Please stop letting little Bradley write about soccer

Jeff Bradley released another Best XI column on mlsnet.com. Typical insipid, worthless commentary from ESPN's part-time soccer writer.

In it he tells us his favorite XI things about Major League Soccer (like we care) and then precedes to rattle off the most obvious of lists. I mean his insights make Shep Messing look like a Harvard grad (wait a minute).

So, he likes the (11) playoff race (yawn), all the (10) trades (“I never thought I'd see the day when I turned on an MLS game and saw a guy in uniform who had been traded unbeknownst to me.” Come on, my mom knows more about what’s going on in MLS right now and she still think Adu plays for United), and the (9) brilliant debuts (he cites “Carlos Toja in Dallas” Carlos? Has Juan’s brother been signed. C’mon, he was the star of the All-Star match which was last night and you can’t get his name right?!)*.

He also likes (8) dominant teams (“Houston Dynamo are looking like the team to beat, and I don't think it's just their ability to rock and roll on national television ... they're just flat good.” Wow, I haven’t seen this ability to grasp and state the obvious since Marcelo Balboa pretended to be a color commentator), (7) high drama (“It could not be any more dramatic than what's been laid out for Mr. Beckham…” Sure it could, what if for every Galaxy game we dipped Beckham’s shorts in liver and then had Michael Vick release his dogs at the opening whistle), and (6) the race for the golden boot (yawn).

His Top 5 are as exciting as reading the User License Agreement for downloaded porn video software. He loves (5) atmosphere (Who doesn’t love being able to breath?), (4) pressure cookers (Who doesn’t love a little high-altitude goulash?), (3) Home boys (I actually agree with this one. I thought “Hanging with the Homeboys” was a vastly underrated comedy, starring Mario Joyner and John Leguizamo), (2) Soccer in Canada (“I'm not going to pretend to know much about soccer North of the Border, but I do know they lost a baseball team in Montreal a few years back...” (Why would a soccer journalist know more about baseball in Canada than soccer? Because he’s not a soccer journalist), and the final reason Bradley loves MLS in 2007 …

(1) Three in the booth. (Look I’m a fan of the ménage a trios as much as the next guy, but then you have to buy lotions and robes and things. Plus, Rob Stone, Eric Wynalda and Tommy Smyth is a pretty disgusting threesome. But it would bring new meaning to the phrase, “This commentator blows”)

Stick to baseball Bradley and give up "covering" MLS. We all know you haven’t followed what has been happening in the league since your only source got the national team job.

P.S. Just so you don’t think that TYH hates all other soccer writers at the Worldwide Leader in Every Sport Sans Soccer. I really enjoy reading Andrea Canales. Here’s a link to her archive. I don't always agree with her analysis, but at least she knows Juan from Carlos.

* For the record, Juan's full name is Juan Carlos Toja Vega, but I don't think Bradley was given special permission to call him "Carlos", when everyone else calls him Juan.

I'd give you a Nicol, if you let MoJo coach

I saw the following headline, Scotsman gets the call to guide MLS stars against Celtic, and for a moment I got excited about this year's All-Star game. I thought, oh my God! It's Mo Johnston! He's going to coach against Celtic! And all the stories of Johnston's defection from Celtic to Rangers came flooding back into my consciousness. Then, I remembered that Mo Johnston coaches Toronto FC and the TFC currently sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference and have the third-to-worst record in MLS. Crap. Then, clicking on the link and seeing that it was Steve Nicol, my enthusiasm waned like a slow leak in a birthday balloon, complete with the farting noise. Oh well … it was nearly a titillating match-up.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, in 1989 it was reported that Johnston, a Roman Catholic, would be re-joining Celtic from French side Nantes, but he shocked all of Scotland and angered both sets of supporters when he chose to sign with Rangers instead. Celtic fans were obviously angry that he would join their bitter rivals, and many Ranger fans were upset by the signing of a one-time Celtic player and a Roman Catholic to boot (although he was not the first Catholic to be signed by Rangers, he was the highest profile player).

