 (1)	6.36	7
NE	2 (7)	6.24	5
COL	3 (3T)	6.12	6
CHI	4 (2)	5.18	7
CLB	5 (12)	4.92	6
DAL	6 (6)	3.74	5
SLC	7 (8)	3.68	4
CHV	8 (5)	3.66	4
NY	9 (3T)	3.36	3
HOU	10 (9T)	2.68	2
TOR	11 (13T)	2.4	3
DC	12 (9T)	2.16	3
LA	13 (9T)	0.54	3
SAN	14 (13T)	0	0

Even with the tie, the Wizards are hanging on to the top spot, one of just three teams to hold position along with FC Dallas who look stuck on sixth and the Quakes who don’t look to leave the basement anytime soon.

The Revolution and the Crew rode wins (over Kansas City and Chivas, respectively) to big improvements. The New York Red Bulls were the big losers, dropping six spots on their loss.

One nice thing about this system, is that I don’t have to defend any teams position since I didn’t put them there. I guess I could spend time trying to improve the math behind the system, but that’s a topic for another day.

Week Two in 2008

2008-04-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed not to post my predictions before the weekend—I guess that’s what happens when you try to juggle to many things. I had two results correct from the 5 games I called. Here’s what I thought would happen, alongside what really did.

Game	Projected Winner	Projected Score	Actual Result
COL @ KC	KC	1-2	2-3
TOR @ DC	DC	0-1	1-4
CLB @ NY	—	1-1	0-2
RSL @ CHV	—	1-1	1-3
DAL @ HOU	HOU	0-1	3-3

I’d called one other game, the Wednesday night game of New England @ Kansas City. I think Kansas City will take this one 1-2, New England has too many players out due to injury or suspension to win this one on the road against a good looking Kansas City.

My scariness rankings are starting to make sense. They’ll really clear up over the next couple of weeks though, at this point there’s juts not enough data. Here’s my table at the momement:

Ranking	Team	Points
1	KC	4.08
2	CHI	2.48
3	COL	1.92
3	NY	1.92
5	CHV	1.56
6	DAL	1.16
7	NE	0.96
8	RSL	0.8
9	DC	0.54
9	LA	0.54
9	HOU	0.54
12	CLB	0.48
13	SAN	0
13	TOR	0

Scariness is a function of a team’s PPG and their opponents PPG in a weighted moving average. Last year, I was fancier than this, but I’m not sure it really matters.

Team Names

2008-03-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

Over at the Soccer Insider Steve Goff wrote (quoting Don Garber):

As for the push in Seattle to name the club the Sounders — something that MLS adamantly opposes — Garber said: “The good thing about team branding is that it involves a lot of people and there are passionate views on different sides of the issue. I believe our league and the sport has come so much further than the days of the NASL. While we have the name ‘Earthquakes’, I am very focused in trying to have our teams look forward as opposed to look back. That’s not taking away from the value of the ‘Sounders’ ... I think there is tremendous history there and a very passionate fan base but I am thinking about what this team is going to be 20 years from now or 50 years from now because that’s how long team brand names should exist.”

The club will allow fans to vote for the club name: Seattle Republic, Seattle Alliance or Seattle FC.

Say what?!? The Sounders name goes back to 1974 … so that’s 34 years of history. How in the world can someone claim (with a straight face) that ‘the Seattle Republic’ or ‘the Seattle Alliance’ positions a team better for the future than ‘the Seattle Sounders’? Throwing away the history and goodwill of the Sounders name is just silly. To choose names like Alliance or Republic instead seems even worse. I guess the good news is that if they choose Seattle FC, the fans can always use the Sounders as a nickname.

USL Updates

2008-03-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

I just saw a couple of articles that update my recent posts on SYL players training with West Ham and BYU’s new soccer facility. In the interest of keeping people informed, here’s what I found:

First, a short interview with SYL Player Aaron Laing. This one is pretty cool, Aaron gives his impression of the ODP camps that the SYL puts on and looks ahead to his opportunity to train in England.
Then, I found two articles about BYU, a Press release about BYU’s Soccer Stadium Renovation and a Daily Herald article BYU’s South Field gets a face lift. The latter reveals a new name for the facility—the “Stadium at South Field”

New BYU soccer facility

2008-03-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

Wow! You go away for a week to take a boring HP class (in beautiful San Jose, there are always upsides) and what happens? News of the new BYU soccer facility breaks, of course. On Monday, March 10th at noon, BYU is breaking ground on their new soccer facility. This is really just an expansion of the existing South Field, and will be used by the men's and women's soccer teams as well as the lacrosse team (for televised matches). The worst part of the whole thing is that I'm going to be at work when it happens — sigh — at least I'll be able to watch the progress, and catch some games in the new stands.

2008 BYU Tryouts (Day Three)

2008-03-03T03:22:00.000-08:00

Coach Watkins stopped me on Friday evening and told me I didn’t want to miss the Saturday evening (and final) session of the tryouts. He told me the competition was intense and there would be a lot of great soccer on display. With a teaser like that, how could I stay away.

The first two rounds of cuts took the pool of players from eighty-five down to fifty, and by the end of Saturday night, it would have to be trimmed to twenty-five plus six incoming freshmen. After warming up, the players were divided into groups that would scrimmage on a full sized field.

This provided a different look at the players than the reduced field 6v6 games I’d seen up to that point. Some of the players that had looked dangerous on the smaller fields didn’t seem to bring the same presence to the bigger pitch. The palyers with real class continued to shine though.

After two scrimmages, the coaches pulled out twelve players to rotate through a very fast paced series of 3v3 scrimmages on a 1/4 sized field. These were the players on the cusp and they played like they knew it. Jukes and step-overs alternated with blistering shots on goal, quick tackles, and rapid fire passes. Players would come off the field, sweat-soaked, after 5 minutes.

KC John, a high school goal keeper was relegated to the sidelines due to regulations about how many days of tryouts the high schoolers could take part in. He watched the play intently. When I asked him what he thought about it, he responded, “This is just sick, there’s so much going on out there … I just wish I could be out there playing.”

Listening to the returning players on the sidelines I heard the same kind of comments—“Did you see that?” ... “I can’t believe he got that shot off” ... “Wow! That was a rocket.” ... “Did you see that save? How’d he stop that?”

Interspersed among their appreciative comments came an almost constant stream of advice—“Take your shot.” ... “Play into space.” ... “Watch the open man. Pass! Pass!”

The scrimmage also brought out one of the scariest moments of the night, when one of the veteran keepers took a blast of a shot to the face. He dropped immediately, and stayed down for what seemed like forever before being assisted off the pitch by the trainer. Fortunately he was up and around by the end of the session, looking just fine.

There were a number of injuries during the evening. By the time the coaches went off to huddle over their selection process, I counted eight players iced, wrapped, or hobbling around to various degrees. None of them looked too serious but I did overhear comments about not being able to run for a while.

More painful than the injuries though, was watching the final cut. The coaches walked through the crowd of players to post the roster on the doors of the facility, and as they moved away the players moved forward looking to see who’d made the cut. Nearly half of the fifty players who’d started the evening went away disappointed. A couple of the trialists that I’ve been watching survived, two more made a ‘reserve list’, my term, and will in place to join the team later in the year in response to missions, graduations, or other circumstances.

This was my first year of watching tryouts. I was really impressed with the level of play, the camraderie between players, and the kind of effort required of the coaching staff. If you’ve got a PDL team near you, go check out their tryouts—it’s a great way to get a pre-season soccer fix.

BYU 2008 Tryouts Day Two (Evening)

2008-03-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

I ended up catching a bit of the evening session of the tryouts on Friday. At this point, the tryout roster had been trimmed by over 20 players (there are still some big cuts to go though). I was really happy to see that KC, Bryan, and Robert (the three keepers I’d noticed Thursday and Friday morning ) were all still on the roster.

The scrimmages I watched were even more interesting than the others. At this point, they were playing one-touch ball and the player’s skill levels were showing more clearly. There were a number of good plays, and good players, but here are some that stood out:

Richie Bindrup (a returning player who earned PDL Team of the Week honors last year) was serving up some nice crosses and was very vocal in organizing the backline and midfield.
Ney Augusto Batista, one of the Brazilian trialists, looked like a solid target forward. He played with his back to the goal and made some nice looking shots, including a header that was just wide of the frame.
Saul Santos was another good looking forward. He seemed to always be making dangerous runs on goal and nearly scored on a bicycle kick—he beat the keeper, but it was cleared by a defender at the goal line.

I had to leave before the end of the session, so my notes are certainly incomplete, but I’ve blocked out the time to watch the entire final session. Coach Watkins promised that it would be the best session yet, especially the concluding scrimmage.

BYU 2008 Tryouts Day Two

2008-02-29T07:11:00.000-08:00

No pictures today, since I made an unplanned stop at the tryouts while dropping my son off for early morning seminary classes. I was only able to stay for 30 minutes or so, enough time to catch two rounds of 8v8 scrimmages. They play two scrimmages at a time, side by side on the indoor field, which makes it hard to pick out all the good stuff that’s going on—it’s awfully fun to try though.

The play was faster and more aggressive today. I was talking to one trialist today right after he’d scored an opportunistic goal on a rebound off the top bar (I don’t see him listed on the roster, so I don’t know his name). He mentioned the increased urgency as well saying, “People are more aggressive today, there’s always someone going for the shot.” Another observer and I thought the players looked like they were getting more confident with each other too, resulting in much smoother play.

I also spoke with Robert Grant, a keeper from Scotland, after the first scrimmage. He made a comment that must be common around the PDL, “I’m tired, homework just knocks me out.” It's got to be hard to juggle playing soccer and keeping up on the classes.

Bryan Black, one of the keepers I wrote about yesterday, was at it again this morning. He seemed to be holding his own, making a tough challenge during the second scrimmage.

Just before I left, I talked to Chad Sackett. He’s not looking forward to trimming the roster down to the 24 player limit. He also mentioned that they’d recruited three high school players to come out, and would have one more slot to fill from the other high schoolers who’d come out.

One final note, I was surprised at how international the trialists were. There were a couple of guys from Scotland, a couple from Brazil, and some from Mexico. It’ll be interesting to see how many of them make the team, and how that will affect the flavor of play this year.

BYU 2008 Tryouts

2008-02-28T08:32:00.000-08:00

My son and I hit the Indoor Practice Facility over at BYU at 6^AM this morning to watch the first session of tryouts. It was really exciting to see 70-odd players there, everyone from returning players to high school students looking for a spot on the team.

After a quick briefing by Coach Watkins, the players were split into a number of teams to play a series of scrimmages. Two short field games at a time, plus players in other parts of the building made for a lot of soccer watching opportunities, but not a lot of insight from me. (I’m glad there were multiple coaches there to keep an eye on things and that there will be four more sessions to get everything sorted out.)

One of the players who jumped out at me immediately was #2, Bryan Black (he’s the guy in red in the picture above). Bryan’s a lanky keeper, who’s just come back from two year mission in Minnesota, “not a big soccer hotspot” he said. Bryan’s reach proved formidable to opposing strikers, as he did very well at stopping nearly everything kicked toward his goal.

Another keeper that stood out was KC, a High School Senior. KC was vocal and effective in organizing his defense, this was complemented by some very athletic play including a great diving, twisting save.

Even solid displays of talent in goal by the newcomers won’t necessarily lead to a spot on the team though. Returning standout keeper Brandon Gilliam talked about this being a tough year since there were three returning keepers. The upside to this is that BYU should be able to field an excellent stable of keepers this year.

There were good players at every position at the tryout this morning. Coach Chad Sackett said that with the talent here, the team was probably going to “need to cut three or four players from last year, returning players.” While we were talking about the quality of the trialists, I asked Brian Black if he saw anyone that impressed him, he replied:

There are a lot of good players here, so it’s not really that someone stands out as being good. You can see some little things though. The returning players are a little different too. You could field a couple of good teams with the players here this morning.

Given my schedule, I won’t be able to catch any more sessions until the final one on Saturday evening. I’ll do what I can to keep up on things in the meantime.

Other notes:

I saw a small crew from True Blue there to catch the tryouts and talk to some of the players, coaches, and hopefuls. I think this is a good sign for BYU soccer coverage.
I also talked to the guys working on a new website for BYU Soccer—it sounds like they’ve got some good stuff in store for fans this year. I’m hoping to start seeing some highlights up on YouTube.
The funnest competition to watch was between some of the keepers on the sidelines. There were a couple of balls caught in the rolled up side netting of the facility, and the keepers were throwing balls at them to knock them free.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

2008-02-27T17:25:00.000-08:00

Wow! I just found out that The Globe and Mail has started a soccer blog called "on Soccer". Their archive only covers February of 2008, while mine goes back to April of 2007. I'm guessing the just didn't know about my blog, but I'll pretend that they're just trying to flatter me.

Since they already have a "Globe on Basketball" blog, maybe they could rebrand their soccer blog to "Globe on Soccer" — just so people don't get us confused.

SYL players abroad

2008-02-22T07:43:00.000-08:00

The USL recently released a list of Super Youth League (SYL) players who will train with West Ham. It looks like the list was pulled together by SYL staff based on the players performance at the 4 day U-13 and U-17 camp held in Cocoa, Florida last month.

Here are the players, 10 field players and 2 goal keepers:

Justin Maheu	F	Ottawa Fury
Fabian Bastidas	M	Sunrise SC
Ryan Lehman	M	Atlanta Fire United
Glenroy Chapman	D	South Jersey Barons
Giovanni Freitas	D	Sunrise SC
Aaron Liang	D	Santa Cruz County Breakers
Alan Narvaez	D	Juventus Sport Club
Renato Pezzulo	D	Parsippany SC
Antonio Schneider	D	Chicago Magic
Sekani Sinclair	D	Schulz Academy
Cody Cropper	GK	Bangu Tsunami
Cody Mizell	GK	Atlanta Silverbacks

Given the presence of so many SYL and PDL players in the MLS SuperDraft, it’s probably worth watching these players over the next several years. It will also be interesting to see how many of these players end up skipping the USL and MLS to play in European leagues when they get older.

I’m a little surprised at the number of defenders on the list, but as the program continues through the coming years I think we’ll see other positions show up as well.

An Open Letter

2008-02-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

I've really liked James Edward's new RSL blog and wanted to pass along the news to James and a couple of the editors over at Deseret News to let them know about it. Unfortunately, the mail bounced due to 'content restrictions'. So I've decided to make this an open letter instead. Here's the message itself (along with the failure message from the desnews mail server).


