Anybody who knows me, who interacts with me on twitter, or has read this blog for long enough knows that I have more than a pinch of nostalgia for the game I grew up with: 1980s English Football. The game was thunderous; players didn’t dive, they went down because by 2012′s standards, they had been assaulted. Two-footed tackles from behind were common; barging a man off the ball by lowering a shoulder into theirs, sending them flying, was deemed to be “fair, that was shoulder to shoulder” by referees, commentators, and fans alike.

The ugly, physical game which I loved was matched by ferocity and wholesale bigotry in the stands. John Barnes had bananas tossed at him, anti-Semitic songs were rife at Arsenal, and women walking the perimeter of the stands were greeted with the rather charming chant from fans: “Get your tits out for the lads”. Throw in widespread violence and thuggery, a healthy smattering of legitimate fascist assholes, and you can imagine why fans and families started to walk away from the game in droves. It frequently wasn’t a good place to be.

This was compounded by the Hysel Stadium tragedy where Liverpool fans charged Juventus fans, who fled, causing a wall to collapse. The death toll of those crushed and trampled to death was 39. English teams were banned from European competition with the effect that the domestic game stagnated. English teams only played each other, in their own little fishbowl, and the backdrop was all perimeter fencing, barbed wire, and riot police. As the police and government waged war on the terrace warriors, as the Hillsborough Tragedy brought fundamental changes to stadiums, and as Sky TV started to change the way football finance worked, the game changed with it.

First, came the new stadiums, a crackdown on organized violence, and the re-emergence of football as something that England could be proud of and not ashamed of. Then, the climb of the Premier League from the humbled, tired, old First Division to the best league in the world … and then the fans came back. New fans.

There are guys in turbans at West Ham games on TV. I see women, children, families. I read that Arsenal have become the most cosmopolitan team in the world. Nobody is lobbing bananas at Bacary Sagna, and with the exception of the lout John Terry, it seems like much of the football world in the UK has moved to a much more mainstream position. It is such a good thing, tremendous to turn on big European games featuring English teams and not see rioting and fighting, it’s fantastic to see women in the stands.

The only thing holding it back from being the family game people want are the prices, but yet we still get echoes of the old game bleeding their way into 2012 from time to time. Former Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson leaves a mic on, and we get to hear him calling a player a “lazy nigger”, a similar fate awaited Andy Gray, whose on-air sexist comments lead to his dismissal. West Ham vs Millwall anybody? Some of those old attitudes run deep, and take time to get rid of.

I still find myself missing the absolute rage and adrenaline rush that terrace pack mentality could bring out in any of us, but I don’t want it back. In 2012, my game is about the actual game. Fighting happens … on Twitter. Aggro? Who needs it.

The people’s game may not be affordable by “the people” anymore in the UK, but over here in the USA, it very much is. On the bleachers at Livestrong and Community America Ballpark, I’m proud to say that I have made many friends, in a polarized view of the game I grew up with, these folk are the standard, suburban WASPY Americans the rest of the world expects are US soccer fans, but they are also ex-patriot Englishman, Mexicans, Hondurans, African-Americans, Asians, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Atheists. I live in Liberty, MO, and I know a black dude with a Mohawk, attorneys, and sandwich-making hairy guys with green noise piercings. I’m just as likely to chat with a tattooed-up hairdresser on game day as one of the owners of the team himself. I’ve met so many different people, and by their hordes, female soccer fans ranging from graying, retired school teacher super-fans through to short-short-wearing teenagers. The one thing we have in common is the game, support of this team, and this sport; it is the thing that lets me make friends with people in Salt Lake, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and basically anywhere the game is played. The only color I ever really see is the shirts and the scarves, and thank god Sporting KC – I’m a married guy who has female friends who I can watch football with, have lunch with, introduce to my wife as “good people”.

