Whoever the new owners are I already don't like them. Every leak I've heard of says they're the source of the hiatus and not the league. Man up and take the lumps of playing a crappy team for a year or two. A fanbase forged in adversity will be much more loyal long term than one you cut and run on.

MLS Million-Plus Club

Kaka to make $7,167,500 next year. 15 guys to make over $1m. I just googled it and 5 years ago (2009) there were 4 guys to make over $1m.

that's because he's an NFL kunt. This league is ready to move on from Garber

they'd just pick someone else as unimaginative as him, mostly because the owners are unimaginative

If there was a time for the league to break out of the paradigm set by the other North American leagues it was 10 years ago when they were still desperate. Now they're stable, comfortable, they won't take unprecedented risks.

I just decided to make the best MLS XI and this is what I came up with. Any changes?

Not intentionally, but the field players come from four teams (4 LAG, 2 NE, SKC, 2 2 SEA).

---------------------Rimando-----------------------
Yedlin--------Gonzalez-------Besler--------Rogers
Zusi------------Jones-----Nguyen---------Donovan
---------------Dempsey---Keane-------------------

I'll homer it up and say that I'd put Valeri in the best MLS I so he should be in there.

When I saw you responded, I thought it might be about Valeri!

I think he is better than Zusi for an average MLS team but I felt Graham fit the team better. Nguyen, Donovan, and Dempsey are all good creators and Zusi is the Dirk Kuyt of this team. I don't even think USMNT or Toronto fans would be calling for Michael Bradley at this point.

Getting pumped for the playoffs.

yeah Zusi is spew, Valeri is great, and Martins should probably be on the team somewhere

Hamid should probably push Rimando at GK, defense could probably use some improvement as well

you kinda just named a most famous XI, but these things are difficult, i understand

If it's 4411 Henry >>>> Dempsey. Straight 442 and I'd take Zardes or Martins over Dempsey.

It's fair to load the team with LAG players, taht +32 GD is sexy in this milktoast league.

Revs have now won 7 of 8.

Nguyen and Jermaine Jones both bagged goals again. They complement each other incredibly well with JJ's workrate, ballwinning, and longpasses compared to the technical, quick Nguyen. This team is incredibly fun to watch.

The revs having to play on a field marked up with NFL lines is an embarrassment to the league. Not hard to see why some don't take MLS seriously when the league allows mickey mouse crap like that to go on. Perception matters and it looks really really bad.

Cubic,

I agree with you 100%.

a nice surprise that the Whitecaps were able to score 2 goals from open play and beat Dallas 2-0 yesterday, unfortunately the Timbers are running hotter than the sun as Rodney Wallace was apparently credited with a pair of deflected goals in a 2-1 win. Remaining schedules:

Portland	Vancouver
vs San Jose	@ Seattle
vs Salt Lake	@ San Jose
@ CD Olimpia
@ Dallas	vs Colorado

can only hope that the Champions League trip to Honduras takes something out of Portland before their finale in Dallas. then again the Texas team has a hate on for the one from Vancouver, so they won't necessarily be looking to do them any favours (unless maybe they want sweet revenge in the playoffs and/or fear Portland more). PTFC will probably be looking for 7 points in their final 3, that might be good enough to get them in.

Vancouver also holds a narrow lead over Toronto in Champions League qualifying for next season, would be nice to get that as well. TFC are 3 points back with a game in hand, matches vs Houston, @ New York, vs Montreal & @ New England.



place your bets!

Columbus Crew sign Kei Kamara, but he can't play until next season. not sure if it's worth using a top allocation spot on him given that, but i guess they know what they're doing.

and in other news, UFC fighter Urijah Faber is one of the many investors in the Sacramento group trying to get an MLS team. anyone wanna estimate his net worth? just curious, i imagine that he's a very small piece of that group.

http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2...rge-continues/

why don't they just buy Chivas and move it there?

-------------------------

couple big games with playoff implications tomorrow:

Houston (8th) @ Toronto (6th)
730pm ET / 430pm PT
TSN / CSN-Houston

the Dynamo are in "not quite dead yet" mode, but basically need to win out to have any chance of salvaging the season. i feel like they've gotten out of tough spots like this before. meanwhile Toronto still have some hope alive, but need to be winning games like this. they've blown a lot of their games in hand lately, time to get an attainable 3 points at home, or die. could be a good one with both teams in a "must-win" situation.