  This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

  Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

    jedward at desnews dot com

  Technical details of permanent failure:
  PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 550 5.7.1 Message rejected due to content restrictions

    ----- Original message -----

  Received: by 10.142.178.13 with SMTP id a13mr7307458wff.196.1203580103267;
       Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:48:23 -0800 (PST)
  Subject: RSL Blog


  James,
  I just wanted to send off an email to tell you how much
  I'm enjoying your RSL blog.  I've really appreciated
  the extra coverage of the team during the FL segment of
  their pre-season.

  Too bad you can't make the Argentina leg too, it would be
  great to get the inside scoop on what's sure to be the most
  important phase of RSL's pre-season.  Hopefully you'll be
  able to get some good info from the team.

While I didn't write it in the original email, this seems like a good time to put in an additional plea. I'd love to see the blog (and the Deseret News in general) cover other aspects of Utah professional soccer as well. We're not too far away from the PDL preseason for Ogden and BYU, and it would be great to see them both get better coverage.

West Virginia Chaos Staffing News

2008-01-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

The PDL’s West Virginia Chaos have made a move that looks new to me. I’ve been thinking about the PDL’s impact on the upper level USL leagues and MLS for a while, and this seems like another step in the right direction.

On January 29th they announced the hiring of a ‘international consultant’, Dave Beasant. Beasant was a goalkeeper for a number of english clubs and for the English National team (playing in the 1990 World Cup). With his links to Fulham (as a goalkeeping coach), his move to American soccer seems a natural fit.

What’s really appealing to me is the role that Beasant is supposed to play. Quoting from the press release:

Beasant will take an active role in Chaos camps and with talent evaluation through videos and personal visits to several matches this season that will help the Chaos place players on MLS, USL-1, USL-2, and potentially European teams.

The idea of a member of the FO working as a ‘reverse scout’ or a pseudo-agent is intriguing. It will be interesting to see how many Chaos players end up moving on to more senior sides because of it and how many other PDL clubs start doing the same thing.

In the same announcement, the Chaos also announced the hiring of another Brit, Jack Thompson. Thompson will be a player/coach and the Director of Chaos Camps. He’s 24 and holds a USSF ‘C’ coaching license.

Changing Face of the PDL Northwest

2008-01-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

The face of the PDL Northwestern Division is changing. In addition to a brand new team this year (and one more for 2009), there are a couple of new coaches on existing teams. None of these coaches appears to be super well known, but here’s what I know about them.

Cascade Surge

The Cascade Surge have hired Larry Delamarter as the team’s new Head Coach. He has been a High School level coach for the last seven years, being named Coach of the Year for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. His Chieftains have posted an incredible 62-6-9 record over the last four seasons. He also coached the Azusa Pacific University and University of Tampa. (In fact, he coached current Surge President Dave Irby who played at Azusa and later made Irby an assitant coach there.) It will be interesting to watch Coach Delamarter’s transition to the PDL.

h2 Abbotsford Rangers

Last season, Coach Colin Miller joined the staff at Derby County in the EPL. Hehas been replaced by Shaun Lowther. Coach Lowther is a former Canadian mens’ national team player, and earned 14 caps. He played professionally from 1980-1988. He’s also been involved in managing soccer clubs in the CSL. Coach Miller is the only one of the three new coaches to have a page on wikipedia so far.

Vancouver Whitecaps Residency

The new team in the bunch, the Vancouer Whitecaps Residency, has named Thomas Niendorf, Managing Director and Head Coach. Quoting from their site:

Thomas Niendorf is a European coaching specialist who holds a DFB (German Soccer Federation)professional coaching license, and maintains an extensive network of contacts in Europe.

Coach Niendorf has a long history with Canadian soccer. He coached the Calgary Storm (and then Mustangs) of the old A League for a number of years, he also coached in Germany. He ‘discovered’ Owen Hargreaves, helping him get a trial with Bayern Munich when he was cut by the Canadian U17 squad.

It’s safe to say that Coach Niendorf has the best credentials of the three. It will be interesting to see how he does with a first year PDL team.

Victoria Highlanders

Since they won’t start playing until 2009, there’s not much to say about this club yet. Victoria is a great city though, and did well hosting U20 World Cup games. This should be a solid addition to the division. (Not to mention taking the ferry from Port Angelas, WA or Vancouver, BC will make for a fun trip—and a great pre-tailgate party.)

BYU's 2008 Schedule Released

2008-01-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

The PDL has released its schedule for 2008. I’ve extracted the BYU games here:

Date	Day	Visiting Team	Home Team	Time (MDT)
May 16	Friday	Cascade Surge	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
May 17	Saturday	Spokane Spiders	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
May 23	Friday	BYU Cougars	Yakima Reds	8:05 PM
May 24	Saturday	BYU Cougars	Tacoma Tide	8:05 PM
May 30	Friday	BYU Cougars	Abbotsford Mariners	7:30 PM
May 31	Saturday	BYU Cougars	Vancouver Whitecaps	4:00 PM
June 13	Friday	Yakima Reds	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
June 14	Saturday	Tacoma Tide	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
June 17	Tuesday	BYU Cougars	Ogden Outlaws	7:00 PM
June 13	Friday	Yakima Reds	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
June 14	Saturday	Tacoma Tide	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
June 17	Tuesday	BYU Cougars	Ogden Outlaws	7:00 PM
June 26	Thursday	BYU Cougars	Spokane Spiders	8:00 PM
June 28	Saturday	BYU Cougars	Cascade Surge	8:05 PM
July 4	Friday	Ogden Outlaws	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
July 12	Saturday	BYU Cougars	Ogden Outlaws	7:00 PM
July 15	Sunday	Ogden Outlaws	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
July 18	Friday	Vancouver Whitecaps	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM
July 19	Saturday	Abbotsford Mariners	BYU Cougars	7:30 PM

This year, all of BYU’s games are against conference foes (unlike last year when the Colorado Rapids U23 played at BYU). Ahh, the joys of expansion.

I did see some interesting bits:

BYU plays the Ogden Outlaws four times in 2008
BYU plays Tacoma and Yakima each twice at home and once away
BYU plays all the other teams just twice, once at home and once away.
BYU begins and ends their season with Friday and Saturday home stands
BYU plays ten home games and only nine away games

This looks like a pretty exciting season. I’m really looking forward to mid-May when I can catch my first regular season game. Who knows, maybe I’ll b able to sneak in some pre-season action too.

More From the RSL-BYU Game

2007-10-12T09:51:00.001-07:00

This time of year, it's hard to get a good picture without better equipment than my son was using, but I did like this picture of RSL taking the field at the beginning of the game. Hopefully we'll get some better pictures at next week's game against UVSC.

RSL-BYU Friendly

2007-10-11T13:25:00.001-07:00

“We’re on the march with Watkin’s army …”, 850 BYU and RSL fans showed up to cheer for the two teams in last night’s friendly. A lot of the fans were faced with the tough choice of which team to root for. A small pocket of RCB fans were there with RSL flags, but were on their best behavior noting that “We don’t want to get kicked out of the game in the first ten minutes.”

There was a lot of friendly banter between the RCB contigent and the BYU fans, and the same feeling seemed to be present on the field. It was a friendly that lived up to its name, with no cards issued and very few fouls.

RSL came out on top on two goals by Yura Movsisyan (one in the 14th minute and the other in the 53rd). RSL played a number of regular starters along with several bench players, while a number of new faces were on the field for BYU to go with some of their familiar faces.

BYU’s Coach Watkins didn’t seem too put out by his team’s loss to RSL, saying:

It was a great opportunity for our young guys to get out there and to learn quickly. ... We looked a little disorganized out there, but we’ve only had five practices so far this fall. We’ll get better, back to where we were during the season.

One of the new BYU players getting time in the game was freshman, Derek Taylor. He called it a fun game, and added that he grew a lot as a player in facing a professional team. Taylor also talked about the big difference in facing RSL, “It was definitely an adjustment for me because everything was a lot faster in tonight’s game than what I’m used to as a player back home.”

BYU plays again on Tuesday, Oct. 16th when they welcome the UVSC men’s soccer team to the South Field for a friendly match. See you there.

BYU Friendly in the rain

2007-10-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

My son and I tried to go to the UVSC @ BYU friendly tonight. Instead of the game, we got some lessons in the realities of PDL soccer.

The game itself was cancelled. I had a chance to talk to a couple of team representatives about the reasons. It turned out that there were two big reasons:

To protect the field: BYU is hosting a tournament on the field and with the bad weather they were concerned about it’s condition with an extra game
Finances: The soccer team needs to pay for their use of the field, and with the poor weather, they didn’t expect to draw a large enough crowd to cover their costs.

Since the UVSC mens team wasn’t there, BYU decided to hold an open, intra-squad scrimmage on their practice field. Between players who were on the roster in 2007 and some of the other players who are eyeing spots in 2008, they were able to field a full 11 on 11 scrimmage with several substitutions.

Even with the cancellation, there were about 50 fans there in the cold and wet. They were mostly family and friends of players, something that’s pretty common at BYU games anyway.

The scrimmage itself was a lot of fun to watch. We were right on the field (standing on the sidelines mingling with the team). While we were there, we had a chance to talk to Zach DeFrancis’brother juke the goal keeper, and put a great header into goal.

The game against UVSC is being rescheduled for Tuesday the 16th, and BYU is playing a friendly against RSL this week, so it looks like I’ll have a couple more chances to watch the Cougars play this month.

Sounders to the MLS

2007-09-27T09:12:00.001-07:00

Well, it looks like the Sounders are coming to the MLS in 2009, but that might mean they’re leaving the USL in 2008. Wow! I’m super excited to see Seattle getting into the MLS, but I’ve got to add some caveats to that:

I really hope there’s a continued USL1 presence in the Puget Sound area. Maybe in Tacoma? (The down side to that would be the loss of a great PDL rival to the BYU Cougars.) If, in fact, the Sounders aren’t coming back to the USL1 next year to try to help market the MLS Sounders for 2008 the USL should ensure that there’s a way to keep the Cascadia Cup a three-team affair.

I’d like to see the MLS version of the Sounders looking a lot like the current Sounders. Brian Schmetzer is a solid coach and would do well in the MLS. Sebastien Le Toux is a good looking striker, and there are a number of other good players on the team. This doesn’t mean that all the current players are MLS caliber, but there is something to be said for cohesion—and you know what, it might be interesting to see what promotion might look like in the MLS instead of yet another team built from the expansion draft.

The MLS needs to get Portland and Vancouver into the mix as well. This three-way rivalry is too good not to keep alive, and would translate well into the MLS. Throw in the natural Portland-San Jose rivalry and the potential for a Canadian Cup between Toronto and Vancouver and you get a lot of bang for some Northwestern expansion bucks.

These aren’t new ideas, I’ve been talking about them for a while, and I’ve seen them elsewhere as well. I just hope that ‘the powers that be’ are considering them.

Week 25 Extra Power Rankings

2007-09-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

Okay, time again for my (completely subjective) ‘extra power rankings’, where I’ll toss the USL1 semi-finalists in with my ranked MLS teams. I caught some flack on the Atlanta discussion boards and in a comment on my extra power rankings from last week for putting Puerto Rico ahead of the Silverbacks. It looks like I did indeed goof that up, Atlanta has shot up from #16 to #10 below—hopefully this is a more realistic picture. Anyway, here’s how I see it:

Ranking	Team
1	DC United (clinched)
2	Chivas USA (clinched)
3	Houston Dynamo (clinched)
4	New England Revolution (clinched)
5	New York Red Bulls (in the mix)
6	Kansas City Wizards (in the mix)
7	Chicago Fire (in the mix)
8	FC Dallas (in the mix)
9	Seattle Sounders (in USL1 Finals)
10	Atlanta Silverbacks (in USL1 Finals)
11	Portland Timbers (eliminated from USL1 Playoffs)
12	Columbus Crew (in the mix)
13	Colorado Rapids (in the mix)
14	Real Salt Lake
14	Los Angeles Galaxy
15	Puerto Rico Islanders (eliminated from USL1 Playoffs)
17	Toronto FC

What do you think? Am I way off base on any of these?

Week 25 Power Rankings

2007-09-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

Much more movement this time around. There were some real surprises, perhaps the biggest was FC Dallas dropping 3 points to the LA Galaxy. This turned out to be a bit longer than I’d thought, but hopefully it’s all worth while. Read on for my rankings and some explanations.

The Good

1) DC United (50 pts, 26 games, 1.92 ppg)—Even missing most of their mid-filed, DC held a strong Fire team to a draw and came home with a point. Facing Toronto in RFK should keep DC on the winning path (and keep their boistrous fans happy). DC and Chivas are tied with a maximum of 62 possible points for the season, and are the co-leaders for the supporters shield.

2) Chivas USA (47 pts, 25 games, 1.88 ppg)—It’s Chivas’ turn to take on the Fire. Playing in LA will help. It’ll be interesting to see how Chivas fans take to Blanco. DC and Chivas are tied with a maximum of 62 possible points for the season, and are the co-leaders for the supporters shield.

3) Houston Dynamo (45 points, 26 games, 1.73 ppg)—Houston didn’t play this week, but moved ahead of the revolution anyway … good way to spend a bye week.

4) New England Revolution (46 pts, 26 games, 1.77 ppg)—The Revs took on a little water by not beating New York on Saturday. Getting to play the Rapids in New England should take the edge off.

The Fair

Other than the race for the supporters shield, this is the group where all the action is. Six teams are battling it out for four playoff spots. (Well, it’s more like four teams are battling it out for two slots, I think New York and Dallas have pretty well written their invitations.)

5) New York Red Bulls (38 points, 26 games, 1.46 ppg)—Pulling off a tie against the Revolution was big for them, and facing RSL in the Swamp should help them build up some points as well. They did come away with a draw in Salt Lake earlier this year (back when RSL wasn’t playing so well), so this won’t be automatic.

6) Kansas City Wizards (36 points, 26 games, 1.38 ppg)—Losing to Chivas at home wasn’t what they’d hoped for. KC still owns their own fate, but they need to pull things together. Facing LA at home should be good for three points, which will help. With a maximum possible of 48 points, the Wizards are officially out of the race for the supporters shield.

7) Chicago Fire (32 points, 26 games, 1.23 ppg) — The draw against DC is a decent result — the one against KC, less so. The fire just looked old and tired most of their Thursday night game (and the Blanco-cam sucked). Playing at Chivas isn’t going to help them either. With a maximum possible of 44 points, the Fire are officially out of the race for the supporters shield.