All these labels, all the little name tags we like to put on each other, and I didn’t think about any of it before MLS Columnist Simon Borg started blathering on about men not finding female soccer fans attractive. MLS has suspended Borg for a week. MLS is sending him for sensitivity training, but really, when you think about it, all that involves is learning not to say certain things … it doesn’t change the attitude that he is a sexist pig, it just pops a bit of lipstick on him. It does nothing to alleviate the feeling that a relic of uglier, darker days in my soccer past are once more right here in my present. Except this wasn’t an accident, this wasn’t an open mic, this wasn’t something that we just got to hear randomly, but an actual, considered thought that was knowingly made for public consumption.

I can’t fathom how many different nationalities, political opinions, and religious conflicts could be unleashed upon US Soccer by the kind of thinking that serves to divide people instead of uniting them. Yet here we stand, soccer fans, and I don’t really care if you are male or female, straight or gay, where you are from, or what you think about outside of the game. It is brilliant, it is the way the world’s game should be and is exactly why this game continues to grow in the USA – the attitude of outreach that has fans bringing people to their first games, is exactly the same as the attitude that had a group of Kansas City kids met by a tangle of Chivas USA fans with a welcome, a handshake, and a few too many drinks. It is an attitude completely and utterly at odds with the comments made by Simon Borg, and I thank god that we are really talking about one individual rather than the 1980s English attitude that stadiums were no real place for women, so they have no right to be offended.

Honestly, I hope this is a writing on the wall moment for a guy that simply belongs in another age; that, or a come-to-Jesus moment. As it is, Borg just doesn’t fit MLS in 2012, no more than guys that watch Green Street Mafia and want to “set up a firm” do. Soccer in America is so much more than that, so much more. It is a movement,and all you need to do is join it to find just how broad and varied the people are that are making it the fastest growing sport in the USA, and how little things like sex, race and politics really matter when everybody ignores them and just gets on with the task at hand: loving the game … supporting your team… helping the game grow.

That is all there is to it, let’s drop the labels and get on with moving forward.

PS … Thanks to the lovely Sporting KC super fan Julie Hendershot for editing. If you really like what I do… leave me comments and click that like. It makes me happy.

OnGoal: Greg Maday, Robb Heineman, Neal Patterson, Cliff Illig, and Pat Curran. Photo courtesy of Sporting Kansas City

With the good start to the season, with LIVESTRONG Sporting Park at the very top of the best venues game, with the growing fan culture, sell-out games, and the general excitement level in Kansas City, I still find myself struggling to reconcile life as a Sporting KC fan with the old days following the Kansas City Wizards at CAB. It is bewildering in many ways, and as long as the team performs well enough to tap into the potential of a city that still has plenty of fans to bring into the fold, the future remains bright.

Part of me still wants to see what happens if the wheels come off and the team starts losing, but somehow, I can’t see Robb Heineman and Co standing for that for long enough to allow it to undermine a transformative effort that has turned the laughing stock of MLS into a model for almost every other team to follow. The Wizards bypassed MLS 2.0 in many ways and raised standards for everything from the team, the broadcast quality, the stadium, marketing, and use of new technology to literally make most of MLS and the behemoth Kansas City Chiefs and Royals look like tired, old dinosaurs.

Of course there will be others, and of course there are elements of the success of Sporting Kansas City on display in other cities. It is hard to argue with the strength of investment in New York; Red Bull Arena is a gem, and the team is stocked with stars, but what they have done well has been undermined by failing to fill that stadium in a market containing many times the population of Kansas City, and the strange coaching and on-field squabbles recently have done little to help.

The LA Galaxy again are rightly heralded as successful, they are very much so on the field and off it, but they have never quite had to struggle through the way the Wizards have – the odds were always stacked in their favor, and fans will rightly point to newer expansion teams like Seattle and Portland, with their massive fan bases, and pitch them as the way forward. It would be no bad thing, but for every team like Seattle, there is a New England Revolution. There are many franchises in MLS operating brilliantly, but it seems there are as many at the opposing end of the spectrum dragging everybody else down with them.

