It's pretty bad. I'm not sure I know anyone who has been to a game. Even the kick-start that was heralded when poor stupid Becks arrived seems not to have materialized.
It's a league for people who can't make it abroad and for people who already have made it abroad but have since lost the use of one or both of their legs. This is the best the United States can offer. Just Landon Donovan and his absurd receding hairline (which is no worse than Arjen Robben's absurd receding hairline, but Robben is, get this, actually good at soccer).
It takes an all-star (soi-disant) MLS team to compete against a club from Mexico. This is pathetic.
And, even aside from the quality of play, the team names are embarrassingly stupid. Real Salt Lake? Do you know why half of Spanish teams are called Real? Yes? Perhaps because they have kings in Spain? And because "Real Mallorca" does not sound ludicrous? Or Dynamo Houston? Newsflash: Texas? Not a former Soviet state!
The feeling of ersatz European league is embarrassing; if we could sustain a league of our own we should actually make it a league of our own. With team names that make sense and aren't stolen from other countries.
And now Philadelphia is getting an MLS franchise, with a new stadium and all the fixin's. Hooray. A new sport in which Philadelphia can fail. The only bright side to this, as I see it, is that MLS itself might fail before Philadelphia gets into a rut. Did we learn nothing from WUSA?
2 comments:
You'll eventually know someone who's seen an MLS match; I'm at least ostensibly planning to attend one in Chicago.
If nothing else, I figure I shouldn't mock a sport I haven't even been to a game of. I went to an NBA game, this is the source of the impunity with which I loudly proclaim it's utterly worthless.
This is all to be expected: Soccer is un-American.
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