MLS Talk Podcast: This Week In U.S. Soccer, October 18
On the latest edition of the Major League Soccer Talk Podcast : This Week in US Soccer, your hosts Chris Webb and Chris Riordan bring you a view of the beautiful game from an American and regional perspective. On the latest edition, Chris Squared (named so by guest) are once again priveleged to be joined by an expert North American soccer pundit, as Fox Soccer Report’s Bobby McMahon joins us to talk North American footy.
The first segment covers the current state of affairs of both the Canadian and US Men’s National Teams. Bobby tells us why Canadian soccer is making improvement, but still has a way to go to be sitting at the top table with the United States and Mexico. We also get his take on the new philosophy being installed by Jurgen Klinsmann. We’ve seen the quantity grow in the player pool, but is the quality there?
The second segment brings questions about the progress of MLS since it’s inception and how it stacks up to other leagues worldwide. We ask Bobby, who is peaking at the right team to replicate RSL and Colorado’s recent MLS Cup title feats, before getting his thoughts on the MVP race.
Finally Chris and Chris finish reviewing the penultimate week of MLS regular season play and outline the scenarios for the final playoff spot. To close out, the team breaks down the latest USMNT performance, which started okay, but ended with a scapegoat and panic buttons being pressed. All this and more on the latest MLS Talk Podcast : TWIUSS!!!!
13 Responses to MLS Talk Podcast: This Week In U.S. Soccer, October 18
Nice ep. Lots of good comments from you guys and Bobby. I liked his
eval of the league compared to others. It’s just not a league whose
teams values depth right now unless it is Seattle or Salt Lake
because no one else has depth. But even those teams have limits
when essential players(JMor, AlSab, SZak, MRos) get hurt. I liked
how he said that the game has deep roots here. I think even a a
niche sport, there’s still a ton of potential. I was slightly
worried about the league’s existence since the expansion to Carson
and Sandy and once Toronto launched, no worries at all. It’s been a
great working model for all expansion launches since then and
though time will ultimately reveal, hopefully all of the expansion
teams this century in virgin territory will continue to be cash
cows for the league. The Wizards are probably the model for
flailing launch teams. If a downtown stadium is just not in the
cards, being in between population centers like KC and Salt Lake
should be the only option. I’m high on KC too. The playoffs are a
crapshoot but I don’t like how everyone plays the same schedule
while some teams are disadvantaged due to geography. If it were up
to me, top 8, first round all single games. Look at the standings
right now with 5 teams between 46-48 points. It would have been
compelling to see which team gets left out and maybe teams start
looking for wins after the all star game. It really bothers me that
the conf champs will play a tired team. If the league is hellbent
on 10, give the top two seeds a bye for the first week. Hope you
guys are right about Seattle, though. The Sounders have 1 regular
season and 2 USOC wins against them but over the past 3 seasons,
I’d say it can be said that they are similarly talented so
hopefully with more meetings, the future results will reflect this.
But that Buddle goal last year was awesome but also a crusher since
I knew the first team to score in that series would win. From afar,
I’d say DC hasn’t been in the playoffs because JMoreno, CGomez,
BOlsen, and LEmilio got old and none of their replacements have
been equal to when those four were fab. Losing Perkins (the first
time) and Gros hurt too. With more teams in this league, it’s
harder to bounce back after losing the core. NE, LAchiv, Hou, Chi,
Cbus all had at least a 3 year window of being a top five team and
only Hou and CBus are decent but won’t be title contenders for a
while.
Glad you enjoyed, it was a pleasure for us as well. I’ve got tons
of respect for Bobby and his insight was invaluable. I agree with
him … soccer isn’t going anywhere on this continent, it’s here to
stay. Still room to improve and bring new fans into the fold.
Spread the word about the game and the show.
