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.

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.

I went down just to watch, and take a few pictures and get away from the dying embers of the 2000 MLS Cup Trophy Campaign. I’ll be commenting on that tomorrow now that I have given myself the time to really think about it, but for now take a sneak peak at today’s work – it will be the backdrop to what is hopefully a fantastic season.

As per usual, thanks go to a tiny minority of people that really make everything happen. You know who you are, at least most of you do.

The following is an Open Letter that submitted to me by a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and Sporting Kansas City. It strikes to the heart of this matter for me.  We hope that Clark Hunt and/or Hunt Sports Group read this in the spirit it was written, with a genuine desire to approach this issue with the sensitivity, warmth and high regard that the Hunt name should be held in around MLS and within Kansas City.

Dear Mr. Hunt,

I am writing to ask a favor for the people of Kansas City. It may be a large ask, but I really appreciate you the taking time to read my story.

I am a 32-year old, lifelong Kansas Citian (except for the four years I was away at college). I have been a fan of Kansas City sports since I can remember. My family (immediate and extended) has had Chiefs season tickets for as long as it has been possible to have Chiefs season tickets. I’ve been told it goes all the way back to the old Municipal Stadium days. I also have Sporting Kansas City season tickets. I started getting them a few years ago. I would have started purchasing them sooner, but I wasn’t financially stable enough as a young 20-something to swing the yearly payment. But, I still went to almost every game I could afford.

When I was 20-years old, and still a college student, the Kansas City Wizards won the MLS Cup. I was ecstatic. It was the first time in my adult life that one of the teams I have any emotional stake in won a championship. While I couldn’t afford to make the trip to DC to watch the game, a group of us had our own little Chiefs/Raiders, Wizards/Fire watch party that Sunday afternoon. It was a blast. I remember thinking, “That trophy is gonna look good in Kansas City.”

At that point in my life, I had never seen the Chiefs’ Lombardi Trophy. I had only seen the Royals’ World Series Trophy that they have displayed in their stadium. Since 1985, every time we went to a Royals game, I made my dad take me to look at that trophy. The best way I can put it, it’s really cool. I was too young to really remember the Royals winning the World Series (I was 5 at the time), so seeing the trophy didn’t bring back any specific memories. But I still loved that it was there. Reminding me that even though I was too young to experience it, I knew that a team I loved, for that one season, was the best. Unlike a lot of other fans in other cities, we don’t have a lot of championships. So the ones we do have, we cherish.

At Arrowhead, my seats are in section 119. You can not understand the joy I felt my first time inside the New Arrowhead a few years ago when I found out that not only is the Hall of Honor right there at the top of section 119, but so is the Super Bowl trophy. That was the very first thing I took a photo of after I entered the newly renovated stadium. In fact, when I first saw it, I almost didn’t believe that was it. I pointed and said, “Dad, I think that’s the Super Bowl trophy.” My dad replied, “It can’t be.” The trophy sits in such a modest case with very little hoopla surrounding it. Many people even walked by without seeing it. But that adds to the mystique. It doesn’t need a giant shrine. It’s awesome all by itself. It’s the Lombardi Trophy.

My dad was very surprised when he saw it. He was 12-years old when the team won the Super Bowl and he had his own revelation at that moment citing, “I’ve never seen that trophy in person either.” We stood there and looked at for a few minutes before taking in the rest of the Hall of Honor. The funny thing was, as packed as it was with people, we were the only two that noticed it was there. It was like we were getting our own private tour of The Louvre and we were allowed to stand in front of the Mona Lisa uninterrupted for as long as we pleased.

As time has passed, more and more Chiefs fans are learning where the trophy is. Now, when I go to games, as I’m heading to my seat, there’s always a group around it, taking pictures and reminiscing about where they were when the team won it. Sons on fathers shoulders peering over the crowd as their dads tell them the story behind it. On occasion, when I can’t make it to a game and we give our tickets to friends, they often ask, “Where are your seats?” I always get a kick out of telling them, “Section 119. Go to the Super Bowl Trophy and take a left.”

The point of my letter is that as I understand it, our MLS Cup lives in Dallas at your company’s offices. While the people of Kansas City appreciate all the Hunts have done for this town, and how important you were in bringing that championship to KC, we still would love the chance to have it here. For us to see. To tell our kids the story of that game. While the MLS Cup doesn’t have the history and tradition of the Lombardi Trophy, or the World Series Commissioner’s Trophy, it will someday. I would love to see that trophy for the first time. I want to see the trophy that I witnessed our team win back when I was a goofy, penniless 20-year.

Trophies don’t just signify championships. They act as mile markers in people’s lives. When I think about the championship in 2000, I not only think about that team and that game, I think about who I was as a person 12-years ago, and how far I’ve come. It’s like an old picture or an old letter you keep. And every time you see it, you almost feel like no time has passed and you remember how good it felt, even if it was just for a short time. Every time we’d see the World Series Trophy, it would trigger other memories for my dad and he would mention something unrelated to baseball. Things like, “I had to work the night we won that,” or “We’d moved into the house that summer.”

While your ownership group won the trophy (deservedly), it also belongs to the people of Kansas City. My favor is asking that the trophy live here, for all Kansas Citians to enjoy. It deserves to be seen. It deserves to gushed over and be in family photos. It deserves to be a part of someone’s game day experience. It deserves to be here so that the younger generations can also have that feeling of knowing that for that one year, our team was the best.

Thank you for your time.

“Bob”

The author of this letter opted to withhold his name for privacy reasons.  Copies have been dispatched to various addresses.

If anybody from Hunt Sports Group wishes to comment or respond please feel free to do so by sending email to james@kcwfans.com. Your comments will be aired without edit or censure and will be handled in the spirit of open dialogue, constructively and warmly.  We would welcome this, and we believe there are solutions that would allow the trophy to reside in Kansas City in a manner which would honor the shared legacy we have with special regard to the late, great and much loved Lamar Hunt.

If you agree with the sentiments of this letter share this page, click the like buttons so your friends see that you do.  Retweet the link on Twitter with the hash tags #DearMrHunt #SportingKC and #MLS if you can fit them all.  Send a link to your favorite blogger, podcast crew, radio host or journalist, basically spread the word.  Want to get involved? Join us on Facebook.

I got a ton of seriously good feed back tonight, I really appreciate it. The folk that follow this blog, on Twitter and Facebook just humble me sometimes. I know its cheesy, but without the tweets, comments and emails this whole thing would have been gone a long time ago.

Those boys from the Cauldron (the SKC Supporters Group) made an opening day scarf and the pre-order sale moved 500 of them … they had to cut sales off to ensure that they were delivered on time!

WOW! That is cool, think how many we could sell with our cool Sporting KC logo on it. The fans want cool official gear.

Yeah, but how do we make it cool? I know …. opening day is on St Patricks day!

It is?

Yes! It says so … right there on the KC Cauldron scarves.

Sweet. This is an opportunity to be innovative.

Let’s Innovate.

How?

This is a case for Sporting Style Man.

I know, I will use the breast cancer scarf principle and take our standard bar scarf and turn it …. green!

Genius!

Wait we don’t have a bar scarf!

Well lets design one, and lets not sell it in our colors at all. Fans won’t want a traditional item like a bar scarf from us. BUT THEY WILL WANT IT GREEN!

What color Green?

Sporting Green!!!

Is that trademarked?

No! Not unless you count Sporting Lisbon … and we have never stolen anything from them before.

Very Devious Mr Style.

We are great aren’t we!

Yes we are, lets innovate some more tomorrow and release the Breast Cancer version.

Does it give you cancer?

No .. that would be lame.

It probably didn’t (entirely) happen that way but at some point somebody presented this amazing green bar scarf for approval and somebody else thought it was a good idea. It doesn’t mention opening day, so in years to come people might be forgiven for wondering why we ever sold Celtic scarves … or worse yet, Portland Timbers gear.

Offensively boring scarf:

And here is the KC Cauldron design:

I can’t help feeling that replacing one of the pint glasses with an official logo would have yielded a scarf that fans would have bought by the case load but somehow the Cauldron guys are still turning out great unofficial produce and the team are turning out really boring, and in this case super lazy designs. Those two worlds need to come closer together.

I would love a Dark and Light Blue Sporting KC bar scarf.   I could insert my annual there is no merch rant but hell … just read last years instead.

In many ways the summer of 2011 was the culmination of a decade and a half of struggle.  Even the local media become involved and spoke of Sporting KC as an example to be followed. The typical crabbing about not liking soccer gave way to admissions of enjoyment at games, the stadium, and the atmosphere.  It wasn’t unusual to hear that Sporting KC owners and Robb Heineman were the polar opposite to the Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt or the absentee Royals owner David Glass. Occasionally somebody would wish on air that either or both be replaced by the owners of Kansas City’s Soccer Team.Think about that?  When the talk radio guys switch from open disdain if they are talking soccer at all, to suggesting that the local NFL and MLB teams could learn a lot from a Major League Soccer outfit the tables have turned.  That happened in Kansas City in 2011.  Sporting Kansas City became the hottest ticket in town and that is a far cry from 2010 when I basically could not give away tickets to games to friends that are now season ticket holders.

