The San Jose Earthquakes are on the cusp of clinching a spot in the Major League Soccer postseason for the first time since the franchise's re-introduction into the league. If the Earthquakes are to do so this weekend, though, they'll have to rely a bit more on the depth of their roster.
Cornell Glen (Trinidad & Tobago), Ryan Johnson (Jamaica) and Arturo Alvarez (El Salvador) have all been summoned by their respective national teams, meaning that the trio will miss San Jose's match at D.C. United this Saturday (D.C. will also be shorthanded, with Designated Player Branko Boskovic, Dejan Jakovic and Julius James also on international duty and Andy Najar suspended because of card accumulation).
A San Jose win coupled with a Kansas City loss would cement a spot in the playoffs for the Earthquakes, who haven't made the postseason since 2005, after which the original San Jose franchise bolted for Houston.
Do you think international federations should call up players (who are in the midst of club playoff hunts) for inconsequential friendlies?
Share your thoughts below.
From what I’ve heard, Khari turned down the callup to stay with the Quakes. Hopefully somebody other than Wondo can find the back of the net against DC.
they are already established. since we are still in our teen years, we should adhere to Fifa’s schedule. it shows that we respect players’ individual aspirations for country and glory.
in high school a lot of the best teams in my area were mostly latino – most mexicano-americanos would miss the first 4 games cuz on their winter break they’d go visit familia in mexico. it would allow for the other teams to get ahead to start off the season. it’s still a problem to this day, but in high school the best teams end up catching up anyway. in the pros, its not so easy.
That’s MLS club internaitonal friendlies that I wouldn’t mind seeing reduced.
Superliga is 4 teams that are not in Champs League. So I don’t think eliminating it would free up that much time. I like the SuperLiga. It gives the mid table teams a chance to play competitive international matches. I wouldn’t mind seeing the mid season international friendlies reduced though.
I believe the Quakes will also be missing Khari Stephenson, if he hasn’t turned down the call-up. I think missing Stephenson is a bigger problem for the Quakes instead of the other 3 players
Sorry I meant to say, I’ve only been following US and MLS soccer closely for ten years, not the US Open Cup. I’ve never followed that.
But even if the tickets were hard to come by, it would only register on the local level. In the modern era national TV viewership is everything, and right now even the MLS games on ESPN get small ratings. The profile of MLS has to rise through television first.
How are casual American soccer fans supposed to believe that MLS teams–who they barely give a crap about already– are Goliath in US Open Cup, when every summer the big teams from Europe come over here for pre-season tours, and MLS teams are David? It’s just not rational to ask casual fans to suspend their disbelief and get excited for an event with mediocre talent.
It would be nice to hear what Ives or some of the other experts feel about the US Open Cup in an article with a more in-depth approach, ’cause it just seems like a bush-league tournament to me
Should be interesting as the years roll past and this becomes more of a problem.
I would agree with ya, I’ve thought this over and my idea is that every MLS team is forced to play in an inner city or even suburban stadium (even if it is a 2000 seater) during the tournament, this will do a couple things, give some supporters or non supporters a chance to take in a competative game they normally couldnt and make tickets harder to come by creating demand. Marketing will be the the hardest hill to climb so I say stress the age of the tourney and the David vs Goliath aspect of it and see what happens.
Not to rain on the parade, but outside of the small core of fans who have been active in US soccer for decades, I really don’t think there is much of an audience for the US Open Cup. I consider myself a fairly passionate US fan, and I’ve only been really following it closely for ten years. If relatively recent fans like myself have no interest in it, why should the average American sports fan just getting into soccer care about it?
As far as marketing, where is the appeal of seeing, say, Toronto FC vs. a USL-2 team? Don Draper couldn’t sell that matchup.
Even the FA Cup and the Copa Del Rey seem to have waning appeal in England and Spain, and they’ve been around for over a hundred years. How is the USSF or MLS supposed to not only reverse that trend, but BUILD the prestige of an already obscure tournament?
I just don’t see it happening
San Jose fans are very pleased they’re all going. They’ve all 3 been poor this season and this prevents Yallop from putting them in the game!
US Open Cup is one of the oldest tourneys in soccer, once we figure out how to market the event it could be a really cool and popular showcase for American soccer and non soccer fans. Dump the Super liga fo sho
I agree SuperLiga needs to go though I will be attending if my team is in it next season
We have a 3 month winter break now (4 if not in the the playoffs) and your suggestion does nothing about october friendlies since it’s not a grueling climate month.
Mexican league and the Brazilian league are considered “serious” leagues. what about them
Somebody mentioned cutting one of the cup competitions, and I wholeheartedly agree. Superliga was a creation of businessmen, now made irrelevent by Champs Lg, and US Open Cup just adds more game and grind to an already crowded schedule.
Cut those tourneys and invest in a well-run reserve league, even if it runs at a loss. The quality of the league would rise exponentially
i wouldnt say these are inconsequential games, these are important for CONCACAF teams especially because of the 2010 Caribbean Championship (currently ongoing) and the 2011 Central American Cup (starts in January). Teams 1-4 in the Caribbean Championship earn a spot in the Gold Cup and teams 1-5 in the Central American Cup earn spots in the Gold Cup. These are important friendlies for them. Does it suck for SJ? Sure, but if they’re a true playoff contender then their depth needs to prove it.
