QUOTE:
The Don's even muttered at DC about moving them if the city doesn't get its act together and find them a stadium.

Garber said this week he more or less expects DC to move out of the District to Maryland, but I didn't know he'd been muttering about how relocating them altogether. It looks to me like the former is what will happen, bar a last minute effort by the city. I'd be curious what the DC fans here think of that prospect.

It's clear MLS are fine with teams not being in SSS as long as it's not killing them financially; when the ownership also owns the NFL stadium, as in Seattle and New England's case, you can still have a viable business which seems to be all he really cares about.

Garber's power play in Houston does not seem to have gone down very well with the mayor there, though, as it was him that made the letter public. I'm sure they can find somewhere in the suburbs there for a stadium, but that's not ideal, and I'm not convinced this has helped much.

That's what he means by moving them-there's several sites in the burbs that are quite viable, each next to Metro stations, Greenbelt in particular. A good chunk of United fans come via Metro, so that's a big deal.

Franchino got shipped to the Galaxy a day after it came out that he and Gary Flood got kicked out of Fenway for being gigantic drunken assholes (in Yankees jerseys) during the Sox-Yanks series. They also apparently got bounced out of a bar pregame for the same reason.

eta: When the FIFA Club World Cup leaves Japan after this edition, hosting it goes up for bid. Miami wants it in 2011-there's a civic task force or some such that wants to bring 7 or 8 "major" games per year to Miami-CWC, Euro tours/friendlies, Copa Libertadores matches, whatever they can get their hands on.

I prefer the way we used to lose, score nice goals, but then concede the winner in comedy fashion in injury time. Last night just seemed like a train wreck.

QUOTE:
it's not that DC couldn't have re-signed Gomez to a fraction of Gallardo's cost, it's that (based on Goff's post) gallardo's signing was necessitated by Gomez' and DCU's falling out. In other words, it's not like DCU chose Gallardo over Gomez. Gallardo came after Gomez' departure was a fait accompli.

I didn't mean that they intentionally picked one over the other, but I agree that is sort of splitting hairs. DC should have known that they were going to have to pay at least as much to replace Gomez as what Gomez wanted. Decent Number Tens don't grow on trees.

It is my understanding that Gomez only wanted to leave after the club refused to meet his price, maybe not because of the money per se, but the bad feeling that was created over it. Either way, it shouldn't have come to that.

I didn't mean that Gallardo has performed poorly, but that his performance hasn't added up to anything. Besides, I don't think he's going to fill any seats. He's not very well known - unlike Beckham or Blanco or even Reyna.

I don't blame him, but right now, it doesn't look like a smart signing. If we wanted to not score goals, we could have done it a lot cheaper. Plus, Gomez was popular here.

DC United isn't well suited to the DP concept. We don't need to make a make a big "splash" in the transfer market to get the attention of the local media. In fact, after the Freddy Adu situation, the local media and non-soccer loving public would probably be skeptical of hype about a new player.

What DC needs to do to get local media love and casual fans interested is to win championships (er, and build a stadium). They would have a much better chance of winning if they spent more money on a bunch of decent-but-not-spectacular guys in the $50-$200k/year range, especially in the back, rather than blow a big wad on one guy. But of course, the DP promotes the exact opposite approach.

Where are the good fullbacks? It seems like we used to be able to find college players for a reasonable price that could do a decent job - like Mike Petke and Ryan Nelsen.

I just looked it up Peralta is going to get paid $199,000 this year. Fuck. We could have half a Taylor Twellman for that much or Wade Barrett plus Bobby Boswell, or an entire reserve squad.

The stadium situation in DC is distressing. I'm very concerned they're going to end up in Landover or Germantown or St. Louis. It's typical DC government ineptitude and foot-dragging.

Moving the team out of Houston would be a shame. In every other respect they're the model franchise of MLS, as far as I can tell.

Given that this league is all about revenue sharing and centralized control, isn't every owner's revenue partially determined by the revenue of all the other teams? In that case, it seems like the other owner/investors would be putting more pressure on the Revs, DC United and KC to get their shit together and build a stadium.

Vernon Pools can update us on whether there is any further serious discussion of a new stadium in Boston. I'd read something in the Globe about two years ago about a possible project in Southie (I think) but I haven't heard anything else since.

@Goldstone: Technically, Qwest Field in Seattle is publicly owned. It's just that the Washington Legislature and attorney general have allowed Paul Allen to operate it as if it was his own.

I also remain unconvinced that they'll really be able to do "atmosphere" in that place when the Sounders open up shop next season. But that's a horse to beat some other day.

PSounder No. 2* wrote:

QUOTE:
@Goldstone: Technically, Qwest Field in Seattle is publicly owned. It's just that the Washington Legislature and attorney general have allowed Paul Allen to operate it as if it was his own.