Of course, it's been a long time since then and things have certainly changed. Haven't they? Well, as recently as 2005, MoJo had to pull out of a Celtic-Rangers charity match featuring former players because of a fan threat to boycott the match if he played. They were going to boycott a charity match! And Middlesbrough star Bernie Slaven, who grew up a Celtic supporter, recently compared Mark Viduka's defection to Newcastle to MoJo's Celtic to Rangers switch. He is quoted in Australian Four-Four-Two as saying, "I was brought up in Glasgow as a Celtic fan and the last time I felt like this was when Mo Johnston had posed with a Celtic shirt and then ended up going to Rangers." The whole sorted affair was later detailed on the 2002 BBC series "Footballers' Lives." MoJo has since discussed the numerous death threats that forced him and his family to live in England where he would often clandestinely commute in for matches.

The MLS All-Star match is typically a boring affair, even when MLS manages to lure a high-profile European club over as competition. More often than not, the invited clubs take it as a holiday. The other formats, East vs. West or World vs. American, end up being defense-less goalfests, like playing Brazil vs. Slovenia in FIFA 2007 for the PS3.

So another Scotsman, Steve Nicol, will coach, but he's hardly controversial since he only briefly played in Scotland for Ayr United and spent most of his career with Liverpool. I know that MLS really had no choice. The rules dictate that the best record (points/game) dictates who coaches the All-Stars, so Nicol was it. But imagine for a moment that the stars had aligned and TFC were on top.

I even have the headline, "MoJo rising: Sinners repent!"
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Ranger Danger DaMarcus
In a completely unrelated story, except for the fact that it is about Rangers, DaMarcus Beasley appears set for a switch to the Scottish side. Click here

TYH'S PICKS FOR MLS BEST 11 (Week 7)

GOALKEEPER

Matt Reis (NE)

DEFENDERS

Todd Dunivant (NY), Marvell Wynne (TOR), Michael Parkhurst (NE)

MIDFIELDERS

Chris Gbandi (DAL), Kerry Zavagnin (KC), Dane Richards (NY),
Shalrie Joseph (NE), Juan Toja (DAL)

FORWARDS

Juan Pablo Angel (NY), Jaime Moreno (DC)

Soccer talk? On the radio? In the U.S.? By Americans?

Yes. You read correctly or heard correctly, if you, like me, listened to ’Celo Balboa and Dino Costa talk soccer last night on the live webcast of the duo’s Denver-area radio show, “From the Pitch with Marcelo Balboa.” Finally, Americans have a voice on the radio that discusses soccer in the U.S. beyond the contractual box-score read or the fraternity-boy bullying that the worldwide leader in baseball (ESPN) occasionally does on its stations.

Sure, there have been other programs, specifically on television, that covered the world of professional soccer, the first incarnation of MLS Extratime and a few MLS city-specific shows on local sports networks come to mind. But for the most part these programs were extended commercials for the league, with puff pieces on how Landon Donovan was giving back to the community and how Carlos Valderrama let a homeless family live in his ’fro. The local programs were full of softball questions to coaches and GMs and player-reporter love fests in the wake of humiliating defeats. And there have been other internet radio programs, usually hosted by Brits or Irishmen or Scotsmen or some guy that they pulled out of an Irish pub in South Florida who happened to have the right sound (read: accent) to cover this “foreign” sport. I tied to listen to a few of them, but had a difficult time, discerning my argy-bargy from my bugger-all. These blotto berks with their daft and dodgy comments left me scatty and in a strop. Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.

