So #MLS4RSL ends in disappointment, a Mexican team once again putting American opposition in its place – or so the story goes. In truth, the tie was an even enough battle over the two legs, RSL securing a deserved tie in Mexico but failing to live up to their usual standard at home with Humberto Suazo (worth more than RSL’s entire team) proving the difference. A capacity crowd of 20,378 at Rio Tinto was clearly into the game, but obviously did not intimidate their experienced opposition.

At When Saturday Comes, Ian Plenderleith has the most telling analysis of the game I’ve seen:

Having done the hard part by managing what few US club sides ever do – avoiding defeat in Mexico – Salt Lake became the victims of too much hype, and too much dreamy talk about striding out on to the world stage. They forgot to play their normal passing game, and it didn’t help that their normally prolific strike partnership of Fabián Espíndola and former Bristol City loanee Álvaro Saborío both had absolute stinkers.

It wasn’t luck that told, but class. Just before half-time, Monterrey put together a three-man passing move within the tight confines of the Salt Lake penalty area and the game’s best player, Humberto Suazo, neatly finished the kind of move familiar to regulars at the Nou Camp. The home team’s second-half response was hurried and hectic and, untypically for this team, it was typically MLS. That is, the kind of first touch that makes you wince, with all promising moves breaking down in the final third. The closing minutes saw the familiar long ball banged high towards the Monterrey box, but a toe-poked effort that went just wide in the final minute of injury time was the closest Salt Lake came to grabbing the honours.

Intense Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis stood in his trenchcoat casting shifty glances up and down the touchline, like a deviant set on committing some unspeakable act, but all too aware that he was under surveillance from cameras and 20,000 people. After years of praise for turning a virgin team (Real Salt Lake were founded in 2005) from the league’s basket case into a solid, well-drilled unit, it was only right that Kreis suddenly looked like a hunted man. Against a team that’s extremely comfortable on the ball and swiftly confident on the counter-attack, MLS had again come up against its limits. There were no answers on the bench, or within the team’s tactical scope.

Fair enough. Real Salt Lake did not seem to have a plan B to gain control of the game. Plenderleith, though, does neglect to mention one key reason RSL did not have their usual control: after receiving a dubious yellow card in the first leg, they were missing their captain and fulcrum of the team, one of the best two-way players in the league, Kyle Beckerman. This clearly had an enormous impact on RSL’s play, and one even suspected the jig was up for RSL psychologically with Kreis’ reaction to the suspension following the first leg in Mexico:

“That for me was a fair tackle, it wasn’t even a foul. I believe the ball hit Kyle’s shin, and he was first to the ball. That is mind-boggling for me. I’m extremely disappointed in the referee’s decision, and now I’m extremely disappointed for Kyle and our team. It’s already had a huge effect on him, he’s extremely disappointed in the locker room. Of course, it will have a huge effect on us when we lose our captain.”

In terms of the match as an event: I for one was happy to see the game and the competition being the focus of the MLS hype: not Beckham-cam, not the atmosphere, not an all-star friendly, not some poor attempt at forcing rivalry, but Real Salt Lake’s 18-month journey to do something special. Sure, as I mentioned yesterday, the hype machine was in overdrive – the #MLS4RSL stuff did gloss over LA and DC’s previous Concacaf regional triumphs with some disdain – but the point remains that American soccer’s watercooler talk was about an international competition and the play on the field. RSL fell just short following a brave effort, helping raise the profile for the Concacaf Champions League, with a narrative that can now intensify in terms of MLS’ quest to dominate regional competition. Of course, the downside of focusing on the game is that the result might not go your way. It didn’t for MLS. But that shouldn’t deter the league from continuing to promote regional competition heavily. RSL embarrassed nobody.

One other down note, though: if MLS and its broadcasting partners want fans to feel the excitement of international competition, they need to do better than the insipid announcing that accompanied the game yesterday. Find someone who can convey the game’s importance and help the pulse quicken when something exciting happens, and find him a partner to work with who can provide some helpful analysis of the play. Having a slightly bored-sounding announcer did not make it feel like a great event, and nor did the lack of a pre-game show – or the Concacaf production values, for that matter. Hype needs showtime!

