Photo by Michael Janosz/ISIphotos.com
Another frustrated tweet has made its way out of the Columbus Crew locker room.
Weeks after midfielder Robbie Rogers was involved in a little social media controversy, out-of-favor centerback Andy Iro vented his thoughts about his playing-time situation. On Wednesday, Iro tweeted:
"Think about this one.. my situation is like an ex girlfriend..it was good once. She wanted me, i wanted her. But now, she want dont want me"
"and i dont want her. But she wont let anyone else have me.. Kinda selfish when you really think about it…ahhh, soccer…gotta love it"
Iro was a fixture in Robert Warzycha's starting lineup last season but hasn't played at all this season. Instead, Warzycha has paired Julius James with Chad Marshall in central defense. The Crew's back line is in the midst of a 373-minute shutout streak and has posted four consecutive clean sheets.
Here are a few more items from around the league:
ABBOTT: NO PROMOTION/RELEGATION FOR MLS
MLS president Marc Abbott reiterated the league's stance against promotion and relegation at the Associated Press Sports Editors Commissioners Meetings in New York.
"I don't see that in the future, certainly in any reasonable future for us,'' Abbott told the AP.
Abbott also added that the league will not be aligning its schedule with the international calendar and that it may not keep a balanced schedule when Montreal joins the league next season. Both points are in line with what commissioner Don Garber has mentioned in the past.
REPORT: REVOLUTION WANTED DAVIS, CAMERON FOR FEILHABER
When the New England Revolution entertained trade offers for Benny Feilhaber, the Revs certainly had a sizable demand. According to the Houston Chronicle, the Revs' asking price from the Houston Dynamo included midfielders Brad Davis and Geoff Cameron.
"Looking at the Benny opportunity I think was a smart thing to do. But we weren't going to do anything that mortgaged not only our current state of affairs but our future," Dynamo president Chris Canetti told the Chronicle.
LENHART RETURNS TO TRAINING
San Jose Earthquakes forward Steven Lenhart, acquired from Columbus during the MLS SuperDraft, joined his teammates in training as he makes his way back from arthroscopic right knee surgery.
Earthquakes coach Frank Yallop said that Lenhart may participate in the club's reserve match with Chivas USA as he makes his return to match fitness.
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What do you think about Iro's actions? Disappointed that the league won't change its stance on some of the issues Abbott discussed? Think Feilhaber for Davis and Cameron is an outrageous proposition? Do you see Lenhart helping the Quakes' attack?
Share your thoughts below.
uh, yeah – given that he’s British and you’re instead going for some cheap and un-funny racial joke.
I really like Iro’s analogy…quality!
It’s called the Champions League…which has surpassed League games in popularity
The Eurosnobs act like it makes the bottom level teams better…I’ll take New England over those awful clubs anyday…
@seriously. Go to google scholar and search for pro/reg studies. They’ve been done and they support pro/reg.
I rate Benny higher than most, but Davis and Cameron? Ha.
I think your partly right. In order for the MLS to have a promotion/relegation scenario, they would have to have a place a team could be relegated to and allow the owners of the team not to lose thier investment.
Remember, the MLS is a single entity league, one like no other in pro soccer circles. If the MLS would even consider a relegation scenario seriously, they could be sued. A plan without the Team owners and the MLS full knowledge and consent cannot even be considered.
As I have said before, in order to make this happen the MLS would need to start/buy/own a 2nd division league to promote from and relegate to. You would be disenfranchising a team from the MLS were this not in place. This would lead to plenty of lawsuits.
Expect the MLS to first buy an interest in a second division league, invest some capital in it, bring the owners under a unified ownership a la MLS, then buy it outright when the time is right.
There is really no other way.
I never like declaratory statements like never…… Right now, I can’t see it. The league needs to get some more of a real fan base with real TV revenue and stop relying on those entrance fees. This will take a while as well as the further development of that other league.
