After nine games last week, it’s another full slate this time.
Volunteer via Twitter, Facebook or the comments, then leave your comments below:
All times ET
Wednesday
Chicago-New England, 8:30
Saturday
Toronto-New York, 1
San Jose-Los Angeles, 4 (TeleFutura)
Columbus-Colorado, 7:30
Dallas-Chivas USA, 8:30 (FSC) – I’ll take one of the 8:30s
Houston-Chicago, 8:30
Kansas City-New England, 8:30
Sunday
D.C. United-Philadelphia, 2 – me
Catch up on your EPL previews now. Check out the whole team-by-team series at The Guardian.
MLS, meanwhile, has Donovan vs. Henry. Sign up to do player ratings.
We also have an interesting grab bag of events from a pretty big gymnastics competition to a USA Basketball friendly.
FRIDAY
2 p.m.: Track and field, Diamond League, London Grand Prix. Check the preview and hope the stream works. Universal Sports online
3 p.m.: Soccer, Bayern Munich-Real Madrid. Interesting friendly. ESPN / ESPN Deportes / ESPN3
11 p.m.: MMA, Strikeforce Challengers. The main event is veteran Joe Riggs vs. Louis Taylor, and Randy Couture’s son, Ryan, makes his debut. But most eyes are on the women’s tournament, featuring Miesha Tate and Carina Damm. Showtime (delayed to 11 p.m. PT on West Coast)
SATURDAY
7:30 a.m.: Soccer, Tottenham-Manchester City. Online only? ESPN3
9:30 a.m.: Track and field, Diamond League, London Grand Prix, Day 2. Universal Sports online
10 a.m.: Soccer, Aston Villa-West Ham. Your first EPL game of the year on FSC should feature at least one American (Brad Friedel) and a lot of chatter about a possible American coach (Bob Bradley). FSC
12:30 p.m.: Soccer, Chelsea-West Brom. Your first Big Four game of the year on U.S. TV. FSC
3 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Rogers Cup (Montreal) semifinals. ESPN2
4 p.m.: Action Sports, Dew Tour. NBC
4 p.m.: Soccer, Philadelphia-Colorado. TeleFutura
5:30 p.m.: Soccer, New York-Los Angeles, including a 30-minute pregame to hype all the Designated Players. FSC
7 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Rogers Cup (Montreal) semifinals. ESPN2
8 p.m.: Gymnastics, Visa Championships. NBC
SUNDAY
11 a.m.: Soccer, Liverpool-Arsenal. Your first really, really big game of the EPL season. FSC
1 p.m.: Basketball, USA-France. ESPN2
3 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Rogers Cup (Montreal) final. ESPN2
4 p.m.: Action Sports, Dew Tour. NBC
6 p.m.: Soccer, WPS, Boston-Sky Blue. FSC
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Thanks to all for your contributions to Week 1 of the MLS player ratings project. As Lois Griffin once said about dinner, it was so much fun, we might as well do it again.
Let me know via comments, Twitter or Facebook if you’d like to handle one of the games below, then leave your ratings in the comments. Then tell all your friends to come over and check out your brilliant analysis. (Actually, I was quite impressed with all the contributions.)
All times ET
Wednesday
Philadelphia-Salt Lake, 7:30
New York-Toronto, 7:30
Saturday
Philadelphia-Colorado, 4 (TeleFutura)
New York-Los Angeles, 6 (FSC)
New England-Houston, 8
D.C. United-Dallas, 8
Salt Lake-Columbus, 9
San Jose-Kansas City, 10
Chivas USA-Seattle, 11
Anyone made that pun yet? I think we’re all racing now to make the last possible pun on Freddy Adu’s name.
The young American’s status is up in the air again after a trial with Switzerland’s FC Sion didn’t pan out. (Aside to headline writers: “Not signing” and “failed to impress” or not the same thing.)
Now we have a report that Adu is “close to signing” with the Los Angeles Galaxy. My background doesn’t give me much faith in anonymous reports — which works out well, because no one ever tells me anything — but World Soccer Reader has shown itself to be more sincere and reliable in its reporting than most. And it’s interesting that the mainstreamers who could easily throw cold water on such reports have not done so.