DCU without the services of Blasto Blowjobbitch?! ohhh nooooooooooes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you make it sound as if the mls isn’t doing this already.
THere already IS dual week games, some teams playing 2 games a week consistently if not more (wasn’t RSL just finishing some 15 games in 50 days or something)
although the amount of months the seasons last between mls/europe might be similar ( both are 8 or 9 months i think?), EPL has stuff like the christmas period where they play 3 games a week, and other european leagues eventually have to dual up…but European sched just has a few more weeks which allows it have to international breaks…
Uh-oh…. MLS is growing to fast for its structure… its breaking through… now players are getting call ups. The ONLY answer is to switch to a fall/spring schedule… I could care less if I am beating a dead Horse.
This is MLS’ bad. MLS is a fun league but can never be considered a serious league until this mess is sorted out.
Too many results are affected by who’s avail during INTL break. Ditch one of the concacaf cups if you have to, to free up dates.
Imagine one of the big US sports dealing with something similar.
Split the season with a ~2 month winter break and ~1 month summer break. Avoids the grueling climate months and actually adds time to the schedule for international fixtures.
You can certainly argue both sides of this issue, but I think the federations absolutely should call up these guys if nothing more than to inconvenience MLS clubs to the point that something finally gets done about this. If the federations kowtow to MLS just because it’s not a WC qualifier, then MLS will never change their scheduling.
Comes down to costs – MLS can’t afford weeks off and extended seasons.
Hopefully some day we will get there – shoot, hopefully some day it’ll become so bad that whole teams can’t play because everyone is good enough to be on their national team roster.
I mean when I think that until SA, MLS games were played during the WC… Just stupid.
It isn’t really. You just tell months ahead of time that you won’t play that week to to international fixtures. If the top leagues in Europe can do it, why can’t MLS or Mexico or whatever other week? You can even have other alternatives like having 2 games in a week some other week. I mean come on, how long have we known about these October games? Really is it that difficult for domestic leagues to arrange their calendar so that they don’t penalize teams in their own league? Come on.
As someone else stated in the Post about NYRB players leaving for international duty….Until each team has 5+ players playing for national teams there really isn’t much of a problem. Expecially with DC out of the playoffs and one of the worst teams of all time.
This won’t be a problem for SJ. These 3 rarely start anymore
“Just skip a week.” Yes, that line says it all to the players and coaches. Like, its no big deal, man.
Well, they should. It’s so easy to adapt your league to the international calendar that you’d pretty much have to do it on purpose to schedule important domestic games during FIFA international fixture dates.
I’m not saying have the same calendars, I’m saying adapt the calendars like the European leagues do so that you don’t have crucial league games when there are international dates. It’s not rocket science. Just skip a week.
Really… the European calender? … I really don’t think there is a league in the America’s that has the “european Calender”
The Mexican league does not, neither does the Brazilian league.
It’s not a problem this time b/c RJ, AA, and Glen are all very replaceable by other guys on SJ’s squad. From DC’s perspective, it sucks, but they are not gonna make the playoffs, so no biggie.
But one can easily imagine a situation in the future where a team is on the cusp of the playoffs in that 8th or 9th spot and loses one of their best players to international duty for some lame friendly, and then they lose and miss the playoffs. Then the outcry will begin.
The alternative I assume is to play one or two extra double-game wed/sat weeks on each teams schedule?
Would really be great if MLS/CONCACAF and FIFA would all get on same page. There has to be a way to have a unified schedule. This system puts too much pressure on players.
Why can’t MLS simply adapt its calendar like the European leagues? It isn’t that difficult to do. I would be pissed if European clubs refused to let go of US players even for friendlies for instance.
I think this is much more MLS’s fault for scheduleing important games on FIFA dates. Friendlies, though not as crucial as qualifiers or such, are still important. It’s the only time a coach can see what players he has. You can look at all the big name players that join MLS in the middle of the season and aren’t able to perform as well as expected. Everyone always chalks that up to “well they didn’t get a full pre-season with the team”. That’s what friendlies are for national teams. If you wait only for a qualifier to call up a player you’re not going to get that player playing well with the rest of the team.
Friendlies are not inconsequential.
no worries DC can not win with out Najar!
I can understand the national teams wanting to get their players in camp to start the next cycle, but to do it at this crucial point in the season is disappointing. Not that central american federations are particularly organized or willing to help out American soccer teams, but still
The associations should have a little more cooperation with the national leagues. CONCACAF should step in here to help considering the circumstances. MLS can try to accommodate these international dates in a non-World Cup year but not this year.
To answer your question Ives, I would say yes. On FIFA dates scheduled for international play, national teams have every right to demand their players. These dates are given to domestic leagues well ahead of time, so it’s really up to the domestic league to adapt its own schedule in my opinion. That’s not really that hard to do, everyone does it excepted MLS…
Furthermore, I don’t believe in “inconsequential friendlies”: national teams get relatively so few times to play that every friendly is important and serves some purpose, be it evaluating the form of your starters or assessing the strength of your fringe group, or trying new players for a new tactic.. etc…