Which is why Costa and Balboa were so refreshing. Some highlights of the program included Dino and Balboa letting Colorado vp and managing director twist in the wind when a caller did his best impression of the Bobs in Office Space and asked the Rapids exec, “What is it, you would say, ya do here?” Costa, although he sounds a bit like Rush Limbaugh, managed to sound informed and knowledgeable, which is more than you can say about most sports talk radio hosts. He is a self-described soccer guy (likely the only one working in terrestrial radio) and if I lived in Denver I would make his daily radio program, appointment listening. As for Balboa, I have been critical of his color commentary during some MLS matches, but he seems to be coming into his own. At times during MLS match broadcasts, he seemed a bit too much the company man, but last night he let rip comments on the piss-poor referring in the first five weeks, the need to improve the production quality of the match broadcasts and challenged Fernando Clavijo’s utilization of Herculez Gomez and Brandon Prideaux (while the coach was on the phone).

The show was great, but there’s certainly room for improvement. First, they need to hire better screeners to weed out the morons who call and ask questions like, “How do you learn when you lose?” Second, they need to know when to cut off callers or to interrupt guests, like when Clavijo begins to ramble in that accent that makes him sound like a 12-year-old Antonio Banderas. That reminds me of another funny moment, when they dropped Clavijo accidentally right before the question of Conor Casey came up. In all though, it was an enjoyable two-hours, and I believe each MLS fan deserves to have a similar program in his or her city. The scattered podcasts by supporter’s groups are better than nothing, but now that we have caught a glimpse (or a listen) to what could be, MLS fans deserve more.

Odds & Ends
Jimmy Conrad out minimum nine days with a fractured jaw.

Juan Pablo Angel scores in his debut, but NY loses to Galaxy 3-1 in U.S. Open Cup play-in game. Only 10,774 on hand at The Home Depot Center to see Angel’s debut.

Bob Bradley's brother takes a break from covering baseball

http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20070424&content_id=90247&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp

In the interest of full disclosure, let me start by saying I do not particularly like the Bradleys, either the current U.S. interim coach (at least until the USSF can raise enough money for a real coach) Bob or his shill-journalist and constant cheerleader brother Jeff, who wrote the article I have linked above.

Back before Bob got his dream job as caretaker to the national team, he coached a couple MLS clubs where I had the displeasure of interviewing him for several pieces. I found him to be obnoxious and obtuse and any other “ob” word that means an “ass.” Bradley comes from the Bob Knight school of media management: treat all reporters like scum and act as if any questions they ask are the dumbest things you’ve ever heard. Granted I spent enough time at press conferences to know that reporters do ask stupid questions, but we’re not all Michael Lewis.

I’ll give you an example. Back in his Chicago Fire days, I had the displeasure of interviewing him at the MLS Superdraft about the possibility of the Fire drafting a young American player who was still weighing his Euro options but who was likely to end up in MLS. He literally went bonkers during the interview, yelling at me that I was stupid to ask that, that he would be violating MLS rules by drafting a player who hadn’t signed yet (which wasn't and isn't technically true). And when I asked if he was going to pursue him after the draft, he completely flipped and ended the interview. Of course a few weeks after the draft this player was signed to the league and, wow, where did he get allocated, the Chicago Fire. Shocking, right? I have no proof that there was a backroom deal to keep him out of the draft, but judging by his reaction I might have been on to something. I don’t remember the player’s name and Bradley was eventually booted from the Fire, so the deal is of little significance in the grand scheme of things, but I think it demonstrates what an asshole Bradley is.

Jeff, well, I never really had contact with him, except at the occasional NY match (usually one his brother was coaching in) when he would waltz in among the peasants and MLS PR would fall over themselves to bask in the warm glow of his ESPN credentials. Was I jealous? Sure. Who wouldn’t be jealous of a soccer journalist who actually got to write maybe two single-page articles a year for the magazine and never, ever got on ESPN unless it was a World Cup year and Tommy Onion-Bags was on vacation. The majority of ESPN could give two shits about MLS, which is why he only really writes about soccer for mlsnet now. “Special to mlsnet.com” indeed. He’s special, all right. He’s being borrowed from baseball stories that no one cares about. Anyway, let’s have at his “special” comments concerning the MLS three weeks into the season.