8) FC Dallas (40 pts, 26 games, 1.54 ppg)—Losing to LA was just bad. That’s why I dropped Dallas so far this week. Playing the Dynamo on Sunday is a great chance for redemption and if they can squeak out the win against a cross-state and divisional rival, so much the better.

9) Columbus Crew (31 pts, 26 games, 1.19 ppg)—They beat TFC … which is kind of like the the Red Sox beating the PawSox at their annual game. On the other hand, the Crew will also go down in history as the team that let TFC off the hook on their record scoring drought. With a maximum possible of 43 points, the Crew are officially out of the race for the supporters shield.

10) Colorado Rapids (29 pts, 26 games, 1.12 ppg)—Not only did they lose, they lost to RSL and hurt their chances at the Rocky Mountain Cup (the only silverware they still had a chance to take. With a maximum possible of 41 points, the Rapids are officially out of the race for the supporters shield.

The Bad

Mathematically, all of these teams are still alive in the playoff race. If Chicago can nail down 4 points, Colorado 7, or Columbus 5 each of these teams will be eliminated. I wouldn’t look for any of them to be showing up in the 2007 post season though.

11) Real Salt Lake (23 pts, 26 games, .88 ppg)— After dropping two points to the surging LA Galaxy (can I really call the Gals surging?), RSL came back and took three from Colorado. 4 points in a week isn’t too bad, and the coaching staff and new GM are looking hard at players for the 2008 season (more on this later). RSL will be lucky to get a point this week at New York.

11) Los Angeles Galaxy (21 pts, 24 games, .87 ppg) — On the strength of a draw against RSL and a win against FC Dallas, I’m moving them up a bit— problem is, RSL is looking better too. Playing at the Wizards and then at the Crew doesn’t look like a good way to make up ground on anyone (though the Crew are going nowhere fast).

13) Toronto FC (21 pts, 25 games, .84 ppg)—They broke their scoring slump, but they’re still sitting at the bottom of the table. Playing at DC this week probably won’t put any points on the table for them.

More on the Peruvian Relief Game

2007-09-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve gotten a little bit of information back from Coach Watkins about the relief game being played after the LA Galaxy – RSL game on the 19th. One gem is that another BYU player has been invited to participate.

Chad Sackett invited Steve [Magleby], Hugh [Van Wagonen], and I to play in the game. We are looking forward to the game. It looks like it will be a competitive match. I am sure Steve and Hugh will do well, not so sure how much I have left in my legs.

When I asked Chad about the BYU selections (and the selections generally), he said:

We have invited 2 of the BYU players because of their past involvement in training with the RSL reserve team. Coach Watkins was invited as part of his help with providing BYU players for RSL reserve opportunities and as a local soccer player that has played at a high level. The other players have some tie to RSL as players, coaches or staff members.

I also asked him if there were a way for people to make contributions to the reflief effort, he recommended calling Francisco at 801-856-7619.

Week 24 Extra Power Rankings

2007-09-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

It looks like my combined rankings drew some attention from the Sounders Forum. I’d love to hear what Sounders (or other USL1 fans) think about these rankings. This time around, I’ve only included the USL1 teams that survived to the second round of the playoffs.

Ranking	Team
1	DC United
2	Chivas USA
3	New England Revolution
3	Houston Dynamo
5	FC Dallas
6	Chicago Fire
6	New York Red Bull
8	KC Wizards
9	Seattle Sounders
10	Portland Timbers
11	Colorado Rapids
12	Columbus Crew
13	Real Salt Lake
14	Toronoto FC
15	Puerto Rico Islanders
16	Atlanta Silverbacks
17	LA Galaxy

The top three USL1 teams would probably play at competitively against the lower end of the MLS table. After that, I think there’s enough of a drop-off that we’d see a new ‘bottom-tier’ of teams beneath TFC. Right now, the Galaxy looks so bad, I think any of the USL1 teams that are still playing could beat them.

Week 24 Power Rankings

2007-09-17T10:23:00.001-07:00

There was a bit of minor movement in the rankings this time around. The biggest drop didn’t include a change in numeric rankings though, as we saw ne team switch tiers.

The Good

1) DC United (49 pts, 25 games, 1.96 ppg)—Barely beating RSL isn’t the best way to keep the top spot, but their only challenger managed to tie the Rapids … Playing the Fire on Sunday should be a good game, and will help cement DCU’s top spot with a win (or really push up the Fire if they pull off the upset).

2) Chivas USA (44 pts, 24 games, 1.83 ppg)—The lopsided result over LA made a case for them pulling ahead of DCU in my power rankings, but that ugly draw in Colorado (and up a man as well) keeps them stuck in second. The goats need to prove that they can win on the road.

3) New England Revolution (45 pts, 25 games, 1.80 ppg)—New England’s win over Dallas was a lot more convincing than Houston’s over LA. I’m putting these two teams into a tie for 3rd.

3) Houston Dynamo (45 points, 26 games, 1.73 ppg)—See above. On the other hand, Houston is getting sme players back and a week off. Hopefully they can come back strong.

The Fair

5) FC Dallas (39 pts, 24 games, 1.62 ppg)—The bad news is that their loss at New England drops them out of the upper tier, the good news is that they’re now the best team in the middle of the pack.

6) New York Red Bulls (37 points, 25 games, 1.48 ppg)—Pulling out a draw in Chicago pushes them into a draw. These are two teams that are looking pretty good right now.

6) Chicago Fire (30 points, 24 games, 1.25 ppg)—Looking ahead, the Fire can really gain some ground with a win at Dallas on Thursday, but Sunday is going to be a tough game at home. Four points would be a big statement.

8) Kansas City Wizards (36 points, 25 games, 1.44 ppg)—They beat the Crew, but didn’t look great doing it. I’m pretty the Wizards will make the playoffs, but I don’t think they’ll get much past that.

9) Colorado Rapids (29 pts, 25 games, 1.16 ppg)—They tied a Chivas team with road performance issues, that’s enough to keep them out of the lower tier and to move the Rapids above the Crew, but neither team really looks very good.

10) Columbus Crew (28 pts, 25 games, 1.12 ppg)—Yuck. Giving up the game in stoppage time like that looks like something that one of the the cellar dwellars below would do. If Columbus wants tomake the playoffs they need to play harder (and keep their fingers crossed), a Saturday game against TFC should help.

The Bad

11) Real Salt Lake (19 pts, 24 games, .79 ppg)—I’m keeping them ahead of TFC, only because a) they’ve scored recently and b) they managed to pull out a draw after almost 80 minutes of play while a man down. RSL can take 6 points this week, but given the way they’ve played anything from there on down to 0 would be unsurprising.

12) Toronto FC (21 pts, 24 games, .87 ppg)—Will TFC finally score against Columbus this week? A win is probably asking too much.

13) Los Angeles Galaxy (17 pts, 22 games, .77 ppg)—the RSL game might be almost fair (both teams reek of unmet promise, RSL will be without Espindola, LA will be playing at altitude). I don’t think there’s any question that the Galaxy are the league doormat right now.

Week 24 Early Results

2007-09-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

RSL 1-2 DCU: RSL looked pretty good in a losing effort. While they’re not going to make the playoffs this year, they’ve got to worry the Rapids and the Dynamo who are both looking for points (for the playoffs and the supporters sheild respectively). DCU is still looking dominant, and is in great position for both the playoffs and the supporters sheild.

LA 0-3 Chivas USA: LA spent most of the game looking ineffective until Chivas blew the game open in the closing minutes, then they just looked lost. Chivas could easily ride their momentum to a first place finish in the west, and maybe even the supporters sheild.

These two early games give us a little peak into next weeks rankings.

Of the losing sides, RSL played a better game and looked much more dangerous. I think this should push them further ahead of LA in the power rankings. A convincing RSL win Saturday’s RSL-TFC game would really cement that, but isn’t really enough to push them ahead of Colorado.

Between the winners, the Goats were much more convincing. I’d give them a slight edge over DCU, with a possible tie or usurption of 1st place if they can put a beating on the Rapids on Sunday. DCU still holds an edge over Chivas in ppg but the gap is closing.

Feeling (Not So) Good About Our Last Game

2007-09-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

“We have to look at our group and feel very, very good about what they put into that game,” said RSL coach Jason Kreis.

Or not. I’d like to take some comfort in the fact that RSL played to the end and hung tough against two of the best sides in the MLS, but there have been too many ‘moral victories’ already this year. “We’re playing better” and “We’ve made such an improvement” were thrown at us so often this season that they’ve lost their punch. Now that we actually are playing better (and even stand to pick up six points over the next week, moving us further ahead of the Galaxy and TFC) it’s hard to feel good about a pair of losses.

At least now, there can’t be much more false hope of a miraculous finale which ends in a playoff berth. RSL and its fans can resign themselves to playing for next year, and there is something to play for there. We’ve got a great looking cast of youngsters and a raft of draft picks for next year. The next seven games should allow us plenty of time to evaluate current players, build some cohesion, and maybe even set a tone for next year.

RSL to host game for Peruvian quake relief

2007-09-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

RSL has announced that the Sep 19th game against the visiting LA Galaxy will be followed by a 30 minute friendly with ‘Team South America’ facing ‘Team Utah’. Some of the gate receipts from the double header will be donated to Peruvian earthquake relief.

Two BYU Cougars will be involved in the game, Coach Watkins and Steve Magleby (who’s played with RSL’s reserves several times over the last couple of years) will be playing on ‘Team Utah’. I’m touching base with them to see what they have to say about it. More later.

A (Possible) Positive Result From the DP Rule

2007-09-12T03:10:00.000-07:00

In his September 11th Inside Soccer article, Grant Wahl wrote:

2. The Galaxy’s ‘08 schedule needs to make sense. ... Keep in mind, Beckham might also miss a significant chunk of ‘08 if England qualifies for the European Championship (June 7-29, 2008). Don’t expect the Galaxy to be playing many games from late May to mid-June next year.

As I read this, I thought about the other DPs, and what playing time they might or might not get for their national teams. Is this kind of impact something that might move beyond Beckham? I doubt that we’ll see JPA, Reyna, or Denilson called up but Blanco is a possibility. Then there are a number of non-DPs that are seeing time on their own nations benches. Perhaps the added visibility of the DPs will force the MLS to start taking FIFA international dates more seriously—and, hey, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

2007-09-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

I already put together my MLS Power Rankings for week 23, but as I was doing it, I wondered where the top USL1 sides would fit. Now that their season is over and they’re headed into the post season, here’s where I’d slot the USL playoff teams in the MLS:

DC United
Chivas USA
New England Revolution
Houston Dynamo
FC Dallas
Chicago Fire
New York Red Bull
KC Wizards
Columbus Crew
Seattle Sounders
Portland Timbers
Colorado Rapids
Real Salt Lake
LA Galaxy
Montreal Impact
Toronoto FC
Atlanta Silverbacks
Rochester Raging Rhinos
Puerto Rico Islanders
Vancouver Whitecaps
Carolina Railhawks

Week 23 Power Rankings

2007-09-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Weeks of non-soccer obligations and outright neglect have basically killed off my scariness rankings—at least for now, hopefully I can get them in shape in time for the playoffs. In their place, let me offer up my take on power rankings. The league splits pretty readily into 3 tiers, with some hints of movement between them. Here’s how I see it:

The Good

Up at the top of the stack are the good teams. These five clubs are pretty much assured of playoff spots and four of them should be in next years Super Liga (though there may be a surprise here).

DC United (48 pts, 24 games, 2 ppg)—These guys are red hot at the right time. Emilio is looking unstoppable and should handily break 20 goals for the season. Several other DCU players are playing well enough to look like MVP candidates on a lot of the league. Even better, the team as a whole is just clicking. Upcoming game: RSL @ DCU
Chivas USA (40 pts, 22 games, 1.81 ppg)—With a draw against DCU, a solid win over the Red Bulls, and a very soft schedule over the remaining eight games on their schedule the Goats are looking very good too. I expect to make a play for the Supporters Shield this year. Shoot, even their Sueno player is looking pretty good. Upcoming game: LAG @ Chivas USA
New England Revolution (42 pts, 24 games, 1.75 ppg)—Even dropping their last game to DC United, the Revs are looking pretty good. Their remaining schedule looks pretty soft too, though they have fewer games remaining than Chivas. Upcoming game: FC Dallas @ New England
Houston Dynamo (42 points, 25 games, 1.68 ppg)—They toughed out a win over RSL, and face RSL and the Galaxy (twice) over the rest of the season. They will be challenged by Chivas and FC Dallas games though. I don’t see them repeating as MLS cup winners. Upcoming game Dynamo @ LA Galaxy
FC Dallas (39 pts, 23 games, 1.69 ppg)—They beat up a sinking TFC and Denilson is looking pretty good, but it doesn’t look like enough. I think they’ll settle for four points from the next five games, and probably only eight more the rest of the season. That may be enough to dump them into the second tier of teams. Upcoming game: FC Dallas @ New England

The Fair

The next group of teams are battling it out for the playoffs (and a strong finish by on or two of them might even claim a spot in the Super Liga).

Chicago Fire (29 points, 23 games, 1.26 ppg)—Nine points in their last five games and a 7-4 aggrate score in those games makes this team look a lot better than their overall standing. Wanchope and Blanco have really been a boost to this team, and could push them into the top tier with continued solid play. Upcoming game: Red Bulls @ Fire
New York Red Bulls (36 points, 24 games, 1.5 ppg)—Injuries and recent results make this look like a team on the wane. It’s hard to count them out though with Jozy and JPA up front. Having RSL, TFC, and the Galaxy in the mix of their upcoming games should help them stack up some points though.
Kansas City Wizards (33 points, 25 games, 1.32 ppg)—Another team that’s dropping rapidly. A scary schedule that includes Chivas, DC United, the Red Bulls, and FC Dallas doesn’t bode well either, but I think they’ll be the eighth and final playoff team (will anyone come to watch their home games though?). Upcoming game: Columbus Crew @ KC Wizards
Columbus Crew (28 pts, 24 games, 1.16 ppg)—Three winnable games to finish out September then a tough October schedule don’t help the Crews chances of getting into the playoffs. I expect them to be on the outside looking in. Upcoming game: Columbus Crew @ KC Wizards.
Colorado Rapids (28 pts, 24 games, 1.16 ppg)—Two games against Chivas USA, one against the Revolution, and two against a resurgent RSL, and one against lowly TFC might see the Rapids only take six more points the rest of the year (they might not even keep the Rocky Mountain Cup this year). If that happens, Clavijo might not survive the off-season. The Rapids are on the verge of falling down to the bottom tier of teams. Upcoming game: Chivas USA @ Colorado

The Bad

If only the MLS and USL could work out relegation and promotion, there might be a reason to watch these guys finish out their season. These teams are just bad right now, though there may be some hope on the horizon—well at least the 2008 season.

