BY DYLAN BUTLER
Drew Carey has his own idea about what makes up an expansion team. And the comedian and co-owner of the Seattle Sounders said his team doesn't fit that description.
"I think the expansion team this year actually is the Galaxy and not us," Carey told reporters at MLS headquarters in Manhattan Monday morning. "I said that to all my Riot Squad friends. You're the ones scrambling to put a team together, didn't know who was playing for you day-to-day…They're coming from a big mess, they're the expansion team."
The host of "The Price is Right" and former star of "The Drew Carey Show" and the U.S. version of "Who's line is it anyway?" also wasn't shy about giving his prediction for the Sounders first-ever MLS game Thursday against the New York Red Bulls: a 2-1 victory for the Sounders, who Carey said was listed as a slight favorite by online gambling establishments.
"We are not the expansion team this year and I think we're going to do real well," Carey said. "On Thursday I think we're going to win. I agree with the bookies."
Carey said he's been amazed by the buzz in Seattle about the Sounders FC. Season ticket sales are already over 20,000 and the seating at Qwest Field has been expanded from 24,500 to about 26,000.
"I'm shocked," he said. "It's like being at a hot dice table or something and I'm so happy to keep rolling numbers."
Carey said he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Come June, if our stadium is burned down and half our team has been ridden out of town and quit in disgust, then you'll know, 'Oh, there's the other shoe.'"
While he is convinced expansion in his native Cleveland isn't feasible ("The Browns, Indians and Cavaliers are so entrenched in that town, that's all you ever read about. Soccer would be a really tough sell there."), Carey is hoping both Portland and Vancouver are granted expansion franchises.
"That would be fantastic," he said. "We could have our own little triangle of death up there. I know somebody would come up with some three-team mini tournament and call it the something up and I would be against that. There's enough of those dopey (things)."
I really hope that the Seattle Barcelona-style fan voting the General Manager to stay or leave, council meetings with the owners, etc catches on with other teams. Democracy baby
Drew Carey was interviewed by ESPN. it is at soccernet.
“That would be fantastic,” he said. “We could have our own little triangle of death up there. I know somebody would come up with some three-team mini tournament and call it the something up and I would be against that. There’s enough of those dopey (things).”
How about calling it the Cascadia Cup you dope. Moron owner doesn’t even know his own club’s history.
Qwest Field is Seattle’s “Soccer Specific Stadium”. Anyone who has watched a big game there knows how good the stadium layout and sightlines are for soccer. Outside of the playing surface, its perfect. I’ve seen games at the San Siro, Anfield, and Amsterdam ArenA and it compares very favorably.
The other thing to remember is that the Sounders and Seahawks share an owner. When Paul Allen got the city to pump a bunch of money into building this stadium, it was billed as a “Soccer/Football” building (soccer was always listed first). If they do leave Qwest for a smaller building, there would be quite an uproar. I think rather than building a smaller stadium, we’d rather just fill the big one.
C’mon you Sounders!
Dominick makes a point…I’ll probably stay home so I can channel flip, but I’ll mostly be watchin hoops- especially with Illinois on at 9….
As a D.C. United fan I hope that the Red Bulls get blown out.
However I don’t think that will be the case. Seattle looks very good from the roster point of view, but I think it will take midway through the season for that team to meld together to form any kind of threat, but luckily for them they’re in the western conference which is obviously weak this year. As an MLS fan you can’t help but like whats going in Seattle however, and I wish them the best when they’re not playing United.
Portland, Vancouver and Seattle had a tournament in the USL. It’s called the Cascadia Cup
Carey is a metaphor for Seattle’s supporters – all talk, rather chubby, goofy, occasionally embarrassing, wavering loyalties, and no sense of his team’s history.
Anyway, I’ll be a huge RBNY fan on Thursday!
BTW – There hase been a three way ‘something cup’ between these teams for about 30 years called the Cascadia Cup.
ACES
Drew Carey is a poor man’s Charles Barkley.
–mnmike
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Charles Barkley cares about soccer?
Drew Carey is a poor man’s Charles Barkley.
Hey, I check SBI three times a day, check the Red Card Blog, go to fire games out in bridgeview, subscribe to setanta, and am in fantasy EPL and Argentina soccer leagues…and I will still be at the bar on Thursday watching hoops. No shame in bumping the game up a day. this is not a rant–so much as a pointed critique to assist the league.
Point aside, great to have a Carey in the league–will be nothing but a positive!
