Footnotes

Grassroots Support

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:50:16 -0400

Yesterday, the Cosmos announced the identity of their new shirt sponsor. Arsenal fans will recognized the familiar imperative. As a fan it’s difficult to get excited over such things. I suppose it could be worse. The Cosmos could have covered themselves in the logo of some beverage that I have no interest in. While I was mulling the announcement over this morning, I thought that an airline for a sponsor is about as harmless as it comes. My preference would have been a local brewing company. Alas, my own brewery is not in any financial position to sponsor any team beyond the (perhaps) the U11 level.

I’ve been doing my bit to try to stir up interest in the Cosmos out here on Long Island. A buddy of mine who owns a bar and who is also a soccer fan (though hockey is his mother sport) has agreed to be the home of local Cosmos supporters who want a soccer friendly environment to meet and catch away matches. The bar is Kreators in Mt Sinai.

Amongst other quixotic ventures, I put together a web page with a calendar and a map. The calendar will list soccer matches and the map will show where the match will be shown or played. The idea is that if people know when a match is and where they can watch it will other soccer fans and supporters, then maybe they’ll bestir themselves to get out and watch the beautiful game and have a craft beer or two with friends at the same time. All in the spirit of the Free Beer Movement, of course.

Le Toux!

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 17:07:48 -0500

As I sat watching the first half of the match between Philly and KC, I wondered if my spectator luck had changed. For the last month I’ve felt like I’ve cursed the teams that I’ve chosen to root for. Very rarely does a team I want to win actually accomplish the task. Philadelphia came out of the gate strong and pressed KC who didn’t appear to be prepared for this match. Le Toux scored an early goal to put Philly on top, but when offered a second chance scuffed the ball just wide of goal on what looked to be an easy goal. Is there such a thing?

I had an odd thought while watching the match. Perhaps I could be a Philadelphia fan. They have a French striker and I have a better chance of catching their matches live than the red drink team in New Jersey. MLS Live blacks out the beverage team, and, as I said earlier, Philadelphia isn’t much further away. Philly is local-ish. They could be my TV team. Like Stoke.

Opening Day

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:06:21 -0500

It’s halftime in the Stoke, West Ham match as I write this and even though the match is being broadcast live I have the strange feeling I’ve seen this game before, except the last time it was in Fulham and it was Berbatov who scored just at the stroke of 45. What does it matter if Stoke wins? I still get the experience of watching football, even if the quality is lacking. And what concerns me most is why Geoff Cameron isn’t on the field and why Brek Shea isn’t starting yet. Come on you boys in red and white, send in the Yanks!

Really, I’m just passing the time. Taking a break in an other productive morning. Perhaps, the Stoke result doesn’t matter so much because I’m comforted by the thought that the MLS resumes today. And we the return of the MLS sides to action, the significance of the Premier League contests will diminish.

To celebrate the MLS’s return, I’ll settle in this afternoon with the match between Philly and KC. I’ll root for Philly even though I’m certain my choice is dooming them to an opening day, on the road loss against the former Wizards. Philly is almost a local team. PPL Park is only a few miles further away than RB Arena from my sound-side bungalow. And now that Sebastian Le Toux has returned to the blue and gold, I’ll have more reason to cheer. Le Toux was wasted at New York last season. And I think it was through no fault of his own. He’s a better player than he was when he was with New York.

Then tomorrow, New York will take on the Timbers of Portland. My only source for optimism is the thought that the Timbers are just as unprepared as the boys of the drink.

Stoke and West Ham are taking the field for the second half. Changes?

Wide Canvas

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:51:00 -0500

Yesterday it was like Christmas. Both new issues of Howler and XI arrived yesterday. Literary magazines that I read every single word. Howler is a work of art. Big, expansive. A wide canvas. Pictures, drawings. Good writing. XI is compact like the Paris Review. It’s the Paris Review of football.