Real Salt Lake (18 pts, 22 games, .81 ppg)—Their horrid start doomed RSL this year, but a coaching change and a roster overhaul are starting to pay dividends. RSL will play the spoiler this year, and should compete for a playoff spot ext year. Upcoming game: RSL @ DCU
Los Angeles Galaxy (17 pts, 20 games, .85 ppg)—Too many injuries and a terrible schedule are too much for the Galaxy to overcome. The good news is they won’t finish last in the league, but they won’t come close to being the super-team people expected. Upcoming game: Houston Dynamo @ LA Galaxy
Toronto FC (20 pts, 23 games, .86 ppg)—Except for a brief, shining moment, these guys have looked every bit the expansion club. With an injury list that might have them starting recruits from the PDL, things don’t look to improve anytime soon. At this point, just scoring again might seem like a victory. Upcoming game: RSL @ TFC

2020 Vision: The MLS Season

2007-09-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

With the end of the PDL season and before the recent RSL resurgence, it’s been hard to work up the interest in putting together a good post here. The last couple of weeks have helped build up a bit of momentum though, and here’s the result—my look at the future of RSL, the PDL in Utah, and MLS in general. I hope you like it.

Turning from the PDL and UTSA, it’s time to look at final third of the MLS season and what went before. MLS still plays a single season bracked by the Concacaf Champions cup at the beginning and the MLS Cup at the end, with a number of interesting activities in the middle. Since these form a convenient outline for the season, I’ll just follow along.

Concacaf Champions Cup

The 2020 Champions Cup saw MLS entrants DC United and the Seattle Sounders acquit themselves well, with both teams making it to the semis where the Sounders fell to Pachuca. DC United beat CD Guadalajara in the semis before falling to Pachuca in the finals.

We won’t know who’s going to the 2021 edition of the cup, since the season not over yet, but DC United has to be the favorite to make a return at try to add a second Concacaf trophy to their shelf (to match the one they earned in the 2015 cup). Seattle, RLS, San Jose, Montreal, Chivas USA, and the Boca Jrs USA all stand a good chance of qualifying for one of MLS’ two slots as well.

US Open Cup

Since the 2013 decision to invite the US Open Cup winner to the SuperLiga tournament, this competition has taken on new meaning for MLS teams. Last year, the USL1’s Tacoma United managed to squeak past the San Jose Quakes in a west coast final. This year may see another USL1 team make it through with FC Detroit playing the Chicago Fire in the finals.

The influx of media coverage and sponsorship money have also made the US Open Cup more attractive to all the teams involved. At this point, the purse is rich enough that every qualifying team gets a small purse, and the deeper a team goes the richer the payout.

SuperLiga

This has turned into a great competition with four US (and Canadian) teams, four Mexican teams, and a team each from Brazil and Argentina. Each year the US Open Cup winner, the MLS Supporters Sheild winner, the MLS Cup Winner, and the MLS team with the next best record to the three above) get berths in this tournament.

Last year São Paulo beat Club America in the final, breaking a three year run of MLS victories. This year’s field was offered some great competition, and featured several former SuperLiga winners. Next week will see the semi-finals being played, with Chivas USA facing the Boca Jrs at Azteca on Tuesday and a rematch of the Concacaf semi-finals with CD Guadalajara facing DC United in Washington on Thursday—Goats fans everywhere are hoping for an all Chivas final.

Supporters Sheild

Last year, the Seattle Sounders had the best record in the league to take this award. This year, they’re in the thick of it again. Here’s the table as it stands now:

Team	Pts	Games Played	Record
DC United	44	22	13-4-5
Seattle Sounders	44	23	13-5-5
Real Salt Lake	41	22	11-3-8
San Jose Earthquakes	39	21	11-4-6
Chivas USA	38	22	11-6-5
Montreal Impact	37	23	10-6-7
Boca Jrs USA	36	23	10-7-6
Chicago Fire	34	22	9-6-7
New York Red Bull	32	24	8-8-8
Colorado Rapids	29	22	8-9-5
FC Dallas	29	21	8-7-5
Philadelphia Patriots	27	22	7-9-6
St Louis	26	23	6-9-8
Portland Timbers	23	23	6-12-5
Houston Dynamo	21	21	5-12-6
New England Revolution	18	23	4-13-6
Columbus Crew	14	22	3-14-5
Los Angeles Galaxy	13	21	3-14-4

Over the last four or five years, Seattle and DC have slugged it out near the top of the rankings every year. Real Salt Lake and San Jose are pretty recent members of the top tier after toiling away in the middle of the pack for many years. Chivas USA and Montreal have been hanging out on the cusp of the top tier of the league for a while too and may be coming on at the right time. Down at the other end of the scale, New England, Columbus, and Los Angeles have been stinking it up for a while and are near the top of most arguments for relegation. Philadelphia and the New York red Bull have also fallen off a bit lately, after spending much of 2013-2017 meeting each other deep in the MLS cup playoffs.

MLS Cup

Last year, 2019 DC United took home the MLS cup in an 3-2 aggregate victory over the Seattle Sounders who had beaten them out for the Supporters Sheild. The teams with the top eight points totals will compete in a single elimination tournament, culminating in a home and away final. With nearly a third of the season left to go, it’s still too early to figure out who’ll be in the competition this year—there are a few teams who’re obviously out of the running though.

2020 Vision: Soccer in Utah

2007-09-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

Wow! It’s been another hard fought year in the Utah Cup, but the St. George Dragons have pulled out a victory in their first year back in the PDL beating out the division winning BYU Cougars.

The Utah Cup is a twelve year old competition between the Utah based teams in the PDL’s Northwestern Division. Each year, the cup is awarded to the team with the best intra-Utah record (ties are decided by head to head record, then goal differential). BYU has won the cup five times; Salt Lake City United and FC Jordan have both one it twice; and the Ogden Outlaws, FC Jordan, and the St George Dragons have each one it once.

While the Utah Cup highlights the best Utah teams in the PDL, there’s also a competition none of these teams want to be in, the relegation cup. The Utah Soccer Association (UTSA)¹ is a six team league that sits just beneath the PDL, in which it owns three franchises². Each year at the end of the season, the UTSA owned team in the PDL with the worst record plays in a one-game playoff against the UTSA champions. The winner plays in the PDL the next year, while the loser plays in the UTSA.

Last year, the St George Dragons dominated the UTSA season and beat the Ogden Outlaws in the relegation cup to join the PDL. This year, the Outlaws are back in the cup, hoping to knock off the Salt Lake City United and get back into the PDL.

This system of relegation/promotion and cross league franchise ownership has proven to be a good model for other leagues to investigate. A number of MLS fans have started to call for the league to try out something similar with the USL, especially after they’ve essentially promoted four USL1 teams as part of their expansion over the last ten years.

¹ The UTSA was founded in 2012 with the intent of developing semi-pro soccer in Utah. They bought their PDL franchises and established their system of promotion/relegation in 2016 to further push semi-pro soccer in Utah.

² Just for reference, here are the Utah teams in the PDL and the UTSA:

Four PDL Teams

BYU Cougars
FC Jordan (UTSA owned)
Salt Lake City United (UTSA owned)
St George Dragons (UTSA owned)

Six UTSA Teams

Lehi United
FC Logan
Ogden Outlaws
Southern Utah University T-Birds
Utah Valley University Wolverines
Snow College Badgers

Color Me Shocked

2007-08-29T20:05:00.001-07:00

RSL gets three points at home with a 1-3 win over the Wizards. There was no way I saw this happening. All three of the Argentines hand a hand in the scoring, and Andy Williams added what was said to be a tremendous goal (from ~50 yards out). Eddie Johnson got KC’s lone goal.

I almost can’t wait until Saturday to see what RSL can do to the Galaxy in LA.

A Tale of Two Writers

2007-08-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

Within the last month or so I’ve seen two different sides of Sports Illustrated’s feelings about soccer, both from ‘big name’ football (pointyball) writers.

Dr. Z played ‘bad cop’:

“Should the NFL be worried about MLS as competition now that Beckham has arrived? I mean, they do have a team in L.A., which the NFL can’t seem to do.”

You’re almost right there, Jonas. Except that the place they have chosen in which to showcase the Big B is Carson, Calif. And didn’t you read how the crowd of 27,000 in the Home Depot Center absolutely went wild, even though his team, the Galaxy, lost, 1-0.

... Threatening to immediately eclipse Beckham in popularity is the Chicago Fire’s Cuauhtémoc Blanco, whose attributes, according to the AP report of his debut against Celtic AC Sunday, were his “stutter-step dribbles, change of direction and uncanny backward passes.”

OK, so only 15,719 showed up in Bridgeview, Ill., at Toyota Park, but that’s almost capacity, isn’t it?

I dropped the not-so-funny jokes that are a mainstay of Dr. Z’s column, but it sure doesn’t look like he’s a fan.

Peter King is a much nicer read if you enjoy the beautiful game:

g. Sports Illustrated NFL editor Mark Mravic on the scene at what I heard was a great sports event, the MLS game (with David Beckham) between the New York and L.A. teams Saturday night at the Meadowlands, witnessed by 67,000 and won by the Red Bulls, 5-4:

“Well, the tailgate scene was kind of surreal. Just like a Jets or Giants game at the Meadowlands, with all the grills and tables and tents and even a few motorhomes, except that instead of people chucking footballs around the parking lot, there were about 10,000 pickup soccer games going. And at least half of the fans playing in those games were little urchins in Beckham jerseys. Inside, every time Beckham set up for a corner kick or a free kick, the crowd would rise in anticipation—and then a chorus of boos would cascade down. The Red Bulls fans may have been outnumbered, but they were louder by far. Beckham’s pure class, though. After the game he walked around the edge of the field applauding all the fans that showed up.

“I’ve been to bigger soccer games — U.S. – Mexico at the World Cup in Korea; U.S. – Italy last summer in Germany — but I’ve never had more fun at one.’‘

Soccer is really a fun game when done right. I hope that game helps the cause.

I can’t say that I’m a big fan for the Becks-love-fest that’s smothering almost everything else in the MLS off of TV right now, but I do hope to see a lasting increase in attendance and coverage for the MLS and USL leagues.

Building the Utah PDL Rivalry

2007-08-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

There’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and it’s finally percolated long enough that I wanted to get it out in front of everyone to see what you think. We’ve got two solid PDL teams here in Utah (and could probably support a third in Salt Lake City if it came to that). They play a pretty fierce rivalry (even if it’s been a bit one-sided so far), but I think there’s a way to get the clubs, and their fans, a bit more involved.

What we need is … ‘the Utah Derby’. A fan supported cup awarded to the Utah PDL team with the best record against in-state foes each year. It wouldn’t take much more than a handful of fans from each team (or maybe a sponsor or two) to kick in some money for a trophy to get this started. I’d like to think that the teams themselves would be interested.

This is certainly something that’s done in other parts of the soccer world—heck, the Rocky Mountain Cup even includes a Utah team. Making it happen along the Wasatch Front could be a great way to build an even better rivalry between Ogden and BYU, give more fans a reason to travel to the nearby away games, and maybe even put some more fans in the seats if we can get the local press going on it.

So here’s what it comes down to, if this is going to happen we’ll need to start organizing now for the 2008 PDL season. Anyone else want to get involved?

BYU Season wrap-up

2007-07-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

While the season didn’t end the way BYU wanted it to, a 0-3 shutout in the Western Conference finals at the hands of the Fresno Fuego, the team certainly has some things to feel good about after the 2007 season:

The Cougars 13-1-2 season marks their best PDL campaign to-date.
Two of their players were named to the all-conference team; Brock Trejo (M) and Hugh Van Wagenen (D)
They had six Team of the Week honors (including a Player of the Week) during the sixteen week season.
Brandon Gilliam, their starting goalkeeper, was second in the league in Goals Against Average with a .707 rating for the season.

The 2007 season also marks the last season for six departing seniors and assistant coach Brian Jolley.

This loss won’t be the last game that BYU plays in 2007 though. They’re promising a series of friendlies in the fall, though I’ve not seen any specifics yet.

Colorado Rapids U23s at BYU Cougars

2007-07-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

I winced when they introduced Brett Stevens as the ref tonight. It seems like he’s really called a bad game every time I’ve seen him. Tonight was no exception, with a number of missed calls. He also tends to call the scoreboard, and when Colorado went down a man that really hurt BYU.

Colorado scored first and controlled the run of play even when they went down a man early in the first half. Jake Cavanaugh scored the equalizer for BYU and both teams went on to squander a number of chances. When I asked Coach Watkins about the game he responded, “It wasn’t our best night, but we played hard and got a point.”

Sadly, the PDL playoffs are going to be in California this year. I’m not going to be able to make the roadtrip to watch the games, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the games the best I can. Good luck to Coach Watkins and the boys!

Hugh Van Wagenen Again!

2007-07-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

I took off for a week of scout camp, and BYU landed another spot on the PDL Team of the Week. Hugh Van Wagenen (D) was received the honor for second time this season, this time for his play in BYU’s two wins over Ogden. This marks the fifth time a BYU player has earned this honor.

In last night’s game, BYU seems to have put on another pretty good show. Steve Fellows and Daniel McKinley both scored with Hugh Van Wagenen and Zach DeFrancis getting assists. With another strong showing tonight BYU might land a sixth Team of the Week mention.

Next week, the PDL will announce their playoff schedule. With BYU near the top of the league in points, they should get get the chance to play several games at home.

Coach Watkins on Ogden-BYU 11 July

2007-07-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Chris Watkins, the BYU Coach was kind enough to comment on a couple of aspects of last night’s game. I got his answers too late to include in my game write-up, but I wanted to include them here where everyone could read them.

On BYU’s looking flat:

We were proud that we could win in a game where we were a bit off our game. Ogden defended quite well and made it difficult for us to get good looks at the goal.

On Zach DeFrancis’ second yellow card:

Zach showed a bit of his youth with that last tackle, he did get a piece of the ball, but it was not worth the chance he took. We had a sub at the table to take him out at the time.

Ogden-BYU game report: 11 July

2007-07-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

The simple recap:

It wasn’t a pretty game, but we came away with three points.

The longer story:

For the first two-thirds of the game, neither side really looked like they wanted the win. Ogden played a very tightly packed, defensive game while BYU spend a long time playing around the wings and probing for an exploitable weakness. Both sides managed to create some chances, but weren’t able to capitilize due to poor finishing.

