Top Stories

MLS Week 9: SBI Live Commentary

MLSLogo2013

By IVES GALARCEP

Familiar foes Real Salt Lake and the Los Angeles Galaxy will renew acquaintances at Rio Tinto Stadium tonight in the day’s marquee match-up of Saturday Week Nine action.

The Galaxy are coming off an impressive win vs. Sporting Kansas City, but a road trip to Utah will be a tougher proposition as RSL enter off a win of their own, a 1-0 triumph.

Another match to keep an eye on is the Portland Timbers visit to Sporting Park to take on Sporting Kansas City in a match-up of high-pressing teams that prefer the 4-3-3 system.

Today’s action begins in Toronto, where Toronto FC take on the New York Red Bulls. TFC will look to unleash Robert Earnshaw against a Red Bulls side that will be missing Dax McCarty.

SBI will be providing live commentary on all of today’s matches right here so please feel free to join us here for all the updates and analysis on the full slate of matches. If you will be watching today’s action, please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action (Today’s commentary is after the jump):

Comments

  1. So peeps, with that sub is Olsen placing blame, sending a message, or bettering the team? BMac has been an important piece for us….

    Reply
    • That fire must have been Columbus burning Olsen effigies. We would be too good the next few years with him at the helm. Young team, he needs to be destroyed before they mature next year. : )

      Reply
  2. Did Bruce Arena just decide this game wasn’t important? Brian Rowe in goal, Charlie Rugg up top and Greg Cochran at left back. You’ll be forgiven for not knowing who any of them are.

    Reply
  3. The owner of the Fire is a worthless, cheap bastard. A know-nothing in soccer. For such a great soccer city, it’s pathetic to have this man lead our team.

    Reply
  4. Did anyone else notice the sneaky little product placement NBC did on Grimm last night for MLS and the Timbers? Well done NBC, very clever.

    Reply
  5. Ha! I was just about to make a snarky comment about krypyonite in the penalty box for Cahill when he finally buries one. Good for you, Timmy! Another fan favorite, Roy Miller with a beautiful assist on the overlapping run. The play was started smartly by Steele who is suddenly brimming with confidence and Henry also contributed with the cheeky dummy. NYRB finally showing some width.

    Reply
      • believe it was your use of the word “a$$ist”.

        ives, can we get that fixed? such a weird problem to have, where you can’t say “pa$$” on a soccer site.

  6. There’s been a lot of talk about the salary cap recently, and this seems like an appropriate forum for a discussion.

    I don’t think raising the cap is the cure-all that some people make it out to be. However, I think the strongest argument for raising the cap is to keep American talent in the league, or at least starting off their careers in the league. Guys like Boss, Bedoya, Marcus Tracy, Davies, Goodson, Rolfe, Gatt, Findley, Buddle, etc. Losing top American talent to the EPL, Serie A, Netherlands, even Belgium is acceptable and reflects well on the league. Losing guys to Scandinavia, Switzerland, etc is frustrating. Maybe these guys aren’t turning down/leaving the league for a paycheck. But not many of them have gone on to bigger/better things. Davies was on his way and Parkhurst has found his way to the bench in the Bundesliga. Liga MX keeps all but their top talent.

    Maybe an American DP rule would do the trick. I don’t know, I’ve just been thinking about it recently and figured SBI posters may have some thoughts.

    Reply
    • No, I’d much rather our best players go to Europe where they can test themselves and develop to the best of their abilities until we can attract the top talent here.

      Reply
    • It’s also questionable how much more teams would actually spend outside of a few teams. The key word in CBA is COLLECTIVE-which means the owners and MLS collectively agreed that the current salary cap with its set increases is appropriate. Most people seem to forget that 99% of MLS’ history teams lost a lot of money, and thats still the case for a lot of teams. The argument that ‘if team x spends a lot of money it will trickle down and force everybody else to spend money or lose support’ is empirically denied across Europe. LAG sending 30x what they currently spend cannot make Rob Heinneman any richer, if anything, it depresses the salaries of smaller market teams because there is no reasonable way for them to compete. The trickle down argument only makes sense in small doses, for example within the existing DP framework the Galaxy’s current success may incentivize teams to go that extra step and get a bigger DP. When that “extra step” is really 6 steps teams who can’t won’t do it. That’s bad, it hurts the development of the game across the country where teams are condemned to mediocrity.

      I interpret the CCL stuff a different way than most-if Seattle, the worst team in MLS who just started their season and had tons of their players injured/suspended and more on the bench because of Sigi can come as close as they did to beating the team that has done better in Mexico than basically every team over the last 3 years sans Monterrey, then minor fixes should get us over the hump. Really, as nice as it would be to win the CCL, there are more important long term things. Also, why do we say “Mexican teams only win because they spend more money” yet we never see someone say that when Molde plays Chelsea?

      Moreover, Mexican teams spend way more money on things not governed by the salary cap that are indicative of the gap regardless of the cap-coach salaries, youth development, training and playing facilities, scouting, etc.

      Reply
      • In response to your post-
        1) Liga MX is increasingly exporting its young talent abroad and that corresponds with a general increase in success across Mexican youth teams.
        2) You have to realize that Mexican soccer is incredibly profitable-outside of the top 4-5 leagues in Europe I wouldn’t be shocked if Mexico has the highest revenue streams. There’s a reason salaries are so high-lots and lots of people go to games, watch on TV in the US and Mexico, tons of merchandise, etc.-MLS doesn’t have that.

        3) For the players who do stay, it’s more the Brazil effect-they are larger than life celebrities in Mexico. You see the way El Tri is worshiped even in the US-that’s something that can make you want to stay. For MLS players, when they go out on weekends the girls they talk to might not even know the name of the team they play for.

        But I do agree with your general point of trying to keep Scandinavia talent.

      • it’s much higher than MLS for your average player. the top 1%, yes, we match Mexico. you can read about it here.

        but your average player is going to make more in Mexico. and that’s why Mexican teams have more depth.

    • I agree with you. I t is worth pointing out that in the past many good Americans went to smaller Euro leagues because they assumed that’s what was necessary to get noticed by the EPL or maybe the Bundeslegia. With the increasing numbers of guys who are good solid players in MLS becoming good solid players immediately after transferring directly to the EPL, the less that interim step is necessary. If young Americans realize that they can get on the radar of the big clubs by playing in MLS, the longer they will stay. That’s a good thing.

      Reply

Leave a Comment