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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
Are you ready for some Football!
Beyond MLS
-- eos0000
In 1993, three groups applied to the United States Soccer Federation for the right to organize an American first division league after the 1994 World Cup. Of course, considering that one of the groups (MLS) was led by Alan Rothenberg (then president of the USSF), there really wasn't going to be much suspense as to which group would win the bid.
One of the losing bidders, League One America, planned to build a dozen mid-size soccer stadiums as part of a larger strategy of commercial real estate development -- which several MLS teams have now done (e.g., the Chicago Fire in Bridgeview, Ill.) or are in the process of doing (Red Bull NY in Harrison, NJ). (L1A also proposed dividing the field into thirds (painted blue, yellow and red), playing three-period games, employing eight referees, and putting the players in unitards. So on the whole, it was probably a good thing that the L1A proposal never stood a chance.)
The third proposal was made by the American Professional Soccer League (APSL), sanctioned as a second-division league by the USSF earlier that year. Unlike MLS's single-entity, top-down approach, the APSL envisioned a "traditional" league with independently-owned teams, one built up from already-existing semipro and amateur leagues.
Unfortunately, the APSL was also a traditional American soccer league in terms of its franchise stability, having gone from 22 teams in 1990 to five by 1992. And the league only brought its membership back up to seven in 1993 by absorbing three Canadian teams (which might have complicated matters from the point of view of the USSF). In the end, the APSL received a metaphorical pat on the head from the federation, which told it to go out and be the best second-division league it could be.
But by the end of 1996, the APSL (renamed the A-League one year before) had been absorbed by the rapidly growing USISL, which had grown from a five-team indoor league in the Southwest to dozens of clubs organized into three nationwide divisions. Under the USISL umbrella, the new A-League did gain first-division sanctioning -- from the Canadian Soccer Association -- and expanded to 30 teams by 1999.
Of course, the financial demands proved too onerous for many of those teams, but thanks to the ever-expanding United Soccer Leagues structure (another name change), not all of the unstable teams folded; they simply dropped down a division or two. So the USL First Division (the name the former A-League adopted in 2005) now consists of twelve teams (nine in the US, two in Canada, and one in Puerto Rico); the USL Second Division now has ten (nine in the eastern US, one in Bermuda). And the USL Premier Development League, a largely U-23 amateur league, now has 63 teams throughout northern North America.
(The USL system also includes the W-League, the recently established Super-20 League (with both men's and women's divisions), and the Super-Y League (five age groups for both boys and girls). Sometimes unexpected synergies arise: when the First Division's Virginia Beach Mariners imploded several weeks ago, the club's PDL side (the Submariners) was rescued by the W-League's Hampton Roads Piranhas.)
But one team that will not be returning to this year's edition of the PDL is the Ajax Orlando Prospects.
Back in 2003, AFC Ajax had set up a partnership with the Royale Orlando Football Academy, with the intention of setting up a complete player development system; toward that end, the newly relabeled Ajax Orlando applied to enter teams in both the PDL and the A-League. But while the Prospects entered the PDL in 2004, the higher-division professional team never took the field. By 2006, the Orlando organization's status was at best murky -- the local club had become dissatisfied with the lack of support from Amsterdam, while AFC Ajax had already announced that the affilation agreement would not be renewed. Finally, new owners purchased the American organization and formally severed all ties with AFC Ajax.
As the above suggests, one of Ajax Orlando's problems was that it was never clear what their club's relationship with AFC Ajax was: were they simply licensing the name, or was their affiliation intended to go deeper than that? (The fact that the Orlando-based organization was setting up further affiliations across the country -- including one with a youth club in Anchorage -- would seem to suggest a lack of focus.)
Two new clubs entering the USL's professional ranks this year will not suffer any such relationship problems, if only because they're owned by their parent clubs in Europe.
The USL First Division's California Victory (based in San Francisco) have been named for the home city (Vitoria-Gasteiz) of their parent club, Deportivo Alaves of the Spanish Second Division, and will be fielding at least one player from the Basque side during the upcoming season.