Excellent show. Always good to hear Bobby McMahon. Ref. Kasey
Keller being MLS Player of the Week, I disagree that it was some
sort of career recognition award. Keller earned it with a great
save from a Wondo header in the first half and that magnificent
four saves in 10 seconds effort at about the 65 minute mark.
Without all that, the Sounders are down 3-0 and lose.
Thanks for listening Douglas … I think C Webb meant … in
addition to earning it, was also a career rec award … we both
raved about his performance this week
Best show I’ve heard from you guys. Great stuff with Bobby. vis a
vis the MVP race I’m disappointed that Montero isn’t getting any
mention with 12 goals (5 game winners) and 8 assists and leading
his team to second in the league. Is it b/c there’s a second
(Rosales) and third (Alonso) legit MVP candidate on the same team
that he isn’t getting the mention or is it the streaky tag? I’m not
saying Montero should get the award but he deserves to be in the
conversation. Brad Davis would be my choice of the player most
important to a team that makes the playoffs. I doubt he’ll get it
though. anyway great stuff with McMahon.
Mark, thanks … always room for us to improve. Montero deserves to
be in the discussion for sure. I think that I’ve said in the past,
the overall team talent makes Montero overlooked. The same has gone
for Javier Morales and RSL in the past. To be fair, the streaky tag
applies as well. But he seems to be streaking at the right time.
Should DeRo be considered for MVP on a team that can’t make an
expanded playoffs ? I am torn on this age-old question. On the one
hand, he played for three of the worst teams in the league. On the
other, he can flat out play. Montero has a lot of assists too. But
I think it has to be Donovan……LA was too good and without him,
I think they stink. As opposed to all the other names being thrown
around, who with the various guys, they still stink. My $0.02
DeRo should be MVP. The man is a force of nature. After Pontius got
hurt and our team started to collapse down the stretch, he was the
only thing that gave the team a spark. Witness the loss at
Philadelphia and last night.
Mark, Brad Davis is the most underrated player in all of MLS and
that is saying something with guys like Osvaldo Alonso, who is
beyond great not getting “rated” much.
We will definitely have an interesting awards show after the
Playoffs are said and done and we’ve crowned an MLS Cup Champion.
Charles … I think you’re spot on with Donovan (though I’m not
sure they stink without him, they aren’t nearly as good), because
he’s often considered the de facto best player in the league, he
gets overlooked. De Ro is hands down singlehandedly playing the
best (his goals and assists totals are ridiculous), he may not be
without some talent around him, but compared to all the other
candidates … he doesn’t have as much supporting firepower. Still,
for some reason we’ve always shooed in MVP with postseason
appearance and I can’t go with him because of that, as much as I
may want to.
Like all the other journos, you guys just skipped past an important
story of the SEAvSJ game–the clear foul on Ring that should have
invalidated Montero’s goal. All the journos behave as if Seattle
“deserved” to win the game and the results were somehow “just”
because of the crowd. Well, they weren’t. They may may have been
fixed though so MLS would get it’s Keller story thanks no one
believing Michael Kennedy does anything except out of incompetence.
But Seattle weren’t given 3 red cards in that game, which says a
lot above and beyond the uncalled handball on Ianni and the clear
foul on Ring that not even Kennedy could have missed except on
purpose. Glad the fixed match result made you & Keller &
MLS so giddy–NOT.
Wow, I saw someone twitter something like this last week. Time to
stick it in the X-Files.
Kind of surprised that no one has written about Fox earning the WC
rights for 2018 and 2022, as that effectively sounds the death
knell of MLS as a TV property. Fox will continue to promote soccer
in this country, but since their bid for MLS was turned down in
favor of NBCU, you can guarantee that they will be doing everything
in their power to expand the appeal of EPL in the US and to ignore
MLS. Moreover, ESPN no longer has any reason to promote MLS soccer
after 2014 (they only aired it as a condition of their acquisition
of WC TV rights). Bad, bad news for MLS fans. I have no doubt the
league will survive but it will probably be smaller and it will
definitely be poorer.