Sporting Kansas City are the only team to have bridged that gap by bringing the full package of on and off-the-field progress to bare. The challenge for some of the older dinosaurs is to do as we have managed to do, and as strange as it is, Sporting Kansas City have become the model for them. I haven’t said this to beat the drum; I’d be saying it about the Columbus Crew if they once more lead the way and redeveloped their once-heralded stadium back into something close to the new facilities coming online now.

The larger point beyond this was me thinking about soccer in the USA, and that telling the story of the transformation of the lowly Wizards into the runaway Juggernaut that is Sporting under OnGoal you can tell the story of soccer in the USA. From humble beginnings, inappropriate stadiums, hostile media, indifferent fans, and crappy football through to the polar opposite, strutting in new-found adoration and playing in front of packed houses with home town players and draft picks come good instead of tired, old, imported fading stars is the very model that MLS imagined when it started. It is exactly what FIFA wanted when they awarded the 1994 World Cup to the USA with the goal of promoting the game in the US. It is exactly what any of us that were around in the early days of MLS dreamed of. The development and growth of the game in the US is happening nowhere better than in KC, and that needs to spread.

If MLS can take this model, the Sporting Way, if you will, and apply it in struggling markets, the list of successes and clubs we can brag about will only rise. That means looking beyond market sizes, stats about saturation and median household incomes, beyond borderline-racist demographic assumptions, and simply accepting the fact that high-quality, motivated, intelligent, passionate owners are more important than any of the arbitrary measures of suitability. If this happens, MLS has the brightest of futures.

Sporting’s success can happen for Chivas USA, it can happen for DC United, FC Dallas, and Columbus. The Red Bulls can and should have waiting lists for season tickets. When MLS stops chasing markets and starts chasing bright young minds, the game will finally change in America for good, and markets and businessmen will start courting MLS instead of the other way around.

I had my USMNT scarf ready to go, I was considering picking up a T-Shirt or a jersey. The USA simply had to beat El Salvador and LIVESTRONG Sporting Park was going to be the place to be as we we went on to Qualify for the Olympics, or at the very least play Mexico and it was exciting. A few days later, I was watching in dismay as the perfect storm of apathy formed around the fixture. The US were held to a draw by El Salvador thanks to their own failings – triggering a sell off of tickets, and was compounded by the University of Kansas’ beloved Jawhawks making into into the Final Four of the NCAA tournament.

LIVESTRONG was going to be a graveyard, everybody said so. And so the story went as more and more locals threw their tickets into the fire sale. The morning of the game, I took my normal game day rituals and threw them out of the the proverbial window. I wasn’t going to a game I cared about, I was excited because for once I would get to watch some football as a neutral, but I didn’t expect a big crowd. The weather was good though, and I managed to find a whopping 4 people I knew who were going to tailgate with. My prep was all about charcoal and brats, beer choices and sitting in the sun and relaxing before heading in to relax more and watch a game or two.

We’d discussed missing the first half of the first game, talked about maybe leaving early if the later Mexico game wasn’t up to much. It felt like I was going to a baseball game, it was all very casual and relaxed and there wasn’t much in the way of anticipation. I could not miss it though, and it wasn’t all about the soccer. With a six week old kid and a two and a half year old daughter getting time just to blow off a little steam and unwind is precious. The game had become purely an escape, a chance to get out of the house.

I guess I should have known better. I went to a friendly game a few years back. An all-Mexican encounter between Chivas and America at Arrowhead stadium. That day a crowd probably only sneaking up on 30,000 created an atmosphere that I’d never heard at a soccer game in Kansas City. It was vibrant, alive, reactive to the play and oh so loud.

At this game, I expected to get some of that from the large Mexican community in the midwest who would certainly travel to the game but the carpark at LIVESTRONG was dominated by El Salvador fans when I pulled up to park in a secondary lot. The primary lot where I normally would casually park an hour or two before the game was jammed.