“Club World Champions?” isn’t exactly right around the corner, but Salt Lake’s run to the final of a tournament that does see the winners head to the FIFA Club World Cup has indeed been mightily impressive of course, and “The team is the star” is a fitting pull quote for this graphic. Ridge Mahoney is spot on with his take on RSL’s strategic success:

As a team, RSL’s advancement to the brink of a regional club title is a study in smart tactics and intelligent deployment of talented personnel. As an organization, its management of limited resources to succeed against richer clubs may be an even greater accomplishment, and a challenge to its league foes.

Indeed: their success with limited spending has been a fine example of simple resourcefulness, an underrated asset in MLS. One of the stats also pulled there tells the story of their remarkable fortitude: 25-0-9 at home, a 34 game unbeaten streak since May 2009.

Salt Lake have managed to create a buzz locally around the tournament unseen for quite some time in MLS, if ever, as Sporting News reports:

Unlike MLS teams in the past, Real Salt Lake has put significant promotion behind the tournament, and club president Bill Manning credits its Champions League success for securing two new sponsors—international home-security firm Vivint and Ford Motor Co.—to six-figure, three-year deals.

“We feel like we’re the first (MLS) team to make this our No. 1 priority,” Manning said.

The club also has drawn strong attendance numbers for Champions League games. An October match against Mexico’s Cruz Azul sold out Rio Tinto Stadium with 20,463 fans; a March 1 quarterfinals game against the Columbus Crew netted 15,400; and a March 15 semifinal against Costa Rica’s Saprissa drew 16,888. Manning expects Wednesday’s game in Salt Lake City to sell out.

In comparison, the club’s average attendance in 2010 for MLS games was 17,095.

“Our fans have a sense of ownership with this tournament,” he said.

Of course, there’s a fair bit of hyperbole here. For the first time in soccer history, one American MLS team should be on everyone’s mind as they take the soccer world for a spin, forever changing the global perception of US soccer.

Uh, sure. I can’t quite see the world paying more attention to RSL-Monterrey than Real Madrid-Barcelona tomorrow, but maybe that’s just me.

That said, regionally it is of considerable significance: MLS’ #MLS4RSL campaign may have become tiresome, but there is an obvious truth to the need for MLS to gain more regional respect, particularly amongst fans of the Mexican league. Salt Lake’s gutsy performance last week in Monterrey earned all the plaudits it garnered.

MLS sensibly euthanised SuperLiga this year, and has accommodated Salt Lake’s scheduling requests to aid its title tilt, rearranging last weekend’s game against Philadelphia for later in the season. The league has quite rightly put its weight behind Salt Lake and helped manufacture some needed buzz for the competition.

Of course, fans of DC United and the LA Galaxy will rightly point out they have already conquered the regional championship – then known as the CONCACAF Champions Cup – in 1998 and 2000 respectively. Neither featured a final on foreign soil, so the RSL advocates go in championing the unique nature of their possible victory, and the name and format-change the tournament underwent in 2008 means RSL can claim to be the “1st MLS Club Ever To Possibly Win The CCL”. Hell, if they do it, they deserve to claim whatever they want: and they’ll have done the CONCACAF Champions League some good, too.

Denis Hamlett and Peter Wilt in better times.

Denis Hamlett, my first hire with the Chicago Fire in July of 1997 finally saw his tenure with MLS’ first expansion team come to an end yesterday as the team announced they will not renew his contract to serve as head coach.  Denis’ team was 45 minutes away from last year’s MLS Cup and only penalty kicks seperated his squad from this year’s SuperLiga and MLS Eastern Conference Championships.

