Category: Soccer (Page 2 of 6)

If we call the basketball rivalry, the Capital Cup, what should we call a local soccer competition?

January 10, 2011 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Since Brandon Rosage is now doing a sports podcast locally, made me think about how I’ve been meaning to write more about local sports.

There is at least an exhibition competition between Evergreen State and Saint Martins, but there is no similar series between the local Olympia-area soccer teams. So, for the time being, I’m going to start keeping a ranking of the local college soccer teams.

The basic ranking will the point-per-game for league games between the men and women teams of both Evergreen and Saint Martins and the mens team at South Puget Sound (no womens teams). I know this is a bit late, since the college soccer schedule ended months ago, but I’m going to keep closer track next year, on a week to week basis.

Here’s this year winner of the cup to be named later, the Saint Martins women, who earned just better than a tie per league game, with the Evergreen Men coming in second.

Games Pts PPG
SMW 14 21 1.5
EM 14 14 1
SMM 10 6 0.6
EW 9 0 0
SPSCC 13 0 0

So, what should we name it?

And, if you were wondering, this is my first post about what I want to call “real sport,” which in this case isn’t the MLS Sounders, but local college soccer teams that we all should pay closer attention to. And, maybe this ranking is a way of putting a better focus on the local college scene.

Just realized I tried something like this on Olyblog a few years ago and I called the cup the “Tolmie Cup,” after a Brit who hung around here a hundred years or so ago. Maybe that’s still a good idea, but I’m willing to take suggestions.

Sounders vs. Colorado back in June (soccer gameday report #2)

September 29, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

This summer I had a handful of equally unique soccer watching experiences. From Colorado to Bremerton, PDL, U.S. Open Cup and MLS, they made me think about soccer clubs. Like how they succeed, how they promote the sport and how they work as sporting organizations.

The first delibertaly written report (the first is actually here and here) is from our family trip to Colorado which included a nice trip up to Dicks Sporting Goods Stadium.

All of these posts will be organized under this category.

I’m not sure about formatting these posts, so I’ll just start with random, numbered observations.

1. Wow, Sounders fans travel. There were at least 20 organized Sounders fans who came to the game. In addition, I ran into at least a half dozen other folks from Washington coming to the game.

2. About sixty percent of the people I saw at the game were wearing some sort of soccer related gear, which seems low. About just less than half were wearing something Rapids related, and a good portion of those were wearing old style Rapids stuff. The rest were split between youth team jersies and jersies of worldwide clubs (Chivas of G, Barca, Manchester United, etc.).

I think it might have been a youth soccer night, so those jersey observations might be thrown of by that. But, it makes me think that Colorado suffers from the typical MLS problem in attracting fans. There are plenty of people that are involved in soccer (youth organizations or by following soccer worldwide), but have a hard time attracting them into following the local pro club.

3. Colorado had a very nice stadium, but it was in the middle of nowhere. There’s something to be said for having a soccer stadium near other stuff. Makes walking into the stadium a bit more meaningful. I don’t know, its just a feeling I have.

4. I understand there is an actual local connection to the term “Arsenal” for the Rapids, but the use of the UK’s Arsenal brand in the stadium, the firing of the cannon and the youth program is just ripping off the authentic British soccer experience, not trying to create your own. Just saying.

Comment to usopencup.com (citizen media and the USOC)

July 15, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

My thoughts to here:

I would like the new website to include opportunities for fans around the country to be able to submit their own stories, game coverage, pictures and movies.

This could include a “diary” system that is available through Drupal, Scoop, or a similar content management system. Also, services like Flickr and Youtube include features in which users can organically group pictures and videos together.

I think its vital that grassroots fans have a way to promote and cover the tournament.

By the way, you guys are already doing a great jobs, thanks!

Honorable mentions of what made me love the US Open Cup

July 11, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Other things I ran into after David Beckham nudged me back into soccer fandom.

1. Franklin Foer. I accidently picked up his “How soccer explains the world” weeks after Beckham signed to spend some Christmas gift card money. It helped me think of soccer in a much broader sense that I would have otherwise.

2. Tommy Smyth. I watched Beckham’s last game at Real Madrid online, and to my memory, Smyth was calling it. He was basically ranting towards the of the game, “They’re warriors, they’re warriors” about how Real was dragging out the win. Just that emotion turned me more back toward the game.