A BYU triple subsitution in the 55th minute led to some crisper, more energetic play and, eventually, a goal in the 69th minute by Tyson Miller (assisted by Brock Trejo). Coach Watkins said “[O]ur subs came up big for us. We have come to rely on them.”

I’ve heard several people call Trejo the best player on the team, and on this goal he showed why he gets such praise. He took possesion of the ball in the box and drew the goal keeper and a couple of defenders, then cooly dumped a pass off to Miller who was wide open less than ten feet from the open goal.

Once again the ref didn’t do a very good job of controlling the game. There were a number of missed or bad calls early on, and only when the match got close did he really start to enforce things. Even then, there were two ref’s decisions that could have cost BYU the game.

The first came around the 70th minute (I didn’t catch the exact time), when Ogden substituted Ken Hickman onto the field even though he wasn’t on the sub list. Coach Watkins spent some significant time trying to get the refs to call this, but seemed to be warned that if he kept it up he’d get tossed. Not a good call by the officials involved, we’ll have to see what the USL does about it.
The second was a Yellow Card awarded to Zach DeFrancis (last week’s PDL Player of the Week ) in the 81st minute. The call really seemed like a reach for what looked like a pretty minor foul. It was compounded a minute later when DeFrancis was awarded a second yellow (this one deserved) and ejected.

With this win, BYU is 11 points ahead of FC Tacoma in the standings. Tacoma has 12 points still available in their season so a Tacoma loss or tie, or a BYU win in any upcoming game will clinch the division for BYU. Tacoma faces the Cascade surge on Friday and the Yakima Reds on Saturday—what can I say but ‘Go Cascades! Go Reds!’

BYU will face Ogden again when they travel to Ogden on Saturday to play the final game of their intra-Utah series (which BYU leads 2-0-1). Given the history between the two teams, this should be another close fought game.

Zach DeFrancis: PDL Player of the Week

2007-07-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

BYU has had their fourth player named to PDL Team of the Week honors, with Zach DeFrancis (M) being named Player of the Week for week 12 of the PDL season. Zach joins Doug Clark, Hugh Van Wagenen, and Richie Bindrup as Team of the Week honorees.

The PDL announcement detailed DeFrancis’ efforts in wins over Ogden and Spokane:

“The BYU Cougars, along with the unbeaten Hampton Roads Piranhas, became the first to clinch a playoff berth in the Premier Development League, picking up a pair of victories over Ogden and Spokane to move to 10-1-1 on the year. Zach De Francis tallied three goals and an assist in the effort.

“The Cougars opened the week on the Fourth of July against their state rivals on the wrong side of the scoreline as the Christenson brothers linked up for the opening goal for the Outlaws in the 26th minute. De Francis would level the score three minutes before the break for BYU. As the Cougars pulled away from a 2-2 scoreline late in the match De Francis would add a second goal for the night.

“The club then hit the road for a trip to Spokane Saturday and again found themselves trailing with Spokane’s Jake Moug tallied 19 minutes in. The Spiders lead held until De Francis set up David Clark in the 62nd minute to tie the game. Eleven minutes later Spokane again took the lead on a strike from Matt Stueckle, but De Francis would answer personally with his third goal of the week and team-leading sixth of the season in the 80th minute to tie the match up once more, allowing Toni Niccoli to bag the winner two minutes later.” USL News Release

The PDL weren’t the only ones to sing Zach’s praises though. Kim Christenson (BYU Media Relations) said, “This is a huge honor, to be named player of the week is no small feat. Zach really stepped up to the plate and earned this recognition.” Zach’s Coach, Chris Watkins, also speaks very highly of him, “He is now our best attacking player and we expect him to only get better.”

When asked about being named Player of the Week, DeFrancis responded, “It was just really exciting to hear that. I guess I was a little surprised as well.”

BYU has turned a lot of heads with its play this season. Hopefully that’s a trend that will continue on both the individual and team level.

Jason Kreis' Open Letter

2007-07-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

Jason Kries sent an ‘open letter’ to RSL fans and the Utah soccer community. As a member of both groups, I thought I’d post my initial thoughts in response.

First of all, this is more response (and recognition of just how bad things are) than I ever saw in the John Ellinger era at RSL. On the other hand this open letter is just an IOU until it’s backed up on the playing field.

Belief. Passion. Desire. Determination. Commitment. Sacrifice.

These are the core values inside the Real Salt Lake locker room, the values upon which team success is built and those we demand from every individual that walks through those doors. Nothing but the utmost adherence to these tenets is tolerated.

With the possible exception of the game against DC United, these values haven’t been displayed by the eleven players on the pitch for a full game so far this season. There’s a perception in the online fanbase that it’s better to be an ‘Kreis insider’ than to play hard. Kreis and the team are going to have to work hard to overcome that bias.

Our fans are the best in MLS, and have been since day one. That our fans share the same values — Belief, Passion, Desire, Determination, Commitment and Sacrifice — motivates every player, coach, and administrator in the RSL organization to forge ahead and redouble efforts to emerge from this rut.

I’m glad coaches and administrators were included in this. The front office is taking a lot of heat right now for their apparent bungling of PR, the stadium, personnel moves, etc. While several players have been traded/let go for not living up to these values, there hasn’t been a lot of accountability for the front office staff. These aren’t changes that Kreis can make, they are changes that the team needs to make.

As I said upon my introduction as Head Coach of RSL, “Fortune Favors the Bold.” I believe this in my heart of hearts, and the bold changes we are currently implementing in our team and in our coaching staff will bring imminent fortune.

Imminent, ‘ready to take place’, doesn’t really seem to describe a change in RSL’s fortune. I may be wrong, but to my eye’s it looks like there’s a long, hard way to go before before RSL is a good team. Perhaps a better catchphrase for the RSL players, coaches, and staff to consider is “less talk, more action”.

Ogden at BYU in the Local News

2007-07-11T11:04:00.001-07:00

Dan Rasmussen, over at the Deseret Morning news has written a piece on the BYU-Ogden game tonight. It includes some background on the two teams (more on BYU than Ogden), as well as notice that it will be on BYU-TV—a channel that appears on a lot of cable/dish line-ups. So if you’re interested in watching a USL game tonight, it just might be possible (July 11th, 7PM MDT).

I may record the game to watch again later, but I should be there for another (I hope) BYU win.

Scariness Catchup (Weeks 13 and 14)

2007-07-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Well, my work and home schedule finally caught up with me and I ended up missing last weeks scariness ratings. That made this weeks much harder to do. Since I needed to do some extra work (and since I felt guilty for missing last week’s post) I decided to add in some extra bits. Enjoy!

Week 13

Team	Adj Scariness	Wk 13 ranking	Wk 12	Wk 11	Wk 10	Wk 9
Houston	3.46	1	1	4	4	6
DC United	3.04	2	3	2	1	3
Columbus	2.93	3	4	10	13	13
Chivas	2.29	4	9	1	2	4
Dallas	1.75	5	6	9	6	12
Salt Lake	1.62	6	5	11	8	9
Toronto	1.50	7	7	3	9	5
New England	1.42	8	2	8	7	7
New York	0.85	9	8	6	5	2
Kansas City	0.84	10	10	5	3	1
Los Angeles	0.64	11	11	7	12	10
Chicago	0.44	12	12	12	11	11
Colorado	- 0.02	13	13	13	10	7

Before I give you the week 14 ratings, I thought I’d look at a couple of the games, make some belated predictions, then walk through the results and how they affected things.

First up, DC United (3.04) playing at Kansas City (0.84). Since I’m giving a point of scariness for playing at home, this would give DC a 1.2 point edge in scariness so I’d guess that they should win. This is just what happened, DC pulled out a 1-0 result and took three points on the road. Now, let’s see what this did to each of their ratings:

DC United won a game by one point, on the road against a KC team that had a 1 point per game (PPG) average. This raised their score from 3.04 to 3.25.
Kansas City lost by one point to a team averaging 2 PPG. This dropped their score from 0.84 to 0.43 (a lot of this drop came from their last winning dropping out of the range I consider for the scariness ratings).

Let’s look at the Toronto (1.50) at Real Salt Lake (1.62) for a counter example. Since RSL was at home, they end up with a 1.12 point edge, which I’d also think was good enough for a win. In reality, they dropped the game 0-2. How much did this hit their ratings:

Toronto won a road game by one points, and their score went up 0.65 points to 2.15.
RSL’s loss at home dropped them to 0.96 points.

If you look at the full week 14 schedule, adjusted scariness ‘predictions’ would have been 8-3-1. That’s not a bad average, but I’ve got a lot of hindsight working in my favor too. Here’s the full scariness table after week 14.

Week 14 Scariness Ratings

Team	Adj Scariness	Wk 14	Wk 13	Wk 12	Wk 11	Wk 10	Wk 9
Houston	4.1	1	1	1	4	4	6
Columbus	2.9	2	3	4	10	13	13
Dallas	2.8	3	5	6	9	6	12
DC United	2.29	4	2	3	2	1	3
Toronto	1.94	5	7	7	3	9	5
Los Angeles	1.52	6	11	11	7	12	10
New England	1.45	7	8	2	8	7	7
Chivas	1.15	8	4	9	1	2	4
Kansas City	0.86	9	10	10	5	3	1
New York	0.79	10	9	8	6	5	2
Salt Lake	0.38	11	6	5	11	8	9
Colorado	0.27	12	13	13	13	10	7
Chicago	0.2	13	12	12	12	11	11

There are a couple of things here that are interesting (at least to me). Kansas City and New York are both hanging out in cellar dweller land, but neither team has done much of late, so that’s probably not unfair. Salt Lake is still scarier than either Colorado and Chicago—I wonder how long that will last? Finally, for the first week that I recall, there are no teams with negative scariness.

I also included a history of previous scariness rankings so that you could see how consistent a team was. I’m not sure what to draw from those numbers other than that Houston and DC United have both looked very scary for the last several weeks and that Colorado and Chicago don’t look to be frightening anyone anytime soon.

Finally, I thought I’d use the current rankings to pick each of the games for week 15. Anything within .25 points will be a draw, wider spreads will go to the higher team. I’m not going to bother trying to pick scores.

Week 15 Picks by Scariness

Houston (4.1) @ Chicago (0.2 + 1)—Houston wins
FC Dallas (2.8) @ DC United (2.29 + 1)—DC wins
New England (1.45) @ New York (.79 + 1)—New York wins
Salt Lake (.38) @ Kansas City (.86 +1)—KC wins
Columbus (2.9) @ Chivas USA (1.15 +1)—Columbus wins
Toronto (1.94) @ Houston (4.1 + 1)—Houston wins

I’m not sure that there are any shockers there, but I guess we’ll see.

Jason Kreis, On The Hot Seat?

2007-07-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

Color me surprised. Bruce McGuire, over at du Nord put out his list of three MLS coaches on the hot seat. His list looked like this:

Fernando Clavijo – Colorado – rumored to be gone any day, but the geniuses who run the Colorado team don’t want to pay him and new coach. So they rot.
Frank Yallop – LA – his team stinks, and the rumors of chaos in LA get louder all the time.
Jason Kries – Salt Lake – absolutely nothing has changed since he took over except they got rid of one of the best goal scorers ever in MLS. Yes, Kries is green, but I believe he has no chance of turning this thing around. Could it be the Checketts curse? Maybe we should look up the New York Knicks record while he ran that team. I bet it’s sorry and only got worse over time, not better.

The first two names on the list make a lot of sense, and would probably show up on just about anyones list, but Jason Kreis surprises me. Not because RSL is doing well, but because of the awful mess he inherited. I’ve got to think that Kreis will be given at least the rest of the season to turn things around.

While there’s certainly a lot of local unhappiness over the team (see RSLFM, AYL, and KUTV among others), I don’t think that changing coaches again would help that—now if RSL would make some other front office changes, that might go over well.

Of course, there’s no telling what the next step in Dave Checkett’s diabolical plan is, but I hope it’s not dumping Kreis without giving him the time (and training) he needs to have a fair shot at turning things around.

US-Uraguay U-20 on ESPN? Here's a Way to Make it Happen.

2007-07-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

Over in the comments of Steven Goff’s blog I found this gem (slightly edited):

We need to start trying to convince ESPN to show the U-20 World Cup Round of 16 US game vs. Uruguay on ESPN as well. It would replace a repeat broadcast of the Home Run Derby. To contact ESPN, use their form

This is a great chance to give ESPN a reason to carry the Round of 16 game (and maybe the later games as well), so don’t just sit here reading my blog—go hit ESPN’s form and fill it out!

BYU at Spokane: July 7th

2007-07-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

BYU took a one game trip to Washington on Saturday, and came home with three points. It looks like Saturday’s game against Spokane was a good one. (Although, I’m pretty glad I didn’t have to go sit through another game in the 100+ degree heat—these summer games are brutal.)

BYU continued exchanging starts between Benjamin Walunas (tonight’s starter) and Brandon Gilliam in goal. Coach Chris Watkins explained, “[Ben] has been playing very well and is especially effective against very direct teams that serve in a lot of 50/50 balls.”.

Spokane put the first point on the board in the 19th minute off of a corner kick, and held the 0-1 score going into the half. The second half looks like it was almost all BYU though. Zach DeFrancis had another great game, getting an assist on David Clark’s goal in the 62nd minute and scoring one of his own in the 80th. Spokane put a second goal on the board in the 73 minute, when Matt Stueckle scored on another cornerkick. Super-sub Tony Nicola also scored for BYU (in his first minute on the field) getting an assist from fellow substitute Daniel McKinley.

Zach DeFrancis has played very well over the last several games, and is now leading the team with six goals and one assist in the 515 minutes he’s played this season. The six goals are even more impressive when you realize that they come in only nine shots, making DeFrancis a very effecient scorer. Watkins seems excited about him, saying “Zach is now fully recovered from the 2 years off he had while serving a mission. He is now our best attacking player and we expect him to only get better.”

Super-Sub Wins PDL Team of the Week Honors

2007-07-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

For the third time this season, BYU has had a player selected to the PDL team of the week for week 10. This time around, Doug Clark (M) was picked based on his play in Yakima on Friday, June 22nd. He came on in the 73rd minute as a late substitution for James Bindrup (who’d picked up a yellow card), and proceeded to score a goal and get an assist during his 17 minutes on the field.

Clark joins BYU players Hugh Van Wagenen (D) and Richie Bindrup (D) as PDL team of the week honorees. Given that there are 63 teams in the PDL, putting three players onto teams of the week speaks pretty highly of BYU. With the excellent effort put forward last night by several of their players against Ogden, they might see another name or two added to this list.

