Sometimes in my life as a professional freelancer, I get
stretched in so many different directions that I must stop and take account of my sundry platforms
and obligations. So, let's see:
Sports Illustrated.com (SI.com) ... I'm on it.
For MLSSoccer.
Something has always flummoxed me in sports. It's the propensity of lesser informed fans and a
few media blowhards to stand on high, reeking of tough-minded and righteous superiority, and label
some professional athletes as "soft."
This is especially bothersome in American football.
Difficult as this might be to swallow, one of the next big stories coming out of U.S. Soccer
won't anything to do with Jurgen Klinsmann.
I know, I know ... it's all about Klinsi right now. Heck,
I've written as much.
But here's what's right around the bend in U.
Arlo White now has his boots in the booth for NBC Sports Networks, and his successor behind the
microphone for Seattle Sounders FC has been revealed.
I'm sure Ross Fletcher will do a bang-up job, and I'm truly
intrigued to observe how Kasey Keller makes the transition from player to TV analyst, especially
considering he's in the starting blocks at one of Major League Soccer's more important and higher
profile regional broadcast positions.
ALSO FILE UNDER: This thing might just go away in 5 or 6 years
As player acquisition tools evolve in Major League Soccer, January's annual SuperDraft seems
destined to shrink in relevance. Even this year the process already is shrinking, literally,
reduced to just two rounds. That's down from four rounds just two years ago.
I love to see the MLS passion pouring in from these new ports of call. Devoted fans from
Toronto, Portland, Vancouver, Seattle and, going a little further back, Salt Lake City, have done
wonders to energize Major League Soccer, now going into its 17th season.
And plenty of new fans from older markets are adding more air to the MLS baloon, too.
Looks like George John is getting the best of both worlds.
The FC Dallas center back will soon be playing at Upton Park
as part of West Ham. But it won't be as part of a full transfer as previously believed. Not just
yet, at any rate.
I don't have many details, but it looks like the first step
here is a loan to West Ham through the end of February.
When you break it down, what we love about sports are the memories they create.
You build stockpiles of those treasured days and nights. We all have our "Miracle On Ice"
moments, even if all can't rise to that level of cherish and intensity.
We fondly remember that special game at your high school.
I caught up with a buddy yesterday. Good dude. Hadn't seen him in a while. So we hit a local pub
and swapped talk over a couple of pints, abetted by "Jules," a wickedly effective siren at the art
of suggestive selling.
We started a little early. And when you do that, there might just be trouble ahead.
When the MLS off-season springs to life, it does so with a vengeance.
We learned as much yesterday, in one of the busiest days of off-season newsiness I can remember.
David Beckham spurned the sultry advances of Paris Saint-Germaine, FC Dallas may have gotten the
striker they've needed for so long, and Colorado got a coach, just days before the MLS draft.
Where the storyline are in U.S. soccer for 2012
Wondering where the big talkers will come from in our soccer world in 2012? The answers are in
my piece that posted yesterday at SI.com. Feel free to drop some of these little nuggets of
knowledge at the water cooler today as you climb back into the work seat for the New Year.
We all talk about New Year's resolutions. You know what I say about them: view ‘em as
"guidelines" more than "rules" and you'll live a far more guilt-free year. So that's that.
But I'd like to start out 2012 with another kind of "resolution." As in, I'd love to see some
quick resolutions to vexing issues in the domestic game.
As you think about David Beckham – Will he? Won't he? Where did his love for us go? – and
whether he'll keep the Good Ship Becks docked in Don Garber Harbor, let's talk quickly about
shifting values and diminishing returns.
In a way, Beckham and the attached regiments of Brand Beckham
are no different than any other goods, like a camera, a coffee maker or those awful and gaudy
Christmas sweaters.
I watched FC Barcelona in the wee smalls on Sunday, mesmerized as always by the side's peerless
ability to hold possession and work nimbly out of pressure, as Pep Guardiola's men operated in
Asia. It took me back a couple of weeks to my trip into that stylish and splendid Catalan city.
Just after sunset, my girlfriend and I sat in a coffee shop
not far from the Barcelona's main port.
Things today that have some others worked into a tizzy, but that leave me saying, "Meh
..."
- FIFA Club World Cup
- El-Hadji Diouf (linked by France press to a potential L.A. Galaxy move), who would be on his
eight club in 10 years, an cautionary sign
- Pretty much any MLS-related transfer reports that come out of France
- Mock MLS drafts
- American soccer players / coaches who don fake English accents
- Video clips of goals set to music (the truly great strikes don't need the extra umph)
- Series finales that leave more unresolved than resolved (that's for Homeland fans)