Yes, and technically the Village of Bridgeview owns the Fire stadium as well, and I imagine there are similar situations at other MLS SSS. The point is whether you're paying to use it and able to make money out of it or not.

Is Seattle planning to play in Qwest for the long term or is their a vague promise of an SSS on the horizon? Qwest is probably too big for good atmosphere, but unlike the other NFL stadiums that MLS has played in, Qwest is almost brand new.

I am in a strange state.

My flight landed early, so I made the game in plenty of time, though the guys at gate 3 gave me a hassle about trying to bring my suitcase into the stadium.

It was lovely to be home again. A warm spring day, breeze off the lake. The front office, who are occasionally pretty cool, gave all us season ticket holders scarves again - this time with our section numbers printed on them (this should drive up their ebay value considerably due to the collectible factor). I have two extra section 221 scarves if anyone wants them.

So, 20,200 fans all dressed in red, all cheering our boys. And then the game started. Ricketts, Robert and Guevara in midfield with Edu and Robbo.

It was a bizarre sensation. We had width. We strung passes together on a regular basis. Rohan Ricketts can actually beat people while dribbling. Guevara has both skill and speed. There were virtually no panicky clearances from our own box. Yes, the Robert goal was pretty crap, but we dominated the entire first half.

At half-time my mates and I had to confront two key questions.

1) Who had kidnapped our team and replaced them with eleven men with something approximating talent?

2) Was this team worth supporting any more? We had all put an immense amount of emotional effort into building a relationship with a crap team. Now that suddenly they were playing well, the effect was disorienting. Our banter had to change - there was less to bitch about. Our singing seemed less crucial to the overall experience.

Don't get me wrong, I was happy with the win. But I feel my relationship with the team may have to change significantly.

It wasn't all perfect, of course. Marco Velez has that deadly combination of being both slow and clumsy - I have no idea why Andy Boyens was wavived to allow this freakshow onto the team. Laurent Robert made as well have been in a wheel chair from abouth the 55th minute on. Dichio was OK, but acutally with our newfound passing ability, Cunningham really should have been allowed in the game a lot sooner.

We're .500 for the first time ever. Nosebleed heights, practically.

I'm moderately pleased with the point against Houston. The Gals were horrible in the first half, but the second was a different story. It's good to know we can play like that, and if we had Ruiz, I'd say that the team would be scary. They came back after going down to Houston goals twice, both goals coming from the Beckham-Donovan combination. Landon scored on a diving header at the near post for the first, then got up and yelled in Ianni's face, something I'm sure further endeared himself to neutrals, but I loved it.

Houston cleared a Edson Buddle header off the line in stoppage, and I think it looked like a goal: the Houston defender had his right leg on the line, but he was leaning into the goal, and his head seemed to be over the line when he cleared it.

Borrowing the MLS thread to announce that the MISL final is this Saturday night, live on FSC: Baltimore Blast vs. Monterrey La Raza. In Milwaukee. Don't get me started.

Summer tour dates are already coming out-Borussia Munchonflapjack are going to training camp in Colorado in
mid-July, and play Colorado and Dallas while they're here.

Seattle Sounders FC are trying to host another friendly-Brazil v Canada.

While I was randomly flipping channels on the DirecTV late Saturday, I stumbled across Pittsburgh Riverhounds-Cleveland City Stars on STO, which is basically the Cleveland Indians channel. With Desmond Armstrong doing color, no less. I about crapped myself in shock.

In Milwaukee?

In Milwaukee. See, you want to bend over as far as possible to assure TV coverage, so you invite the teams to bid to host the final game well before the playoffs start. So there's no uncertainty about where and when the game will take place cause that would be a pain(normal) and cost you/your TV time buy extra money.

Milwaukee is the only team that bid. Last year Detroit bid and got it, and got to host Philly and lose. A couple years ago to assure coverage on ESPN2, the 2 leg final was picked uot in advance for 1 game in Milwaukee, one in St. Louis. So Milwaukee got to play game 1 at home to Cleveland, then play game 2 in a neutral venue. Guess who won.

They should just play it every year in Bristol, Connecticut or maybe that Wide World of Sports thing at Disney.

Anybody heard any rumours concerning Rivaldo coming to MLS? He seems pretty much done in Greece - I'm surprised no one seems interesting in tempting him up here for a last payday.

Upon being linked to TFC, Rivaldo would immediately land in LA, clutching his face.

Not here, necessarily. With Wheelchair Robert and Guevara we already have far too much latin silliness for Mo's liking.

But SJ, maybe? Houston? Chivas? Wouldn't he be a fit?