We have a right to be proud of that, and by god we all hope this continues but there is more to Sporting Kansas City that 2011.  While the talk this close season has been about taking that extra step and winning something, the prior 15 years of Kansas City’s MLS franchise were played under the label the Kansas City Wizards (Wiz for 1996).  Rather than being an example, the team simply existed through much of that time.  Playing in the cavernous Arrowhead Stadium didn’t help much, atmospheres that were morgue-like were common and it was as good a place to take a nap in the summer as anywhere.  Crowds as low as 4,100 fit sparsely into a 70,000 seat stadium while the game was played on a field covered with NFL grid-lines.  This was the image of the Wizards – that and a series of awful uniforms and probably the clumsiest name in the history of soccer.

It was all a bit of a joke, to me anyway.  I remember in 1996 before I moved to the states thinking “The Kansas City Wiz … this is why Americans should not be allowed to play this game”.  The irony that I later wound up resisting the name change from Wizards to Sporting, and running this blog (then KCWFans.com) is not lost on me. I didn’t jump on any bandwagon either, I wasn’t pulled in by a new brand or a new stadium and while I do love them both, I was a Kansas City Wizards fan first and its hard not to call them the Wizards still.  While we are clearly in a new era and everything is going well appreciating how big the transformation has been requires that you acknowledge those other 15 years or at least know something about them.

Hidden amongst the tales of empty stadiums and the Hunt Sports Group’s abandonment of the franchise, the Heart of America Foundation is another story.  It is rarely spoken about and really started in 1999 with one of the worst teams in MLS history.  That year, the not so mighty Kansas City Wizards played a 32 game season and won an astonishing six games, losing eighteen others.  They stunk.  The following season, the 2000 Kansas City Wizards managed to put together a season that we have yet to best.  The Wizards won the Supporters Shield and went on to beat the Chicago Fire again in the MLS Cup Final at RFK Stadium.

That final game, unexceptional in many ways, featured a sloppy goal to give the Wizards a lead. The Chicago Fire, who outscored the Wizards by twenty goals during the regular season went on to bombard the Wizards goal.  Goalkeeper Tony Meola put in a career performance to prevent an equalizer and the scrappy outfit that limped out of 1999 with their tails between their legs had become the Kings of US Soccer.  MLS Cup winners.  The team from the empty NFL stadium, from the city that didn’t deserve a team were the Champions of Major League Soccer.

Worst to First.

Champions.

Think about that for a second.  Think about us coming back from 2-0 down to slide past the Houston Dynamo into the MLS Cup Final.  Think about Donovan, Beckham, Keane and the Galaxy pounding on us in the rain and failing to score time and time and time again.  Think about Matt Besler flicking a header goal in the dying seconds of the game while the Home Depot Center sat silent save for a few hundred fans lost in a frenzied delirium away in the corner.

How special would that have been?  How big?

That has happened, and it happened to the Kansas City Wizards.  A different game, different team, a different era — but it was as real, and for everybody that was a fan at the time those are very much the halcyon days.  I watched video of that game earlier today, and saw fans and people I know – looking much younger, but beaming with pride and it is all those of us who have yet to experience that dream.  The worst part of 2011 was cancelling flights to LA and hotel reservations.  Nobody in 2000 had to do that.

We won.  We won it all.

In the stairwell just inside the front entrance of the team’s headquarters is a trophy case, and it contains no trophy for that MLS Cup win.

The trophy is in Dallas at the home of the former owners Hunt Sports Group.

While laying the foundation for the future has been firmly undertaken by Sporting Kansas City, it appears the perhaps the single greatest prize and memento of our history as the Wizards resides in a different city in a different state.  Understanding why would take you on a journey from the creation of MLS, the brilliance of the late Lamar Hunt through to the sale of The Wizards and the acquisition of the team by OnGoal (topics I think are worthy of being covered separately).  The trophy clearly didn’t come as part of the package but surely if there was ever a symbol of triumph it is this. If it belongs anywhere it is in Kansas City, not just so it can complete the trophy collection, but because it is part of the Sporting Heritage of this city.

I want it to come home, and I’d love it if it could travel to LIVESTRONG Sporting Park with FC Dallas on March 25th.  I figure the first step should be making sure that everybody knows that Clark Hunt has our Cup, and the next step will be writing Hunt Sport Group a polite note asking for it back.

Somehow I don’t think it will be that easy, but it is worth a shot isn’t it?

If that doesn’t work, we might just have to get creative.

Update: Check out this post for the latest news on this.

Alas for Matt and the majority of real rookies in the group, the curtain probably fell on all to short careers just before 10:30 this morning when practice finished.  A few of them might find a home in USL if they are inclined to go looking for it, but the reality is that college degrees and the job hunt will probably start on Monday.  As the sessions wound down Mike chatted with his brother Matt – as we walked towards the exit.  “I wish I had gotten more time”.  He was talking about scrimmage time, but between being drafted on January 14th and probably being released in the next 24 hours it may be the the summation of his entire professional career.

It is a tough fact of professional sport and especially soccer in the USA.  The pyramid isn’t exactly deep or broad, beyond the USL level there is nothing.  How quickly a dream can come and go.  It was a sobering and saddening thought.  Of course we see this every year, the often anonymous faces come and go and you cannot help but think of them as having little chance but this year I knew just enough about one of them to wish that the status quo wasn’t what it is.

Cuts will be made before the team leaves in the morning.

As mentioned earlier the entire playing staff was divided into three teams that scrimmaged together.  It was fairly low pace stuff and unfortunately it the first two standout names of Peterson Joseph and Kevin Ellis who both picked up injuries.  Joseph is a diminutive, speedy, technically gifted player but I wonder about the lack of physicality he brings to the table within the rough and tumble of MLS. He has the build of an Olsen twin. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with him but he looked to have picked up a bit of a strain today after dancing through a defense like it wasn’t there and scoring.  I could not help but be impressed and then he pulled up.  Hopefully it does not hamper his efforts in Arizona too badly.  I can certainly see why he has been signed … but the Sunil Chhetri warning sign is blinking a bit. If you are going to be a minnow, you need to be exceptional to make it and I am not sure he really is.

Kevin Ellis went down in a crumpled writhing heap during the scrimmage after rolling an ankle.  He didn’t bare weight on it again during training and left ice packed and not under his own steam.  It looked to be a very painful injury and Ellis was visibly distressed for minutes after the fact. I would not be surprised at all to find out that he had X-Rays and MRIs this afternoon.  Hopefully it really is just a sprain. We’ll find out soon enough.

I finally had a chance to have a look at Konrad Warzycha playing following the knee injury that had kept him out of the team for the entirety of the 2011 season.  He has a bit more size to him than I remember and I found myself wishing Teal Bunbury was out there to compare him to.  His father was a hell of a player back in the day, if Konrad comes close he’ll be a good capture and he showed well today scoring a couple of goals, including a nice turn and shot.  He has decent control, a good touch and in a strange way reminds me of Zoltán Hercegfalvi – there is a brain involved in his play. There is some promise there, and he should not be overlooked while everybody is focusing on other new signings.

For notes on individual players … check out Down the Byline.

There wasn’t any real scrambling through the cheat sheets to figure out who players were. I referred to them once while trying who to figure out who the ‘Paul Bunyan-sized tank’ was training with the rest of the team … Lawrence Olum is a big man. Absent from training altogether was the beaming smile of Birahim Diop. The speculation from basically anybody was that we’ll never see him bang in unexpected doubles again in the future. I believe this also disqualifies us from winning the MLS Cup, I had just said this week if we ever do win it, Diop would score the winner so I guess we are out of luck. I think that we have probably seen the last of him.

Was that a premature and without concrete fact statement of opinion? Yes.

You are welcome.

So what about the new guys? Eh .. if they are still here in a few weeks I’ll actually watch them. In that secondary group was Kevin Ellis and “The Haitian Xavi” Peterson Joseph. I somehow doubt they will stay there, especially in the case of Ellis who doesn’t count towards the cap. We’ll see.

Early season drills are slow drills – last year at this time Peter Vermes confessed that he simply wanted to get the team through their drills at Arrowhead uninjured and everything about today’s practice suggested that this has not changed at all. That said, the division of personnel into the two camps has ensured that the senior ‘probably staying’ group were broadly familiar with each other (if not very) and that they also had experience running drills and practices – meaning that they could simply get on with working, rather than having to teach new guys what to do. This means we actually got to see some real drills taking place today, attacking from defense to forward positions with short sharp one touch passing from the center backs through midfield, down the flanks and culminating in shots on goal. It was fun to watch .. probably because I am starved but ..

Bobby Convey … looked good. If we lost a natural born finisher in Omar Bravo we have simply gained another on Convey who looks to have the same cool calm and collected manner in front of goal. He simply passed the ball into the net effortlessly whenever he was presented with the opportunity, and it was hard not to note his efficiency in light of some of Kamara’s booming efforts and Teal Bunbury’s play last night for the US Men’s National Team. I think he will have as much if not more impact as Bravo did and I am looking forward to seeing him in our lineup.

Michael Thomas was also an eye catching addition while being unspectacular – he simply looks to be another player with good control and technique who plays the game in a simple way. If my first impression is correct he will be a quality addition to the squad. It really is too early to judge these guys in terms of actual first team potential but you can spot a rotten egg a lot of the time and Thomas has some game about him.

Soony Saad isn’t new, but hell the boy can play. His finishing was everything Convey’s was with the addition of the ability to finish in the air. He has an unteachable, intangible knack of being in the right place at the right time that is going to be exciting. I would not be surprised at all if he snuck into the match day squad next year… if we simply need a guy that can put the ball in the back of the net when presented with an opportunity, then Saad can do that. Right now he is ahead of Bunbury for me in terms of potential.