“Close to signing,” of course, is a nebulous term, and many things can derail a deal that seems close to happening. This isn’t the NBA, where teams are basically bidding against each other for free agents, and players are weighing only a couple of factors. This is international soccer and MLS, where the multiple parties must agree on transfer terms, contract terms, compensation for the team holding allocation rights, salary cap impact, etc., etc.
So while we wait to see if this deal comes to fruition, we can ask: Should Freddy Adu come back to MLS?
I say no. Here’s why:
Adu is the classic example of how the old media “build up, tear down” celebrity cycle has been accelerated and magnified in the Internet Age. Some people thought he was never that good. Some people legitimately bought the “new Pele” line, though no one in a position of authority was actually calling him that. Some people thought he was several years older than he said.
Let’s destroy all three of those arguments, in reverse order:
If you’re not a fan of American soccer leagues, this isn’t much of a weekend, though some European leagues (France, Netherlands, English Championship) kick off.
FRIDAY
2 p.m.: Track and field, Diamond League, Stockholm. Bolt vs. Gay. Great stuff. Universal Sports online
SATURDAY
3:35 a.m.: Rugby, Tri-Nations Cup, New Zealand vs. Australia. Travis’ preview will run in an hour or so. RugbyZone.com
3 p.m.: Harness racing, Hambletonian. We don’t cover much horse racing, but this is seriously the most interesting non-league item on USA TODAY’s listings. NBC
7 p.m.: Soccer, PDL championship. As with the W-League, this game is way too early because the players all need to scramble back to college. FSC
10 p.m.: Mixed martial arts, UFC 117, Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen, Roy Nelson-Junior dos Santos, Jon Fitch-Thiago Alves. Good card. Previews at USA TODAY. Pay-per-view
SUNDAY
10 a.m.: Soccer, Community Shield, Chelsea-Manchester United. I tease Eurosnobs, sure, but of course I’m thrilled to see resumption of play in England. FSC
6 p.m.: Soccer, MLS, Dallas-Philadelphia. If you’re a Philly fan, stick around for the next game on FSC
8 p.m.: Soccer, WPS, Philadelphia-Boston. Alternately, you might have made the trip out to West Chester. Yeah, it’s a haul, but isn’t West Chester beautiful? FSC
9 p.m.: Soccer, MLS, Chicago-New York. Counting something like five Designated Players who might be on the field at the same time, which would be a record. Let’s see — Ljungberg, Castillo, Henry, Angel, Marquez. Might not all be ready, though. We had Beckham-cam a couple of years ago when he was on the bench and thinking about coming in — will we see Marquez-cam? ESPN2
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Josh Hakala has the story of an innovative idea to remove all the disadvantages of the Silverdome as an MLS venue in one swoop. It’s simple but brilliant: Put a roof at the top of the lower (edit: not upper, which makes no sense) deck, creating an enclosed space below — two of them, actually — for concerts, basketball, hockey, maybe even indoor soccer. Then remove the roof on top of the upper deck, and voila — it’s a 30K-ish soccer stadium.
Roof, gone. Capacity decreased to something reasonable. Without knowing the particulars, I’d have to think the width of the field wouldn’t be an issue, either, unless the Silverdome’s current upper deck juts out really far.
Sounds somewhat expensive, of course, so we’ll have to see if the capital is actually there. But at least they’re not trying to find a site from scratch like New England or D.C. United.
Could this sort of outside-the-box thinking help United?
Forget the political problems for a moment and consider this possibility: The Redskins return to the site now occupied by dilapidated RFK Stadium. No NFL team would move into a smallish, dated, crumbling facility, whatever its charms. So RFK would need to come down — preferably demolished rather than simply collapsing on its own — and a new stadium is needed.
Suppose that stadium had the following:
– A field that slides out, as in the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium and Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. You could actually roll a grass field on top of an artificial field if desired. You could have separate fields for soccer and football.
– A retractable roof between decks. Making a soccer stadium out of the upper deck, as in the Silverdome plan, might be tricky — I can’t imagine retractable roofing is designed to bear that much weight. But you could close the roof all the way for “indoor” events, or you could close it partway to make a nice soccer stadium out of the lower deck.
All we need to make it happen is a couple hundred million dollars and the agreement of several political bodies. At least the former would be less of a problem with the Redskins’ involvement.
