Were you compelled to watch not only your own team's games, but others as well since they all mattered?
Are you looking forward to some exciting playoff games?
If so, Richard Snowden wants you to know that every time New York loses a CONCACAF Champions League qualifier, God kills a kitten. From today's piece at Soccer365, New Season, Same Old Shame:
It is fast becoming a perennial rite of humiliation for Major League Soccer and the American game as a whole.
MLS started off this year's installment of the CONCACAF Champions League with five entrants, nearly one-quarter of the total field of 24 clubs. And just like last year, only one MLS team – that's right, exactly one – managed to survive the tournament's group stage.
. . .
To say the least, it's not exactly the sort of performance that will convince the droves of soccerphilic skeptics out there to give MLS a fair look.
Yes, all of you out there who are happy or sad about how your team ended the season, all of you who are going to tune into the playoffs, all of you waiting for your expansion team to come online, you need to stop. Just stop. Stop for a moment and consider what you are doing. Think about all those times you checked the Houston score even though you were at your mother-in-law's funeral. Think about when you bought tickets and *gasp* went to an MLS game. Think about when you pulled on that tight, hot Ned Grabavoy jersey and just rubbed oil all over yourself before climaxing in a cacophony of pleasure.
Are you not filled with shame? Do you not feel unclean? Does not your very being shrink in humiliation at the knowledge that New York couldn't beat W. Connection? Do you have to turn on an EPL or La Liga game (Bundesliga or Serie A? Pff, they're only for poseurs) just to try and wash off the filth of MLS before you turn in for bed on Sunday nights?
No? Well why not?
When we last saw Snowden, he was peddling the $10mm soft cap, but apparently he's been trolling MLS fans for quite a while. He strikes me as being a Rob Enderle for the American soccer fan. That is, a guy with a lot of bluster who speaks in half truths and sounds good to those who don't critically examine what he has to say.
Snowden's beef with MLS's performance in the CCL goes back at least to March when he suggested that MLS could build its credibility with solid performances in the competition. While it's true that there is a fraction of the population who view MLS as Mickey Mouse, and while they even might have good arguments in a few areas, even Snowden admits that these people probably won't start coming to games even if an MLS side wins the CCL and goes to the Club World Cup.
The Club World Cup? Is that what's supposed to build the league's credibility?
The fact of the matter is, a very, very small contingent of people in this hemisphere think the CCL is important. Snowden complains about MLS teams fielding B-sides, but glosses over the fact that lots the other clubs did too. And a lot of the crowds were MLL-esque.
And yeah, the FMF teams were stomping all opposition. That's what teams from a league with a lot more history and fans can do. One of the reasons why Superliga is in the USA when Mexican teams are in preseason is because that's how much the playing field needs to be leveled for MLS teams to have a shot at winning. Even if you threw $50mm more at the problem annually, still you'd have an uphill battle, plus you'd destroy MLS's wage structure.
And wasn't it a shocking tragedy that TFC and New York, two teams that royally sucked this year in MLS and do even worse in knockout competitions, couldn't cut it in the CCS? The bigger tragedy is that neither of those teams should have been there to begin with. One got lucky the Crew won the double, the other only has to navigate a farcical three team tournament. Sure Houston deserves criticism, but that team has been on self-destruct mode for months. I feel like at their last game they'll murder-suicide each other, or at least have a good punch up in the locker room. Kinnear is among the best coaches in the league? Anyone who's been watching that team creep closer to the edge of sanity over the last two months knows that's a lie.
But I digress. If you want to give MLS fewer spots in the competition a la Luis Bueno or, I don't know, send Chicago next time, I'm down with that.
The bottom line is I'm not losing sleep over the results in the CCL, especially when they involve clubs that shouldn't have been there to begin with and *especially* not now when there are bigger fish to fry. Is MLS Cup a bigger deal to MLS teams than a CCL championship? Hell yes. Maybe it's not fair or right, but wins against Caribbean and Central American competition aren't going to build MLS up any more than the soft cap might. And they're not a path to "priceless credibility". At the moment the CCL is another pointless dick check that has little impact on MLS's bottom line or its perceived value to the majority of its followers.
To conclude: MLS fans, you know who you are. And you're the ones that have to live with yourselves for following such a shitty league. Just make sure that when you watch this weekend's playoff games, you close the blinds, turn out the lights and cover your shame. After all, you wouldn't want your friends, relatives, or even god-forbid your partners to know about the kind of degenerate depravity you get on with on the weekends.
And for God's sake, use protection.
Fake Sigi out.
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