The final real word goes to Michael Harrington who has clearly come into camp fired up. He looks slimmer than last year, and he was flat out sprinting at times – he is fast. He looks like his attitude is all about competing and proving a point which is good, because he needs to step up and prove himself to get back in the starting eleven.

Nagamura wore a beanie … indoors …. he has now claimed the skinny girl who is unreasonably cold on warm days prize from Craig Rocastle. I would not bank on him at all if I was stranded in Alaska or somewhere really cold like Florida.

There are two guys in camp shorter than Korede Aiyegbusi which is amazing. I didn’t know that made people that small without the word dwarfism being used. Lawrence Olum is going to use one for a toothbrush.

Scuttlebutt was that the pre-season games from Florida may be streamed live. Don’t hold me too it, if this sentence disappears you know it is happening.

More tomorrow … think my wife is about to shoot a baby out of her vagina, she is on the couch groaning and stuff.

It is very distracting.

I have no love for the New York Giants at all, but I have an ever growing hatred for the Green Bay Packers that is fueled by the actions of one individual, who lives right here in Kansas City. He detests the home town Chiefs and is of course a Packer fan. His belligerent, disrespectful and ungraceful attitude towards the Chiefs has gotten my back up to the point that it has made rooting for the Chiefs a lot easier to handle, and rooting against the Packers second nature. He is simply obnoxious and my dislike for him is now matched equally by my dislike for his team.

His actions have solidified everything I need to know about the Chiefs and my blossoming support for them, and have underscored the dislike I have harbored for the Packers. I doubt I will ever not want them to lose again. This is of course a fairly regular occurrence between sports fans, people will choose to root for a team because of a buddy that did, because their grandpa took them to games there, because a player they enjoyed was on the team. They will choose to vilify a team because they have lost to them a few too many times, because a quarterback is a bit too Christian or because a hateful little prick was a bit to much to handle after a while. It happens every single day, and by and large it is a healthy thing within a sport. A little hatred fuels rivalries and heated games, big crowds and TV coverage.

It got me thinking though, as soccer fans the trash talking between sets of fans is no problem at all, but as advocates of the sport who are looking to help the sport grow within a culture that is hostile to its very existence at times we cannot afford to be both militantly pro-soccer and anti-everything else at the same time. Of course we aren’t all exclusively soccer fans but there is a large element amongst us who if you mention the NFL will groan about it simply being a vehicle for advertising, or start rattling off humdrum statistics about there only being 12 minutes of real action in an hour long game that winds up taking three hours or more.

It is this kind of sentiment that will really make an NFL fan mad, and potentially hostile to soccer and it is the kind of thing some soccer fans will drop in conversation due to their enthusiasm to convert the uninitiated. We are not going to win fans over to the beautiful game but pointing out the flaws in the things they love no matter how glaring they may seem us. It was just a thought – a powerful one which will probably prevent me from crapping all over MISL in the future – I would hate to think that anything I said about MISL caused an Indoor soccer fan to think of Sporting Kansas City or MLS badly. As much as we are fans, we are also representatives of Sporting Kansas City, MLS and soccer and it is worth thinking about that. In a country where we do not have blanket coverage and networks queuing up to make soccer stories prime time news, word of mouth and the image we project of our game is the most prominent outreach tool we have.

That makes us a powerful marketing force … for good or for bad. How we use that power is up to us.

One of the things that defined the first two seasons with Peter Vermes managing Sporting Kansas City was the heavy emphasis on foreign players. The worm seemed to turn in the 2011 season as Kevin Ellis and Jon Kempin where signed as homegrown players, and Kansas City native Seth Sinovic joined old high school team mate Matt Besler in the first team. The word round the campfire tonight is that the ranks may soon be swelling as another hometown player returns to Kansas City.

Michael Thomas is the name, and attached to him is a shared history with Matt Besler, the two having played together at Notre Dame, no doubt the Olathe native also crossed paths with Seth Sinovic on the local scene. Thomas was drafted 19th overall by the San Jose Earthquakes in the 2010 MLS Superdraft, instead of joining San Diego he opted instead to travel to Sweden where he ultimately joined Halmstads BK before moving onto Ljungskile SK in the second tier of Swedish football. He finished the 2011 season with five goals and four assists from midfield. Thomas was contracted to Ljungskile through the 2011 season which concluded in October.

He certainly fits the profile, young with some experience, and uncommitted. Given the quality of the facilities in this highlights video that his European experiment might have been something of a disappointment. I am not sure what kind of rights San Jose may have to claim on Thomas, no doubt if he is headed to Kansas City that has already been resolved. Take it for what you will, this is unconfirmed but I would at the very least expect Thomas to be coming in on trial.

Thomas is represented by Libero Sports as is Matt Besler and Nick Cardenas.

Getting Seth back from Montreal cost the last great Wizard and Captain Davy Arnaud his home in Kansas City and the Impact an undisclosed amount of allocation money. This is good business, Sporting freed up over $250,000 under the salary cap, received a received an invaluable chunk of allocation money which can be used for paying down contracts, signing players and sweetening deals with other teams and ultimately retrieved a quality young player in place of one that is starting some would have you believe is getting old.

We should be happy right? Logically yes, and if I don my cap of pragmatism the trade is good business but Davy Arnaud is never going to appear in a Sporting KC shirt again and that unsettles me. Jimmy Conrad and Jack Jewsbury left Kansas City last close season, and while Jewsbury was popular it was the departure of Conrad that got the wistful juices flowing. He was the face of the Kansas City Wizards, and Davy Arnaud stepped into his shoes, assuming the captaincy before Conrad was traded to Chivas USA and the mantle of the senior veteran leader in the eyes of fans and management alike.

My ‘relationship’ with Davy has been tumultuous affair. He was the standout player in my early days following the Wizards when they were still mired at Arrowhead, a fiercely passionate and busy player who had the ability to keep pushing and fighting when all those around him seemed to be deflated. To say that he was the heart and soul of the team might overstate things, but he was at times a seemingly tireless and unyielding piston who would drive the team onwards out of pure stubborn will to win. It wasn’t all grit however, Davy Arnaud could strike a ball, could make goals and finish them he was for me the finest player in a Wizards shirt and the first player on the team who I thought was worth remembering.

As a morphed from a casual occasional tourist into a fan and started writing this blog my stock in Davy dipped. An incident which I deemed to be spiteful, classless and vicious during a pre-season game had me wondering for many a month if I would ever like Davy again. It was a moment of hotheadedness that I held against him for what seemed like an eternity until I actually got to know him a bit. Little interactions here and there at training revealed Davy to be quite a captivating personality, fun, with an impish and cheeky sense of humor. He won me back in many ways and as he was named captain and the organization also began its own astonishing metamorphosis Davy became the man once again.

Everything was changing, Conrad was gone, Hartman, Jewsbury. With them Community America Ballpark, the Arrowhead days had one last nostalgic visit as we beat United, Conrad was dismissed and Davy Arnaud once more got a bit excited and tried to wrestle the referees arm down as if it would somehow reverse the red if it wasn’t in the air – it didn’t work, but we still won anyway and the Wizards got to be heroes for day. Good old Davy, always going at a million miles an hour even when he was standing still. I was amazed he stayed on the field.

That said my fondest memory of Davy will be sitting down on some bleacher seats at Community American Ballpark talking, just chatting. Callum Williams was with us, maybe Mike Kuhn and we sat around like regular guys joking around and telling stories about our school days. He turned out to be a great guy, fun, but also direct and sincere, fun and more charismatic than you’d imagine based on interviews. You could see why he was made captain in amongst the shrinking violets that fans would make candidates. He was a natural leader, at least that was my impression, and I don’t think I could doubt a word he said.

He was impressive.

And I’ll miss him … not just because he is a good guy but because I am so used to seeing him play in a Kansas City shirt that somehow it seems a bit less without him. How can it not? A game, one solitary game lasts for 90 minutes, Davy Arnaud has clocked over 20,000 minutes for us. 90 vs 21,607 .. it seems to defy logic. He has been as much as a servant during his decade here as anybody has been in the history of this team and up until the 2012 season his body of work will have been under the banners of the Kansas City franchise.

The guy that I wanted to do nothing but hug after the defeat to Houston, the guy who I dreamed about raising that MLS Cup. Its a cruel game we play and love, yet we all saw the end coming, maybe not so soon and maybe some of us that wished to have Seth Sinovic back now are thinking that maybe the price was too high. Time will tell, and Seth Sinovic seems to have much of the heart and fight that Davy does. That is a comforting thought, as is the idea that this is not a eulogy but a brief goodbye, Davy will no doubt be back in 2012 in an Impact shirt, I have little doubt that he will also be wearing a captains arm band and after he gives the Members Section a wave I am sure that once more he will do everything in his power to win. We may even boo him before the afternoon is out.

I like that idea … too many fans have written him off as over the hill or flagging. He is 31, a child of the 80s, and I think he has a few years to go before he really is staring retirement in the face. I am sure he will have a point to prove, and I would not bet a single cent against him doing so.

Not a single one.

Dear Seth,

1 … Brian Ching – Ha ha!! Montreal stuck it to Ching and Houston. He said he was retiring after this one, now we will see if he values his word over his career, or if he over played his hand entirely… doubt I’ll be laughing when they pick Seth, I hate expansion drafts …

I remember when we signed you. Almost immediately before we did we released Mike Jones who I liked, maybe not as a player because we hadn’t really known him but as a guy I’d spent some time with. I wasn’t really happy. It wasn’t personal, but I didn’t really want you here, I didn’t really care that you were from KC, and … I’d never heard of you. I’d had BBQ with Mike Jones. Sinovic who?