Ben Olsen burst onto the MLS scene soon after the league launched, bringing a potent mix of skill and effort to a powerful D.C. United team. As injuries robbed him of some of his speed and likely ruined his chances of remaining in Europe, where he had impressed on loan with Nottingham Forest, he stuck with United and was a midfield general whenever healthy. He made it to the World Cup in 2006 with his experience and willingness to do anything for his team.
Along the way, he became one of the most popular athletes in Washington. Not on D.C. United — in D.C. He was always quotable and charitable. The fact that Nick Rimando and Jacqui Little asked him to officiate at their wedding should tell you what his teammates thought of him, and the fans who came up with elaborate displays for him felt the same way. (Fine, Red Bulls fans, go ahead and wretch, but I’m just telling you the reality here. Besides, if you’ve made peace with Richie Williams, surely you can forgive another United midfield irritant.)
Whether Olsen, only a few months removed from his playing days, is ready to take over as head coach of a dysfunctional D.C. United team is anyone’s guess. He will have one advantage over Curt Onalfo — everyone will be rooting for him.
But at D.C. United, the problems surely go a bit deeper than the head coach. Let’s look at a couple of years of incoming players (skipping minor developmental player moves), since 2007, when United won the Supporters Shield:
Envious of other countries that have Sunday (even Saturday evening) papers filled with player ratings to let you know how everyone performed at a glance, even subjectively? Nostalgic for the days that USA TODAY had ratings for MLS? Tired of poring through 15 different game reports on 15 different sites and blogs that don’t tell you whether your fantasy left back performed semi-capably?
In this day of DIY media, why can’t we do this ourselves?
Here’s the plan: Each week, we need one or two people to volunteer to rate a game. I’m reserving the right to turn people down if I don’t think they’re going to be objective about it, and anyone who comes in and rates every home team player a 10 won’t be considered for ratings down the road. We’re not looking for Fanzone here — we want actual information from people who watched the game in detail.
We also want a little bit more than a number. It could be something like “Donovan: 7 – missed one early chance but sprang Buddle for equalizer with deft touch.” Or “Dure: 2 – repeatedly beaten for pace, most attempted clearances intercepted, at fault on all six goals. Gets a 2 rather than a 1 just for sheer effort and avoidance of yellow card.”
The ratings also should help us track tactical changes each team is making. Lead off the report with any changes in the side since the last game and give us at least a solid guess at the formation. That usually means taking what you see on the broadcast and then giving it a reality check once the game is underway. (Also, this is easier if you’re in the stadium and can see the whole field, so anyone who’s at a game gets priority if we have several volunteers.)
I’ll try one tonight for Metapan-Seattle, though I may be at the mercy of the broadcast feed for CONCACAF games. Hopefully, I’ll at least give us a template to go by.
For now, send in your ratings as comments — I’ll set up a post to collect them. We might change that system down the road.
So, can I have volunteers for the following (times ET; updated with volunteers):
Thursday
8 p.m. – Philadelphia-Columbus (ESPN2) – John “The Soccerist” Greely
Saturday
4 p.m. – Toronto-Chivas USA (Telefutura)
7:30 p.m. – New England-D.C. United
8:30 p.m. – Kansas City-Salt Lake – Alexander Abnos
9 p.m. – Colorado-San Jose
Sunday
7 p.m. – Dallas-Philadelphia (FSC) – Michael Roadarmel
9 p.m. – Chicago-New York (ESPN2) – me
11 p.m. – Seattle-Houston- Alexander Abnos
To be perfectly honest, we’re in a lull. No Tour, no huge world championships (no disrespect to the folks with rifles and pistols), etc. Plenty of league games, though. Through the weekend, eight Mexican league games are on various networks. On Saturday, seven MLS games are on Direct Kick / MLSSoccer.com. See Soccer America listings below.
And it’s X Games weekend — see TV schedule and ESPN3 schedule.