San Jose (8th) @ Portland (6th)
1030pm ET / 730pm PT
CSN-CA / ROOT Sports

should be an easy win for Portland given that San Jose have nothing to play for, and the Timbers just won the away leg on the weekend. hoping for the Quakes to steal a result to help out the 'Caps, but not really expecting that to be the case. sigh.

72, your question is too rational and makes too much sense. And yes, it would probably be the best move for both sides.

How many teams is enough for MLS? Soon the league will have 22 and several more cities (Sacto, Miami, MPLS, San Antonio, etc.) want in.

I would have preferred keeping MLS to the top 20 markets where each team plays every other team home and away once to determine a true champion. Then turn USL into a de facto MLS 2 with the second-tier teams.

this is something that I have argued for for a while. People can bring up that no owner wants to have TV money taken away by being in a 2nd tier league. They would be right, but if it gets branded as MLS2 and the league makes it so that the TV deal stays the same, I don't see the issue.

Doing things in reverse has worked really well in Japan and if that model is followed, then I don't see why it couldn't work in the MLS(and I say all of this as someone who supports a team that would be a relegation candidate a good amount of the time).

Functionally there would be no difference between moving Chivas to Sacramento and giving Sacramento a fresh expansion club. We're not talking about a league where the only way to get in is by buying an existing franchise. The reason MLS wouldn't sell Chivas to Sacramento is that MLS hasn't decided if they want to give Sacramento a team yet. That will probably happen at the BoG meeting in December.

Those highlights of the revs playing on the field with NFL lines is really bothering me. What a slap in the face to the players. A few months ago Jermaine Jones was playing in the World Cup and now it looks like he is playing in a rec league. That the owners of the revs would allow that to happen indicates to me how little they care about MLS. Maybe they should throw some pickleball lines on the field and bring in the local fourth grade class during halftime.

MLS needs to conduct a purge of handegg owners who only own soccer franchises so they can fill their taxpayer funded stadiums the 357 days of the year they aren't being used for handegg. The way forward is not to kowtow to the NFL and hope to pick up the scraps. Handegg is a dead sport walking. MLS needs to make a clean break.

The NFL cannot die fast enough in my opinion.

Revs are one of the few teams without a good place to play. i don't think it's really that big a deal, but i guess i'm mostly used to it by now. somewhat unseemly though, yeah.

are there plans to do something about that? oh, Kraft owns the team ... yeah maybe not. can they at least get the football lines off for the soccer games? i know they kinda sorta do that in Vancouver, some other places like RFK & Seattle as well i assume.

well obv i meant in the event that they decide that they like Sactown and all that, they've been talked up as a good candidate for a while now. seems like Chivas ---> Sactown makes some sense, especially if they can't get a new park built for the #2 team in LA. but i dunno, maybe they can, and maybe the new ownership group wants to keep them there. and maybe the owners would rather get an expansion fee from Sacramento.

Not sure if anyone saw this:

Vincent Tan may be part of new Chivas USA ownership group

From 9/30.

Good news, Gilette Stadium wasn't built with public money.

There might be issues with the territorial rights too. Moving Chivas might make future LA2 expansion more difficult, and given MLS is already rumored to have a group lined up to purchase Chivas for ~$100M ...

In the end, I dunno. MLS will do what they want. I fully expect Sacramento to be announced as an expansion team at the December BoG meeting.

Touche on public money. Point stands.

At least they're not playing in Yankee Stadium,,,

I've heard said that Kraft does want to get a SSS for the revolution, but getting anything done in Boston is difficult.

Regardless he supported the league through it's darkest time, and with AEG is the only owner left from the league's launch (half credit for Hunt?). He definitely isn't in it just to (not) fill a stadium a couple days a year or he would have bailed long ago.

Wondolowski, Bernardez, Cato, Harris, Pintos, & Lenhart all unavailable tonight

so much for 1% hope that San Jose might be able to steal a result

put all of the monies on PTFC, you will be rewarded with many more free ones later