2 …Zarek Valentin …

How good could you have been? I mean seriously the heralded Stevie Nicol dropped you like about as deliberately as he would a cup of hot steam shit and piss if I handed him one. All for a player he then turned around and dumped. Forgive me if I was cynical, even more so when I had heard the Real Salt Lake took a look and sent you packing. Then you signed with us?

3 …Justin Mapp ….

You got your debut finally, on a tiny field, against a fifth string New England Revolution team in the US Open Cup. I am sure you remember. Many of us do, the 1,300 who stood in the soaking rain saw you working hard, hustling, actually impressing while so many of our lads were coasting. Did you have a point to prove or was that just the way you played the game?

4 …Bobby Burling ….

It turned out to be the latter. Which is why Seth Sinovic, is a name all Kansas City Soccer fans know today. It is why you were the value pick of the Expansion Draft. It was why we knew you were probably gone, and why we hoped you would not be. Unprotected as you were? What were we thinking right? But with eleven players to protect and more talent than that in the squad we were always risking somebody. Still by the time the 9th pick had come around, I didn’t think you’d be off – but then you were. 10th pick, Seth Sinovic, proving that it wasn’t just Sporting Kansas City fans that valued you but the Montreal Impact.

5 … Jeb Brovosky …. half way through and Seth is still not picked. Maybe he won’t go? He will.

24 games was all it took for you to become a favorite. 24 games of unrelenting effort, of ceaseless work and no shortage of skill and tenacity made you one of the few players on our team that never had off days. I respect you, I respect the no thrills brand of football you play, I respect that when 8 or 9 of our other guys are ball watching you are hustling down the flanks getting free, I respect that more often than not given a ball in the final third you’ll beat your man and put in a good cross and I loved that that never changed, and you earned every last cent of your playing time and your salary in the Sporting Blue.

6 … Collen Warner….

This simple efficiency and sadly, your low wage isn’t why your no longer a Sporting Kansas City player but don’t think for one second that we don’t appreciate you. 2011 was a memorable season, that helped turn this team from little into something to be hugely proud of and you played more than your part. 24 games for you … and 4 defeats. Not bad Seth .. not bad at all.

7 … Josh Gardner …..

Montreal beckons, its not so bad up there – better than playing in the Kansas City rec leagues. It is still Major League Soccer, even if its going to be cold enough at times that you might wish for a Kansas City winter. Of course we’ll see you again at Livestrong in an Impact shirt, but your still part of Kansas City and always will be, you were born here after all. You still represent us, and if you continue in Canada as you did this year we will continue to to watch follow and call you one of our own with regret that your no longer a ‘Wizard’, but the pride and knowledge that you still are one of us.

8 … Sanna Nyassi … Still not picked … nooo they won’t leave him will they?

9 … James Riley …. Wow! … he’s not going ….

10 … Seth Sinovic ….

That didn’t suck at all.

So long kid, and thanks, seriously thanks for everything.

James

Sporting Kansas City and the remainder of MLS released their protected player lists this afternoon in preparation for Wednesday’s Expansion Draft. There were no major surprises in the Sporting Kansas City lists however the process, unpopular with fans leaves a couple of fan favorites unprotected. Designated player Omar Bravo has been exposed, as has the ever popular Seth Sinovic and the guy he has kept on the bench Michael Harrington.

Will any of them be selected? The smart money is on Seth Sinovic being picked. The local lad come good after being released by New England Revolution earlier in the season arrived with most Sporting KC fans wondering who he was, and why we had signed him and quickly answered those questions becoming the starting left back at the expense of the out of form Harrington within a matter of weeks. What made Sinovic possibly the shrewdest bit of business this season in terms of trading makes him a commodity for any team building a squad. He is hard working, talented, has a fantastic work ethic, is still only 24 years old and he will only cost Montreal $42,000 a year while he is subject to his current contract. He is cheap.

Michael Harrington, plays the same position, is roughly the same age and at $136,000 a year against the cap offers less than Sinovic both in terms of value but also consistency. The simple efficiency of Sinovic when contrasted with the more flashy but less productive Harrington ultimately means that if the Montreal are shopping for serviceable left back then Sinovic represents the better target provided they believe he can play within their system. Harrington, at least in my mind is fairly safe.

This leaves Omar Bravo out there. If you had asked me a few weeks ago if Omar Bravo would be protected I would have said without a doubt yes. Maybe the expensive Davy Arnaud would be unprotected to make room, or Jimmy Nielsen or Julio Cesar. Goalscorers are a commodity, and beyond this Omar Bravo also captained whenever he started and Arnaud didn’t. He was in no way expendable, at least until we hit the playoffs. While he was injured he was also unhappy to be sidelined and there is a growing hint of friction as Bravos attempts to play off season soccer in Mexico appear to have been foiled by Sporting KC. We can speculate the the salary of well in excess of $1m a year (yes that is sourced), might be enough to scare off Montreal however if they are in the market for a DP Omar has proven he can get the job done in MLS but the question I want to ask is this: Did we leave him unprotected because we think Montreal won’t take him or did we leave him unprotected in the hope that they would? Either way it would not surprise me if he went, I don’t expect it at all but I would not rule it out entirely either.

Protected

Davy Arnaud, Matt Besler, Teal Bunbury, Julio Cesar, Aurelien Collin, Kevin Ellis (home grown), Roger Espinoza, Kei Kamara, Jon Kempin (home grown), Chance Myers, Jimmy Nielsen, CJ Sapong, and Graham Zusi.

Unprotected

Korede Aiyegbusi, Omar Bravo, Daneil Cyrus, Birahim Diop, Jeferson, Michael Harrington, Eric Kronberg, Scott Lorenz, Lawrence Olum, Peterson Joseph, Craig Rocastle, Soony Saad, Luke Sassano, Seth Sinovic, Milos Stojcev, Shavar Thomas, and Konrad Warzycha.

Who else is out there?

The Monteal Impact get ten picks on Wednesday, and we in many instances have decided we are destined to lose a player but Sporting Kansas City are not the only team letting some talent go. Young or old, expensive or cheap, there are some quality signings out there. Kosuke Kimura, Ned Grabavoy, Freddy Adu, and Julian de Guzman can’t hurt the interests of any new team. Older veterans like Brian Ching that can still play will be tempting. In this company Seth Sinovic, while an admirable performer does not necessarily appear so attractive. I don’t expect the Impact to pick for their roster entirely, if a player like Adu does not fit, he will have decent trade value and may get Montreal a piece or two that they do not currently posses. If they do go for trade able picks a player like Adu may command a couple of quality players.

A final thought

I hate the expansion draft. The goal of any team is to field a competitive first team, and to have a depth behind it to supplement that starting eleven when players get injured, get called up for international duty or lose form. Doing so with the small salary caps we are dealing with requires more than just opening a check book, players needed to be scouted, brought in on the cheap, often developed, and once all the hard work is done teams are forced to give these guys up like it hasn’t cost them any effort or time to turn them into players that are desirable to whatever team happens to be next in line for a franchise.

I would much rather the expansion team get give a couple of million of extra allocation money for the first season and then enter the MLS market not poaching players because teams have no choice but to give them up, but to make offers, to wheel and deal and make things happen. That way if Michael Harrington or Seth Sinovic is wanted, Sporting could in theory turn around ask to see some cash, get something they can use rather than an empty roster spot that needs filling.

#MLSProtectedPlayerListsAreLate

I started it, it was Mike Kuhn’s idea (sort of) … but while MLS was dragging its feet prior to releasing the lists we got some Twitter sillyness going. (I think) that there is some funny stuff in here. http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23MLSProtectedPlayerListsAreLate

Ryan Smith burst back onto the Sporting Kansas City headlines as Sporting managed to trade him to Chivas USA for two picks in the 2012 Supplemental Draft. The deal for 1st and 3rd picks ended an year long saga with Smith during which time Smith fled back to England twice sighting family issues, the second time time just six appearances into the 2011 season having just regained fitness following surgery.

A couple of weeks ago Robb Heineman broached the topic of Smith as a conundrum that needed solving while he spoke to Mike from Downthebyline.com and I. “We need to figure out what to do with Smith” was the surprising line at the time and this was followed up with “he keeps calling and wants to come back”. Releasing him outright was not an option, this was stated more than once by Peter Vermes during the season however picking up two draft picks represents remarkably good value for a player who has a proven track record of not sticking anywhere he has played in his turbulent career. With the shortening of the MLS SuperDraft to two rounds, the picks acquired for Smith equate to an extra third and fifth round pick.

Late draft picks being what they are Chivas USA should also feel like they have done fairly well. Smith, as flawed as he may be has an abundance of talent and if they manage to tap into that and keep him happy he is a hell of an acquisition and certainly not a player that I want to see playing against Sporting Kansas City and LIVESTRONG Sporting Park any time soon. The trade is essentially a win-win that ends a difficult situation for Sporting and Smith and gives Sporting Kansas City the opportunity to evaluate a couple of extra players in pre-season or trade the draft picks for an established player on the fringes of his current situation.

The 2012 MLS Supplemental Draft will be held on January 17th.

