Flares and Confetti Don't Mix

How to destroy your franchise in a day
Looks like the weirdest season ever is seguewaying* quite nicely into the weirdest offseason ever. I'm a bit behind on the Preki disaster in embryo form, but I will be awaiting the inevitable crash on my little tippy-toes. Quote: What left a more lasting impression on him that August day than the 2-0 win by his side was the sellout crowd of 20,178 at BMO Field. "When I saw the passion in the stands, I knew this was the plac

What I am Thankful for in US Soccer
I haven't posted in a while and thought I would do so today to discuss those things that I am thankful for in US Soccer. Some of these are quite serious. Some of these . . . well, no so much. Which are which you say? Well, that my friends is up for you to decide. 1. Michael Bradley : Without him, what would everyone on BigSoccer do for a living? He is the lightning rod that holds this place together. You either hate him and cry "nepotism!" from the treetops, or you point and laugh at those who do. Do a little research and you'll figure out which one of these I am. Never has a player so firmly entrenched in the US pool drawn so much

UEFA Champions League Prediction Contest - Matchday 5 continued
After a Tuesday that proved pretty positive for most of the prognosticators, it's on to Wednesday and UEFA Champions League action in Groups A-D. Hopefully, Wednesday's matches produce a little more offense. There were two scoreless draws on Tuesday, and the eight matches featured a scant nine goals - with no team netting more than twice (Barcelona, Stuttgart, and Arsenal). Group C is where most of the attention will be faced Wednesday, as Real Madrid and AC Milan both stand tied for first on 7 points, with Marseille lurking just a point behind, and even FC Zurich not out of it with 3 points. Zurich, however, must go to Madrid, while Milan host Marseille

LA, cabrón! Saluda al campeón!
I'm sure much has been made of Real Salt Lake being such a "team" team that, for the first time ever, there are no players for the MLS champs on the MLS Best XI. But there's a more prosaic answer to that - the Best XI was wrong. Olave should have been in the back line ahead of Conde (or better still, De Rosario - does anyone in the league even play a 3-5-2? So the Best XI should have four defenders. QED). Now that Jason Kreis is a genius all of a sudden, it's going to be very interesting to see whether the 2009 Royals are the 1996 DC

What’s Next for MLS?
So we have another season under our belt. This year we learned that you can lose 12 games in a regular season, kick a few penalty kicks in the playoffs and then be declared a “champion”. The TV ratings were marginally better, but are still so laughably bad that bowling and women’s softball are more profitable ventures for ESPN. The officiating still sucks, and the schedule is still crowded and the rosters are still thin. Our players are overworked, many franchises are still struggling at the gate and the league’s in danger of losing their best domestic players in the off season – again. So overall pretty good huh? And yeah,