FRIDAY
2 p.m.: X Games. ESPN
3 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Los Angeles quarterfinals. ESPN2
7 p.m.: X Games. ESPN
11 p.m.: Tennis, WTA Stanford quarterfinals. ESPN2
SATURDAY
9:30 a.m.: Soccer, Emirates Cup, Celtic-Lyon. GolTV
11:30 a.m.: Soccer, Emirates Cup, Arsenal-AC Milan. GolTV
2 p.m.: X Games. ESPN
3 p.m.: Tennis, WTA Stanford semifinals. ESPN2
5 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Los Angeles semifinal. ESPN2
7 p.m.: X Games. ESPN
9 p.m.: Boxing, Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz II, pay-per-view
10 p.m.: Soccer, W-League championship. One of the two major U.S./Canada amateur women’s leagues finishes its season absurdly early so that many players can get back to college. Fox Soccer Channel
10:30 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Los Angeles semifinal. ESPN2
SUNDAY
6 a.m.: Soccer, U-20 Women’s World Cup final, Germany-Nigeria. ESPNU / ESPN3.com
9 a.m.: Soccer, U-20 Women’s World Cup third-place game, South Korea-Colombia. ESPNU / ESPN3.com
9:30 a.m.: Soccer, Emirates Cup, AC Milan-Lyon. GolTV
11:30 a.m.: Soccer, Emirates Cup, Arsenal-Celtic. GolTV
1 p.m.: X Games. ESPN2
3 p.m.: Tennis, WTA Stanford final. ESPN2
5 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Los Angeles final. ESPN2
5 p.m.: Soccer, WPS, Atlanta-Gold Pride. Fox Soccer Channel
7 p.m.: X Games. ESPN2
7:30 p.m.: Soccer, MLS, Los Angeles-Chicago. Fox Soccer Channel
9 p.m.: MMA, UFC on Versus: Jon Jones-Vladimir Matyushenko, Mark Munoz-Yushin Okami, Tyson Griffin-Takanori Gomi. See my main event preview at USA TODAY. Versus
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Upcoming: USA Swimming championships, starting Tuesday.
Final score: Manchester United 5, MLS All-Stars 2.
What does tell us? Nothing, without the following bits on context that will explain why this game was different than the typical MLS summer friendly and why last night’s Twitter panic was a tad overblown:
– Man U were motivated, both on a team level and individual level. On a team level, they had just lost to the Kansas City Wizards, and the combination of a legendary club’s pride and some media pressure surely had them a bit more revved up than the typical EPL team on holiday. On an individual level, these guys are fighting for jobs — not just playing time, but jobs, given the new EPL roster limits.
– The Man U kids fighting for those jobs are pretty good. The third and fourth goals in last night’s game were sublime. You could lined up the all-time Serie A All-Stars against Man U, and they might have stopped the fourth with a hard foul. Not the third.
– The All-Stars had more nerves than usual, with an inexperienced side playing Man U in front of 70,000 people. That’s why you get a mistake like Kevin Alston’s poorly weighted pass to a flat-footed Jamison Olave in the first minute, leading directly to Goal #1.
– The experienced players would could’ve settled the side, like Landon Donovan and Dwayne De Rosario, played little because they’re busy with CONCACAF play.
And still, the All-Stars more than held their own in midfield, with Shalrie Joseph looking particularly strong. MLS outshot Man U 19-12, with 11 shots on target to Man U’s 9. But United keeper Edwin van der Sar played like someone who has as much interest in handing over his job as Brett Favre.
The final score was a matter of the defensive breakdowns that are bound to happen when you throw a team together for one game. The first goal was an MLS blunder. No. 2 was a case of one team being used to working together on set pieces and one not so fortunate. No. 5 was either offside or a player failing to push up with his linemates.
Chelsea, Everton, West Ham et al weren’t quite as efficient at capitalizing on those mistakes. That’s a combination of not being quite as motivated and perhaps not quite as confident. It’s also a case of this year’s All-Star team being weakened by various circumstances such as CONCACAF play.
All that said … it’s a friendly. You never know what you’re going to get or how seriously some people are going to take it. Sebastien Le Toux in particular seemed to be out for a leisurely stroll.
You can discern a few good things out of a friendly. The people rushing to buy Wizards tickets after Kansas City’s win hopefully saw a few signs of talent, even if the opponents weren’t up for it on that day. Anyone who saw last night’s game has to think United has some young players with flashes of brilliance.
But hanging Alston, Le Toux or coach Bruce Arena out to dry for the result overlooks the basic point. To restate:
It’s a friendly.
Resume panicking over CONCACAF games, though frankly, MLS didn’t win over any indifferent fans by winning that trophy twice and has every reason to take league games more seriously. Maybe Toronto or Seattle can eke out an away draw and calm people down. Though, frankly, both of those teams have plenty to worry about in the league games.
Back to business on Saturday.
Duresport.com 