Ogden at BYU: July 4th

2007-07-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Last night we headed out to BYU’s South Field along with 800+ other folks. It turs out that BYU passed out some kind of flyer at the July 4th parade earlier in the day and pulled in a huge crowd in comparison to the others I’ve watched. There was even a significant Ogden contigent there—I guess since they’re only about 2 hours away that shouldn’t surprise me. BYU really blew it though, by not opening there concession stand. As hot as it was, they would have made a killing.

The game itself was pretty physical (27 fouls and 5 Yellow Cards) and really poorly ref’ed with a number of phantom and non-calls. I don’t think Ogden can complain too much about the calls though, as both teams seemed to be hit equally by the bad officiating.

Ogden controlled the first five to ten minutes of the game, but weren’t able to capitalize on it. BYU finally settled into the game, and started to win more possession and Ogden started to play more of a counter-attacking game. The first score came on a quick counter in the 23rd minute with Kyle Christensen putting the ball into the net. Zack DeFrancis equalized for BYU in the 42nd minute and the teams were tied going into the half.

BYU opened the second half scoring with a header by Brock Trejo off of a free kick in the 56th minute. Ogden’s Matt Broadhead converted a questionable penalty kick in the 65th minute to even the score again. Zack DeFrancis scored the second goal of his brace just a minute later to put BYU ahead for good. Brock Trejo scored his second goal of the night in the 76th minute, on another set play. Second half subs David Clark and Steve Fellows added goals in the 83rd and 87th minutes.

In my view, Trejo was the man of the match, with stiff competition from DeFrancis and Richie Bindrup. I hope one or more of them gets a nod from the PDL player of the week for their efforts.

(I should be posting pictures later tonight, I just didn’t get to downloading them this morning.)

Week Twelve Scariness Rankings

2007-06-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

Some really big changes this week, and some huge variance from the traditional power rankings. A big loss or a big win (especially over a team that had been doing well) really shows up here. Two tables for your viewing pleasure—first, the Adjusted Scariness, and second, the original Scariness. This time I’ll let you draw your own conclusions (though I’d sure like to hear them).

Rated by Adjusted Scariness

Team	Adj Scariness	Ranking (last week)
Houston	4.33	1 (4)
New England	2.49	2 (8)
DC United	2.13	3 (2)
Columbus	2.07	4 (10)
Salt Lake	1.62	5 (11)
Dallas	1.56	6 (9)
Toronto	1.49	7 (3)
New York	1.48	8 (6)
Chivas	1.31	9 (1)
Kansas City	0.91	10 (5)
Los Angeles	0.64	11 (7)
Chicago	0.36	12 (12)
Colorado	- 0.12	13 (13)

Rated by Scariness

Team	Scariness	Adj Scariness (diff)
Houston	3.00	4.33 (1.33)
Dallas	1.93	1.56 (- 0.37)
Chivas	1.91	1.31 (- 0.60)
DC United	1.82	2.13 (0.29)
Columbus	1.8	2.07 (0.27)
New England	1.64	2.49 (0.85)
Toronto	1.31	1.49 (0.18)
New York	1.22	1.48 (0.26)
Salt Lake	1.13	1.62 (0.39)
Kansas City	1	0.91 (- 0.09)
Los Angeles	0.89	0.64 (- 0.25)
Chicago	0.76	0.36 (- 0.40)
Colorado	0.33	- 0.12 (- 0.45)

Great Weekend for Soccer in Utah

2007-06-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

This was a great weekend for soccer in Utah. Not only did RSL get its first win (against DC United no less), but good things happened in the PDL as well.

The Ogden Outlaws went 0-1-1 on their roadtrip, earning a draw against Tacoma FC (1-1) and shutting out the Abbotsford Rangers (2-0). Taking six points on the road not only moved the Outlaws up the table (they’re in third place now, with 14 points form 9 games), it also helped BYU.

The Cougars helped themselves out as well, beating Yakima on both Friday (3-1) and Saturday (2-1) nights. The six points they took over the weekend put them 8 points over the second place Tacoma FC with 25 points in 10 games played).

Sadly, I didn’t get to see any of the PDL games, but it looks like BYU’s continuing to play well. I’m looking forward to BYU’s 4th of July game against Ogden.

RSL Not Giving Up - Just a Fan

2007-06-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

””No way are we cashing in on this season,” [John Ellinger] said. (RSL brokers another trade with major player in the Trib.)

Well, that’s good to know. RSL is at the bottom of the league, without a win to their name (and not really any in sight), but the front office isn’t giving up on the season. Sure, the fans are threatening to wear brown paper bags out to games. Oh, and yes, the front office has made a list of potential ‘big names’, but Jason Kreis says, “We have begun a list of players we are looking at but I don’t think we have contacted any of them yet.” Not only that, but the team is sitting on something like $350,000 of cap space. I’d hate to see how things looked if they were giving up on the season.

So, what should they be doing? Well, the recent trade for Robbie Findley and Nate Sturgis is probably a good move (though it’s certainly a long range move, not a short term fix). Getting some more defensive help and an established scoring threat wouldn’t hurt either. Overall, I’d say trying to salvage the 2007 season is probably a lost cause and trying to build a solid foundation for 2008 is probably the best course.

Then again, what do I know? I’m just a fan.

Go Richie

2007-06-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

Defender Richie Bindrup has been named to the PDL Team of the Week. The announcement singles him out for his play (and goal) in the Abbotsford game, but he's been a solid player for BYU in every game I've seen this season. This is the second time this season that a BYU player has been given this honor — Hugh Van Wagenen earned it back in May.

Bindrup has started 8 games for the Cougars so far this year and has scored two goals (in two shots on goal), tying him for the team scoring lead with six other players.

Keep up the good work Richie, and good luck to you and the rest of the team in Spokane tonight and tomorrow.

Dave Sarachan, Toribio Rojas, and John Ellinger

2007-06-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, time for a comparison. Midway through the season, an underperforming soccer team has fired their head coach. This has happened three times this year. It’s probably instructive to see what happened in each case.

The Chicago Fire

With today’s firing of Dave Sarachan, the Fire are looking to turn things around. Dave had been a successful MLS level coach, but lately seems to have lost his touch with the team. Instead of hiring a new coach right away, the Fire have opted to make Denis Hamlett (an assistant coach with the Fire since ‘98) their interim coach. This move should let them look around for an established coach, while letting Hamlett potentially win the job for himself.

While interim coaches aren’t always a good thing, the Fire have given themselves some room to work, and have put a coach in place (for now) who knows the team. We’ll see how things work out over the next month or so.

The Puerto Rico Islanders

On May 22nd, Colin Clark was hired by the Puerto Rico Islanders to replace Toribio Rojas. Colin Clarke is an experienced coach, who managed teams in the USL A-League, had a stint as an assistant coach for the MLS Dallas Burn, and went on to coach them to a Western Conference Championship. Prior to his hiring, the Islanders were 0-3-3, since his hiring, they’ve gone 2-0-2.

Real Salt Lake

Back on May 3rd, RSL fired John Ellinger and replaced him with former player Jason Kreis. Ellinger’s tenure as coach was widely viewed as a failure; he failed to develop players, produced a losing record, and was seen as managing games ineffectively. His replacement, Kreis, retired as a player the night before the move was announced, has had no coaching experience at any level, and has been the public face of numerous front office mistakes. Prior to the change, RSL was 0-2-2 (with one non-MLS win). Since the change, they are 0-3-4 (with one non-MLS win and one non-MLS loss).

Summing it up

Three coaching changes, and (not surprisingly) three different approaches. While it’s too early to tell about Chicago, it certainly seems that Puerto Rico did it right. Jason Kries was (and is) saddled with a lot of problems that aren’t his fault, but it’s hard to believe that RSL wouldn’t have done better making him an assistant coach and hiring (or at least looking for) an experienced coach for him to work under.

BYU On Top of the PDL Northwest

2007-06-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend (the 15th and 16th of June), BYU played two important games. My son and I were going to catch them both, but fate intervened and I ended up sick on Saturday afternoon so we only saw the Friday night game.

On Friday, BYU faced the (then) division leading Tacoma FC, the only team to beat the Cougs so far this year. BYU came out on fire and scored a goal in the 5th minute, and controlled possession for most of the first half. During the second half, they kicked the game up a notch, scoring five more goals (four of them by substitutes) to win 0-6. The win put the Cougars into a first place tie in the division with Tacoma.

On Saturday, the Cougars played the cellar-dwelling dwelling Abbotsford Rangers. After giving up an early goal, BYU came back to score two and hold onto the three points. A Tacoma loss to the Ogden Outlaws (also on Saturday night), put BYU three points ahead in the standings with a game in hand.

This weekend, BYU travels to Yakima, Washington to play two games against the Yakima Reds, who they beat at home back in May. The Reds are currently sitting in the middle of the table, but have played only seven games compared to the eight or nine that the other teams in the Northwest Division have played.

Warm And Fuzzy Article on RSL and Cassar at the Deseret News

2007-06-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

The local coverage of RSL is a bit confusing to say the least. There are a lot of articles slamming the team over losing, political misteps, and the like (and, yes, there have been a lot of good reasons to slam the team). There are also a lot of soft, fluffy articles that toss soft questions at the coaches and seem aimed at making people feel good about things.

This morning the big article in the Deseret News was one of the latter. It was all about the positive different Jeff Cassar is already making on RSL, even though it hasn't shown up in the win column. If you don't want to go and read it (I won't blame you), here are some of the main points:

Cassar is a family guy who loves the Salt Lake Valley. "I was just driving to work the other day with Jason (Kreis) and I just told him I love this place, it feels like home already. The people are great, and I'm a massive family guy, and this place just oozes family. It oozes being outside and mingling and meeting people. It's not like everyone's in their own hole." — I'm not sure what that has to do with RSL, but it sounds nice.
Even though the discussions that led to Cassar's hiring were a mistake that cost RSL $20,000 in fines and resulted in the firing of Peter Mellor, the Cassar and Kreis don't regret them. "You want to always feel good, safe, secure. You want to have people in who are going to give you honest opinions. It's what every coach would do and should do, as long as the person they're bringing in is qualified for that spot," said Cassar. — the article does point out that neither Cassar nor Kreis has the background to indicate that they're qualified for their position.
Cassar is given credit in the article for bringing out the improved play in goalkeeper Nick Rimando — too be fair though, Rimando's improved play began before Cassar arrived.

Maybe I just missed the sarcasm in the headline "Assistant coach Cassar already an asset for RSL", but I sure don't see a lot of value so far.

Oh, yeah, I should probably include the bit of news from the end of the article: Cassar and his family are all settling into life in the Salt Lake valley and will be closing on a house in the 'burbs soon — I know that makes me feel better about the coaching change (and, yeah, I'm being sarcastic).

Week Eleven Scariness Rating

2007-06-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

This has been a trying weekend for me. RSL dropped two games that they really had no business losing, and have forced me to EmbraTSu (Embrace The Suckiness). I won’t be one of the fans wearing a brown paper sack on Saturday, but only because I won’t be there. I also spent the weekend being sick … basically not fun at all.

The Adjusted Scariness ratings flopped around a lot (especially if you look at them over two weeks—Toronto went from 5th to 9th to 3rd). I think Salt Lake’s rating is too high. I’m also not sure about Chivas and Toronto being rated so highly (though I wouldn’t want to play either team right now).

Team	Adj Scariness	Rating (Last Week)	Change Over Two Weeks
Chivas	3.51	1 (2)	+3
DC United	3.4	2 (1)	+2
Toronto	3.07	3 (9)	+2
Houston	2.73	4 (4)	+2
Kansas City	2.47	5 (3)	- 4
New York	1.48	6 (5)	- 4
Los Angeles	1.27	7 (12)	+3
New England	1.05	8 (7)	0
Dallas	0.51	9 (6)	+3
Columbus	0.47	10 (13)	+3
Salt Lake	0.38	11 (8)	- 2
Chicago	0.36	12 (11)	- 1
Colorado	0.22	13 (10)	- 5

I’m also going to include a table of the old style scariness score for each team. I think this shows the effect that ties (and lopsided wins) have in this system.

Team	Scariness	Rating (Adj Rating)
DC United	2.6	1 (2)
Chivas	2.47	2 (1)
Houston	2.2	3 (4)
Kansas City	1.78	4 (5)
Toronto	1.62	5 (3)
Dallas	1.33	6 (9)
New England	1.33	6 (8)
New York	1.22	8 (6)
Los Angeles	1.18	9 (7)
Chicago	0.76	10 (12)
Colorado	0.58	11 (13)
Columbus	0.44	12 (10)
Salt Lake	0.36	13 (11)

Given RSL’s continued poor showing and my proximity to a pretty good PDL team, I may have to put in the effort to whip up scariness scores for the PDL Northwest going forward.

Major Trade By RSL

2007-06-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

In a surprising move, Real Salt Lake has announced a major trade aimed at putting a winning team on the field. Said owner Dave Checketts “Being conservative just wasn’t working, so we decided to go out on a limb. I promise that you’ll see some winning soccer from here on out.”

Details of the trade are cloudy as terms are still being worked out, but several members of the team, the city of St. George Utah, the Virgin River Gorge, most of Zions National Park, and a 2nd or 3rd round pick will be to Argentina in return for the entire Boca Juniors side. The existing coaching staff is expected to be offered jobs coaching the RSL Reserves which will be turned into a PDL team and inheret most of the current starting roster, which should create a very competetive team in that league.

“I can’t wait to watch the new RSL play.” Said former starting mid-fielder Freddy Adu, “I’m sure they’ll make a smooth transition to the MLS.”

Not everyone is as optimistic, “It’s still RSL, they’ll find a way to lose for sure.” said one RSL fan who wishes to remain anonymous.

(Yeah, it’s a joke. Don’t read too much into it.)

June 14th Picks

2007-06-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

No USL pick this week, I’ll be at the Tacoma FC – BYU Cougars game, and have already posted a bunch of bonus picks for the week So, this time around it’ll be all MLS. (I’ll put up a post for my Gold Cup quarter final picks tomorrow.)

Thursday, June 14

FC Dallas @ Real Salt Lake—1-2 RSL

With Ruiz and Cooper gone the Hoops will have a hard time, though I think Toja will continue to shine. Esky and Adu will get goals in the run of play and RSL gets there first MLS win of the year.