Regarding the season, I think at one point, you have to think about it. It will be forced upon the league particularly if it get ever gets to the point where a lot of top level soccer players join the league. Now that is years away from even being real, but I think that is reality. Fans can watch football in cold weather and I think they can watch soccer as well. It’s just a mentality thing. This is probably 10 years away.
20 teams is standard in multiple leagues around the world. A balanced schedule is a proven model. What evidence do you have to prove it wouldn’t work here?
Without the Open Cup non MLS teams literally have nothing to play for.
Excuse me?
This, this, by all means – this!
well, after my long rant against bringing it hear, I also don’t know that you can say this “system” is responsible for killing teams (my whole point is, different things work for different cultures, but it sports, movies, food, whatever). A combination of poor team management and a modernizing world, with with the combinations differing in each case, leads to teams dying. Having so many teams is probably no longer viable today, compared to the glory days. Both horse racing and boxing used to be huge in the US, did just their systems destroy it, or has the growth of other sports and other interests along with poor management has hurt their popularity? Sure, the management of the big teams would give much to guarantee they could never drop a division, but relegation has been part of their sports culture for ages, people are used to it, and it’s not the sole cause for a team to die. It could even be argued that the relegation was but a symptom of other problems.
Sounds like your friends are more interested in higher talent levels than anything else. Why would a casual sports fan care that the MLS calendar isn’t the same the big European leagues? I also don’t see why a die-hard soccer fan in the US would care that MLS is played in the spring-summer-fall. Not saying they don’t care, but I don’t understand why.
I agree. For American Soccer, promotion / relegation is a solution in search of a problem. Currently there aren’t enough good pro soccer teams in the US to support a pro/rel system and there won’t be enough for quite a few years. At some point in the future there may be enough teams to support such a system, but I don’t think there will ever be enough to _demand_ such a system.
+1
Great points about neighborhoods and Spurs… this just does not exist here, except possibly in Baseball (Legion ball, city teams, etc)
When I said big clubs, I meant the really big ones like Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Milan, Inter, Porto, Lisbon, that have challenged for or near the tops of their divisions for a long time.
Newcastle has been a midtable team since around 2003/4 and they have an owner who A) is not a billionaire like I referenced and B) is cheap as all get out
Ashley probably put the 35 mil from Andy Carroll right into his pockets… I bet they spend less than half of that in the summer.
Leeds also does not have a billionaire owner, at least as far as I know.
Ummm… check out this link…
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6354899
Bayern has the 12th highest avg salary per player across ALL sports ($5.7m/player)… and ManU is 16th ($5.1m)
They may seem like they don’t spend like Man City but they aren’t exactly frugal.
the EPL tried, actually, to create a championship game. can you imagine how much such a match would be worth? UEFA denied them because it would create too many matches in the season.
Atlanta has a team in the NASL right now… They dropped off for a year but honestly with the clusterfuck that was DivII last year is that a big deal?
Maybe Atlanta wont show well for the Silverbacks now, but you can’t say that until this season is over. Atlanta has some grass roots programs going much like Philly did before their arrival into the league. The Southeast needs a team and Atlanta is the best market for the Southeast as a whole to support.
Etcheverry 1996–2003
Eddie Lewis (w/Clash) 1996–1999
You guys don’t think this league has gotten any better in the past decade?? The golden boot was given to dudes that knocked in 25+ goals. Since 2000, there have only been a couple 20 goal winners.
Those guys lit it up then, but could they do it today?
I say H-Town is spot-on about Davis. Best. Left. Ever.
See you in two decades and we will still show you why IT WONT HAPPEN. It is a broken system that is slowly killing teams off in Europe and makes no sense at all in today’s world.
Share these links with your friends:
UK MLS Convert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQT7NGyD9HYfeature=player_embedded#at=516
majorleaguesocceruk.com
EDIT*
I’m assuming this stuff is legit and not astroturf.