Without waiting until the close-season was officially here Don Garber and MLS delivered the news that was not news at all today. Major League Soccer is moving to an unbalanced, conference focused schedule in 2012 – it seems to have unhinged a lot of people, Twitter has featured a rolling torrent of irate MLS fans it seems. I’m not sure why this this is such an emotive issue, especially in a nation where unbalanced schedules are the norm.

“But the rest of the world…” seems to be the counter argument from many people. It is ironic, given the scorn poured on the likes of Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake in certain quarters for having “Europoser” names however this isn’t the rest of the World. It is the United States of America and MLS is still in its teenage years, its going to be a bit different from the leagues that are formed over 80 years ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my balanced schedules. I like the idea that with 19 teams each team could play every other team home and away resulting in a 36 team regular season but that is about as much as I can imagine an MLS Regular Season schedule containing. Why? There are realities to running a professional soccer league in the USA that differ from the norm in England or Spain or Italy.

First and foremost – the damned geography. We have teams in places like Chicago, Toronto, and Colorado. These places tend to not be so warm in March and November, and early and late season attendances are not great, and historically haven’t been in other Midwestern cities. As much as we hate to admit it – when it gets cold and shitty outside, the casual soccer fans, the 60-70% of us that DO NOT go to every game do not show up. Stretching the length of the season to fit in extra games is really just not that much of an option, we don’t need a month or two of games with nobody showing up at either end of the season. It doesn’t serve the business of MLS very well.

If we cannot lengthen the season, then these games become midweek games. Throw in CONCACAF Champions League and USOC games, the odd money maker friendly, the FIFA International Dates MLS has finally started to honor and it gets to the point where there are simply too many games. Fixture congestion is an anathema to quality soccer. Tired players don’t play well, tired players get injured, and its all somewhat moot because the biggest hindrance to midweek soccer in the USA is once again the fans, who have proven for more than a decade and a half that they love soccer, but not enough to be tired on a Thursday at work to watch it. When the league focus is on improving the quality of the on field product actively cultivating an environment where fixture congestion is rampant would be counter productive to say the least especially when that quality also in itself drives ticket sales. Do so at times when fans don’t actually want games makes it doubly stupid.

Lengthening the season is out, and so is playing ever more games within it and so the alternative genuinely becomes does MLS stick with the balanced schedules of recent years or does it stop expanding? We all know that isn’t going to happen any time soon. What happens when we get to twenty one teams? Twenty two? Twenty five? Are we going to play a 48 game regular season? The unbalanced schedule might be unpopular in some quarters but it is also a reality if this league is going to expand and its better if MLS and MLS fans embrace that as a fact now rather than bemoaning what can and never will be if this league is going to continue to expand and prosper.

Who knows, maybe sometime in the distant future we’ll wind up with Eastern and Western conferences big enough to have balanced regular seasons within them, and wait for the big money East-West games in Cup and Playoff competitions until then we’ll just need to deal with it.

At stake today is a spot in the MLS Cup Final, a spot in next seasons CONCACAF Champions League, after an entire season we find ourselves 180 minutes from the glory of ‘winning it all’.  This is the biggest game in our history.  Bigger than the finals of the past, because from once the eyes of Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas are squarely focuses on the upstart team with the new name, the shiny stadium and the media attention.  While the team has always represented the city, for once the city is truly watching.

Will we make it?  Will we let them down? Will we get to travel to LA? Should I really have bought that plane ticket?  Will we get the Galaxy in the final? Beat Donovan and Beckham in the final on their own turf?  I will we be forced to watch the Houston Dynamo take our place? Watch them pathetically collapse and lose OUR trophy?

Will we win today?

We should.  We are the Eastern Conference Champions.  Over the course of 34 league games we drew with Houston at their place and crushed them 3-0 at ours, and they only managed two regular season wins on the road.  They are coming to our place, to LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, to play in front of our fans, our oh so loud fans in a stadium then resonates victory as much as it does style.  We are the favorites, we should be the victors and yet …

The Terror … what if?  What if their wily old veterans and their terribly good coach, the guy with the MLS Cups and the ability to setup a game plan for a single game almost unparalled in MLS manages to do so today?  What if Teal Bunbury has his lead boots on? Espinoza comes unhinged and gets the red card there is always potential for him to get?  What if Jimmy Nielsen comes wildly off his line and fails to get the ball?  What if they camp and defend and catch us with a counter in the 90th minute? What if it goes to penalty kicks …

The Terror.

It is what this game is all about.  Without the dreams of being in LA and hoisting a trophy, and getting to see a defeated David Beckham trading shirts with Matt Besler, the game winning scorer and defensive talisman, the goosebumps and sheer delirium of the victorious waiting for us … there is no counter punch, no doubt, no fear that this glorious journey of ours might come to a late but ultimately premature end.  It can’t end, it is too soon, not before I find myself a tearful snotty mess in LA hugging some random Sporting KC fan while Davy Arnaud or Omar Bravo hoist the trophy over their heads and announce to the world that Sporting Kansas City have won it all.  I want that, you want that … we need it, and yet without the possibility of defeat and the long winter that will follow, there can be no victory.

The Terror

As soon as my eyes opened this morning, my mind was on the game.  I forced myself to eat a breakfast that was too large and that I really had no appetite for.  I managed to burn myself on the wrist and it is throbbing like only a burn can, irritating, not quite painful but consistent and unrelenting.  The burn is my friend .. it is taking my mind off the knot in my stomach that a dozen cigarettes have failed to remove.  A distraction, yet I go to the game in an hour.  I’ll drink with my friends at LIVESTRONG one last time, celebrate or commiserate, hand shake, hug, and for the vast majority I’ll not see them until the season returns to Kansas City in March.

What a year huh?  What a fantastic and glorious path our boys have taken from the pits of the table to the brink of the Championship?  You couldn’t write it better … now its all about the cherry on top.

No matter what I am proud.  But it isn’t over yet … right?  ……

Enjoy the game.

One of the fundamental rules about understanding MLS is forgetting what you know about other leagues and other sports and accepting that MLS is unique. The game on the field may be the same as football around the world however once you get behind the scenes thing get very different.

For example, Manchester City were purchased by a billionaire a few years back, who having to win no matter the cost has allowed the Manchester City management to spend with impunity, bringing in world renowned talent no matter the cost. The rich ownership and strong revenue that Manchester City generate have a direct relationship to the quality of the team on the field. Similarly when Portsmouth ran into financial trouble a few years ago they were forced to essentially sell players (they never could afford to pay when they signed them) quickly to generate revenue to survive.

There are no limits to what clubs can spend in most leagues whether they can afford to do so or not.  And why should their be? Teams in leagues around the world are independent entities, businesses and they live or die by the business decisions they make as well as the players they put on the field. This is not the case in MLS, the structure here is designed to bring stability and financial control to the league and ensure that it survives as whole without the extremes that we see demonstrated by Manchester City, Portsmouth and throughout the world of football.

MLS as a whole is one business (in simple terms). Each of the teams that make up MLS are essentially franchises owned wholly by the league. Owners as they are commonly known are essentially granted the right to operate that franchises. The teams fundamentally do not belong to them, however the owners essentially become stakeholders in MLS. This unique approach to league setup puts all of the league owners in the pool with each other, and the business interests of one group are too an extent the business interests of everybody else. Because of this structure, and the focus of MLS towards stability and growth, and with one eye on the past failure of the NASL (North American Soccer League) the freedom of the franchise owners to do what they will with their teams is limited.

The initial and most fundamental part is financial control, owners are essentially operating an MLS business within their own designated territory. If they turn a profit it is theirs however a chunk of all ticket sales are kicked back to the League so that MLS has cash to operate. MLS uses this money to sign players for the teams, and pay their wages. All players are contracted to the league, not to the teams they play for. On top of this the league has a strict salary cap, so that teams cannot spend to excess – after all it is MLS paying the players not the teams.

What this means is this:

If Bill Gates bought the San Jose Earthquakes and decided to turn them into a super team by outspending the rest of the league … he can’t. He would have the same $3.2m salary cap to spend as everybody. This means that the most commercially successful teams in MLS have no more cap space than the remainder of the league with a caveat. Teams which have the means to do so can spend extra money bringing in Designated Players. The first (approximate) $350k for these players is levied towards the salary cap and reduces the pool for the remainder of the squad. Anything above the MLS paid portion is privately financed, which is why the LA Galaxy can have a $6m a year player, and Sporting Kansas City can pay Omar Bravo over $1m a year. Each Designated Player takes a fairly large chunk of the salary cap meaning there is a trade off between the quantity of DPs a team can have long term and the quality of the squad behind them. The onus is therefor on finding a player or two at most who can really add to your squad without taking away your ability to have substantial depth in reserve. (We’ll cover DPs properly in another 101 — next week).

If a franchise is struggling, losing money like many do, they still have the same $3.2m to spend on players that everybody else does. This keeps teams at the lower end of the economic scale competitive and has allowed teams that suffer poor attendance or circumstances to remain floating while not having to worry about player wages. Before you sneer that was probably the Wizards from 1996 through 2010. Sporting Kansas City would not be here without these controls and the single entity.

Costs are firmly controlled in terms of playing staff, however individual owner-operator groups have a fairly free reign when it comes to other aspects of their team business. Soccer specific stadiums when constructed are seldom paid for by the owners, LIVESTRONG Sporting Park cost our ownership group here in Kansas City something in the region of $50m with the remaining approximate $150m tab being paid by sales taxes generated in and around the stadium and the Legends complex. As we have seen appropriate venues in good locations that are properly marketed and feature a product on the field will draw in crowds, and it is through high attendance and leveraging facilities like LIVESTRONG to host exhibition games, concerts, corporate sponsorship and through the sales of merchandise and concessions that the owners ultimately can make money. The stadium is not owned or operated by MLS, but Sporting Club.