I suffered from a soccer hangover yesterday. Instead if the Champions League, or MLS pre-season matches, I read. Today, I think I’ll be able to watch a match. Liverpool v. Zenit. Zenit is a club based in Russia, in Saint Petersburg. Founded in 1925, FC Zenit is a comparative newcomer to modern football. I know nothing else about them and don’t know what to expect. The stories in the news focus on racism, a particular problem in Russia (why?). One headline: “…the racism of radical Zenit St Petersburg supporters…”

Football provides a forum for talking about taboo subjects. A line from David Winner’s book, Brilliant Orange.

Stoked for Shea

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 09:58:15 -0500

Last March (or was it the end of February?) I spent the afternoon in a pub in Boston watching the US play Italy in a friendly. This is the way I remember it: Shea comes on in the second half and gets out wide on the left side and tries for a moment of magic. With his toe he flips the ball over the head of the defender and darts inside toward the goal. That’s when Franz (who bleeds Arsenal red) nudged me in the ribs and said, “I hope Arsenal gets Shea.”

Before that moment, I hadn’t thought about Brek Shea beyond noting that he could probably do with a new hair stylist. But ever since that match last winter when the US beat Italy and Shea attempted his audacious trick, I’ve paid attention. When Shea became the hero at Azteca in the summer, he looked like a young player on the rise, one who was going to be with the national team for a couple more World Cup cycles.

But his time at FC Dallas last season was marked by injury and bench warming. So when I heard that Shea was set to move to Stoke City to join his US international teammate Geoff Cameron, I felt immediately optimistic.

Today, Stoke City host Reading at the Britannia. The kick-off is in about fifteen minutes. It’s possible that Brek Shea will make his Stoke City debut. If he does, and if he does well, then my inexplicable affection for the men in red and white stripes might just be taken past the no turning back mark.

“Who do you support?” asked Derek. I understood from the context of our chat that he was asking which Premiership side I supported.

“I haven’t really decided,” I said. “The brain is bad about these things. Ultimately, it’s the heart that decides. Stoke City wasn’t even on my short list of teams when I started following the EPL, but somehow, I find myself wanting them to win even though they don’t most often. What’s worse is that I prefer to watch teams like Arsenal and Liverpool. But when Stoke plays these sides that play a style of football more attractive to me, my heart is win Stoke. If that makes me a Stoke supporter, then so be it.”

However, given the release of the findings of Europol’s Operation Veto, how could I ever don the jersey of a side that advertises online betting? More about that in a future post. Time to turn on the match.

The New York Cosmos announced today the acquisition of Spanish...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:37:57 -0500

The New York Cosmos announced today the acquisition of Spanish midfielder Ayoze as the team’s fifth signing this off-season. Ayoze, 27, is a left-sided midfielder/winger who joins the Cosmos from Sporting Gijón where he had played since 2010.

The New York Cosmos announced today that Carlos Llamosa has...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:55:30 -0500

The New York Cosmos announced today that Carlos Llamosa has joined the club as an assistant coach.

Fighting for your right to party

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:20:45 -0500

Fighting for your right to party:

Uli Hesse writes about the efforts of German fans to organize and make their desires known to officials and owners of football associations, clubs, and television broadcasters who increasing view fans merely as customers and not the true lifeblood of real soccer clubs.

Alecko Eskandarian joins the Cosmos as an assistant coach.

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:46:17 -0500

Alecko Eskandarian joins the Cosmos as an assistant coach.

The New York Cosmos sign Stefan Dimitrov (above in red) who...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:20:51 -0500

The New York Cosmos sign Stefan Dimitrov (above in red) who played last year for the Brooklyn Knights and before that for the Cosmos’ USL-PDL “exhibition” side. Dimitrov spent a brief spell with the Chicago Fire (2009-2010).

"These fans are, literally, the lifeblood of the team. Management, players, coaches come and go. A..."

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:40:51 -0500

“These fans are, literally, the lifeblood of the team. Management, players, coaches come and go. A fanbase does not, even if individual fans do. They shape the team’s identity, how it is known in its city, across the country, across the world.”

- from “Soccer int he Crossroads of America” by Tom Dunmore, posted on Indy Pro Soccer, 18 January 2013

The New York Cosmos have signed Goalkeeper Kyle Reynish.

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:02:11 -0500

The New York Cosmos have signed Goalkeeper Kyle Reynish.

