The Commissioner speaks about scheduling...
i'd kill that superliga tourney if it meant they had more flexibility to move regular league games around fifa dates. ya gotta believe superliga, even if it only involves a few MLS teams, probably makes it even harder to move stuff around.
they could also schedule more midweek games in high-attendance cities when there are weekend FIFA dates. Doing it in lower-attendance cities would make attendance even worse.. but you could probably get away with putting some more midweek games in Toronto, LA, and RSL (when they get their new stadium running) and not sacrifice attendance too much. See which teams have the highest season ticket bases and put midweek games there.
any other ideas?
Last edited by rocker; 08-29-2008 at 04:58 PM.
What a bullshit answer.
basically fuck you we'll continue scheduling how we do thank you very much.
With that quote alone Garber has just proven he is a total idiot. If he can't figure out that the elite players in the MLS are part of their respective National Team pools he needs to be replaced.Clearly, it is a testament to the quality of the players in MLS that David Beckham, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Landon Donovan, Eddie Lewis, Marco Pappa and Gonzalo Segares all played for their national teams the day before that Thursday match.
When scheduled, the date was one of a limited number during the year that the Galaxy could host an ESPN2 Thursday night game. It is often very difficult to forecast early in the year who will be called up for national team duty. But that is only part of the issue.
some weeks they can play 2 games (Wed/Thurs and Sat/Sun). They will know when the international dates are and just reschedule the games. They can do it if they put a little effort into scheduling.
just get rid of the weeknight games and play all on weekends, thus getting rid of part of the problem. then our national team manager has to use some common sence too,
if he has no plans to play Sutton for example, leave him with TFC, that goes for any TFC on the canadian team.
Get rid of SuperLiga its a BullShit tournament anyways!! Somebody should start a thread with a poll question on which you would get rid of....I say get rid of SuperLiga and also schedule some games in a wed/thurs and sat/sun schedule, so that way you double teams up one week or two...
wtf is SuperLiga anyway...?
He's not an idiot, he's B.S.-ing you. There is a difference.Originally Posted by S_D
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
Top MLS clubs v.s. top Mexican sides. With the birth of the CONCACAF Champions League, this competition is superfluous.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
^^
Geeeeeeeeeeez. Let's all play each other twice, that sounds fun!
they really do need to get rid of the superliga, its unnecessary now.
Although they may not conceed immediately perhaps they will make some concessions and accept the fact (especially after our next game) that they have to move some games to midweek to accomodate tournaments/fifa scheduling.
CSA and Canadian coach doesn't give a shit about TFC, nor should he or they.
SuperLiga...although not as apparently glamourous as the new CCL....was actually the best and most exciting soccer MLS teams have been involved in all season. Those of you that actually watched it would know that.
That being said....it should now be evolved into the UEFA Cup to the new CCL if you will where the next best 4 teams should play the next best 4 teams from Mexico....I think something like that may work.
Suggestion for next year:
Move to single table; every team plays every other twice; total of 28 games. Get rid of this conference crap.
Start the season earlier, say mid-March... schedule all the early games (say first 3-4 games) in warm climate teams' home, e.g. LA, Chivas, San Jose, Dallas, etc...
Schedule the mid-week games needed to get around fifa wc qualifier dates in cities that have the highest attendance numbers, TFC, Seattle, Chicago, LA, etc..
Just a suggestion.. A little thinking is required, but it can be done. For God sakes, we put a man on the moon.
Moderator
So when Seattle joins the league next season, we go to 30 games? And when the next two expansion sides come in after that, we go to 34 games?
Won't happen. The league needs a finite, and stable number of teams from season to season before you start implementing changes like that.
- Scott
“Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens
thenTFC could refuse to release players for the national team as they are paying the wages...if it ever comes don to club or country..i will pick club.The CSA have already proved they don;t give a shit for canadian
soccer or they wouldn't have hired Mitchell in the first place, the quicker
the CSA goes under, or suspended by fifa for not promoting the game right the better for the game in this country.