The owners of Sporting Kansas City, if they play their cards right should start bringing in revenue from their journey into MLS now that LIVESTRONG Sporting Park is open however it is worth remembering that during the prior years of their journey from Arrowhead to LIVESTRONG via Community America Ballpark they were unlikely have done so. As more stadiums come online, as more television revenue is untapped and as soccer grows in the USA the single entity structure may eventually go away, but for the foreseeable future it is here to remain and it is fundamental to understanding how almost everything works in MLS.

For example, we currently have a playoff system that includes ten teams. While many fans have complained that having more than half the league play in the system cheapens it, the reality is that when teams are out of contention do not sell a lot of tickets. When a large percentage of ticket sales are kicked back to the league, and the owners are all essentially shareholders you can understand how a compromise between quality and quantity comes about.

The single entity affects everything from who manufactures the team kits, to the font that is used on the back of shirts, and even sponsor logos on the front of them have a mandated minimum sponsorship amount and involve a hefty kickback to MLS. At times it all seems a little like the Cosa Nostra have setup a structure to win territories and supply the Don and his allies with bundles of cash, however the reality is the MLS lost $350m in first 8 seasons and is only know starting to approach overall profitability. In the mean time the various owners have had to foot the bill.

The future is certainly looking bright, but it will be a long long time before the ultra-rich Arabs turn up and are able to assemble a world beater, if ever. The single entity structure will likely be here for as long as MLS is, accepting this fact and learning to think of all MLS teams being partners in one enterprise will help you understand MLS forevermore.

Next up …. Assembling a Squad …

A year later I considered amending the piece to account for yet another year, and deciding it would make it bloated and overly long decided to leave it be and discuss it here. The truth is as much has changed in the last 48 months, not so much with me and my aging old bones but my perception and relationship with the Wizards.

Roll the clock back to opening day of 2010 and we were playing DC United in the first home game of the season. We were at CAB and Peter Vermes was about to manage his first game as the “not temporary” manager of the team having opted to take on the job instead of seeking out a replacement. In a delicious twist of irony Curt Onalfo the prior manager had been hired by DC United, who had also picked up Adam Cristman, and the ever unpopular Kurt Morsink. They looked like a disaster waiting to happen, meanwhile I was filled with optimism for a Wizards season that included a vastly different roster. Ryan Smith, Stephane Auvray, Craig Rocastle, and Teal Bunbury were new exciting names and the team was looking like it might go somewhere.

The fan base as a whole was optimistic heading into a new season but pessimism wasn’t in short supply either. We’d failed to make the playoffs in 2009, made them in 2008 only to be dumped out by Columbus in the first round and there wasn’t much to cheer about in between. While CAB was an upgrade over Arrowhead in terms of atmosphere it still made us a laughing stock around the remainder of MLS.

Being a Wizards fan back then seemed like a chore in a way. We turned up in hope more than with any real optimism and despite trouncing DC United 4-0 that day, the sentiment of “they’ll let us down” wasn’t hard to find. If I could sum us up in one word it would have been downtrodden. I summed it up then by describing tailgating in an empty parking lot prior to the game:

“I feel at home with a beer in my hand and the poor sad bastards I stand with. I am one of them. A Wizards fan.”

Poor sad bastards? March 2010.

The funny thing was in many respects, the 2010 season without actually being good was one of the most monumental in the history of the team. We broke ground on LIVESTRONG Sporting Park in January, but there wasn’t enough of it by opening day to be truly exciting. We were still mired at CAB, it wasn’t until spring truly arrived and the wheels had started to come off the 2010 season that the stadium started to take real form and distract us from the horror show on the field. We finished the season strong but still managed to avoid the playoffs.

In November our name changed, our logo, our colors. The Kansas City Soccer Stadium became LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, and we were lumbered with a ten road trip to start the season. Even with the fresh start it seemed like we were hell bent on sabotaging the new season. We won the season opener vs Chivas then hobbled our way through the road trip. New name, same old Wizards.

LIVESTRONG finally opened and we blew our home opener, saving the party for the San Jose. That night remade the team for me, while the opener was a great night it was the San Jose game that made LSP home and the run that followed that night has taken us from nowhere in the Eastern Conference to the pinnacle of the division. Tonight (yeah I am late hitting publish), a win against San Jose will all but land us a playoff spot and it is fair to say that between now and then everything seems to have changed. The team has clicked, the stadium has remained full, the broader media market around Kansas City is taking notice. I see Sporting KC stickers on the backs of cars no matter where I drive in the metro and people contacting me and calling for tickets. I could not give them away last year.

For the first time in my brief history with this organization there isn’t a sliver of embarrassment around the edges. I am genuinely proud of how far this team has come in so short a space of time this, proud of the stadium for sure, but almost more proud of the way the fans within are reacting to it and learning to take part in a growing fan culture which is often mentioned in the same breath as Portland and Seattle by MLS pundits that used to consider the Wizards a blight on MLS in much the same way many fans view Chivas USA.

The ultimate indicator of change happened for me on Wednesday when we climbed to the peak of the Eastern Conference table. I renewed my season tickets in the Members Section the night before the game. It wasn’t so I could get a couple of poncy seats in the Victory Suite or so I could take advantage of it was because the very same people who refused free tickets from me in the past actually want season tickets in the members section next year. Winning over the English Ex-Pat community in Kansas City is a triumph, drilled home more than every by a friend of mine I jabbed at today when his beloved Everton lost.

“I’m in a good mood mate, Sporting Kansas City are heading for the playoffs! Never thought it possible but MLS is giving me a lot more pleasure than the Premier League these days…”

I think most of us can finally say the same about Sporting Kansas City.

Tonight the Columbus Crew and Houston managed a draw.  A great result for us in what I deem to now be the race for first spot.  It was the first of 34 games that will tell the story of the final few weeks of our season.  If we win out, or do well none of it means a thing … but are we really going to? A win on the road this weekend in Utah will be massive but can’t be demanded the way we can demand to win against Eastern Conference competition at home. We also finish the season at DC United who are my own personal outside dark horse and boogie men. They have a quality experienced squad and they look like they are just starting to click.

Either way here are the 33 fixtures that count. The final one is a bullshit friendly vs Chivas Not USA’s 8th string.  The table below is accurate after the games on 9/14/2011 — it contains a couple of extra columns.  Available Points is basically how many points a given team has to play for, Max points is the total achievable.  As you can see DC United are in a position to wind up near the top ‘simply’ by winning the games they have in hand.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The reality is we don’t get paid for this kind of gig, and essentially for me now this means less coverage. Burned out, I just needed to take a wee break and go to games and not think about what I was going to write or say but simply watch and become a fan again rather than a mock columnist pretending to be a journalist. It has been nice. No press passes, no mics, no cameras, none of it – just me and the game I love watching again. It has been fun … you can have too much of a good thing.

I’ve opted for the low thrills approach. Buy my gear, buy my tickets, go to games, watch games, swear at referees, go home, think about blogging, ignore it till I come up with something real to write …

… therein lies the rub. I literally have nothing much to say.

The team has no obvious weaknesses aside from depth. Kamara and Bravo are scoring and if they are not there are goals coming from many players, the midfield are dominating, creating and defending, the defense is solid, Jimmy Nielsen isn’t being peppered anymore and we have our stadium. We are in a position in the league standings where we should be gravely disappointed if we do not make the playoffs. All the moving parts are in place, the team has the capability to win the MLS Cup because they can beat anybody in MLS on their day … and they can lose to the fucking Richmond Kickers and trigger a period of rage and writers block in yours truly that can only be eclipsed by the poor hire of a pansy ass German as the USMNT coach. This does not want to go away … I need a silverware shaped cure.

So to summarize the entirety of my Sporting KC thinking for this entire season:

- Auvray kinda blows
- Myers has his last Chance
- Besler needs to come big
- Cesar is shit and his head is tiny.
- Omar Bravo is going to be great
- Teal is a star all of a sudden?
- Sweet we beat Chivas USA
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- Who is this French dude from Wrexham and Portugal? Collin?
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- God dang isn’t this trip over yet?
- Yes
- Ok the stadium ruled, the result sucked, that referee also drew air inwards at great velocity.
- Yeah baby, we beat the tectonic plate pressure build up and then rapid violent release team.
- Oh god its hot and I’m ignoring the game playing Sporting Trivia
- Oh god its hot and I’m ignoring the game playing Sporting Trivia
- Oh god its hot and I’m ignoring the game playing Sporting Trivia
- Oh god its hot I’m done with the trivia.
- Oh god its hot
- Oh god its hot
- Oh god its hot
- Oh god its hot gan doon the toon.
- Oh god its hot
- Teal Bunbury has been possessed by Herman Munster boots.
- Chance Myers is no longer Reserve Team Jesus but is walking on water for the first team.
- Auvray is shit and is gone
- Cesar is now THE shit despite his tiny head.
- Collin is so awesome he can wear speedo and be cool. He is cooler than Hasselhoff.
- SETH SINOVIC WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!! YOU ARE AWESOME WHILST MALNURISHED LOOKING!!
- Zusi says Power of Grayskull and gets super powers before games!! But just in his legs.
- FC Dallas and Seattle are stupid fat meanies.
- I think we will make the playoffs
- This weather is awesome, Beckham is still great, Landon Donovan looks like Leisure Suit Larry
- I am worried this team can’t cope under pressure.
- I am worried that we have a lack of players with playoff experience.
- DC United are a dark horse to corn hole us the hard way. Jody Foster and a pinball machine? Worse than that. We need to wrap this up before the last game before Charlie Davies dives us out of the playoffs or Eastern Conference title or De Rosario or god forbid Josh Wolff pops up and kicks us in the dangly bits in stoppage time.

