D.C. United head coach and former FC Delco player Ben Olsen is the featured guest on this week’s KYW’s Philly Soccer Show.
In the podcast recorded Tuesday night, Olsen talked with co-hosts Greg Orlandini and Dan Walsh about:
- coming up as a young player in southeastern Pennsylvania and his ties to Philadelphia,
- a playing career that saw him become one of MLS’s best midfielders and earn him 37 national team caps,
- his efforts to turn around D.C. United,
- and his desire to coach the team next year on a more permanent, rather than interim, basis. (He says he wants the job, despite D.C. CEO Kevin Payne saying earlier that he wouldn’t be a candidate.)
Greg and Dan also talked about Philadelphia Union’s recent form and changes to the MLS’s format, now that the league has officially announced a 34-game season for next year and Russia’s league has decided to switch from a March-November season to August-May, which could increase pressure on MLS to do the same.
Great to hear from another fine representative of the Philly soccer scene.
Hopefully MLS can add a few more teams and keep expanding the schedule. They do need to try their best to sync up with the rest of world though . A perfect alignment could be impossible but a string of away games in warmer climes, while definitely not a perfect solution, is one way to bring it closer to reality for cold weather teams.
And a move to a straight table is a must. MLS didn’t start with such a format due to the realities of the American sports landscape, but in order to continue to evolve into a world class league they have to apply the world’s standards.
Actually, I disagree. I don’t think they need a straight table. There are no “world’s standards,” just Europe’s standards. Mexico has playoffs. Other Latin American leagues have playoffs. Australia has playoffs. England’s championship has its own form of playoffs. Yes, I think too many teams make the playoffs in MLS, but we need not imitate mainstream Europe to have a good soccer league.