The announcement brought back memories of the first time I spoke to Denis.  Sunil Gulati, then the MLS Deputy Commissioner called me in June of 1997 to ask if I would take Denis on in any role as he was under contract through the end of the year and his career had been ended earlier that year due to a stroke.  I didn’t know Denis, but knew I needed more arms and legs.  We spoke on the phone and he agreed to come on board for the rest of the year as a jack of all trades for the yet unnamed Chicago MLS team.

He spoke to youth soccer groups, answered phones, sold tickets, attended community functions and scouted MLS and A-League games for a coach that neither of us knew yet.  When I hired Bob Bradley, I told him that I was pleased with Denis’ work and would recommend him, but it was up to him.  Bob put Denis on trial, gave him some scouting assignments and worked with him for a period before deciding to hire him as part of his staff.  Denis went on to win four US Open Cup Championships, a Supporters Shield and of course the 1998 MLS Cup during his tenure.

I’m probably too close to Denis and not close enough to the team anymore to give an opinion of great value on his departure.  I’ll simply say that Denis has done more for the Fire organization in its history than just about anyone else, has been an important part of the organization’s many successes and he will be missed.  It is safe to say that the Fire will have a fresh start next season with massive turnover of players and coaching staff.  Here is a perspective from longtime follower Chris Costello.

Signed Andy Williams jersey

Denis’ former boss Dave Sarachan, Associate Head Coach of the Los Angeles Galaxy, also came a penalty kick short of glory as Real Salt Lake used PKs for the second straight game to become the first sub .500 MLS Cup Champion.   Having a sub .500 champion can be looked at as a testament to the playoff structure or as a criticism.  For what it’s worth, the WPS champion this year was also sub .500 using a radically different playoff structure.

Like WPS’ Sky Blue FC, Real Salt Lake came on strong at the end of the year and was the best team when it counted most.  The championship should not be lessened by RSL’s regular season record.

It’s not all doom and gloom in my circle this week, however.  I certainly have friends at Real Salt Lake, including  Andy Williams, whose autographed jersey I won in a Chicago Fire Foundation auction a couple weeks ago and arrived in my office yesterday.  Andy’s story, along with that of his wife Marcia, whose leukemia is in remission, is a well told story that makes the victory sweet for them and all fans of Andy and Marcia.

The Milwaukee Wave mascot is due for a makeover this year, but his favorite team started out the MISL season this week with their 1st road shutout in the team's 26-year history!

Meanwhile, my Milwaukee Wave indoor team started its new season as good as possible by shutting out Monterrey LaRaZa in Mexico 15-0.  Goalkeeper Nick Vorberg and a smothering team defense provided the first away shutout in the Wave’s 26 year history.  That is going to be a difficult standard to live up to when we travel to Rockford Friday with a couple busloads of fans and staff and December 6th when the Wave’s home season kicks off at the US Cellular Arena.

And finally, Philadelphia’s uncertain future begins to crystallize today with its expansion draft.  Head Coach Peter Nowak will make important decisions today that will influence the direction of the team for awhile.  While today is the most visible player acquisition day for the Union, history shows that its import pales in comparison to the international acquisitions the team will make over the next few months.

I hope your week had more highs than lows and you all have plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Rio Tinto stadium, home of your 2010 MLS Cup champions.

Photo credit: jbtuohy on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Much credit for that success gets attributed to the Sounders business model and a constellation of distinctive circumstances—such as a hulking NFL stadium that actually seems to work for soccer.  I was among the 46,000 fans in that stadium on Sunday for the MLS Cup final and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  The game itself was a bit dull, but the pre-game gathering at Occidental Park bubbled with enthusiasm and local character, the “Sound Wave” marching band seemed much less kitschy when rocking out during the march to the stadium than they do on TV, the full house crowd had good energy amidst its uncertainty of who to cheer, and the whole scene had the type of collective effervescence that keeps people coming back.