I like the rest of you am basically sitting, and hoping that we make it and that if do that we don’t fold as soon as we play ‘a decent team’. Of course some things never change:

- Michael Harrington is working on his step over move.
- Diop is still smiling.
- Seattle are in the US Open Cup Final … and it is being played in Seattle instead of at …

As somebody somewhere on Twitter said just the electronic orgasm following Jürgen Klinsmann’s announcement as the new US Men’s National Team coach, the umlaut era of American Soccer has begun. The question is now, how do we gauge the success of our German head coach?

Premature yes but I think looking at the parameters of how you gauge success often help frame the debate about how or why somebody was hired. There are the obvious silverware, or progression to the late stage of a World Cup or similar standards but I think these tend to be simplistic. For example Sunil Gulati referred to the US World Cup campaign in 2012 as disappointing, perhaps because the US Men’s National Team bowed out to Ghana however I thought it was broadly successful given the talent available and the lack of depth on the bench for the Men’s team, did we really expect, or even more so demand that Bradley take a fairly average group of players to the pinnacle of the mountain or even to the Quarter Finals?

I am not sure that makes sense, no more so than dismissing a Ghanian team bristling with talent youth and now representing Lyon, Inter, Milan, Chelsea, Sunderland rather than the LA Galaxy, Fulham and Second division German and Turkish football.

You can make argument and counter argument which is why rather than looking at the nations involved it is often easier to look at the coaches and the talent available and in that light I look at Klinsmann’s record and can shrug. When presented with a wealth of riches and abundant talent he has failed to accomplish what was required and he has yet to be tested when that talent pool is best described as anemic and yet he is credited with the entire recreation German football in the wake of the 2006 World Cup in which he took a highly talented, highly experienced yet aging squad to the Semi Finals of a tournament hosted in Germany and then … lost and wound up finishing third.

Not bad?

1934 – Third Place
1954 – Champions
1958 – Fourth Place
1962 – Quarter Finals
1966 – Runners Up
1970 – Third Place
1974 – Champions
1978 – Died in the groups
1982 – Runners Up
1986 – Runners Up
1990 – Champions
1994 – Quarter Finals
1998 – Quarter Finals
2002 – Runners Up
2006 – Third Place
2010 – Third Place

That is Germany’s World Cup record. Forgive me for pointing out the obvious but Germany have always been a world power, they remain a world power and Klinsmann did not elevate them above the the average finishing position of 3rd to 4th that they have historically had. People still persist in pushing the idea that this was a triumph, sorry but Denmark turning up for the European Championships unfit because they did not qualify but were handed a spot when Yugoslavia were kicked out and going on to win the thing was a triumph of tactical management. Germany losing in a semi final on their own turf? Not so much.

I mean take any of the 1996 versions of Michael Ballack, Miroslav Klose, Jenns Lehmann, not to mention World Player of the Year nominee, and FIFA and UEFA Left Back of the year winning Phllip Lahm and see they are not automatic first team choices in basically any team in the world right now. There are few exceptions where it is close. The USA has never had that kind of talent, genuine world class players that could literally play anywhere. The current superstars of US football and deservedly so are Landon Donovan who with the exception of a successful mini-loan at Everton and a poor stint in Germany has plied his craft as a big fish in the small pond that is MLS and Clint Dempsey who as a forward has scored 33 goals in the Premier League in 150ish games since 2006. He is good player but right on a par with his team mate Bobby Zamora and neither of them are going to set the World on fire outside of fleeting moments.

Who is next on the pecking order? Will Charlie Davis make it back? Will Agudelo, Bunbury or Shea come good on a national level? After Clint and Landon the drop off is fairly dramatic with the exception of Tim Howard and Holden. The FIFA ranking of the US Mens team is 30th, and yet the USA won their World Cup Group in 2010 – at the expense of England, reached the final of the 2009 Confederations Cup final defeating a Spanish team that was so stocked in talent that it went on to win the 2010 World Cup and was ranked number one in the World by FIFA at the time. I don’t know about you but I think that since 2007 the USA have often punched well above their weight.

Klinsmann in the world of the sane would simply have to maintain this to be deemed successful however in the magnified and scrutinized role as the USMNT Manager Klinsmann will have no such luxury and in order to be heralded he will need to improve upon Bradley’s record which seems hard to accomplish given that in four years his two biggest assets in Donovan and Dempsey will be deep into their 30s and the obvious replacements have yet to show themselves.

Where does that leave us? Can the US win their group in 2014 in the World Cup? Even Qualify for the Confederations Cup in 2013? Can we compete with a Mexican side where the likes of Carlos Vela are better players than any starting forwards we currently have and Chicharito is being groomed to be a World Star? I don’t know … if we truly have been punching above out weight then the real burden for Klinsmann going forward will be the excessive expectation from a nation of soccer fans who seem to think they are better than they are, better than Ghana and their stacked roster and youth and who demand that the US Mens National team improve irrespective of the status of the talent pool.

Herein lies the rub, Jurgen Klinsmann has never improved anything. He got fired at Bayern Munich with a loaded table and a big budget and yet the advocates are looking to him as a messianic figure who will recreate US football at all levels and stimulate the kind of national production pipeline that has produced Ozil and co in Germany. Forgive me but Germany have always produced World Class players… with or without Mr Klinsmann and they all start out young. I fail to see how that translates to a US based system that is far less progressive and infinitely less developed, it is not a case of tweaking but creation that is needed here if the bright lights of tomorrow are to be a step above Teal Bunbury.

The production of genuine talent in Germany starts so much younger than it does in the states, and even if we can get the youth soccer portion right at some stage this ‘talent’ is still going to be handed off to stables of MLS coaches who have a mandate to win rather than foster the the talent for the future. The fractured, uncoordinated and combative world of US Soccer needs more than one man to help it rise to the level it could be, and it will require more time to accomplish than Klinsmann will be allowed by a nation who are less willing to fail than most. As it is if Klinsmann can pull off two moments as memorable, captivating, and important as the win against Spain in the Confederations Cup Semi Final and the win against Algeria in the World Cup then I’ll be marginally surprised, but if he manages to rebuild the entire soccer landscape then I’ll stop rubbing my eyes when I see flying pigs and find the end of the rainbow.

That that job needs undertaking is without a doubt, but entrusting it to a man with 14 matches of competitive International experience and 43 games in charge of Bayern Munich before they fired him seems like a stretch. That people have bought into this seems even more of a leap forward, so now we not only have the overblown idea of where the US stands in the ranks of US football to contend with but now also the idea that Klinsmann will somehow improve this situation. I don’t see it.

If only you could translate player success and fancy European accents into managerial success, as it is we all have is the talk and no evidence that he can walk the walk.

Screaming out for a caption contest isn’t it?

Stoppage Time #16 by The Full 90

A Richmond Kickers rant is coming, I just can’t lose the anger.

I grew up in the Pre-Sky TV era in England when the vast majority of games where not televised and avid football fans listened to the radio for their fix. It was the BBC most of us tuned into and standards were and remain high. The voices literally could paint a picture of the game over the airwaves, and they were good enough that you really did feel like you were not missing out by not seeing the games. Of course the radio culture in British football extended beyond weekday evenings and Saturday afternoon road games, thousands of fans would attend live games and listen to radio broadcasts of the game they were watching eagerly waiting news from other games that might affect them. Radio and the BBC were simply part of the game back home… and now it was coming here ..

Yeah I was happy, but the caution came with Callum’s age. Could he really live up to that standard at such at twenty one years old? It was time to meet this lad and have a chat with him and so I headed out to training after introducing myself on Twitter and found myself standing on the sidelines at Swope Park chatting very happily with a young man who I have quickly come to admire. After watching Sporting KC Juniors train it quickly became evident that he simply loved the game as much as anybody I had ever met. He also knows the game inside and out and was quickly able to put me in my place gently a couple of times early on taking me down a peg or two on my know it all scale.  I came away impressed.

Thinking back over those early meetings a few things stand out to this day. He didn’t then, and never has seemed like a twenty one year old guy. At least in terms of his working knowledge and his grasp of the game he is infinite more mature and on top of that he simply oozes drive.  A drive I rarely have seen in anybody.  For example one of the first times I met him he was speaking about wanting to ‘help make the Americans love this game’. That got my cynical little mind spinning a bit and I simply dismissed it as the folly of youth. My mistake was thinking this was outlandishly cocky or even naive.

One of the absolute worst aspects of being a fan of MLS is watching it on television. The commentary and in game discussion and analysis is ranges from the simple brilliance of Arlo White in Seattle to the tawdry awfulness of pretty well everybody else. If I as a fan of the game am reaching for the remote control to turn these guys down I can’t imagine that endless prattle appeals to the non-fan. All of a sudden Sporting Kansas City broadcasts on KSMO have a appealing and engaging presence accompanying the game.