3. Josh Hakala. He, and a bunch of other guys, does usopencup.com. I can talk about how this site is amazing, but his dedication to the game by doing a site that no one else would do for a job, is priceless. You can put David Faulk‘s name up there and say the same thing about goalseattle.com too.

4. EPSN Soccernet Podcast (for European soccer) and Kartik Krishnaiyer (for American soccer). I can’t say these are the best podcasts or podcasters, but they’re damn good and they’re the ones that I first discovered and still religiously listen to.

David Beckham made me love the U.S. Open Cup

July 11, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

If there two opposite poles of American soccer, they are the media circus in 2007 over David Beckham (and this year’s) and an early round US Open Cup game between a PDL team and a USL team, neither of whom you actually follow.

But, if David Beckham had not come to the L.A. Galaxy two years ago, I doubt I would have gone up to Bremerton a month or so back to watch the Kitsap Pumas host the Portland Timbers in the first round of the Open Cup.

I’d played soccer and had tried to follow soccer though high school, but the MLS in its early years gave me really nothing to follow. I remember owning a Metrostars t-shirt, but I can’t really remember rooting for any particular team. My favorite American player (Alexi Lalas( was on the Revolution, and I thought that team name in particular was pretty contrived. So, aside from the World Cup and whenever I ran across something, I ignored soccer.

And, that continued until Beckham was signed. And then with the help of some internet, and especially a deep online community following the then USL Sounders, I was neck deep in it, and I loved it. It also helped that I got a DVR and an iPod about the same time. I was able to record and watch whatever soccer actually came on my limited dish package and the iPod helped me quickly bone up on what I’d missed over ten years.

I especially gained an appreciation for the U.S. Open Cup. I liked that the Sounders made deep runs their last two years in USL and that is separates soccer from the other major sports in America, making it the most sporting and democratic. Its my hope to attend at least one Open Cup game (or MLS qualifier) a year.

I would have likely followed soccer anyway since the Sounders entered MLS this year. But, my depth of knowledge and appreciation for the entire sport wouldn’t have been there without the head start of Beckham.

So, while I hope Beckham leaves MLS for good once the season is over, he did respark my insterest in the sport. And MLS made a lot of money, which is good too.

US Open Cup and citizen journalism

July 9, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Jason Davis at Matchfit had a great post letting out a lot of frustration about how the US Open Cup is treated by MLS, USSF and the media in general. I can’t speak for MLS or USSF, but the frustration with the media (maybe not Jason’s, but the frustration by soccer fans) is I think a bit misplace.

A tweet by Josh Hakala made me think of something this afternoon. For better or for worse, the best website for following the Open Cup is not managed by a large media outfit or USSF, but a bunch of guys that just love the tournament. This is pretty common throughout American soccer, that sites like Goal Seattle and Prost Amerika, while amateur operations, do a much better job than established media.

While in our soccer world, we’re complaining about the lack of media attention to our great tournament, tradition media (at least print, but also radio and television) are contracting and limiting their attention.

This isn’t really the time for us to expect organizations that are already losing ground to expand coverage to a sport they’ve never seriously considered in the first place. And, now, the expansion of soccer will most likely be the greatest sport expansion during the citizen journalism era. For a long time, we’ve known that soccer is the sport of the internet.

While we know this, we’ve complained that we haven’t gotten the attention from traditional media, instead of rejecting that we need the shrinking traditional media and thrown our attention to building our own fan/citizen based media.

So, long story short. I hope the new US Open Cup website has plenty of opportunity for fan input, citizen coverage of games and great community stuff like that.

What I wish would change with Sounders FC (and soccer in general) media coverage around here

May 12, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I was a bit too harsh in the comment threads of the TNT just now, but generally, I think I’m spot on. Something needs to improve in soccer coverage around here. The problem generally lies with reporters that are coming to the game now that MLS has entered the fray locally.

There are some exceptions. Don Ruiz at the TNT (I wasn’t picking on him) and Jose Romero at the Seattle Times have been at this longer than a few months, and now their stuff shows that. Other than that, I depend on bloggers and twitter updates for my Sounders commentary.

But, here are a few things that could help things out.

1. Post game talk. I felt lost a few weeks ago driving home from my first Sounders game with no review on the radio. Even just one hour would be something.