But the story of the Sounders’ business success this year has been well-told by others.  So I found myself thinking about the whole thing in relation to the broader scope of soccer in Seattle and soccer in the US.  I grew up in Seattle in the 70’s and 80’s, left to see the world, came home about a decade later realizing real estate in Seattle had become so insanely expensive I could never afford to live there, and eventually settled in Portland.  With that perspective it strikes me that the success of MLS in Seattle necessarily builds on a foundation that has gone underappreciated: the culturally odd, sometimes underwhelming, but largely functional soccer infrastructure that has evolved across many American towns.

In other words, the 2009 Sounders and MLS are only one landmark in the Seattle soccer story.  Coming back for the MLS Cup gave me a chance to reflect on some of the other landmarks.  And while there are distinctive things about Seattle’s success, there are also ways in which I suspect Seattle is merely a case study of soccer in anycity USA.

Landmarks of Seattle / American Soccer

The Eclectic Stadia: At the supporters summit on Saturday before MLS Cup the most interesting exchange of the Q & A between Seattle co-owner Drew Carey and MLS commissioner Don Garber riffed on the issue of flares.  Garber basically dismissed any possibility that MLS could ever allow supporters groups to use flares, to which Carey prodded “actually, I kind of like the flares.”  Garber said “Yeah, you like them until your stadium burns down and you have to play at Memorial Stadium.”  To my mind Carey took the points with his retort: “Right—name me one stadium that’s burned down because of fans lighting flares.”  But I was also impressed that Garber knew about Memorial—an old war-horse of a stadium directly underneath the Space Needle that has probably hosted thousands of soccer games in its decades of existence (including most of my Seattle public high school matches and many of the Sounders previous incarnations).  The stadium is a simple pair of concrete sides that could seat 17000 on the rare day that was necessary.  And it long had a terrible old-model Astroturf with an arced crown that made seeing from one touchline to the other problematic.  But it was a reasonably sized stadium right downtown that was soccer-friendly and gave several generations of Seattle players a starting point from which they might hope for more.

And that is to say nothing of the old Kingdome—host of the glory years of the NASL Sounders, full to the rafters with 50,000 soccer fans on big occasions.  The Kingdome was, quite frankly, a cement monstrosity and not a great place to watch any sport.  But it was dry, could be kind of cozy, and in its day made you feel like you were at a major sports venue.  As a kid I once got my picture in the local newspaper for going to an NCAA championship soccer game at the Kingdome with my Dad and some friends during a time when the NCAA had decided that ties should be decided in overtime only—they’d just keep playing them until someone scored.  In that particular game no one scored for 7 overtime periods (until that 1985 UCLA squad—coached by none other than current Sounders manager Sigi Schmid—won it in the 8^th), and my friends and I simply spread ourselves out in the Kingdome’s climate controlled comfort and went to sleep.  It made for a cute picture.  And while the Kingdome ultimately failed as a soccer venue (and was demolished in 2000 to make way for Qwest Field), it did introduce the city to the idea that soccer could be a major event.

The Suburban Mega-Field Complex: Most soccer in American cities happens on local fields rather than in major stadiums.  In cities such as Seattle, combining the immense popularity and growth of youth soccer in the US with the fact that soccer is not a “traditional” American sport, there were rarely enough of those local fields for soccer.  One solution has been the conversion of urban park space, but the main solution has been suburban mega-plexes carving huge swaths of what often used to be farmland into dozens of identical fields.  In Seattle the iteration from my youth is called 60 Acres, and it has likely hosted tens of thousands of youth games and training sessions over the years—socializing hundreds of thousands of us into the game, even if many are only in that temporary state known as “soccer mom.”  60 Acres is also representative in that its growth has proved controversial.  The seemingly insatiable need for fields among youth soccer clubs tends to generate civic opposition—from both the otherwise distinct anti-soccer and anti-sprawl forces.  But they are one small piece of keeping American soccer relevant.

The Public-Private Venture: Starfire Sports Complex, the place the modern Sounders call their “official training facility and administrative home,” is basically a failed public park.  Previously called “Fort Dent,” the park was run by the City of Tukwilla King County [corrected 11/24] until the starved local government could no longer afford the upkeep.  Into the gap stepped “Starfire Sports:” a private group organized as a charitable organization.  This transition only happened this decade, so I’m more familiar with Fort Dent than Starfire, but the entrepreneurial conception of the thing seems characteristically American.