I was just reading about the Seattle D — they are going to get torn to shreds. Good thing they have Keller.
Awesome!
Carey talkin smack already? RBNY pastes them for 3-0.
Friedel is from Bay Village, that’s in Cuyahoga County; I know, I played against his high school team. His academy may be in Lorain but that’s not where he’s from.
Carey’s only partly right here. The Cleveland City Stars have been around going on three years, and in that time they managed to 1) establish a solid fan base; 2) win the USL-2 championship in their second year of existence; 3) make a deep run in the Open Cup 2 years in a row; and 4) earn an upgrade (not really a “promotion”) to the USL-1 this year; 5) outgrow their original stadium.
THAT doesn’t exactly sound like failure to me. Frankly, if Carey was ever serious about bringing MLS to Cleveland, I don’t think he tried hard enough.
Oh well – “you can never go home again” I guess, especially after you’ve been there half your life on the TV screen.
Uh, Dave Clark, Jeff Parke hasn’t signed a contract with MLS yet, and even if he did he’s suspended, so no, he won’t be providing cover on the bench. Nice attempt with that dig there though.
Seattle is much better positioned than previous expansion teams. If Ljungberg can come back and be effective, if they don’t have any more major injuries, and if they jell, they could make a run at the playoffs out west. There’s a lot of decent MLS blood on that roster. A lot remains to be seen though. As for this first game, hard to see Seattle coming together right away. I think the defense actually isn’t going to be quite as bad as people think, but I think the midfield is really lacking offensively. Nyassi is the only real potential threat, and asking a 20 year old making his top flight debut to carry the offense is asking a lot. I don’t think they’re going to be able to put together a coherent attack on Thursday night. New York will have a better idea of what it’s doing. I’m calling 2-0 to the Red Bulls, one early and one late.
Carey is awesome, he’s right, the Gal’s are an embarrassment. They have franchise player who doesn’t want to return to the circus that is the Galaxy. America’s greatest soccer star who failed for the third time in Germany. And there is Bruce, so sad.
Anyways, Redbulls are crap this year, its going to be 3 – 0
Carey is absolutely right. The fact is that the Galaxy has been run in a frenetic, neurotic manner (thank you, Alexi Lalas and Tim Leiweke), to the point that team chemistry has to be rebuilt from the bottom up. The Sounders, otoh, appear far more stable.
irishappple, you are a few weeks out of date. Graham is out for the opener and may not have been a starter any way.
Hurtado and Marshall look to start with Ianni, Wahl, Parke and Graham all providing cover. That’s right, your RBNY defensive leader will be with Seattle, but on the bench.
Bad news for ya Irish….Graham is injured and won’t play, so your team can’t exploit him.
any truth to the rumor he is changing the lyrics of “Cleveland Rocks” to “Galaxy Sucks!” ?
Did Drew Carey just say he’s rolling numbers? Must have been hanging out with Tyrone Marshall…
Carey is great figure for the league.
“Triangle of Death” – there’s the name for the Cascadia tournament right there.
will Seattle ever get a soccer spec stadium? does anyone know? are there plans at all?
Posted by: Robert | March 16, 2009 at 09:40 PM
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Yeah, it’s been around for a few years now, called Qwest. So they share their SSS with a pro (American) football team, big deal. Why does Seattle have to move 30 miles out of town into a big high school stadium in the ‘burbs like other teams just to satisfy “purists”?
>>>Qwest Field was actually the first large stadium in America designed with soccer in mind. I agree sharing it with an NFL team is less than ideal, but the artificial turf isn’t as much of an issue as the NFL lines will be.
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There will be no football lines. They are planning on swapping lines once Seahawks season comes in August.
Cudos to Drew. Obviously a fan, and that’s great for MLS.
Having actually had Taylor Graham play for my team (RBNY), I can tell you that the Red Bulls are going to jump all over Seattle’s defense. It won’t be a complete embarassment, but it will be an unpleasant welcome to the league for the newcomers.
This is exactly what Major League Soccer needs – people with big personalities and big egos who can help create some rivalries. Everyone in Major League Soccer tries to be so PC that it appears to most people that nobody really cares about the league. I hope MLS plays up the Drew Carey angle. In some ways, he is a better face for the league than Beckham.
qwest field, while not perfect- artificial turf=vomit, i think it will look fine if the lower tier is filled. if im not mistaken, the two upper levels have tarp pulled down, making them look more like part of a very thick roof and less like the many empty/tarp covered sections at Giant stadium for Red Bull matches not involving David Beckham.
haha. i like him making fun of the “dopey” cups. so true, but it probably won’t endear him to some of the other owners.