Single table won't work in MLS, fans want their teams to be in contention,
could you see the Columbus Crews gates, if in a sinlge table they were out of contention by July? that would kill MLS.
Moderator
Doesn't really matter. We won't see it played at all in two years anyway.
Did the USA , of all countries, just fix soccer? - C. Ronaldo, May 27th commenting on the FBI-led investigations into fraud and corruption throughout FIFA.
We've always been at 30 games. What will happen when the new teams come in that we'll simply stop playing some teams three times each year (like we do with Columbus, D.C and NY this year).
But anyway, they could easily schedule around the FIFA calendar. it would simply mean having games on what they call 'undesirable' days (like more mid-week games). They could do it, they're just worried it'll hurt the bottom line.
But I think it needs to be done.
then go to a single table garber....other leagues make it work!!!
This can only happen if the national team doesn't play on a FIFA international match date. Otherwise, John Carver has no choice but to release his players.
I'm sure MLS could easily accommodate FIFA's international match calendar. Earlier in the season, TFC had a couple of bye weeks, which made little sense given that they did not coincide with international matches or the Canadian Championship. If the league itself scheduled each team's bye weeks to occur at the same time, then it wouldn't be hard for MLS's schedule makers to work around two or three international dates.
Of course, it is a lot easier to coordinate a schedule when there is an even number of teams in the league. Throw in Seattle next year, and I'm sure we'll see important MLS games coincide with crucial WCQers.
Best post so far.
Totally true.
And yes...Garber's response was bullshit. "We don't know who will be called up"...? Seriously? Well...you know the Golden Child himself Beckham probably will! You know his ball-gobbling life-partner and MLS Prince-in-waiting Landon Donovan will! Who are you kidding Garber? Two of the biggest stars in MLS will likely be called up and you are acting ignorant?
Gawd this league pisses me off sometimes!
I guess it must be hard for the Danish league or the French or the Italian leagues to schedule around these dates too seing as they don't know who will be called up either.
Garber is talking shit.
To be honest, I don't think this was as horrible a response as some might interpret. Yes, Garber took the "party line" and made some rather smirkworthy comments, but he also indicated that there are options and that asking why they don't adjust the MLS schedule is "a fair question". Not only that, but that they are committed to discussing those options.
MLS is not a guaranteed cash cow for anyone. Running the league into the ground and losing not only players but fan-generated revenue, television revenue (which Garber himself talked about at his State of the League address), and those bastions of fan support -- Toronto most definitely included -- is not anyone's goal, if you'll forgive the pun.
I think the most telling quote is:
"Unless we make some changes, we will face even more challenges in 2009..."
I don't think he's an idiot, I think he's a politician. However, I sense awareness in that quote. Why the decision was made not to adjust the Chivas match, I do not know. But here's hoping that some quality decisions come from the Board before MLS finds itself with more headaches next season, as Garber himself noted.
The problem with this is that the league has a contract with espn (maybe espn2) to air a game on thursday nights.
the single table argument is very non-forward thinking considering we know the league will be at least 20 teams and likely upwards to 32 eventually and they have shown they are having trouble fitting 30 games in a schedule so why would they be able to fit 38 in? However I do agree with starting the league a little earlier in march and having the northern teams start the first 1 0r 2 games on the road.
How do we know that the group stage of the Champions League wont be as good? Assuming the MLS teams make it through the prelims of the Champions league we will have MLS teams playing against mexican teams as well as teams like Saprissa and Alajuelense from Costa Rica who are very good competition.
The idea of transforming the Superliga into the secondary continental competition (hopefully including the rest of CONCACAF) is fantastic. I wonder though if the Mexican federation would be against it considering they are already sending weaker teams to Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamerica due to their increased participation in the CONCACAF CHampions League.
I don't think we are allowed more than 20. I could be wrong. But I think that is a FIFA rule.
As far as I understand the purpose of the rule is to limit the number of games played, so MLS can simply have some teams not play each other or only play each other only once.
^Garber will stop at 18 and then work on developing an MLS2, with the aim of eventually implementing promotion and relegation.
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