The Indoor Centers: Indoor soccer is another example of an American bastardization of the game that kind of works and kind of matters.  Indoor soccer centers (growing up in Seattle mine was Woodinville Indoor Soccer because of location, but there were and are several others around the city) offered a place to keep playing in the wet and dark winters, taxing a different set of skills and fostering some imagination.  In fact, it is easy to forget that after the demise of the NASL , American professional indoor soccer had a brief run of significance.  I made the 45 minute commute down I-5 more than a few times to see the Tacoma Stars play a bizarre high-energy version of the beautiful game in the Tacoma Dome that was entertaining enough to keep me interested.  In fact, buried in the recent press release about Preki’s hiring as the new coach of Toronto FC is the trivia nugget that he first came to the US because of an offer from the Tacoma Stars (who had seen him playing for Red Star Belgrade).  The ability of Preki to parlay the Tacoma Stars into a career with Everton, the US National Team, and MLS is a tribute to the odd way that soccer success happens in the States.

The British/Irish Soccer Pub: For reasons of legal drinking age, this one wasn’t so important when I was growing up.  But it seems that every town American town has a couple pubs, most often owned and managed by either British or Irish immigrants, that have long offered soccer fans a refuge where you don’t have to feel bad about asking if one of the TV’s can be put on soccer.  In Seattle, a place like The George & Dragon pub looks from the outside like an obscure hole in the wall, but functions in the community as a place that makes soccer fans feel legitimate.  While that continues to be a valuable service, the growing popularity and changing demographics of soccer fandom mean that other establishments are finding their own niches—the Mexican restaurant with the Primera División or the hipster bar with US National Team jerseys on the wall.  It may be that for soccer to really succeed US cities need to get to the point where almost any bar or pub keeps up on the game, but for now we can at least rely on capitalism to ensure market niches get filled.

The Small Soccer Specialty Store: Before an American soccer player or fan could get anything their feet desired through the internet, we needed a local specialty store that fulfilled our consumer fantasies—be that the boots that we imagined would give us just the right touch, or the replica jersey that established a connoisseurs identity.  Like the pubs, the stores often seem to appear modest and mostly have immigrant origins.  In Seattle it was a family of German immigrants that founded what we always called “Sporthaus Schmetzer”—a family that also included some pretty good players and coaches.  Current Sounders Assistant Brian Schmetzer is probably the one a contemporary MLS fan would know.  (As a side note, I think one underemphasized key to the Sounders success has been their tapping local soccer families for key personnel—in addition to Schmetzer, Technical Director Chris Henderson hails from a suburban Seattle family of players and coaches that have had decades of influence on the game in Washington State).

The Adult Leagues: Seattle has long had extensive networks of adult soccer leagues at all levels serving thousands of locals at all ages.  My own love of soccer is due in no small part to the fact that my Dad, who grew up in Texas in the 50’s completely unaware of soccer, stumbled on over-30, over-40, and finally over-50 soccer as a way to exercise, socialize, and recreate.  He never was a great player, but he kept at it for decades, became a fan of the game, and made sure I was too.  In my own adult life during a nine month return to Seattle after the end of my competitive soccer days I had what remains my favorite adult soccer experience in Seattle Co-Rec leagues.  Unlike the corporate “sport and social clubs” models that feel contrived, Seattle Co-Rec was great at being about really finding the right level of soccer for any adult to enjoy—from the former pro to the total newbie.  I don’t know enough about adult recreational soccer in other parts of the world to say how distinctly American this all is—but I suspect that a significant number of the Sounders fan base keeps connected to the game at least partially because of such leagues.