"Nonetheless, the FIFA inquiry makes Qatar more vulnerable to criticism of its hosting of the world’s..."

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:20:46 -0500

“Nonetheless, the FIFA inquiry makes Qatar more vulnerable to criticism of its hosting of the world’s largest sporting tournament, including the rights and working conditions of the country’s foreign labor force, who constitute a majority of the population as well as human rights following the sentencing to life in prison in November of a poet for a poem that was critical of Sheikh Hamad and the royal family.”

- “FIFA reviews Qatar’s World Cup bid” by James M. Dorsey on The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Celebrity

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 12:40:31 -0500

When I started gathering notes for what I thought would become a small book (longish essay) on the Cosmos, I realized quickly that the historical narrative of the Cosmos and of the NASL was really the story of Pelé. The accounts of the Cosmos in Gavin Newsham’s and Clive Toye’s books (and even Shep Messing’s autobiography) are really books about how Pelé came to America and changed the game. Pelé, the messiah of American soccer. But what I noticed was that the New York Cosmos were more successful on the field after Pelé retired. For the three seasons immediately following Pelé retirement the Cosmos were nearly unstoppable winning titles each year except for 1979 when they were eliminated from the playoffs by the Vancouver Whitecaps in what might have been the most dramatic match in NASL history. Why were the Cosmos so good after Pelé?

Last season, I followed the New York Red Bulls closely, attending almost half the home matches at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, and watching all the other matches on TV. Up until the arrival of Thierry Henry in New York, I had been a disaffected MetroStars fan. When Red Bull rebranded the franchise, I walked away. Not only did I stop watching the former MetroStars, I lost interest in the MLS. That is until Thierry Henry pulled on the red, white, and yellow jersey with the number 14 halfway through the 2010 season.

Henry got off to a rocky, injury-prone start with the Red Bulls. At least that’s how I remember it. I wasn’t yet at the point of following the franchise closely. I allowed myself to be only a casual observer. Perhaps I caught a few of those 2010 matches on TV, I don’t recall which. When the Red Bulls and Thierry Henry made the playoffs, I started making an effort to watch the games at a local sports bar. They didn’t go very far that year, stopped by San Jose.

The next season, 2011, I paid more attention to regular season play, catching Red Bull matches when it was convenient. At the time, the only way for me to watch MLS matches at home was streaming on ESPN 3, and it seemed like most of those matches were the LA Galaxy versus somebody, so even though I was casually following Thierry Henry and Red Bull, I felt like I knew the Galaxy better and wasn’t surprised when the Galaxy eliminated the Red Bulls in the conference semifinals.

2012 was the year I became a Red Bulls fan. I subscribed to MLS Live and bought a partial season ticket to Red Bull arena. My plan was to watch Thierry Henry and his Red Bulls through the course of a whole season. What I realized that while Thierry Henry was a pleasure to watch (a magician with the ball, a dancer, an entertainer), the team played better as a unit without him. Early in the season Henry suffered a hamstring injury. During the six weeks that Henry was out, the Red Bulls put together their best run of games, a run that would carry them through to the playoffs despite a limp finish.

As much as I enjoyed watching Henry with the ball, I wondered several times during the 2012 season if the Red Bulls wouldn’t be better off without the magician on their team. When he was on the field, everything went through him. He was in charge. When he wasn’t on the field, the Red Bulls played differently, more cohesively as a unit. Perhaps the Red Bulls without Henry wouldn’t have been as successful in the end. It’s hard to say. Henry did so much when he was on the field. His performance overshadowed everyone else. Even Kenny Cooper, the leading goal scorer for the Red Bulls, could not extricate himself from Henry’s reputation as the man who sets things up. Henry’s assists were sometime so spectacular that Cooper’s role as finisher appeared secondary, merely an effect of the cause, an extension of Henry’s genius. Cooper remained the understudy. Such is the effect of greatness on those around them.