I trudged grumpily towards my traditional spot hauling a sack of charcoal, a cooler, a chair, and various other things, found my small band of friends and tried to talk while we were bombarded with music that was so loud I wondered if the NASCAR drivers practicing in the background could hear it. The volume came down, we started to cook our food, drink a few drinks and watch what was going on around us. Flags were being flown everywhere, large bands of El Salvador fans were mingling and meeting up with each other. The odd Honduras flag emerged, green shirted Mexican fans made their way through what rapidly became a colorful and vibrant tailgate.

People sang, chanted, waved their colors at each other and the normally ‘wild’ Sporting KC tailgate seemed like a timid affair. This was fun, and the atmosphere and vibe was jovial and light hearted. It felt like a festival and people smiled as they poked fun at each other and their various groups. In between ogling Latino women in tiny shorts and tight tops and listening to music, I power-ate five bratwursts sipped my way through five or six cold drinks and thought to myself that today was going to be a very good day.

An hour or so before the first game between Honduras and El Salvador kicked off, a large mass of El Salvador fans had gathered on the steps leading out of the the lots onto the main concourse of the stadium and proceeded to chant and sing. Staggering numbers of them were already inside the stadium and large contingents of Honduran fans were streaming into the stadium. As we began packing up to make our way inside, crowd noises from within the stadium started to boom out into the lots and our pace picked up as the excitement grew. This wasn’t going to be lightly attended.

Entering the Members Club, which was largely empty was a bit underwhelming – we hung around for a few minutes, took a leak, watched the end of the Philadelphia Union vs Whitecaps game hoping Le Toux would bag a winner. Two minutes or so before the anthems we finally got situated in the Members Stand and looked out across a stadium that was filling up fast. The East and West stands were fairly jammed, the cheap seats behind the goals filling out last. It was the opposite of an MLS game day at LIVESTRONG. The noise was coming out of the big stands, and the spots where fans traditionally sit they stood in their thousands waving flags, arms, children and anything else that came to hand.

The El Salvador anthem started up and was belted out by the fans with such gusto that every hair on my body stood up. Hondurans followed with similar passion but fewer numbers. El Salvador were the home team and as the game started and the volume climbed and climbed my small band of Cauldronites occasionally just grinned at each other. The noise was simply staggering, real, organic and intense and the game started with a bang with as Honduras grabbed an early lead setting the game up perfectly and pushing the crowd into a frenzy and intensity that I have never seen in the USA. When El Salvador finally scored I was up and out of my seat fist pumping the sky like I was one of them and then we watched on as the East and West stands simply went berserk – you’d have thought they had won the World Cup itself or something.

That we got to see such a big rivalry playing out before us was a treat, I’ve long talked about the almost never mentioned Football War but the main protagonists were here playing like it was 1969 itself. The game was intense, physical, wonderful and neutral or otherwise people picked sides and got involved in what may have been the most perfect game of knockout football I have ever seen.

Through 120 minutes the majestic five goal extravaganza played out, and the crowd swept me along, the only downer was that Honduras beat ‘my lot’. Casual Saturday afternoon out watching a nothing game?

I was so exhausted at the end of it all that the Mexico game was purely a bonus. If it was good then so be it, and it was but I found myself hoping that the Mexicans would drop the hammer so I could avoid extra time and get home and into my bed.

The dust has settled on things a bit and I find myself wondering what I can take away from an experience like that.

One thing for sure is it has helped rekindle a growing weariness with the game that has had me abandon watching the Premier League and frequently questioning if there is almost too much work that goes into my relationship with Sporting and not enough sitting back and just enjoying it. Internal wars aside, the presence of Honduras and El Salvador fans in the same stadium reminded me just how special it is to have traveling fans that exceed numbers in the hundreds. It took me right back home to days at Highbury when thousands of away fans would come into town, the larger the travelling support the better the atmosphere. Back then I used to feel real envy watching the fans in the Clock End (away end) going crazy when they had scored, there is something about have that rubbed in that makes everybody sing a little louder and celebrate a little hard. I think it is a vital component of MLS that is missing and I’m not sure how that is resolved without continually adding secondary teams to existing markets.