Saturday, June 16

Columbus Crew @ New England Revolution —0-2 New England

A visit by the anemic looking Crew will get New England back into their winning ways, but I don’t think this will be a lopsided game anywhere but on the scoreboard.

Chicago Fire @ DC United—0-3 DC

Emilio and Fred should be able to feast on a poor Fire side. This one will be even more gas on the ‘Sack Dave’ bonfire.

Kansas City @ New York Red Bull—1-2

Angel will net at least another goal, and the Wizards will show everyone just how much the miss Eddie Johnson.

Colorado Rapids @ Chivas USA—0-1 Chivas

The Goats should get three points from a rapidly falling Colorado team.

Sunday, June 17

FC Dallas @ Toronto FC—1-2 Toronto

A game on three days rest at the BMO will be too much for FC Dallas, who’ll hold on to their first place standing in the West, but lose a lot of ground this week.

Real Salt Lake @ Los Angeles Galaxy 3-0 RSL

After a win on Thursday, RSL will really pour it on in this one. In one week they should match their points total from the rest of the season.

2007-06-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

My son and I went to the California Victory @ BYU game last night. The crowd was larger that the last BYU game we went to, but quieter—with the exception of these guys:

The game was quite well played (even the US Open Cup observer said so as we talked after the match), although it did get a bit chippy—there were 30 fouls by my count.

The Victory controlled most of the run of play, though BYU had some nice moments throughout the match. California scored the first two goals (Raul Palomares in the 23rd and Yuri Morales in the 67th minutes). With time running out, BYU started to turn up the pressure and Daniel McKinley put in a header in the 88th minute. While BYU continued to apply pressure into the 6 minutes of stoppage time, they just couldn’t find another goal.

If you’d like to see the rest of my son’s pictures, head on over to flickr and take a look.

Seven Picks

2007-06-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

California Victory @ BYU Cougars—2-1 California

I’m picking against the Cougs, but I’ll be rooting for them tonight with my son.

US vs El Salvador (Foxboro)—3-0 US

I think the US will really turn things on for this one, finally. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Landon get a brace.

Trinidad & Tobago vs Gautemala (Foxboro)—0-1 Guatemala

T & T will fall to the Guatemalans, and Ruiz will get another player tossed out.

Cuba vs Honduras (Houston)—1-0 Cuba

I think Cuba has the chance to pull off an upset against Honduras.

Mexico vs Panama (Houston)—2-1 Mexico

I’d love to pick against Mexico, but I don’t think that will happen. They should be able to get things put in order in time for the Gold Cup quarter finals.

Tacoma FC @ BYU Cougars—1-1 Draw

A tired BYU side, a strong Tacoma side should make this a draw, which leaves Tacoma ahead of BYU in the standings (for now).

Abbotsford Rangers @ BYU Cougars—0-1 BYU

Though they’ll be more tired than in the previous game, I still think the Cougars will be too much for the Rangers.

Week 10 Scariness Ratings

2007-06-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

I did fairly well on last week's pick, and I considered my adjusted scariness numbers¹ in making them, so I’m feeling better about them.

Adjusted Scariness

Team	Adj Scariness	Rating (Last Week)
DC United	3.11	1 (3)
Chivas	2.85	2 (4)
Kansas City	2.74	3 (1)
Houston	2.73	4 (6)
New York	1.86	5 (2)
Dallas	1.78	6 (12)
New England	1.61	7 (7)
Salt Lake	1.46	8 (9)
Toronto	1.18	9 (5)
Colorado	1.01	10 (7)
Chicago	0.62	11 (11)
Los Angeles	0.39	12 (10)
Columbus	- 0.25	13 (13)

One thing that I’m getting used to is that there’s a lot of movement on these charts each week. I’m still a bit puzzled by some of the numbers (why in the world is Chivas rated number two??) but overall, I think I’m coming to peace with things.

¹ The Adjusted Scariness probably deserves a bit of explanation:

For each game, I add up the team’s points from a game, the opponents PPG average for the last five games, and add a bonus point for playing on the road, then divide by two to create a value for the game.
I add the goal differential to the value for each game, to create a modified value.
Finally, I take a weighted average of the last five modified values (using weightings of .5, .7, .9, 1.1, and 1.3).

Three Lists for June 11th

2007-06-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

In addition to my lists of the top and bottom three teams (renamed to the best and worst three), I’m including the three coaches on the hot seat again. This week I’m also adding a bonus fourth list—three games I’m going to.

Best Three Teams:

DC United (adjusted scariness 3.11—A two point differential over New York says a lot, doing it while a man down says even more. An easy game against the Fire this week won’t help their scariness, but should be another three points.)
Kansas City Wizards (adjusted scariness 2.74—They were idle last week, and play the Red Bulls in New York without Eddie Johnson this week. I don’t think they’ll make next week’s list.)
Houston (adjusted scariness 2.73—It might not be pretty, but they’re getting the job done right now. They’ve got the week off, which is coming at a good time for them with three stars off at the Gold Cup.)

Worst Three Teams:

Columbus Crew (adjusted scariness – 0.25— Last week I thought they’d hit the bottom of the barrel with a negative scariness score, they proved me wrong and kept on digging.)
Los Angeles Galaxy (adjusted scariness 0.39—Which hurts worse, losing games or losing players? LA is doing plenty of both. Will reinforcements arrive in time?)
Chicago Fire (adjusted scariness 0.62—Their loss to Chivas USA hurt, but not as much as LA’s loss to Dallas. With a very scary looking DC team coming to town on Sunday, the Fire may slip yet further.)

Three Coaches on the Hot Seat

Columbus Crew— Sigi Schmid (The murmering is getting louder, a game against the Revolution doesn’t look like good medicine.)
Chicago Fire — Dave Sarachan (Losing to Chivas didn’t help Dave’s cause any, will the possible hiring of Marcelo Salas?)
Chivas USA — Preki (He got a win over the lackluster Fire, but that’s scant relief.)

Three Games I’m Going To

California Victory @ BYU Cougars on June 12th—This is a US Open Cup game. The Victory are a USL1 expansion team who recently got their first win (over the Vancouver Whitecaps). It’ll be a tough game for BYU, but it’s not hopeless. I just wish it weren’t scheduled opposite the Gold Cup.
Tacoma FC @ BYU Cougars on June 15th—Tacoma (along with BYU) represent the cream of the PDL Northwest. The Tide have lost once and tied once in their seven games thus far, and are the only team to have beaten BYU this season.
Abbotsford Rangers @ BYU Cougars on June 16th—For their third game in five days, the Cougars will face the Rangers who are currently sitting near the bottom of the standings in the PDL Northwest. It’s a tight division though, and the Cougs will be tired after a busy week.

11 June Pick Review

2007-06-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

5-2-1—this was just what I needed after last week’s 0-fer.

USL1 Friday Night Game

Portland Timbers @ Montreal Impact 0-2 Montreal—1-0 Portland

Congrats to the Timbers for pulling out a huge road win, though riding the bus overnight only to lose at Rochester on Saturday must have really stunk.

Wednesday June 6

New York Red Bulls @ Toronto FC 2-1 NY—2-1 NY

Just about what I expected. The real question at this point has to be, just how good is JPA?

Thursday June 7

Colorado Rapids @ Houston Dynamo 0-1 Houston—1-2 Houston

I really hate that MLS and ESPN scheduled this against the USMNT game. Seeing the Rapids lose softens the sting a bit though.

Chinese MNT @ Real Salt Lake 0-0 Draw—0-1 RSL

I should have stuck to my original pick here. Seitz seems to have played a great game. On the other hand, the RSL FO stunk it up with some incredibly bad moves like kicking fans out of the stadium for protesting the PRC.

Saturday June 9

LA Galaxy @ FC Dallas 0-1 Dallas—1-3 Dallas

Dallas wins the game, but loses Kenny Cooper to a broken leg. This is not good news for the Hoops.

Chivas USA @ Chicago Fire 1-0 Chivas—1-0 Chivas

The goats get the win, and the “Fire Dave” movement keeps on growing.

Sunday June 10

New York Red Bulls @ DC United 1-0 NY—2-4 DC

Wow, I didn’t even see this one coming. Two consecutive hat tricks against New York? Wow. Emilio ended his scoring drought, and Ben Olsen proves that he can score too … I think their may be a fourth team to watch in the east.

Houston Dynamo @ Columbus Crew 1-0 Houston—2-1 Houston

I didn’t watch it, so I don’t know anything more than the score.

USL1 Coaches: Gavin Wilkinson

2007-06-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

Gavin Wilkinson is a former New Zealand national team defender (38 caps, 1 goal), with a 10 year professional career that includes stops in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, and the US. Since retiring at the end of the 2006 season, he’s become the coach of the USL1 Portland Timbers.

As this is Wilkinson’s first year as a coach, there’s no history to post, but they’re in the middle of the table and seem to be playing better than last year.

Week 9 Collective Rankings and Scariness

2007-06-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Jeff Bull has released his Week 9 Collective Rankings, so it’s time for me to take a look at how the my new and improved scariness ratings compare.

Team	Scariness Rating	Collective Ranking (and difference from Scariness)
Kansas City	1	1
New York	2	2
DC United	3	4 (+1)
Chivas	4	8 (+4)
Toronto	5	7 (+2)
Houston	6	9 (+3)
Colorado	7	5 (-2)
New England	7	3 (-4)
Salt Lake	9	13 (+4)
Los Angeles	10	11 (+1)
Chicago	11	10 (-1)
Dallas	12	6 (-6)
Columbus	13	12 (-1)

A teams scariness rating averages 2.23 points off of their position in the collective rating, which seems like a pretty big skew. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m not really rating a teams power—just how they’ve done against recent strength of schedule (and a bit of fudging for playing on the road). Because I weight recent results more heavily, there’s going to be a lot more fluctuation. For example, here are the scariness scores and ratings updated for last night’s game.

Team	Scariness	Scariness Rating (and previous)
New York	3.14	1(2)
Kansas City	2.74	2(1)
DC United	2.35	3
Chivas	2.18	4
Houston	1.65	5(6)
New England	1.61	6(7)
Colorado	1.61	6(7)
Salt Lake	1.46	8(9)
Toronto	1.18	9(5)
Los Angeles	1.16	10
Chicago	1.00	11
Dallas	0.80	12
Columbus	-0.12	13

New York piled on an extra .52 points (and rose a slot in the ratings), while Toronto lost .97 points (and dropped a whopping 4 slots). Is that fair? I think some TFC fans might tell me it’s not, but I think it is.

These ratings still don’t reflect personel changes. Is Kansas City without Eddie Johnson just as scary as they were in beating the Red Bulls last weekend? Not even close, but I’m not really sure how to adjust the numbers to reflect for players who are injured, sitting out a game due to penalties, or playing for their national team.

The RSL Front Office Speaks Volumes About Cassar's Hiring

2007-06-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Blue Blooded Journo commented on the recent FO fiasco within RSL, asking "They have a very strong fan base by MLS standards, but how long will [the fans] continue to support a substandard team run by incompetents?"

As I read this, I thought about the comments on AYL and thought about how much the support is being eroded. Then, I hit the Deseret News to check their RSL coverage and saw this article, which contained this line:

Team officials would not comment on the decision, saying, "We are done talking about it. It was talking that got us into this in the first place."

They might be incompetents, but at least they're being honest about it. If it didn't hurt so much, it would be funny.

MLS Picks for June 6

2007-06-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

After stinking it up last week, I’m still game for another try … barely. For the MLS teams, I’m including their adjusted scariness rating

USL1 Friday Night Game

Portland Timbers @ Montreal Impact—0-2 Montreal

I think Montreal wins this one walking away.

Wednesday June 6

New York Red Bulls (2.62) @ Toronto FC (2.15)—2-1 NY

I think New York gets back on track after their loss to KC. Toronto should play this one tought though.

Thursday June 7

Colorado Rapids (1.61) @ Houston Dynamo (1.65)—0-1 Houston

The Dynamo pull off the win at home against a slightly less scary Rapids side.

Chinese MNT (unranked) @ Real Salt Lake (1.46)— ~~0-1 RSL~~ 0-0 Draw

~~Rimando gets a clean sheet and Freddy gets a point.~~ Hmm, just saw that RSL is going to be starting a lot of subs this game ... I'm downgrading this one to a draw.

Saturday June 9

LA Galaxy (1.16) @ FC Dallas (0.8) —0-1 Dallas

Dallas pulls out a boring win.

Chivas USA (2.18) @ Chicago Fire (1.00)—1-0 Chivas

Preki gets a win, Dave Sarachan doesn’t.

Sunday June 10

New York Red Bulls (2.26) @ DC United (2.35)—1-0 NY

A tired red Bulls side pulls out a second win in a week

Houston Dynamo (1.65) @ Columbus Crew (-0.12)—1-0 Houston

The Dynamo will get a second win during the week facing a completely non-scary Columbus Crew.

Three Lists for June 6

2007-06-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

Here’s this week’s installment of my list of three lists. I’m tossing the coaches list back onto the pile this week.

Top Three Teams:

Kansas City Wizards (adjusted scariness 2.74—knocking off the Revolution and the Red Bulls is pretty good)
New York Red Bulls (adjusted scariness 2.62—they dropped a game to KC, but not by much)
Toronto (adjusted scariness 2.15—They’ve gotten some great results over the last 5 weeks, we’ll see how good they really are this week when New York comes to play)

Bottom Three Teams:

Columbus Crew (adjusted scariness – 0.12— winless in their last five games, and they’re the only team with a negative adjusted scariness score)
Chicago Fire (adjusted scariness 1.00—they finally got a win, but it was against Columbus)
Real Salt Lake (adjusted scariness 1.46— they’ve proved that they can hold strong teams scoreless, but they really need a win)

Three Coaches on the Hot Seat

Columbus Crew— Sigi Schmid (How much longer will he hang on?)
Chicago Fire — Dave Sarachan (He’s probably got at least a couple of games after Blanco arrives, but how much longer?)
Chivas USA — Preki (The crowds are down and they’ve only been able to beat the Seattle Sounders and FC Dallas in the last month — it doesn’t look good.)

I’ve listed the adjusted scariness rating for each team in the first two lists.

Is RSL Management Watching the Gold Cup?

2007-06-05T19:17:00.001-07:00

I’m already loading up my DVR with as many Gold Cup games as I think my wife will let me watch. I sure hope that the RSL management and coaches are planning on spending some significant time watching, rewatching, and dissecting the games.

I may not be an expert on the nations represented, but everything I’ve read tells me that there may be some quality players that might be lured to play in the MLS, and RSL has both the slots and the cap room to make some deals — especially if there were a quality midfielder or promising striker or defender to bring into the mix.

