The cowfuckers are actually going to play for a championship.

I feel physically ill.

I lost interest around July this year for all the reasons Inca mentions, except insert NHL where he has NBA.

Jefe - if you're ill now, what will happen if NYRB beats RSL at the riot into stadium?

scotian42 wrote:

QUOTE:
Jefe - if you're ill now, what will happen if NYRB beats RSL at the riot into stadium?

Please don't say that. Don't even think that. The San Andreas Fault will be our only hope.

Real Salt Lake, the traditionalists' choice.

*holds head in hands*

Of the three, Columbus is the only one that is at all any good. NY has been largely terrible all year, and RSL is where they are because of their string of early season wins on the concrete in their old stadium.

Not that there are many more deserving teams - Houston blew their chance last week, but beyond that, I can't say that any other team "should" have made it this far.

Red Bulls 1-0 RSL.

They had a losing record, for Chrissakes. I know I'm from Canada and yes, this occasionally happens in the CFL where we allow six of eight teams into the playoffs, but it's still a joke.

I'm going with Columbus here. They were quite good this season, and deserve to win.

I'm with Sigi all the way.

I sense that MLS needs to radically overhaul how it handles the post season or face a noticeable drop off in interest, which would be a lot because the interest isn't very noticeable as it is.

I can't imagine a semifinal match-up less intriguing or less worthy of the name "Championship" than RSL-RBNY.

RED BALLS ARE IN THE FREAKIN' CHAMPIONSHIP ?!! WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING ?

DON'T JUST STAND THERE, DO SOMETHING !!!

It gets worse jv. They get to play Champions League next year. They, Columbus, DCU and Houston. KC, Chicago, NE, and Chivas play Superliga.

I need more than one mouth in which to throw up, thinking of them and the cowfuckers actually in CONCACAF.

As for the rest of the news from the Board of Governors meeting/Garber's State of the League address:

Montreal dropped out of the 2011 expansion race (and also tangentially USL related, Atlanta Silverbacks finally built their stadium....and proceed to "take the season off" in 2009. Bye-bye.) This leaves Portland (money/ownership to be provided by the current SecTreas Henry Paulson and his kid by the way), Atlanta, Ottawa, MiamiBarca, Vancouver, and St. Louis (with new ownership member Albert Pujols) competing for 2 slots

30 game season again, 7 clubs in the east, Seattle makes 8 in the west. You play everyone home and away for 28, and a rival for the extra 2. Playoffs are top 2 from each conference, then the next 4 highest point totals, with the same format; home-and-home, at higher seed, MLS Cup, whose site/date has not yet been chosen.

Season starts March 21; there will either be 2 weekends with no games or 4 with fewer to deal with the playing during qualifiers issue.

And finally, the reserve division got killed off. Overall rosters go from 28 players to 24, you can carry 18-20 senior roster players and up to 4 Generation Adidas.

jefe wrote:

QUOTE:
And finally, the reserve division got killed off. Overall rosters go from 28 players to 24, you can carry 18-20 senior roster players and up to 4 Generation Adidas.

Bad news. What incentives are there for clubs do develop young players?

If they aren't going to have a reserve division they ought to set up the USL as a AAA farm league.

If everyone plays everyone twice, except one rival, then there's no point in having two divisions. They should just do a straight table.

Do people back home honestly think that Donovan is good enough to play regularly for Bayern?

And is there any concern that these loan deals are highlighting MLS' minor league status internationally?

While not ideal, I think the club squad size reduction is going to have some benefits. It serves as an extra bump on the salary cap, allowing teams to pay a little bit more for second tier players, or perhaps allowing a few more mid-level stars to be on a team. Under the right management, this could help a team in the multiple competitions that we see, giving them stronger squad depth and less reliance on one or two players.

It's not enough - I'd rather they were able to significantly move the salary cap without this reduction, but I doubt they feel flush enough as a league to do such a thing.

Donovan at Bayern on loan, particularly if he comes back after the loan, looks better to me than the younger players jumping at their first sniff at a Euro contract. It means that MLS has players (if only a small number) that are capable of playing right away in Europe. Rather than the other situation, which indicates that there is un-developed talent in MLS that could eventually play in Europe, if only they got the heck out of the US.

Columbus 3-1.

There is no god.