The Colleges and Universities: As I’ve written before, while soccer aficionados inevitably write-off college soccer as a major problem with the American game, the reality is that colleges and universities offer the kinds of genuine community roots that a confusing corporate creation such as Real Salt Lake (in tribute to the Spanish monarchy!?!?)  can never have.  European teams usually started as real clubs, and have meaningful connections to their cities and towns.  For better or worse, college teams often serve that role in the US—particularly since there will always be college and university teams in American towns that will never have professional soccer.  In the Seattle of my youth this role was filled largely by Seattle Pacific University, a smallish regional school that was fairly obscure as a University but dominant in the local soccer world.  SPU’s soccer prominence seemed due largely to their coach Cliff McGrath, a local soccer icon who was the hub of a broad soccer nexus that included extensive summer camps socializing thousands of local kids into the joy of the game every year.  Times have changed: the University of Washington started devoting more resources to soccer and took over local prominence and Cliff McGrath seemed to have an unfortunate falling out with SPU (though it was fun to see him as an announcer on a few of the Sounders telecasts this year).  And MLS may well come to predominate in its 18-20 US cities.  But Americans love their college sports and local soccer icons from that world should get some due.

Locating MLS in this Geography

At the MLS supporters summit on Saturday prior to the MLS Cup, the MLS “Director of Player Programs” offered a brief overview of how the league is working to improve player development.  The theme of the presentation seemed to be tired soccer snobbery—Americans have it all wrong with their youth tournaments and college soccer, and need to turn everything over to European style professionalism.  At one point the MLS official actually made the astonishing statement that “the only group [in this country] that has a real interest in youth development is MLS.”  The implication that MLS is the only group that has a “real interest” in American soccer seems to me both delusional and counter-productive.

The way soccer works in the US has many idiosyncrasies, and much needs to change as the game evolves—just as the game evolves everywhere in the world.  But my point here is that there are many diverse groups that have a “real” and long-standing interest in soccer in America.  So while the 2009 MLS Cup was a nice tribute to the success of MLS in Seattle, much of that success may actually derive from an eclectic American geography that created the landmarks to make it all possible.  And may yet make it possible elsewhere.

Andrew Guest writes weekly for Pitch Invasion. He is an academic social scientist and soccer addict living in Portland, Oregon.  Having worked (and played) in Malawi and Angola, he has a particular interest in Africa.  He can be contacted at drewguest (at) hotmail.com.

Real Salt Lake, MLS Cup 2009 Champions. Photo by hobbes8calvin on Flickr.

The New York Times’ Goal blog chimes in on Real Salt Lake’s penalty shootout victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy last night, noting that RSL won only two games in the final two months of the season and finishing the season with a losing record, becoming the fourth team to finish the season below .500 and win the MLS Cup.

To crown as champion such a poor performer is either a Cinderella story, an act of sporting absurdity or just MLS being North American. Take your pick.

But belittling RSL because of the format is a little unfair. Real Salt Lake, an obviously talented team, came out in the playoffs and beat (without home advantage) the top two teams in the East and the top team in the West by regular season record. Those four games are not meaningless by any means.

One wonders, though, if last night’s result might be the last that we see of its kind: as the league’s expansion continues, it’s obviously going to much more difficult to be mediocre in the regular season and still scrape into the playoffs, a welcome development. Soon enough, we’ll be at 20 teams and only 8 will make it to the playoffs (presumably).

MLS Commissioner Don Garber’s discussion of a potential change to the playoff format (which chimes with what we posted MLS had on the table here four months ago) at the Supporters Summit in Seattle suggested further advantages would be given for regular season performance, including the higher seeded team hosting the final (MLS’ main dilemma is presumably the possible embarrassment of, say, New England ending up hosting it in front of 8,000).

As for the final in general, an overall television rating of 0.9 is a good sign, beating last year’s 0.8 despite the transition from ABC to ESPN. Criticism of the artificial turf is justified enough, but getting 46,000 out to a final did give it the feel of a big event.

As for the state of MLS in general? The season-end report-cards are appearing, with some fair criticism of the treatment of players by Eric Wynalda and an unforgiving analysis of the league in general on US Soccer Players (a site funded by the US National Soccer Team Players Association): “This season hasn’t done anymore than the ones that preceded it to push this League forward as a product,” J Hutcherson writes.