He’s certainly no Halberstam (R.I.P.) -- as the cliché that begins his intro for his “First IX” where the season is a “train pulling out of a station” (good one) and we must make a “leap of faith” -- reveals. And it’s no shock that such a NY-homer would start with a complement to the NY Energy Drinks. As I stated in my last post (a week before his, I might add), the team that gives you wings could be getting its own this season in the form of Juan Pablo Angel. Jeff drools a bit much over Captain American (R.I.P.), calling him the quarterback. I hate when soccer writers feel the need to relate soccer to other sports because they assume that their audience is unfamiliar with the rudiments of the world’s game. For those of you unfamiliar with his terminology, a quarterback is a position in the American version of rugby.

Number 10 is a no-brainer: Toronto might be in trouble. Duh. And “300” might not win an Oscar. Toronto was 'canucked' when they hired Mo Johnston as their coach and then selected Greg Sutton as their keeper. What was that all a-boot? Sutton was in MLS five years ago, and he allowed 12 goals in five games. So far, he’s allowed six in two. I know he’s Canadian, but, sheesh! They should see if Martin Brodeur is available.

Number 9 is about Real (pronounced “quueeerrr” sound it out, try to sound like you’re from Boston … it’s ok, I’ll give you a minute) Salt Lake. But who cares? I pray to the Mormon god everyday that they move that team to Seattle or Portland or Punxsutawney or anywhere else. That franchise does nothing but give soccer-haters in this country fresh ammunition. The whitest state in the union and they name themselves after a Spanish club? Why didn’t they just call them Bayern Salt Lake 1860 Munchausen?

Finally he brings up something interesting in Number 8, a real bulletin, insider info that you expect from someone working at the Worldwide Leader of Baseball and Others. This just in. Jeff’s reporting that DC United need Jaime Moreno not to suck. Wow! Things sure are bleak in the nation’s capital, then. Whether Jaime is able to play well this season should not be the key to United’s success. Unless he’s a moron, team president Thomas Payne, the early favorite for Dr. Bob’s post before Roberto Benigni look-alike Sunil Gulati was handed the executive washroom key to the USSF, isn’t putting all his eggs in one 33-year-old, chubby Bolivian basket. And Payne isn’t a moron. I met the man and he deserves respect if only for not allowing DC to be named something idiotic like the Washington Nationals. DC is certainly sputtering early but they are much too talented to not get back on track with or without Jaime Moreno. The player to watch in DC isn't number 99; it's number 11, 29-year-old Luciano Emilio.

In number 7, he’s shilling for something called the Honda SuperClasico, which sounds like a gas-powered pasta maker, but is actually Chivas USA versus Los Angeles. This could be a fun LA derby. Chivas is TYH’s darkhorse pick this season and has looked stellar in the first three games, dropping a tight 1-0 decision to the defending Champs Houston, while beating the snot out of Toronto and Salt Lake. The Galaxy could be a big disappointment if they can’t keep pace until Spice Boy's arrival, but as Jeff told us, the train is just leaving the harbor or something like that.

Numbers 6-4 bore me. The only item worth mentioning is the Herron hit on Heap, which was despicable. Heaps should have dropkicked him and then dropped a deuce on his unconscious face. Sure these guys have a history that started when Herron was with the Fire, but it was a total cheap shot. MLS should send Herron home to Ticoland, and referee Ricardo Salaza should go with him. TYH isn’t a Revs fan, but we support tough Americans like Jay Heaps. Next time bite his kneecaps, Jay.

Number 3 is about Taylor Twellman, and TYH loves Twellman. This patriot came home from Germany to play in MLS, and has been a star since his first season. It was a crime to keep him off the national team in Germany ’06. And, as much as it pains us, we hope that Jeff is right (cringe) because we want Twells to get his 20, too, if only so he can rub it in Arena's stupid face.

Numbers 2 and 1 say almost nothing. Here is a summary. Brian Ching needs to stay healthy if Houston is to repeat and Colorado is the new Miami Fusion. The new Miami? Are they going to have their best season in franchise history and then get eliminated as a franchise? They are 1-1-1, calm down, Jeff. And when you see your brother, give a rochambeau from TYH.