But while the Victory appear to have assembled a capable roster, have found a reasonable home venue in Kezar Stadium, and have northern California to themselves, the single determining factor of the Victory's success or failure will undoubtedly be the team's owner, Dimitry Piterman. Piterman has, to put it mildly, a reputation.
While the Victory do not yet appear to have announced any further player development plans, Crystal Palace FC USA began its American operations last year by establishing a youth academy in the Baltimore area. This year, the club was originally planning to enter a team in the PDL; however, thanks to the peculiarities of amateur eligibility rules, the club had to self-promote to the USL Second Division before ever taking the field.
(Nomenclatural note: while the organization as a whole is named Crystal Palace FC USA, the USL team plays under the name Crystal Palace Baltimore -- even though the usual issues with finding a suitable stadium mean that the team will be playing its games in Annapolis. Imprecision in labeling: an American soccer tradition. (Another example: Red Bull New York (the organization) as distinguished from the New York Red Bulls (the team).))
But what's most interesting about Crystal Palace's American experiment is that the English club's motivations aren't immediately obvious -- they're not a Mexican club looking to solidify its position in the American market (Chivas), nor are they involved in the US thanks to the combination of serendipity and the American team's owner's apparent desire for a greater role on the world stage (Arsenal and Colorado). Nor could the American club's existence simply be chalked up to the personal whims of its owner (Alaves' owner Piterman has lived in the Bay Area for much of his life). Instead, Crystal Palace FC actually seem to be serious about building a viable organization in Maryland. Why?
A facile answer: there's a lot of money to be made off of youth soccer in America, and, reasonably enough. Crystal Palace would like a piece of it. And the fact that they might eventually unearth a serviceable player or two would just be a nice bonus.
A more interesting answer: even though it might be accurate to liken the lower levels of American soccer to the Holy Roman Empire after the Peace of Westphalia, it's still possible for a focused organization to establish itself, and to do so quickly. And after just one year, Crystal Palace FC now has an American base of operations from which they can scout the entire Americas. Young players from Rio or Recife or Buenos Aires (or even Omaha) could then be further evaluated by CPFC's Baltimore organization before the likeliest candidates are brought back to London.
Crystal Palace FC USA -- if managed intelligently -- might be able to build a successful player development program in the Baltimore area, one drawing upon the entire Western Hemisphere, with first-class facilities financed by a steady flow of cash from American soccer moms and dads. Given such possiblities, a lot of people (presumably including the managers of clubs broadly similar to Crystal Palace -- not too far outside the highest levels of the world's game) will be interested to see if CPFC USA succeeds or fails.
by eos0000
(sorry this took so long to post up mate -hubris )
Matthew: "Mr. T Says Get Some Nuts"
I know Steve is a soccer fan, and probably detests divers as much as Mr. T does in this ad. Labels: advertising, Mr. T, soccer
- posted by Matthew
eos0000: "The Clothes That Make The Midfielder"
Labels: soccer
Thanks to eos0000 for this great soccer post!
When Major League Soccer emerged onto the American sporting scene in 1996, its ten teams were saddled with nicknames like Wiz and Burn and Clash. (The punchline to a particularly bad joke at a urology conference? What a cymbalist does during the 1812 Overture?)
Considering what the league was already up against -- the failure of the NASL twelve years before, a potential audience that at best could be described as fractured, and the irrational hatred for the sport displayed by some Americans (among them a disproportionate number of sports journalists) -- it could not have been helpful that MLS teams were labeled with meaningless strings of text bearing no relation to their locations or the sport that they played.
Instead, the league's marketing department attempted to endow these generic labels with distinctiveness by other means. So every team got its own font -- ranging from D.C. United's stately serifs to the New England Revolution's spray-painted lettering to the Tampa Bay Mutiny's 1970s computer font.
(When Kappa outfitted the Mutiny in 2001, they not only put the team in their signature skin-tight jerseys, but they used that computer-inspired font for the players' names and numbers! The Mutiny folded after the season.)