While J is correct to say that Garber pointing to a few success stories doesn’t mean the failures should be ignored (and Garber was critical of the league in some areas in his address at the MLS Cup), this supposed counter-argument ignores that even just a few success stories are a huge selling point for the league, and that MLS has continued to expand while more or less maintaining its average attendance in a horrible economic environment, doing so with a much more diverse ownership group than a few years ago.

Off the field, it’s crunch time as the players and the league sit down to finalise the new collective bargaining agreement and the league figures out its potentially revamped playoff plans for 2010. The final on the field, at least, was an entertaining end to the season, even for this observer still full of sour grapes. It’s going to be an interesting next twelve months for the league, so roll on 2010.

In many ways, the opposing sides in tonight’s 2009 MLS Cup final (8:30 PM EST) are representative of the two faces of MLS.

Seattle’s Qwest field will see Real Salt Lake, a team that stumbled into—and through—the playoffs with the lowest wage bill in the league and no designated player to speak of, a symbol of MLS’ egalitarian, singe-entity structure; face the LA Galaxy, MLS’ biggest spender with two of the league’s biggest names, one of them the world’s most famous person, an exorbitantly-paid designated player whom many in MLS credit for giving soccer a bigger profile in North America, for better or worse.

The differing nature of both sides—a small-but-stable underdog in Utah against a star-pushing, LA-based glamour-machine—were reflected in league chairman Don Garber’s cautiously optimistic state of the union speech and media Q & A.  Garber strongly defended the league’s growth in North America, referring to 2009 as a break-out year, and reiterated the need for MLS to connect with more North American soccer fans (Garber owned up in a recent interview with Grant Wahl that “There are still far more soccer fans in this country than there are MLS fans”).

But Garber added that expanding MLS, whether with more DPs or higher wages or more franchises, shouldn’t “negatively impact” the league’s stability, which, considering the TOA/USL-1 split which has seen the rebirth of the North American Soccer League, isn’t something to take lightly. It’s a fine balance to say the least, and it will certainly be reflected in on-going CBA talks in the next two months.

Meanwhile, predictably for the media, tonight’s final, and the MLS in general, is all about David Beckham and not a hell of a lot much more.  On why he’s been overall pretty good for American soccer here, pretty dire here, and dire-then-good here.

Worldwide Stories

• But MLS isn’t all about soccer you know!  Twofootedtackle does a nice little piece on MLS W.O.R.K.S., you know, the organization with the comic sans hoarding signs.
• Jermain Defoe scored five goals today as Spurs destroyed Wigan 9-1; in doing so he tied Premier League record for goals scored in single match.  Watch all of them here.
• Bayern Munich manager Louis van Gaal has made Bayern Munich terrible, or so says this guy, and he didn’t do much to dispel WSC’s quaint theory by drawing Leverkusen 1-1 at home.
• Meanwhile, the DFB will do everything in its power to aid match-fixing investigators following a series of arrests this past week.
• Brisbane Roar’s Brazilian winger Henrique showed the world what a handball really looks like on Saturday.  Apparently there were some other shenanigans in the game as well.

Richard Whittall writes A More Splendid Life, and is live blogging the MLS Cup tonight with some other major MLS peeps if you want to come on by.

Today’s Talking Point

Shootouts after regular season ties seemed to have been confined to MLS’ bad-ideas-graveyard, but when an owner of a successful MLS expansion franchise wants to bring them back, you have to wonder what is going on his head. Real Salt Lake’s owner Dave Checketts was infused by the excitement of the penalty shootout that followed the draw in the All-Star game last week at his Rio Tinto stadium, and has been lobbying MLS Commissioner Don Garber and other owners to bring it back.

“If this doesn’t make a case for the shootout being brought back, I don’t know what does,” Checketts told the Salt Lake Tribune. “I said, ‘Look at the people staying, standing, screaming.’ It was a classic match-up of the two best Americans who have ever played that position, right here in our stadium. It was classic.” Classic! A moment we’ll never forget in a match that meant nothing!