So, is the RSL management watching the Gold Cup? I sure hope so — and I hope none of their wives mind.

Scariness For Jun 5 (and a little twist)

2007-06-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I got an 0-fer on my last set of picks, which is so depressing I won’t even bother to go over them (though, RSL did pull out a tie that I’m pretty happy about). Instead, I thought I’d spend some extra time on my scariness ratings. This time I present the older style along with a new (improved?) version.

Traditional Scariness

Team	Scariness	Rating
DC United	2.2	1 (+1)
Kansas City	2.06	2 (+2)
Toronto	1.96	3 (+4)
Colorado	1.92	4 (-3)
New England	1.86	5 (0)
Dallas	1.62	6 (0)
New York	1.42	7 (-4)
Houston	1.2	8 (+4)
Chivas	1.14	9 (-1)
Chicago	0.94	10 (+3)
Los Angeles	0.92	11 (-1)
Salt Lake	0.8	12 (-1)
Columbus	0.4	13 (-4)

Adjusted Scariness

Team	Adj Scariness	Rating	Diff from Scariness Rating
Kansas City	2.74	1	+1
New York	2.62	2	+5
DC United	2.35	3	-2
Chivas	2.18	4	+5
Toronto	2.15	5	-2
Houston	1.65	6	+2
Colorado	1.61	7	-3
New England	1.61	7	-2
Salt Lake	1.46	9	+3
Los Angeles	1.16	10	+1
Chicago	1	11	+1
Dallas	0.8	12	-6
Columbus	-0.12	13	0

The Adjusted Scariness probably deserves a bit of explanation:

For each game, I add up the team’s points from a game, the opponents PPG average for the last five games, and add a bonus point for playing on the road, then divide by two to create a value for the game.
I add the goal differential to the value for each game, to create a modified value.
Finally, I take a weighted average of the last five modified values (using weightings of .5, .7, .9, 1.1, and 1.3).

This takes a little bit longer, but gives a clearer picture (I think). There are still some surprises there (how did Chivas and RSL climb so high?), but I think I’m getting closer. I’m still looking for feedback, so please let me know what you think. (Oh, this is getting hairy enough that I don’t expect to do it for any other leauges.)

More on the Cassar, Kreis, and Mellor Snafu

2007-06-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

There are a variety of stories floating around about RSL's hiring of Jeff Cassar, and they paint a strange picture. First of course was the hiring itself, and Coach Kreis' description of the 'comfort factor' that Cassar would bring to the team. The timing was odd, and Kreis' language left a lot of fans feeling less than comfortable. Next came the fine and loss of a 2nd round draft pick next year. Again, you heard a lot of fans expressing frustration at what seems like a rookie mistake. Most recently, AYL has published a story claiming that the hiring was a result of miscommunication between Kreis ad Cassar — the two of them talked, Kreis talked about working together in the future, Cassar took that as a job offer, and hilarity (or maybe something else) ensued. Finally, one of my contacts has told me that while Mellor had agreed to stay, he was really Ellenger's man and wasn't likely to be a permanent fixture. If I string these together, I think I see RSL trying to make some long term plans around goalkeeping and being forced to act on them much sooner than they'd thought/hoped. A little more misery for a team that's already got more than there fair share. Hopefully, everyone involved has learned from this fiasco, and the future will be brighter.

PDL Expansion

2007-06-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve posted a couple of things about MLS expansion lately (as have a lot of other folks). One related topic that I can’t seem to shy away from is promotion and relegation. For this to ever work though, it’s not just the MLS that needs to expand. The USL1, USL2, and PDL all need to get bigger and improve their geographic coverage—the USL 2 is a particularly bad case.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the PDL (and especially the Northwest Division) recently. As part of that I’ve noticed something, the Northwest Division is geographically unbalanced:

It’s also three teams smaller than the Southwest Division. In the interest of shooting the breeze with other folks interested in the PDL, I decided to ask around and see where people would like to see three additional teams added. Here are the tally’s, along with some commentary:

City	Num Votes
Boise, ID	4
Salt Lake City, UT	2
Missoula, MT	2
Eugene, OR	2
Pocatello, ID	1
Logan, UT	1
Victoria, BC	1
Vancouver, WA	1
Olympia, WA	1
Corvalis, OR	1

I think Boise would be a good place. That is solely based on geography, I don’t know if they would have the input from NCAA colleges or have the local player pool to draw from. Right now, Ogden has a difficult time getting players in town from their colleges in time to get quality training with the team. ... Many of the teams in the northwest have local colleges that feed the PDL teams with players, and since they are local, they are able to train with the team. -Daren Moon

If I were the one choosing the First place that jumps at me is Boise, ID. Pocatello as well, ISU is there and you would probably get some sort of response out of that. After that, either Logan, UT or Missoula, MT. I think college towns make a lot of sense in that just looking around at RSL games, the majority of fans would fit into that age demographic and also that is the potential talent pool a PDL team would look at. -Donk

Good question. I think Victoria, BC would have good support. Eugene, OR seems like a natural fit, although a team in Corvallis might work better since Oregon State has men’s soccer and U of O does not. As a third option I would go with a team in Vancouver, WA, preferably one that is associated with an USL or MSL Portland Timbers club. -Bob Kellet

To name names, I’d plop a team in the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland), Boise, Idaho (why not give Idaho a team? I played my first tournament in Sandpoint), and…to be honest, it gets a little tricky after that, but I’d go with either the Eugene/Springfield area, or perhaps and Olympia/Tacoma thing. -Jeff Bull

So, what does all this prove? If you ask a dozen soccer fans where they’d like to see another team, and you’re likely to get twenty answers. There is some overlap though:

Boise seems like it’s got the geography right, and has both the potential player and fan population to make it work
Salt Lake City is also up on a couple of lists, maybe something like the Chicago Fire Premier or the Rapids U23 sides
Missoula, MT is an intriguing idea that a couple of people mentioned—would the beautiful game work in cowboy country?
Eugene, OR is another interesting choice, though it doesn’t really break up the geographic imbalance that already pervades the division

It also seems that there’s some common ground in terms of what would make a good PDL host city:

a local college/university with a men’s soccer program
a decent level of soccer support/interest in the community
in Idaho, ‘cuz, well, they deserve it.

Will the PDL Northwest expand? I sure hope so. Where? I don’t know, but I think we’ve got a few ideas. Will a bigger PDL Northwest suddenly make promotion and relegation in US soccer happen? No, but it’s a start.

BYU Player Selected to PDL team of the Week

2007-05-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Hugh Van Wagenen (D, BYU) for being named to the PDL team of the Week. This looks like the first such honor for a BYU player this season.

May 31 Scariness Rankings

2007-05-31T12:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve not seen Jeff Bull’s latest collective rankings, so I can’t compare them this time around. Instead, I’m providing the my scariness score, and the corresponding rating (along with the change versus last week’s rankings).

Team	Scariness	Rating (change)
Colorado	2.28	1 (4)
DC United	2.16	2 (3)
New York	2.04	3 (-)
Kansas City	1.96	4 (-)
New England	1.96	4 (-3)
Dallas	1.8	6 (-4)
Toronto	1.38	7 (-1)
Chivas	1.14	8 (1)
Columbus	0.92	9 (1)
Los Angeles	0.76	10 (-2)
Salt Lake	0.62	11 (1)
Houston	0.54	12 (-1)
Chicago	0.24	13 (-6)

This means that the average change in scariness rankings was just over two slots, with big changes occuring all over the board.

Some of these rankings look a bit off, as I mentioned in my post A Bit More on Scariness. I’m still trying to come up with a way to clean them up—I’m open to suggestions.

(Oh, by the way, the USL1 and the PDL Northwest Division still have teams without enough games played to fill out their tables—maybe next week.)

MLS Expansion Dreams Revisited

2007-05-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

A lot of other people are writing about MLS expansion (one of my favorites is The Significance of the Frontier in MLS History which looks at expansion in a before 2010 and after 2010 context). Since I wrote up my MLS Expansion Dreams post, a couple of things have happened. How do they affect what I’d like to see? Let’s find out.

2008

I wanted to see Vancouver get an MLS team first (and really, for the Whitecaps to move up from the USL1. It’s looking more and more like San Jose is going to be the team instead. I think this is a bit of a shame, as California already has two MLS teams (along with a bunch of USL 1,2, and PDL teams). Not that I don’t want San Jose to get a team, I’d just like to see it happeh later.

2010

I’d listed Seattle and Montreal as my choices here. Seattle would renew it’s rivalry with Vancouver (if that happened), and Montreal would join an interesting rivalry with Toronto and Vancouver.

Seattle does seem to be on the short list, but there’s not a lot of clarity about how it might happen. There is at least some talk of the Sounders becoming part of the MLS franchise. If that happens, I really hope that Washington gets a new USL1 team, either in Spokane or Tacoma (though both cities have PDL teams).

Montreal, I don’t see anyone else talking about this (except for a brief mention in the ‘Frontier’ article linked above), and I think that’s too bad. The Impact have been at the top of the USL1 for the last several years, they play good looking soccer, and have a good-looking SSS being built. I do wonder if the MLS rule requiring national players would have to be adjusted to allow three MLS Canadian teams though (even two might be a stretch).

2012

I was hoping for Philadelphia and Portland as the two expansion teams here. I really think bringing the Timbers up to join the Sounders (and maybe the Whitecaps) would be the best option in the west. A brand new team in Philadelphia would round things out in the east.

2014

My last set of expansion was to bring back two familiar faces, San Jose and the New York Cosmos. While reality might beat me to the punch with San Jose, I still hope the Cosmos make it eventually. If San Jose does land a team early, maybe Vancouver could fill this slot or perhaps a team from the Midwest or Southeast would be a better fit.

Just some notes

I tried to keep the two divisions balanced, but I’d really like to see the divisions dropped and a single table created. I’d also like to see both the USL1 and USL2 fleshed out. I think 20 teams in the MLS, 24 in the USL1, and 30 in the USL2 would be great.

I realize that I’ve dropped a bunch of cities that are in the running—St. Louis, Phoenix, and Las vegas leap immediately to mind. Of these, the only city I’d look at putting an MLS team into would be St. Louis. Even then, I’d rather move an existing team (cough Kansas City cough) than expand.

May 30th Picks

2007-05-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

Here are my picks for this weekends MLS action (and the Friday Night USL game—you are watching it, right?). I’ve included my current scariness ratings for each team in parens.

USL Friday Night

Vancouver Whitecaps (2.28) @ Montreal Impact (2.60)—1-2 Montreal

This game (along with Saturday’s New York @ KC match) looks like the best game of the weekend. I think it’ll be really close, but Nick DeSantis and the Impact will extend the Vancouver losing streak to two games.

MLS Saturday

Colorado Rapids (2.28) @ Toronto FC (1.38)—2-1 Colorado

Colorado wins this in a tight game. I think Jeff Cunningham will score for his new team though.

Real Salt Lake (0.62) @ New England Revolution (1.96)—1-3 New England

I’d love to be wrong about this (I’d even take yet another tie), but I think New England is just too much for RSL.

New York Red Bulls (2.04) @ Kansas City Wizards (1.96)—2-1 New York

Along with the Friday Night pairing of USL1 powerhouses Vancouver and Montreal, this game is the cream of the crop. It’ll be tight, but I think Jozy and Angel both score, as does Eddie Johnson, and the Red Bulls take 3 points on the road.

DC United (2.16) @ Los Angeles Galaxy (0.76)—2-0 Los Angeles

DC is playing to well and LA will be missing too many players.

MLS Sunday

FC Dallas (1.80) @ Houston Dynamo (0.54)—1-0 Dallas

Kenny Cooper gets another goal, and Dallas beats the slumping Dynamo.

Columbus Crew (0.92) @ Chicago Fire (0.24)—0-0 Draw

This sounds like a painful game to watch. I don’t think either side has it in them to pull out a win.

Four Games in Five Nights

2007-05-29T18:04:00.001-07:00

It looks like June 10-16 is going to be a big week for local (to me) soccer. The US Open Cup just announced their opening round and it looks like the USL1 expansion side the California Victory will be playing the PDL BYU Cougars at the South Field on Tuesday the 12th.

Thursday the 14th will be FC Dallas @ Real Salt Lake, the ESPN MLS Thursday night game. So far RSL has drawn and lost to Dallas, maybe the third time will be the charm.

Friday the 15th features Tacoma FC @ BYU. Tacoma is the only team to beat BYU so far this season, and a second game in four days will make this an even harder game for BYU.

Saturday the 16th will see BYU play a third game in five days as the Abbotsford Rangers. The only Canadian team in the PDL Northwest Division.

The chance to go catch four games in days is enough to whet any fan’s appetite.

Three Lists for May 29th

2007-05-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Here’s this week’s installment of my list of three lists. There was enough changes from my lists from last week that I’ll keep the top three and bottom three lists this week. I’m adding a list of USL players I’d love to see on RSL’s roster in place of the coaches list.

Top Three Teams:

New York Red Bulls (scariness 2.04—they’e outscored their opponents 7-0 in the last two games, and they’re still filling in for injured starters)
Colorado (scariness 2.28—the only team without a loss in the lsat five games)
Kansas City Wizards (scariness 1.96—knocking of the Revolution is a pretty good indicator that you’re doing something right)

Bottom Three Teams:

Chicago Fire (scariness 0.24—being shut out by NY then drawing with RSL doesn’t bode well)
Real Salt Lake (scariness 0.54— Jason Kries and his team badly need a win)
Columbus Crew (scariness 0.92— winless in their last four games, but at least they’re scoring)

Three Players USL Players I’d Like to See on RSL’s Roster

Scott Palguta (2 time Weekly Pro Honors, D Rochester Raging Rhinos)
Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar (2 time Weekly Pro Honors, M Seattle Sounders)
Martin Nash (2 time Weekly Pro Honors, M Vancouver Whitecaps)

I’ve listed the scariness rating for each team in the first two lists. These are from this weeks scariness list, which I’ll release on Thursday (after Jeff builds his collective rankings list).

BYU Beats Spokane and Earns US Open Cup Spot

2007-05-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

The PDL BYU Cougars continued their winning ways on Saturday with a 1-3 win over the visiting Spokane Spiders. The win cemented their spot in this year’s US Open Cup.

Spokane scored first, and held a 1-0 lead going into the 88nd minute. BYU then scored twice in regulation time (Morgan Gilliam in the 88th and Steve Fellows in the 89th) and again in stoppage time (Zack DeFrancis).