And this eclectic typography was accompanied by iconography that ranged from the imperfect -- D.C.'s too-Teutonic eagle
and New England's fuzzy flag -- to the vaguely strange -- the Dallas Burn's fire-belching horse, the LA Galaxy's Wankel engine -- to the unidentifiable -- the San Jose Clash's lobster-scorpion and the Mutiny's mutant bat -- to the completely inexplicable -- the Galaxy's flaming carrot secondary logo to the Columbus Crew's men with hats.
And then there were the uniforms, featuring celery green, chlorophyll green, olive green, teal, and -- presumably controversially -- plain old green.
Granted, the 1990s weren't exactly a golden age of sporting iconography and attire, but MLS teams looked cheap and gimmicky even by those debauched standards. And because these ten teams had sprung full-grown from Alan Rothenberg's forehead mere months before, they had no history, no long-established presences in their communities, and thus no built-up reservoirs of good will that could have counteracted these disastrous first impressions.
To their credit, the league and its outfitters quickly recognized that they'd made serious mistakes -- for example, Nike's 1997 uniforms were markedly less odd-looking than those of the previous year (although they did introduce the world, for good or for ill, to "cloudy jade"). And, over the past decade or so, quite a few of those weirdnesses have fallen by the wayside.
Indeed, it could now be argued that -- identity- and appearance-wise, at least -- MLS teams have veered too far toward the traditional (or, considering that the league is only entering its twelfth year, the pseudo-traditional). Among the league's thirteen teams are FC Dallas, Toronto FC, CD Chivas USA (an affiliate of CD Guadalajara), and, most bizarrely, Real Salt Lake. And apparently only the objections of a certain
footwear company prevented the rebranding of the Colorado Rapids as Arsenal Colorado FC.
And a league originally known for its idiosyncratic (and sometimes even interesting) colors of clothing now sees nearly its teams attired in red and blue and black and white -- the last traces of any sort of green will vanish when the gold-and-green Galaxy change their shirts when you-know-who arrives.
So while Major League Soccer would seem to have shed its initial identity as a cheap and gimmicky collection of teams with silly colors and sillier names, it hasn't yet established its new (and hopefully improved) identity. Perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise: after all, MLS has only just begun its twelfth season -- it's just another confused adolescent.
- posted by eos0000
eos0000: "Looking Southward"
Labels: soccer
That fateful view
thanks to eos0000 for this great post on soccer - THANKS EOS!
This week, two Mexican clubs -- Chivas and Pachuca -- will travel to the United States to face MLS sides DC United and Houston Dynamo in the first legs of the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions' Cup. The winner will receive a berth in this year's World Club Cup in Japan; the runner-up (and possibly one or both of the other teams -- this is CONCACAF, where at least one of the C's stands for "confusion") will be invited to the Copa Sudamericana.
But that might not be the most important tournament pitting MLS teams against Mexican foes this year.
This summer, four Mexican clubs (Chivas and Pachuca, again, plus América and Morelia) will travel to the US for the inaugural SuperLiga -- a made-for-television competition featuring David Beckham (eventually) plus a million-dollar prize for the winner.
Between this new tourney, the Interliga (which determines which Mexican clubs qualify for the Copa Libertadores), and a seemingly unending series of national team and club friendly matches, it sometimes seems like more Mexican soccer is played in the United States than in Mexico itself.
It's all because somebody -- actually, two sets of somebodies -- has finally figured out how to make money from soccer in America.
As suggested above, the first set would be the FMF (the Mexican football federation) and Mexican clubs, who have been making money hand over fist, thanks to the higher ticket prices possible in the US, television rights fees, merchandise sales, etc.
And the second set of somebodies would be MLS, whose ownership groups have hit upon a workable formula: the combination of low expenses (especially when it comes to the majority of players' salaries) and mid-size soccer-specific stadia controlled by the teams (which nonetheless can be rented out for concerts, rodeos, sports like lacrosse and rugby, etc., ad infinitum) can actually be profitable.