This year, the Red Bulls have a new management, and a new coach. They are building a new team around Thierry Henry. Will this be the year the Red Bulls get it right and go all the way to the MLS Cup? Who knows? Looking back over the MetroStars / Red Bull history, it’s a record of “almosts”. The team has a habit of choking in the quarter-finals, a record which is especially embarrassing considering that they have the highest payroll in the MLS. And I suspect that the organization’s lack of success is the driving force behind the MLS’s push to get an additional expansion franchise in New York City. The big question is whether the MLS will be able to get the Cosmos. And when. Meanwhile, many New York and Long Island soccer fans will be cultivating a new interest in the league with an old name, the North American Soccer League, which just might benefiting from a burst of momentum in the growth of American interest in soccer that could propel them and their teams into challenging the MLS for the hearts and attention of spectators across the land.

Journalist and author Philippe Auclair, the man behind the...

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:40:46 -0500

Journalist and author Philippe Auclair, the man behind the interesting book Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King has come up with another insight into one of the greatest foreign stars to grace the Premier League.

Thierry Henry: Lonely at the Top is an accurate portrayal of the French striker’s journey in his career.

"When we sit down and put together the entire league schedule, one of the top priorities is slotting..."

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:40:53 -0500

“

When we sit down and put together the entire league schedule, one of the top priorities is slotting in our national television partners,” Courtemanche said.

There is a push-pull that occurs between the league and its broadcast partners when drawing up the schedule, one that essentially pits attendance versus television ratings.

“If I had my druthers, a lot of times I’d put MLS games on at five in the afternoon and go from five to 7:30,” Miller said. “But because of attendance considerations, and weather situations, they would rather play their games in prime-time under the lights where they can maximize their attendance. We certainly understand that.”

”

- MLS executive vice president Dan Courtemanche quoted in “Will Major League Soccer ever have major league television ratings?” by By Seth Vertelney for Goal.com.

Diving

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:40:25 -0500

After returning home from my team’s futsal victory over Rush Academy, I settled in with a beer to watch Liverpool, Norwich City. Luis Suárez was in the news again this week for admitting (what everyone already knew) that he dove in the box in a match against Stoke City last October.

Liverpool Manager, Brendan Rodgers had this reaction:

I think it is wrong… Certainly from our perspective it is unacceptable. It is not something we advocate here.

“Our ethics are correct. I’ve spoken to Luis and he is totally understanding, and knows where I’m coming from as manager of the club. This is a big club and whatever people do say goes around the world, and what was said was wrong and not acceptable – he takes that and we move on.

“There is no one bigger than the club or the club’s image. The comments, from our point of view as a club, are not what we would want to hear. This is something which was obviously wrong and is not something we associate with as a club of this standing.” [See The Independent, 17 January 2013]

And I as I watched Suárez dance with the ball, I was finding it difficult to maintain my distaste for the player. If you watch a player long enough, especially one as talented as Suárez, you’re bound to build up a positive impression that outweighs his misdemeanors.

Later last night I watched Ghana v. Democratic Republic of Congo. The famous handball by Suárez that effectively led to the elimination of Ghana from the 2010 World Cup was referenced by the commentator, but not mentioning Suárez by name.

In that match a Ghanaian player tugged at the shirt of Congolese Mputu while they were in the box. The shirt tug was blatant, but not enough to topple Mputu. However, the player from DR Congo went down like he’d been hit over the head with a bat. The dive was dramatic, almost laughable. But the referee pointed to the spot. Mputu stepped up and leveled the score at 2-2.

The situation was analogous to Suárez’s “fall” in the box at the beginning of a second match against Stoke City on Boxing Day. Stoke’s Ryan Shawcross had a fist full of Suárez’s shirt as the striker entered the box. As soon as Suárez was in, he dove like a swan and the referee pointed at the spot.

Such tactics, while not pretty, are part of the game. The lesson to be learned for the spectator is that shirt pulling in the box is worse than diving to draw attention to the foul. Evidently it’s okay to dive if you are properly fouled.

Delays and Obsessions

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:20:41 -0500

Since I have no cable or satellite TV, I rely on the Internet to stream soccer onto my high definition widescreen monitor. Now with high speed Internet, the images are crisp, detailed, vital. Even though on-demand, streaming content is how we will all experience “TV” in the future, the old fashioned model of channels and viewing packages is still the mode that the big telecommunications corporations force on us because it ensure maximal economic exploitation of “the consumer”, forcing them to buy that which they do not want in order to get what they do.