2. Round table discussion on Sounders FC Weekly. There are enough reporters and bloggers that get it (see above) where you could replace the puffery that dominates the central news broadcast that covers the Sounders with actual discussion of the game.

Couple more subpoints about the Sounders FC Weekly. Why do they refer to Toronto FC as the “Reds?” Do they just need to have a nickname for every team? TFC is just as official a nickname for Toronto FC as they Reds is. And to that end, FC Dallas is nicknamed the Hoops, but I guess the producers haven’t caught up with that one yet.

Also, the quality of the rest of the league game highlights is horrible.

3. I don’t know how the rest of the reporters could carry this off, but please stop treating this like the first time you’ve ever covered soccer. It shows and its bad. John McGrath’s reference to “soccer purists” rather than people who just understand the game implies that if you actually know something soccer, then you’re outside the mainstream.

Would McGrath ever refer to someone who understands and accepts the infield fly rule as a baseball “purist?” Do only gridiron football purists understand rules regarding the forward pass, or are they just better informed?

And, if McGrath puts himself with “the rest of us” (you know, the normal folk) who don’t understand why a rule exists, then should he be covering soccer?

Adendum: My explanation about why ties work:

1. The game is two 45 minute halvess, so the result is whatever happens at the end of that.

2. The season is a collection of points, not a winning percentage. The Sounders have 14 points, behind Chivas USA with 22. How they accumulated those points doesn’t matter to the standings.

3. Also, the”season” is not a single competition like every other North American sport. In addition to the MLS leauge play, the Sounders may also qualify for the US Open Cup this year. Next year they could be in both Superliga or the Champions League. With so many competitions to possible consider, not playing overtime beyond 90 minutes is a good thing.

5 reasons why MLS PDX is a much better idea than MLB PDX

March 12, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I was an enemy of Portland getting a major league baseball team from way back (even before this). But, them getting a MLS team is a much better idea. I hope they get one, at least so we can kick their asses around another whole level of soccer.

1. Know your town. For awhile there, Portland was a Single A affiliate to the Rockies. The Portland Rockies. Single A. Didn’t draw well as memory serves.

Even though the Beavers have been back in recent years, Portland has a much better track record of soccer town than a baseball town.

2. Know your league. For as much as I’d like to play up the significance of MLS, it is still very much an emerging league. So, while the NFL and MLB are safely ensconced in the economics of regional monopolies, MLS teams are much better served by building up regional rivalries.

Very few Portland soccer fans would travel up to Seattle to deliberately root for the Sounders, so the only way for the league to capitalize on soccer fans in Oregon is to put a team there.

3. Know your t.v. contract. MLB=regional cable, such as Fox Sports Northwest. MLS=local broadcast affiliate, like King 5/Kong 16. No cross-over into the Portland t.v. market.

4. Know your town #2. Almost unspeakable truth that Portland is different than saaaaaaay Cincinnati, right? I’m just saying that culturally, Portland is more a soccer town than a baseball town. See chapter 10 in How Soccer Explains the World.

5. Know your ass kicking. Come on Portland, come and get it. You know you miss us. You know you want to lose to us again in league.

Come on…

Olymatt’s Tumwater AFC stadium

June 9, 2008 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Matt over at if on a rainy night:

Every time I drive up Capital Boulevard (which is funny since it’s actually south and I equate going up with going north) and by the old brewery I see the land in between where the railroad tracks head toward the river and over to the Valley Athletic Club I think that it would be a perfect spot for a soccer stadium. How cool would it be to take the bus on a Saturday afternoon over here, donning a jersey and joining several thousand other Olympia fans as we cheer on our local team to promotion. I am not asking for much, just something along the lines of Fratton Park in Portsmouth or Fulham’s Craven Cottage.

I have the same sort of thoughts Matt does.

So, in that vein, I give you Deschutes Park (version one and two), home of Tumwater AFC.

This is upper-division Tumwater AFC’s home from the north. In this reality, Tumwater AFC plays in this world’s American version of League 1, always playing for promotion to the MLS where they can play the Seattle Sounders.

This is lower division Tumwater AFC’s stadium from the south. They probably play somewhere in this reality’s North American version of the Northern Premier League. Semi-pro, but still good.