The secondary take away was this …. this was Kansas City. What essentially was a ugly backdrop in the US Soccer landscape a mere 2-3 years ago had essentially become mecca for an afternoon. The organized fan groups that make up the KC Cauldron have taken a lot of credit for the growth of the atmosphere at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park but without that organization the fans of three teams (and a few Canadians) managed to create more noise within the building than anybody has done so far. Watching entire sides of the stadium baying for blood because of errant passes or tackles as the crowd simply reacted to the game was immense. Without LIVESTRONG being the canvas, none of these scenes would have ever been possible. This isn’t me trying to diminish the efforts of the Cauldron just remarking that the real star of the show may well be the stadium being simply perfect for this game.

Having a venue worthy of national and international games has helped put not only Kansas City on the map in terms of being a soccer town, but has put this town on a par with any other city in the US when it comes to providing the right stage for games of the highest caliber. There is absolutely no reason that Kansas City should not host World Cup Qualifiers, Gold Cup games and any other high profile games that are out there for the bidding. It simply has the potential to be as iconic and beloved in soccer terms as Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park or Wrigley field have been in baseball. A home for the world’s game.

In Kansas.

Tell me you saw that coming in 2006.

There is a lot of Sporting Kansas City talk out there at the moment, a lot of them based around formations and depth but for me this season (like the game itself) goes further than turning the team into a virtual jigsaw puzzle, putting all the pieces you want to fit together and just assuming that because they all fit that Sporting KC are going to win something, or anything. We need a legitimate center forward, a true number 10 … things like this drive me crazy because this isn’t Lego, players are not molded to precision, teams are not built with a basic blue print – you don’t just snap them together and have exactly what you want. Players that have NEVER played in MLS before do not instantly become MLS players because they ‘fit a mold’.

If they did Chance Myers, Matt Besler, Roger Espinoza, Seth Sinovic and co would have taken the step that they did last year earlier. Teal Bunbury might not have taken the steps backward that he seemed to over 2011 and Graham Zusi would not be a guy that is now so ridiculously over-hyped that one of Ives moron’s tapped him up for league MVP. Another mentioned that CJ Sapong was going to win the MLS Golden Boot – out scoring everybody! I’d love it, but what on earth is going on here? Hype is going on, Sporting KC players, management and so on continually talk about Paining [another trophy win on] The Wall at Livestrong Sporting Park.

Some people are biting it, which is fine but I can’t.

Sporting KC won’t be good because we simply desire them to be. They won’t be good because it took 4000 tweets to make them so. There are legitimate questions and problems with this team and we can choose to ignore them or acknowledge them. For example we have mad depth, we have so much depth that we have “good problems”, we are so “stacked” that Peter Vermes is going to have “difficult decisions”.

Bollocks to that.

Let’s keep it real. I don’t believe we can not win. I just do not believe we will – here is why.

The Forward Line

The lineup this year is unlikely to be any different from last years with the notable exception that Bobby Convey will slot into the hole left Omar Bravo. Hardly anything else will change. Teal Bunbury will be off playing with the U-23 Olympic Team and might play as few as ten games this season. It is a choice HE will make and is unlikely to have him really challenge Sapong for the starting position at least not long term.

How stacked are we in the forward three positions? Well Bravo is gone, Bunbury isn’t looking like he will feature much at this immediate time. That leaves us down about 18 goals, and 6 assists that will need to be replaced over the post season – 18 goals and 6 assists that we will dearly miss if CJ Sapong does not turn into an overnight scoring sensation AND Bobby Convey fails to match Bravo’s tally. That seems like a stretch to me. Backing them up we have Dom Dwyer, a rookie, Soony Saad – a talented but truly untested player and Peterson Joseph a frail Haitian with good pace and skills but all the physical presence of the Olsen twin with the eating disorder.