The idiosyncrasy of both these approaches means that American sports businessmen with hundreds of millions of dollars burning holes in their pockets (like the Glazers, like Hicks & Gillett) who'd like to make money off of the beautiful game end up looking for those profits elsewhere. And, thanks to a welcoming business climate, a lack of institutional impediments, and, possibly, a common language, they're going to England.
But the English (and European) football machine doesn't just require large sacks of cash to keep it running at its most profitable; it requires a neverending supply of players -- domestically trained if possible, imported when necessary. Long story short: hundreds (if not thousands) of Brazilians and other South American soccer players end up plying their trade in Europe.
(Even though there may be a comparatively small number of Brazilians in the Premiership, the continuing influx of other foreign players (French, Spaniards, other Europeans, etc.) creates openings in other leagues for Brazilian players.)
Despite the continuing drain of talent to Europe, South American clubs are still well-supported and their competitive standards have remained high. The main problems -- especially in Brazil -- would seem to be organizational; for example, the Brazilian first division has historically been less important than the bigger state championships, and even its recent history (with numerous rules changes) has been checkered at best.
Even so, the Brazilian game would seem to represent an immense opportunity for the sporting entrepreneur able to bring some order to the chaos; if anyone were able to gain some control continuing stream of players to Europe -- and the transfer fees coming the other way, that individual or organization could make astronomical amounts of money.
One Brazilian club -- Corinthians -- recently tried to do just that, signing a deal with the international fund MSI, bringing in the Argentine stars Carlos Tévez and Javier Mascherano among others. But then both Tévez and Mascherano were transferred to West Ham under extemely murky circumstances, and the relationship between the club and its investors has apparently deteriorated, to put it mildly.
So who might be capable of succeeding where Corinthians and MSI failed?
Over the past decade, Mexican soccer has become more and more entwined with that of South America; at the same time, US soccer has become more and more tied to that of Mexico -- the new Superliga just represents the latest and greatest example of cooperation between them.
And between them, there are quite a few really, really, really, really rich people and organizations (the Mexican network Televisa, Philip Anschutz among others) who could conceivably take profitable advantage of the footballing situation in South America.
But will they?
- posted by eos0000
eos0000: "1216 And All That"
Labels: soccer
'Cause you soccer fans need it
A big thanks to eos0000 for keeping the soccer tradition alive here at The News Blog - THANKS EOS!
In 1216, the French invaded England.
Forces led by Prince Louis (son of King Philip II Augustus) landed in
Kent in May; finding little resistance, they entered London within days.
But instead of fighting these foreign invaders (or even just slipping
quietly out of town), the noblemen and burghers of London decided to
throw one hell of a party for their new Capetian overlord, capping it
off by proclaiming him King of England at St. Paul's Cathedral.
(Of course, one reason for the French prince's happy reception was the
fact that he'd been invited -- the barons were once more at war with
King John, and Louis had already sent a detachment of French knights
(nowadays they'd be called "advisers") to protect London the previous
November.)
In related news, the American sports businessmen Tom Hicks and George N.
Gillett Jr. are now finalizing their takeover of Liverpool Football
Club.
Indeed, the Hicks/Gillett takeover would seem to represent a textbook
example of How To Do This Sort Of Thing. They've managed this whole
process with the cooperation of the current management and with a
minimum of acrimony (unlike the Glazers, for example); they're actually
wiping out the club's millions of pounds of debts (again, unlike the
Glazers) while putting up hundreds of millions more for a new stadium.
Even Gillett's misstep in using the F-word ("franchise") didn't seem to
dampen the optimism surrounding their arrival.
And, at least in the short term, LFC's financial prospects look
dazzling: the club already generates about $230 million/year in revenue,
and the new owners can look forward to an additional financial boost
from that planned new stadium.
But what happens after that?
