Been Gone Way Too Long

Sorry, folks, it's been almost 2 weeks since we last spoke. Between my conference in Orlando last week (yayy!!) and my attempt to catch up on my work back here (boo!), it's been a little chaotic. So, let's talk about the past couple of weeks.

1. DC United's streak finally ended, not at the hands of Chicago, as I predicted, but by the worst team in the league in Real Salt Lake. DC dominated large portions of the game and should have been ahead comfortably, but Peter Novak's decision to take out Freddy Adu and replace him w/ John Wilson in an attempt to sit on a 1-0 lead for 35 minutes was a bit puzzling. Wilson is this year what Brandon Prideaux was last year; a serviceable defender who makes some truly awful decisions, loses his mark, and makes you cringe every time he attempts a tackle in his 3rd of the field. Sure enough, Wilson gets called for 2 penalties in a 4-minute span of stoppage time to give Real the win. Granted, the 2nd foul wasn't so obvious, but if you were JUST called for a penalty in stoppage time, what makes you think the ref would swallow his whistle seconds later? Wilson accepted responsibility, but part of the blame has to go to Novak for what seems to be a tendency to play more conservatively as the season wears on. I stand by my statement of a few weeks ago when I said DC was head and shoulders above everybody else in MLS this year. No reason for them to be playing around with teams like Real and Columbus (the Open Cup game last night is a good example). Get a lead and go for the throat, guys!

2. My good friend Brian Straus recently went up to Rochester and hung out with some of his Sheffield Wednesday friends who flew over to watch the team on their recent USL tour. He's got some good stories and insight in his writeup here: http://www.ussoccerplayers.com/latest_soccer_news/523555.html

3. Another guy who's making some inroads is Craig Stouffer from the DC Examiner. Craig's done some heads up work over the past several weeks, breaking the story on Lucio Filomeno leaving DC United, and then scooping everyone else by nearly 2 weeks on the John Harkes to New York story. Between Craig, The Washington Times' John Haydon, and The Washington Post's Steve Goff (arguably the best soccer beat writer in the business), DC soccer fans have without question the best coverage of any other soccer city in the U.S. Keep up the great work, guys!

4. So why don't they just go ahead and make this Saturday's MLS/Chelsea game a DC/Chelsea rematch? With Landon Donovan out, as well as players from Chivas and New England, DC's got 9 guys on the roster as it is. After that, they fly out to Seattle to take on Real Madrid next Wednesday. While I don't expect MLS to win either game, it's nice to see that the best MLS team this year will get a real chance to show their stuff to (hopefully) large audiences here and around the world. Some young players like Bobby Boswell, Brian Carroll, and Josh Gros could really make some waves if they play well. Notice I didn't even mention Freddy Adu?

5. Want to know why a lot of youth players n the U.S. get disgusted with soccer and give up as they get older? Check out this video and see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8-SyOeS3lA&search=soccer
Those coaches should be ashamed of themselves. That would assume, of course, that they had shame, which I'm pretty sure they don't.

That's about it for today, folks. Again, sorry to be gone for so long, but I'm afraid it's going to happen again next week, as I get my long-awaited Vegas vacation. I'll put something up Saturday or Sunday before I go, though. As always, thanks for reading and take care!