It was quite something to have three players score 9 goals last season. I expect Kei Kamara to be up around that mark again if the team provides the chances they did last year or if he has improved his woeful finishing just a tiny bit. Can the others step into the shoes of Bunbury and Bravo? I am not sure and if there is going to be a real weakness this season it may be in the teams ability to score goals. Shutting down Kamara may well be defensive priority one this year rather than contending with Kamara, Bravo and Sapong or Bunbury.

Sapong is an essential component for me, I do not believe anybody can handle his primary role leading the line last year and without him obtaining and maintaining possession at the heart of our attack things are simply going to collapse. MLS is a league made for physical center forwards, largely because of the bruisers that make up the central defensive positions. He needs to step things up and score a few more goals, needs to learn to turn and shoot more quickly. Much like last year’s team fortunes resting on the rebirth of Matt Besler, this year will revolve around CJ’s continued growth.

As for the depth? From what I have seen it isn’t ready yet. We have massive potential but nobody I trust to step in now and truly make an impact before the latter half of the season and yet we will need one or more of them to do so now as the team needs to make substitutions and deal with injuries and call ups.

Does anybody realistically want to see a forward line of Dwyer, Sapong and Saad a month into the season? Depth needs to be functional, what we have is future prospects.

Peterson Joseph? 2012′s shot in the dark. Probably won’t amount to anything at all.

Statements:

I think the forward line as a whole is probably a little weaker in 2012 as a whole. No matter how you care to button Bobby Convey into some mythical lego man soccer player role.

Kamara needs to eliminate going for months without a goal, needs to finish a tad better and if he does so he could be a 15 a goal season guy. We really need that in 2012.

Sapong need to turn his amazing athletic ability, balance and ability to win the ball in the air into more than support play. A forward needs a cutting edge, if he finds it he will be immense. I do not believe him to be a natural goal scorer.

I am treating Bunbury like he is going to basically be on USMNT duty this year, if they changes he will feature, if he does I hope to god he starts to live up to the hype. He shows flashes, in between massive gluts of poor play. We need to see less peaks and valleys and more consistent play from him.

The Midfield

Zusi, Espinoza, Cesar. As long as those three names were available to us I didn’t have much qualms about it being the midfield of choice for us. Upgrading from either would probably, in all reality require DP investment or an incredible stroke of good fortune. The starting trio have been great – but Cesar could well be pulled into defensive duty and this becomes about depth once more. Yay we are stacked there are lot of warm bodies with pulses and feet and stacked stacked … whatev. Konrad Warzycha is a rookie, Peterson Joseph has skill in abundance and weighs six pounds. He isn’t stepping to Graham Zusi’s shoes as a replacement either, he is more apt to run at people than play great passes.

As for the rest of them? Nobody ever won an MLS title because they signed Paulo Nagamura and Luke Sassano. The former is at best Jack Jewsbury, more prone to injuries and the latter is a journeyman, albeit with a fancy sandwich named after him (check out Pandolfi’s Deli!). Neither are on a par with the departed Davy Arnaud. Michael “Lorenz” Thomas and Lawrence “Diop” Olum round out the ranks.

It isn’t as impressive as it should be. Having lost Jeferson as a DP (which really was no loss) Sporting KC have failed to find a replacement and this is one of two areas we really could have used the help. Thomas looks serviceable – I think he could be a great signing but that remains to be seen, Olum likewise needs to prove himself but there is not a single player on the roster who has been brought in that improves the midfield over the starters we had in 2011. I believe that injury free Arnaud or Rocastle probably beat out Nagamura. The one thing all three have in common however is their ability to be injured so … we’ll hardly notice the difference.

Statements

There is literally nobody that can come in and cover the wiley Cesar, the tenacious Espinoza or the classy Zusi on our bench.

The midfield is probably marginally weaker for the loss of experienced depth in Arnaud and Rocastle. Nagamura may fill a bit of that hole if he is healthy. He isn’t good at being healthy.

The Defense

Same as it was in 2011? Probably. Can Harrington step it up and take his job back over from Chance? Probably not – Chance is just coming into his own, Harrington is reaching what I deem to be his peak, and his only real hope is that injury well let him back in. Solid Sinovic is likely to be solid Sinovic again. Besler is a real team leader, Collin on the other hand is a genuine footballing wild man and will likely be booked, sent off or banned more often than is necessary for any professional.