There’s a misprint regarding the capacity for Thursday night’s game. It was expanded from 24,500 to 32,400, not 26,000.
Qwest Field was actually the first large stadium in America designed with soccer in mind. I agree sharing it with an NFL team is less than ideal, but the artificial turf isn’t as much of an issue as the NFL lines will be.
In any case, there’ll be a big crowd in Seattle Thursday night to watch the Red Bulls get smoked.
Luis,
If Seattle goes scoreless on opening day, it’s because they don’t have a playmaker. They have a finisher in Montero, but they don’t have an attacking mid to orchestrate the attack and make that final pass to Montero. It’s possible that their wings will create, but the wingers — Le Toux, Nyassi and Zakuani don’t have MLS experience or are early in their pro careers.
So I expect some significant frustration on opening day.
My respect for Carey and the Sounders organization is only making me desperately want RBNY to stomp on them more on opening day
Ives,
Any chance you might do a piece on turf fields in MLS? It seems as if the number of turf fields is increasing, not decreasing. Assuming Vancouver and Portland do get in, 3 of the last 5 expansion teams have or will have turf.
Experience
I seriously doubt Seattle will ever have a SSS. Qwest is almost a great venue for soccer, regardless if the Seahawks play there. The turf field is the only real issue. A grass pitch would make Qwest the soccer Mecca of America. It looks like Red Bull Park (or whatever they’re calling it now) will have that honor once open.
Experience
Bob,
Check out the sounders roster page; your answer lies within.
qwest was designed with soccer in mind.. and they have a nice agreement so that they can still be profitable in qwest
Sounders may have some issues keeping clean sheets, but I think they’re going to score a lot of goals this year. I just don’t see Sounders going scoreless in the opener.
Montero is starting on opening day…how is this even in question?
will Seattle ever get a soccer spec stadium? does anyone know? are there plans at all?
Haha, there is a lot of newbie bravado here. Unfortunately, championship teams in this league are usually made by through intense competitive challenge rather than a bunch of guys who have never been put under pressure together miraculously coalescing as a unit on Day 1. It’s just not going to happen.
The first shock will come on 3/19 when their outside defenders are put under a lot of pressure and their midfield will have to deal with the faster pace and coordination of MLS, especially playing against a pacy team like NY.
Carey is already pointing fingers at LA saying that they’re scrambling even though his team hasn’t played a single MLS game together, ever. He’ll soon find out who’s the expansion side. Lines on soccer games are notoriously off and are largely influenced by the quantity of home fans betting. I believe the odds are reflecting the larger number of Seattle fans betting vs. NY fans, not the actual probabilities of SFC winning, especially since there hasn’t been a single data point of either team’s performance this season.
So here you go Seattle — the lines between your midfield and offense and midfield and defense will be stretched, your defenders will be split, your outside backs will be turned and your suddenly going to lose that last pass in the final third vs. a NY defense that will collapse into a compact shell, just like they did in the playoffs last year.
Enjoy your first game. I think the result will be 3-1 NY. We (NY) may even get our first clean sheet.
Too bad for him there already is a trophy for the Seattle-Portland-Vancouver rivalry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_Cup
Carey’s a cool dude, he even has a RBNY fan like me excited for the Sounders
“Triangle of Death”
Classic
Carey is great for the league, the sport and media exposure. He reminds me of Mark Cuban, but without the deep-set psychosis. As a Galaxy fan, I love the way Carey is creating bulletin board material.
Drew Carey is right about the prevailing environment in Cleveland; nevertheless, it would be cool if he got together with Brad Friedel (who is from Lorain County and has set up a big academy there) to bankroll and provide visibility for a Cleveland MLS franchise.
I’ll give them hype and a good atmosphere, but I don’t think the team has meshed well enough to play again the Red Bulls and win. For one thing the SSFC defense is quite shakey. So I predict a red bulls win 2-0.
Nice to have a fresh passionate voice making the news for MLS. A little trash talking ain’t bad. Good for him.
Now, if only he could convince MLS to move opening day to Wednesday when non-soccer fanatics might actually pay attention and notice there’s a game taking place instead of NCAA BBall.
That Drew Carey guy is a classic. But he’s right; Seattle have a more experience side than that of the galaxy.
Ives, whats the situation with Fredy Montero? Is he playing? If you know that is