Good afternoon folks. Since I know there are plenty of SBI readers on the West Coast who often find themselves looking for some news to fill their afternoons, I am going to make it a part of the post rotation to have more late afternoon posts for West Coast readers.
Here are some tidbits to consider as your Monday winds down.
Several stars out for Wednesday Friendlies
If you were hoping to catch a glimpse of the world’s best players in Wednesday’s heavy slate of international friendlies, good luck with that. Cristiano Ronaldo won’t play for Portugal, AC Milan star Kaka won’t play for Brazil, injured Barcelona sensation Lionel Messi is nowhere near ready to play for Argentina, which will also be without Juan Riquelme and Carlos Tevez, Inter Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic won’t play for Sweden against Brazil, and France will be without the trio of Thierry Henry, Patrick Viera and Karim Benzema.
It’s enough to leave you depressed.
So who WILL be playing on Wednesday? Cesc Fabregas should play for Spain against Italy, Wayne Rooney should play for England, Gigi Buffon should play for Italy and Michael Bradley should play for the United States (Just wanted to see if you were still awake).
What will Seattle MLS team’s name be?
The quest to choose the name for the new MLS franchise in Seattle continues and while the club came up with three options for fans to vote on, the reaction to the choices is not that enthusiastic.
Seattle Alliance, Seattle Republic and Seattle FC are the choices fans will have when they vote on the team name on the team’s website, which will accept votes from March 27 to March 31.
I think Seattle fans are right to feel as if they are being rail-roaded into picking Seattle FC. It’s either that or have their team sound like an insurance company or clothing store. The ownership might as well have made the three choices Seattle FC, Portland Timbers or Washington Mutuals.
Seattle fans could just do what some fans of Red Bull Salzburg have done, choosing to continue calling their club by its old name (SV Salzburg) and wearing its old colors as a sign of support for the old name.
Remember ‘Jimmy’ Hoffer?
If you watched the Under-20 World Cup, chances are you may remember Austrian striker Erwin "Jimmy" Hoffer, the forward with the terrible haircut who helped the Austrians knock off the U.S. team in the World Cup quarterfinals.
He had himself a pretty good weekend, netting a hat-trick in Rapid Vienna’s 7-0 thrashing of Red Bull Salzburg. Not only did the result hand Salzburg its first loss at Bullen Arena all season, it helped Vienna retake first place from Salzburg.
No word on whether he got rid of the haircut.
PJHardy,
Clearly you don’t live or never have lived in the seattle area, other wise you might know how the name sounders is relavent to the area.
If you do live in the area then you are not a smart person.
I will give you a clue Puget Sound
The SV Salzburg to Red Bull Salzburg is different though, Ives. It really is the same team.
The Sounders have obviously never been an MLS team, so I don’t consider it like when the Dallas Burn changed to FC Dallas.
Plus, Sounders is a stupid name.
Basically these names (raptors, predators, sharks, grizzlies) yes we know your mascots are big and scary, but guess what your gonna win 25% of your games your first year…. your not scaring anyone.
Having no ideas about naming an area so you name it after a scary animal, i’m just tired of hearing those. Those names which have taken over all other american sports is what i dont want to see in mls
what about the supersonics, that name isnt gonna be used anymore?
to Reid,
watch what u say about the crew.
i like that name.
but so far the best i heard is the Seattle SC.
well i hope the seattle fans are writing to MLS and the Seattle owners.
The classic names in baseball are the best ones (red sox, white sox, reds) for the reason they are historic.
Well, sure. But nobody in any other sport copies some other place’s historic names. When Miami and Tampa got new baseball teams, they didn’t name the team Green Sox to borrow some of Boston’s and Chicago’s history. The closest I can think of is Washington naming the new team the same name as a previous team (Nationals) – which would be like naming the Seattle MLS team … the Sounders.
Historic names become historic because they’ve lasted a long time. You can’t recreate that in some other place merely by copying part of somebody else’s name. You can only get it by the passage of time. God willing, when I’m 70, Revolution will be as historic a name as Patriots or Celtics.
If I had a say I would want Seattle SC (Soccer Club or Sporting Club) or Sounders SC . MLS could honor American Soccer traditions instead they picked stupid names like Mutiny (why not Rowdies a-holes we all wanted that), Wizards and Burn. I think it will get boring really quick if everything becomes FC Town Name or Town Name FC. If Garber wants to imitiate the European names they maybe he can imitate the European lack of salary caps and also ditch the single-entity this year. If they want to cater to the Euro fans then need to do it with a good product on the field.
A.S. – lets leave it up to MLS to do americanized names. Metrostars, burn, fusion, crew, revolution…. these names are wretched. In the beginning being a Revs fan, I hated that name too, and am still won’t buy anything because the name sucks.
Pretty much most of the names that have come out in other major US sports lately are horrible. It is refreshing to have a team come out and leave it up to the fans to decide what their nickname is. I’m sick of these shitey names that are picked cause the logo and mascot are cool.
The classic names in baseball are the best ones (red sox, white sox, reds) for the reason they are historic. Same with football, stick with the historic, the classic and that always works the best.
Its not copying its tradition
Sounders will continue to operate last I heard. That’s why the MLS team will definitely not be the Sounders.