Who is the backup? Well we can pull Cesar out of midfield but he is weak as a central defender and it’d sink our midfield. New Diop Olum looks ok, but Cyprian Hedrick beyond him is another rookie – you cannot make mistakes in central defense, we can’t just toss him into MLS play and have it work out. A veteran or two here would have been great. The starting four are particularly strong in my opinion, but beyond that there is again little to supplement them.

Overall Team

As good as I felt about the team coming out of 2011, I do not share the optimism of many now. I believe that if you are not actively moving forwards and improving in MLS you are going backwards. I can not think of a single aspect of the team that has improved over the post season other than the depth standings and upon closer examination I don’t think much of the depth. As players that will serve us well down the road they are admirable pickups, but to win today we need individuals that can get the job done now, not players that need to learn on the job.

DC United will be improved. I believe Houston will improve. This thing won’t be a cake walk and I could easily see us finishing 3rd in the East. The one thing we have going for us is the work ethic and desire of the players – the likes of Zusi and Besler, Myers and co that are out to prove a point, who have worked harder this off season than ever before. They intend to raise their game above the level of 2011 – I worry slightly that they may not have had enough downtime and this might translate into more injuries, or fatigue once the dog days of summer arrive. The extra conditioning may also be the springboard they need, and may have also provided intangible benefits that doing things as a team can provide, like the willingness to leave it all on the field because you brothers are going to do just that ….

2012 is a mental game. A season about growth, and individual responsibility and drive within a team setting. If the players can raise their game above the level they were at then winning the Eastern Conference is realistic, if they come in resting on their laurels or are over confident it may take a while for this team to settle down if a defeats stack up early. I think it is realistic to say that some players will improve … and some will likely step back to a lesser level. Players lose form, they get injured. The depth behind them? Not sure it is there and this more than anything is why I wanted a DP. A player like De Rosario who can take over a game and run it, somebody who grows when the pressure is on – the little extra touch of class that could push us over the edge from being a mere contender to a serious serious candidate for the MLS Cup.

I do not think we are there, I do not think we stack up against the very best teams in MLS.

The Management

I am a fan of Peter Vermes, a fan of the way he plays but he appears to have issues adapting to situations. The 2010 season it took a long time before he dropped Stephane Auvray back in front of the central defense closing a hole that undermined the team for months. In 2011 on the road we attacked frequently and hard and pushed up and leaked goals, it took until the Seattle game for a tweak, dropping back 15 yards or so to stabilize thing. Both were glaringly obvious tactical needs (to me at least) but it took weeks and weeks before these changes were made.

This can not happen in 2012, there is no road trip to blame it on. Unlike 2010 this is not a rebuilding year. Peter Vermes has his team, and he has done well building it on the whole but now he needs to step up and coach that team better, make his tactical decisions more quickly, react more quickly during games. The players need to step up, but so does the management of those players.

Predictions

If Sporting KC #PaintTheWall it will be with the US Open Cup. I do not believe Sporting KC are in any danger of competing for the Supporters Shield even if they wind up 4th or 5th I expect them to be well off the pace. I believe that once the team makes the playoffs – which it will, that it is basically all a crap shoot but I do not believe we can beat Seattle or the LA Galaxy on their turf in the MLS Cup Final and I expect them both to finish above Sporting KC in the regular season standings and therefor will have home field advantage. That said beating Houston or DC United is no forgone conclusion and therefor reaching that final is nothing I expect or demand.

Sporting KC will compete, will be competitive, but will need some luck with injuries to go further and contend. That or sign somebody late … 2012’s Aurelien Collin that changes the situation a bit. As it is we all got really good at telling ourselves we were close in 2011 but the Dynamo proved how far that was from the truth and LA are a class above them. My prediction? Without more talent… We are out of the playoffs before the Conference Final, and we paint the wall with …. 2012 : Won nothing at all …

…. or maybe Bob Geldof shaving his nipples off.