Is it even worth either taking Checketts seriously or making fun of him?  His argument seems to be that shootouts haven’t hurt ice hockey (Checketts also owns the NHL’s St. Louis Blues), but a return to shootouts to end regular season ties would once again hurt MLS’ credibility with fans of, well, competitive soccer as it’s played worldwide — we’ve known for decades that shootouts are exciting in the moment, but that doesn’t mean such lotteries are something we should encourage, or we may as well start each game with one and skip the boring 90 minutes of actual football.

Worldwide

• Chelsea’s Sporting Director Frank Arneson has defended youth development at the club. Four years into taking on the role, not a single first team players has come through, but Arneson claims the plan all along was to start producing players only in 2010.  “It was never the objective that I should be delivering two talents for the best team from 2007 on a yearly basis. I don’t know how that misunderstanding has surfaced. You don’t create talents at the assembly line. Patience is a virtue. In a top club like Chelsea you do not waltz into the team at the age of 18-19 years.” But as Chelsea look to splash the cash again on established stars, the route to the first team seems pretty jammed up.
• Meanwhile, at Arsenal, an academy player does look likely to waltz into the first team: Jack Wilshere, who has been with the club since 2001, has the pundits drooling after a strong pre-season. The hype machine is in danger of spinning out of control before the season has even begun on the 17-year old old who does look likely to make a splash in the Premier League — Wilshere is already touted as the next Paul Gascoigne, and as an outside shot for England’s 2010 World Cup squad.
• A curious tale in Brazil, as Nautica’s Vagner Silva “received his second yellow card for changing shorts during the match without permission from the referee,” according to 101 Great Goals.
• Fifa.com has its usual Monday review of the leagues we sometimes forget about, from Korea to Singapore.

North America

• What was in the water at the bottom of the Western Conference this weekend? On Saturday, the awful FC Dallas — fresh off of selling their best player, Kenny Cooper, to 1860 Munich — crushed the Kansas City Wizards 6-0, with Jeff Cunningham scoring four. Then on Sunday, Conference bottom-feeders San Jose destroyed the surging Seattle Sounders 4-0.
• Andy B’s weekly MLS attendance analysis is up on Big Soccer. For the season, the average is 15,412 leaguewide. There has been considerable talk about the falling numbers this year, but this number is still the third highest in league history at this point in the season, behind only last year and the inaugural year (same goes for median attendance, incidentally). Considering the state of the economy and that there are three more teams than just three years ago, the picture is actually pretty rosy when we can consider that the league is growing it’s aggregate numbers substantially while not hurting the averages. Philadelphia will continue this trend when the Union joins the league in 2010, with 9,000 season tickets sold already.
• There’s more and more expansion chatter about Montreal, and it seems only a matter of time before the Impact are “promoted” to MLS. A good move by Garber, but yet another blow for the USL — they will be losing their two strongest remaining franchises with Portland also headed to MLS in a couple of years.

Video of the Day

Hey! I saw this in person! The Red Stars defeated the LA Sol 3-1 at Toyota Park last night in front of almost 8,000 fans, who saw (according to Fifa in 2008) the top two women’s players in the world duke it out — LA’s Marta against Chicago’s Cristiane. Unfortunately, the game meant nothing in the standings, but the crowd and the quality of play made it a marquee moment for women’s soccer in Chicago. And Natalie Spilger had a couple of quality flip-throw-ins featured in the video — they are almost as effective as they are entertaining.

Overall, I’d say there’s more variety than in past years, and Adidas have thankfully toned down the wavy stripe obsession from 2007 (see the 2007 versions here). What do you think, and which ones are the best and worst?

Kansas City Wizards, Real Salt Lake, San Jose Earthquakes

DC United, New England Revolution, Chivas USA

New York Red Bulls, Columbus Crew, Chicago Fire

FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo