The Sweeper: American Second Division Survives for 2010
By Faerie Girl on Flickr
Big Story
As assiduously reported by Brian Quarstad, Duane Rollins and Kartik Krishnaiyer, the United States Soccer Federation and the two leagues seeking Division II status for 2010 in North America appear to have finally reached a compromise.
It appears that the USSF will oversee a league with two conferences featuring the teams committed to the USL and NASL respecitvely. There are many other details rumoured to be part of the deals, and what can become public presumably will in a conference call the USSF is hosting this afternoon with representatives of both leagues.
So, we will have second division soccer here in the United States in 2010 (let us hope we also have first division soccer!). It’s significant that despite the bitterness, the threats of lawsuits, and the tight timeline, that the two leagues have been able to hammer out an interim solution. As we recalled here last week, in the past, this was not always possible, leading to administrative strife tearing soccer apart.
Of course, it already being 2010, we should presume negotiations on hammering out a long-term solution for 2011 will begin shortly. While we await the final details of the interim solution, perhaps one or two who argued the USSF (and MLS) were either dropping the ball or deliberately trying to destroy second division soccer will stay quiet for a little while, though it will take much work again to work things out beyond this year.
Worldwide News
- I love world football. One minute Hans Backe is following Sven-Göran Eriksson on his bizarre global career: assisting Sven at Manchester City, Mexico and then as manager at troubled Notts County, and now he’s the head coach of Red Bull New York. Well, he’s prepped for disaster and general weirdness, at least.
- We have been careful to avoid much commentary on MLS’ labour talks here because of our lack of knowledge and insight on the complex situation (Peter Wilt’s prediction of a lockout yesterday aside, but Peter knows far more about MLS than I do). I’d recommend MFUSA’s series as a primer for those wanting to keep up, while Fake Sigi has an interesting opinion piece today on the state of MLS and its business model, quite eloquently describing MLS as built to last in its present complicated, but carefully constructed condition: “It’s a brilliantly conceived business entity built with decades of pro sports litigation in the USA in mind. It’s something that the majority of people don’t understand, but under the hood it’s sexy as hell and built to last. It’s the corporate entity version of a rotary engine or a Macintosh computer. It took the old way of doing things, looked at the problems that had plagued other leagues, and came up with an innovative, new way of dealing with those issues while retaining a ton of eccentricities that few understand.”
- Of random interest: photos of the 15 lowest ranked UEFA nations’ national stadiums.
The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
About the Author
Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
Email this author | All posts by Tom Dunmore
You might also like:
|
|
|
|
|
Hysteria 0, Common Sense 1 (HT)
What I’m hearing is that we’ll get two conferences of six clubs each, with 20 in-conference ties and 12 inter-conference ties.
USL: Austin, CP Baltimore, Portland, Puerto Rico, Rochester, Tampa Bay
NASL: Carolina, Miami, Minnesota, Montreal, St. Louis, Vancouver
Atlanta would sit out for another year. Not sure where FC New York is, but many are suggesting they won’t be ready for 2010. No clue how the TV deal would work out. Does FSC only show the USL games? Who shows the NASL and inter-conference games? I guess that all gets sorted out soon.
Looking past this year, Portland and Vancouver split for MLS in 2011, leaving 10 clubs from this group. CPB, Rochester and Tampa Bay would presumably be free to join the NASL in 2011, which would give that league 8 clubs with a season or more under their belts, plus maybe Atlanta and Edmonton as well. That would make it awfully hard for the USSF not to sanction the NASL for 2011.
So if Vancouver and Portland bolt, and Baltimore, Rochester, and TB go to the NASL, then what does that mean for Austin and PR? They’re either joining NASL or USL-2, because they sure as hell aren’t having their own little separate division…
“Well, he’s prepped for disaster and general weirdness, at least.”
Had a good laugh when I read this. Just wanted to post my thanks.
Gulati said “fully-interlocking schedule” of 28, 30, 32 games, maybe 34.
These conferences aren’t strictly geographic (Miami and Tampa Bay aren’t in the same conference, for example, which would make sense for a lot of reasons, cooties notwithstanding), else you’d unbalance things and try to play more in-conference than out-of-conference.
Four in and two out gives you 32, but 32 is a lot and why have Puerto Rico make two trips to Portland and only one to Vancouver and why have Miami and Tampa Bay make only one trip across the state each?
And I think I’m going to start calling this the D2 One Off League, for lack of a better name.
Everyone should check KT’s blog for an excellent recap of the US Soccer conference call discussing all of the details of this: http://www.kenn.com/the_blog/?p=2620
We’ll have our own here reaction soon enough.