After sweltering my way through the game yesterday I came home with my daughter and slowly rocked her to sleep while I watched the second half of the game. In the dying embers of the game Besler hoisted a desperate long ball forward, it was flicked on by Kamara, badly cleared by a defender and powered into the net off the head of Omar Bravo … it was a desperate last second goal and was accompanied with a simple BRAAAVOOOO call from Callum. One word captured the passion of the guy on the mic but also the importance of the goal and the mood within the stadium. Simple, effective brilliance that Ian Darke and Arlo White would have been proud of and that simply demands that I forget that Callum is merely 21 and English or anything else.  Callum has the rare ability to enhance a game by speaking rather than detracting from it and I am so thankful he is working for us.  He is simply the man for the job of that I have no doubt.

Whether Callum’s goal of switching America onto the beautiful game will happen remains to be seen but fans already engaged in watching Major League Soccer cannot fail to notice the quality of his work. With all the change of the last twelve months I cannot help feeling that the voice behind the mic wasn’t one of the best acquisitions made by Sporting Kansas City in 2011 and a quality addition to MLS as a whole.

And he is just going to get better.

It is coming to focus nicely for me as we trundle towards the exhibition game with Newcastle United. It is just twelve days away, during the busiest and most fixture congested month in our calendar – a calendar that is congested because our front office chose to send us on the never ending road trip to start the season so they could maximize the number of games we played in our shiny new stadium. This resulted in us playing far less games than most MLS teams during that period and July is the month where we are playing catchup.

Meanwhile on the field, after struggling mightily on the road, the team has turned itself around quite dramatically and we are eleven games into unbeaten run of games that has propelled us not only back into playoff contention but also into the Quarter Finals of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. We are 270 minutes of play away from the first Major League silverware this City has seen since September 22nd 2004. The squad is beaten all to hell – Bravo is now only just returning to form, Rocastle and Arnaud are off injured for at least a month, Sinovic is an injury concern and Ryan Smith is playing Nintendo in England.  There are games flying at us. Tomorrow we play Chivas USA, on Tuesday the Richmond Kickers in the USOC, then next Saturday a road trip to Houston, and four days later back for …. Newcastle United. Three days after Newcastle we play the hopeless Toronto FC and so the story goes.

Summary: We have a team of talented players, a deep squad and we looked a good bet to make a post season run this year. The Front Office decides that we are going to undermine this a bit so we are going to play as many games at our stadium as possible. Revenue generation vs Logistical nightmare? I get it, I understand it, but it was a decision made at the expense of the on field performance.  Then after our season schedule was released, knowing that July would be all fubar they drop the Newcastle United game right into the thick of the action, at the hottest time of the year further undermining the team.

I understand why as well. As angry as I am that a meaningless stupid exhibition game with as much relevance to the season as a scrimmage versus the Kansas City Brass I also understand why it is happening, we all do right? The Premier League is big news, bringing over Newcastle United splatters us all over papers, the media actually care about what happens in Kansas City for a day, new fans lured by a big name are exposed to our fantastic stadium and the team and decide to come back. Soccer United Marketing (SUM) organize these events because they are a cash cow and they help sell tickets and the league to fans of soccer who have yet to latch on to Sporting Kansas City or the lousy New England Revolution.  From a business stand point they are a knock out.

A good friend of mine right here in Kansas City who I met at the first ‘Beckham Game’ at Arrowhead along with a group of other ex-pats are now season ticket holders. After not ‘getting into MLS’ and laughing at the team at Arrowhead that day, and not coming to CAB more than once or twice before a year before last season … the Manchester United game and LIVESTRONG Sporting Park were enough to tip them over the edge.

One of these guys has purchased four West Stand season tickets, an investment in one season that exceeds many, many seasons as a ticket holder at the cheapest end of the scale and he is hooked. He has his Sporting Kansas City shirt and at the end of a recent game he said “he felt like a fan when he pulled it on”.  It is the growth we need.

These games represent an invaluable way to bring in new fans and produce a little much needed revenue in a league where the majority of teams do not make money.  I get that, but at the expense of the on field performance … again.

The primary conflict for me to digest is my desire to see the team do well on the field – not just competing for titles, but to win them versus the organization and the owners breaking even or making money long term. They deserve it, by god we would be screwed without them. OnGoal have my eternal gratitude, but this ‘game’ is about winning and when efforts to create revenue get in the way of our ability to compete within the league my blood pressure starts rising.

This morning on Twitter, Andy Edwards (@AndyEdSKC) asked a simple question:

“Real quick: who’s your #SportingKC MVP so far for 2011? Interpret “most valuable” in any way you like, just be sure to explain it.”

My short and simple answer was:

“CJ Sapong. We would simply have sunk out of trace without him stepping up and into that CF role. Nobody else can lead the line.”

My criteria for MVP is essentially “what player would we have struggled most without”, not necessarily who the best has been but who has been irreplaceable. Sapong is as close to that as we have and I know many of you agree. Strong arguments can be made for Collin, or Besler, or even Chance Myers or Graham Zusi.

My nightmare for the Newcastle game, beyond added burden of playing and the fatigue that comes with it is this. What if one of these guys get injured? With our squad spread as thin as it is in places, what if Collin picks up a fairly mundane three week thigh strain and Sapong tweaks a hamstring? We don’t have replacements for them that are playing at a satisfactory level right now.  With July being the softest month left in the calendar in terms of quality of opponents picking up points now is essential.  Newcastle only makes this harder.  Key injuries could ruin our season.

The injuries probably won’t happen, the fatigue certainly will and this is where the second conflict comes up. I think given everything that is going on right now that fielding the weakest team we possibly can would be a smart move. We don’t have any terrible players, but I am talking about Peter Vermes having the freedom to pick his starting eleven for the game after Newcastle United and simply benching them. Stick whoever isn’t playing on the field for a fun day out in the sun and leave the real games to the guys who have proven they are ready to really compete for true prizes in US Soccer like the MLS Cup and the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.

I am not sure the general public and the front office will agree … I’d take it in a heart beat, after all, bringing a little Glory to Kansas City will also help with ticket sales, and isn’t that what we all want?

If you told me at the start of the season CJ Sapong would be the new wonder kid, that Seth Sinovic and Chance Myers would be playing well enough that I would not miss Harrington or Espinoza, that Stephane Auvray would be playing almost no part in the season and that Graham Zusi would not only break into the midfield but arguably be the best of the crop I might have actually laughed.

Had we lost on Wednesday though I doubt I would even have frowned for long. It is almost laughable that we got a point considering everything but regardless … I have found a happy image to focus on when times get rough. I’m sure I’ll test it in a bit as the season moves on but for now its stuck in my head and it makes me smile.

After the home opener that wasn’t, with all its splendor, and Lance Armstrong and Chad Ochocinco followed by a truly tragic game of football I was left feeling empty.  The Gold Cup came and went and I think its easy enough to say that it was also a disappointment in its own way with Clint Dempsey working so hard to keep the score at 1-0, and Landon Donovan playing poorly enough that he was relegated to the bench. I enjoyed the day but it wasn’t mine – I wasn’t vested, and even if I was the result wasn’t all it should have been.

The San Jose game on the other hand was the real deal. A tightly contested 1-0 win. It should have been the highlight and it was close but beyond that it felt like a true opener. The Cauldron, the Supporters Section made such a magnificent racket that at times their exuberance became infections and spread around the stadium to the traditionally quieter fans producing goose bumps and wide eyes as those around me started to realize just how amazing a stadium could sound when 19,000 people join in. It was astonishing, amazing to see the light bulbs go on and the frenzy of enthusiasm generated and a nice sample of things to come in the future.

It felt more like the Home Opener than any other game could. It was a win, with the wonderful stadium not just serving as a pretty back drop, but a functioning living, thriving organism that slowly came to life as the game unfolded. June 9th was for the TV, San Jose felt like it was more for the fans, by the fans. At least to me.

My happy image? Not there yet.

I sat and watched the stadium empty after the game, then wondered over to the Members Club to maybe grab a beer – I’d been a few minutes. As I approached I noticed some of the members section waving flags behind the Fox Soccer Channel’s broadcast team. Then I heard booming noise flying out of the club itself as hundreds of voices joined in unison celebrated in a way that I had not heard since the days of my youth in the stadium I talk to much about.

I wondered in, stood on the bridge over the top and watched, listened and grinned as the fans did their best to drown out the live TV broadcast. It was an amazing show, and for minutes I watched feeling slightly sad that I wasn’t in the middle of it all but glad that had still seen it.

The Cauldron, made up of many people, and many voices was one, united and prouder than I had ever seen them. It was as if 15 years and tension was literally pouring out after it should have but didn’t at the June 9th opener. We had our win, at our home, and the party? Only just beginning.

I stepped away from my vantage point and wondered down the stairs into the Members Club. There I recognized Ben. A face you may well know, a former Cauldron Capo from the Arrowhead days. A guy I barely know. I’m going to guess he is late 20s early 30s but he looked like he was about five years old at that moment, like all his Christmases had come at once. Eyes twinkling, an almost stunned speechless look complimented with a disbelieving childish goofy grin spread wide across his face.

God damn if he wasn’t the happiest looking son of a bitch I have seen in many a year.

I’d guess if he could have summed up that evening in one word it would be something like “Special”, and it was. We may not have the trophies, and might not be flying high in the table but these will be remembered as halcyon days by those that bound to this club who have experienced them. Special times and at worst just the beginning of a bright future.

If there is a bump in the road I have Ben the man child to keep me company and pick me up. I just can’t get him out of my head.

He looked just how I felt.

I don’t want to lose that for a while.