I have to admit it, when the Houston Dynamo rolled into LIVESTRONG Sporting Park and ended our post season run it stung. Looking back on the game however one of my enduring images however was the almost non-stop frenetic support from the Texian Army who managed to make themselves heard and seen more and more as the home support moved from loud, to nervous and quiet and finally despondent.

They were magnificent I thought.

They have had their wings clipped for behavior we have seen in other places around MLS. MLS have sighted a series of incidents, all of which we can honestly say have occurred at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, and frankly probably all within the first game of last season.

I grew up in England in the 80s, I attended football from the time I was 6-7 years old regularly right through the decade. I saw Heysel live on TV, watched riots live from the stands, have found myself running from (and after) opposing fans and non of this is new to me at all. I find the similarities between 80s English football and 2012′s MLS to be hauntingly similar. The fan bases are made up of prominently young men. Access to alcohol is not only easy, it is encouraged as parking lots open up early to allow tailgating and cheap beer is sold to fans.

Fans are now also really beginning to pick up the tribal identities of the supporters groups they follow. Texian Army, Timbers Army, KC Cauldron, Section 8, Sons of Ben trip of the tongue of the average MLS observer and these groups are magnificent at supporting their teams and providing an atmosphere that engulfs a stadium in hostility and passion but when things go wrong it can get ugly. Take a large group of drunk young men, forge them into a group and it really only takes one jackass doing some kind of ill and you have a brawl, a fight, a riot, things being hurled from stands. All the kindling is in place we just need the spark and the referees are good at providing it, so are stewards who are often forced to eject fans based on policies that are not articulated to fans well or completely ignored by front offices.

What is different is that in the UK people that commit actions that are illegal or contravene club policies are kicked out and often prosecuted. It seems that MLS’s ideas about nipping this in the bud revolve around ignoring what has been proven to work, and instead are moving towards sanctioning entire fan bases. This seems a strange move, but then the message fans get from MLS and Clubs is often inconsistent.

Example: Wizard’s fans at Community America Ballpark, fans were given streamers at one game to throw by the front office. They were then ejected from the stadium for throwing them.

Example: Teams, MLS, marketing people, TV spots of MLS frequently show prolific use of smoke bombs. “Look how great MLS is .. look at the amazing energy of the fans and the atmosphere they generate” seems to be the message. Even during game broadcasts the cameras frequently cut to supporters sections to show them singing and dancing behind a wall of smoke and yet when fans decide “Hey I am going to get some smoke bombs” things unravel.

While I have no argument with banning fans for throwing bottles, for fighting for anything else banning them for living up to image of MLS projects of what it is to be a fan seems unfair and petty. So does complaining that drunken fans behave like irrational drunkards when MLS is making so much money out of selling them beer to begin with. So is banning capos (um … chant leaders) for failing to police a section in which they know 5% of the people.

I have no problem with MLS banning offending individuals if they wish to, but sanctioning entire fan bases? That has no track record of working at all and all it leads to is a punishment for the guys and girls who put their time and hard earned cash into creating atmospheres and imagery in stadiums that benefits the entire game in the US, including the MLS PR people.

Does anybody really think that any of the guys painting banners at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park last weekend are going to do anything illegal at a game? Never. Punishing the Houston Dynamo core for whatever idiot fringe element they might have is idiocy and is entirely directed at the wrong people. It is also concerning for almost everybody involved in the constructive side of Supporters Groups anywhere — MLS have set a standard, and they either need to soften it or apply it evenly. The latter option is unpalatable to say the least, and the whole thing is inconsistent and awkward when you look at it.

MLS need a consistent, evenly enforced set of rules that target individuals and until that happens nothing will change. As it is they seem to have setup a system where a rouge individual can spoil the efforts put in by hundreds of well behaved fans, with the net result that our stadiums will be a little more quiet and less colorful as a result. Does anybody want that?

Somebody paint them a picture.