Premiership clubs -- especially at this highest level -- would seem to
have already maximized most of their revenue opportunities; how much
more money could the elite clubs make from television revenues, shirt
sponsorships, merchandise sales, higher ticket prices, etc.? Even
though the current financial climate for the gigarich would seem to
argue otherwise, there must be limits to the money splashed about.
(Well, for everyone except Roman Abramovich.)
Furthermore, these revenue opportunities are performance-dependent to a
degree unknown to owners used to the comfortable franchise system of
American sports; for example, Manchester United's early elimination from
the Champions League in 2005/06 made a noticeable dent (millions of
pounds worth) in their revenue for the year. And then there's the case
of Leeds United, which has gone from the semifinals of the Champions
League in 2001 to financial ruin (initially due to the club's having
taken out loans against future revenues that failed to materialize due
to a single failure to qualify for the Champions League) to battling to
avoid relegation to the *third* level of English football.
Now, it's extremely unlikely that Hicks & Gillett could screw things up
that badly -- indeed, their best-case scenario (a new stadium plus
continued high performance on the field resulting in further revenue
growth) does seem to be a definite possibility. Their chances do seem
better than those of the Glazers at Manchester United, who have burdened
the club with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debts; and better
than those of Randy Lerner at Aston Villa -- a club that has thus far
not been able to break into the topmost tier.
And regardless of whether Hicks & Gillett (and the Glazers, etc.)
succeed or fail, or just muddle through, or become disenchanted with
sports ownership entirely and retire to log cabins on Baffin Bay, there
are plenty of other billionaires looking to get a piece of the English
action. (Another US consortium is now eying Coventry City.) So it
seems reasonable to assume that this latest invasion of England will
continue apace.
At this point, it's hard to make any definitive predictions as to what
will happen -- indeed, the situation looks somewhat 1216-ish: there is
plenty of optimism, and plenty of reasonable reasons for that optimism
all around (both on the part of the invaders (Prince Louis/Hicks &
Gillett et al) and the gladly invaded (the barons/the Premier League).
But it may be a good idea to recall what happened to Prince Louis after
being acclaimed as king by the people of London in the spring of 1216.
With the barons flocking to his side and King John on the run, Louis
could be forgiven for thinking that he'd won the rich prize of England,
and that all that remained was the mopping up.
However, Louis failed to press the siege of Dover to a successful
conclusion, calling a truce in October and returning to London. Then
King John died; William Marshal (regent for John's son Henry III)
rallied the Plantagenet forces; the barons began to peel away from the
prince's side; finally, the nascent Royal Navy (commanded by Hubert de
Burgh from Dover) prevented the landing of any French reinforcements.
By September 1217, Louis was back in France.
(A final indignity: by the terms of the Treaty of Lambeth -- despite
having controlled much of England for a year and a half and receiving
the homage of the King of Scotland -- Louis was compelled to declare
that he had never been King of England.)
*****
[Best wishes to Mr. Gilliard -- hoping that he recovers soon.]
- posted by eos0000
Football riot
Palermo's players try to get away from the tear gas
Italian league halted by violenceThe Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has called off all this weekend's Serie A and Serie B games after a policeman was killed at a match on Friday.
A 38-year-old officer died as violence flared during and after the Serie A game between Sicilian rivals Catania and Palermo, which Palermo won 2-1.
The game was being played on Friday because of fears over public safety.
FIGC has cancelled Italy's game with Romania on Wednesday and an Under-21 match against Bulgaria on Tuesday too.
The derby game was suspended after an hour when tear gas, used by police to break up the fighting outside the ground, drifted onto the field.
There was fighting outside the ground, reported ANSA news agency, because Palermo fans could not get into Catania's Stadio Massimino until the second half.
The two teams fled the pitch for the dressing-room, with the game suspended for 30 minutes.
Prior to kick-off, a minute's silence had been held following the death of a club official from lower league club Sammartinese at a game last weekend.
Atfer the match, fans continued to fight running battles with police on the streets outside the stadium and around 100 people were being treated for injuries.