The result of my choice to take my soccer streaming (not stirred) is that if the big match is being broadcast on a “TV channel” the streaming broadcast is either blacked-out or delayed. Delays vary depending on contractual agreements with the broadcaster.

For example, yesterday’s match between Liverpool and Norwich City was (probably) broadcast live on Fox Soccer Channel. I suppose that they wish to encourage me to watch that channel by delaying access to the match on Fox Soccer 2go until 11:59pm, a bit late to settle down for a soccer match, especially when one’s youth team is playing early on a Sunday morning. I could be watching Liverpool, Norwich City early in the morning, but will save it for the afternoon after the futsal match between the Strikers and Rush Academy.

I don’t mind the delays in viewing matches. In fact, I’ve become used to watching matches whenever it is convenient for me rather than watching them live. Having the power of “on demand” lets me arrange my day how I want without having to conform to a broadcast schedule or worry about programming some device to record the match for me. The match is there when I want it. (If I was bored, I could go back and watch the entire 2012 MLS season. All the matches are still there waiting for me to watch them. Other services have stricter limits on access to the past.)

However, knowing that I will want to watch Liverpool, Norwich City, I avoid looking at certain web sites so I don’t inadvertently learn the final score. So until I watch the match, I can’t look at Twitter or read the football news or even look at the titles of the soccer podcasts I listen to. For the duration of the delay, I confine myself to an information bubble. I strap on blinders and plug my ears. The match is so much more exciting when I am in ignorance of the outcome.

The 48 hour delay of certain matches on MLS Live is a particular hardship. Having to go without soccer news or glancing at Twitter or listening to podcasts for a whole two days puts me in football limbo. But there’s an upside. This forced ignorance, this withdrawal from the world allows me to think about other things, read books, watch French films.

Footy Geography

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 12:40:37 -0500

The cable guy had our high speed Internet up and running in time for the opening match of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations between host South Africa and Cape Verde in their Barcelona-esque jerseys emblazoned with stars on the shoulders like 11 Catalan generals. The Cape Verde players even had Spanish-sounding names like Mendes. Really Portuguese names, since that’s the official language of the island nation.

Football is a geography lesson. Unlike other American sports which (despite international participation and interest) don’t lead their fans to look beyond our boarders, soccer encourages its fans to be global citizens.

Cape Verde is a scattering of 10 (17 if you include the really tiny ones) islands off the west coast of Africa, about mid-way up just off that bulge in Africa’s right side. And like other island nations, Cape Verde has a small population, barely that of a mid-sized American city like Baton Rouge. Officially the number is just over 500,000 souls.

As I watched Cape Verde play, I recalled that the French cinema vérite filmmaker Chris Marker had traveled there with his camera and filmed people waiting on a jetty on Fogo.

How long have they been there waiting for the boat, patient as pebbles but ready to jump? They are a people of wanderers, of navigators, of world travelers. They fashioned themselves through cross-breeding here on these rocks that the Portuguese used as a marshaling yard for their colonies. A people of nothing, a people of emptiness, a vertical people.

The match between Cape Verde and South Africa ended in a nil-nil draw. The commentators agreed that it was a good result for the men in red and blue with the stars on their shoulders.

Rough Riders

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 12:40:26 -0500

The USL PDL schedule for 2013 was released yesterday. The Long Island Rough Riders play in the Atlantic Division of the PDL. The season starts in May, so there’s plenty of time get season tickets.

Last year, I started following the Rough Riders and was impressed with the level of play, both the men’s and women’s teams. Most of the players are college kids keeping their form so they will be ready for fall soccer. A few others (a max of 3?) are experienced players who have had success at various levels and (for whatever reason) are continuing their career at the amateur level.

The Rough Riders can claim to have helped along the careers of some of the biggest names in American soccer including current Cosmos coach Giovanni Savarese and Cosmos defender Carlos Mendes.