Studs Up

Studs up: An open letter to an open response to an open letter

Photo: 215pix

Editor’s note: This is the second guest column from the notoriously acerbic but equally smart Union fan known to longtime PSP readers as “ScottyMac.” He sent this earlier in the week, but Friday was when we had room in the schedule for it. It’s a bit late but no less readable.

Maybe you’ve been out of town, but there’ve been so many open letters flying about on PSP, we’ve turned into the footy version of “Postcards From the Edge.” Never one to pass up a gently used trope, I pile on with my usual (second blog post=usual, like a Draw and a W = undefeated streak) random digressions and mind clutter.

Fan patience vis-a-vis the Theory of Relativity

When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity. — A. Einstein

Quoting a genius is also a better opening than “Dear Jay.”

Messrs. Sugarman and Stewart emerged from the Seaport Drive bunker this week, saw their collective shadows and deemed six more weeks of a 4-2-3-1. Or something.

I appreciate the club leadership’s point of view. It helps to set expectations.

However, the difference between eight years of futility and the recurring lack of appreciation of said timeframe puts me firmly in ol’ Albert’s camp regarding time.

The honeymoon’s over. No more City Hall pep rallies. Just win baby. If you need a CDM, go get him. If you think $5-10 million was enough spent, compare it to where your team sits.

Someone isn’t performing. The GM, the TD, the coach, the players, but something ain’t working, Jay.

The buck stops on your desk. Buck up.

If your plan is to wait out the last round of expansion to drive up your club’s perceived market value to the few groups who got shut out, just say so. I’d understand.

But don’t be too surprised if people are skeptical that you’re in it for the long haul if the quality doesn’t improve and there’s a lack of big name and/or quality signings.

Yours, Scotty etc. etc.

USPS “Mail it in” Dept

Don’t know if anyone on PSP, BS, MLSSoccer.com, all the podcasts, and the highly rated “Messin’ Around with Shep and Carl” interview has thought to mention it, but maybe it’s time to try something different.

Earnie says change is hard, like math is hard, and the senior team isn’t up for all the learnin’ that a new place to stand on the big grassy rectangle entails.

Hogwash. Most of them wander off anyway and abandon whatever plan they’d agreed on after 30 minutes of sprinting and pressing.

Might as well have them start somewhere else. What’s the worst that could happen? The Union have won something like five games in their last 27.

Gets my toes a tappin’, but can I dance to it

Working on my “Lot C Playlist: Vol. 1 — Awkwardness,” the mash-up mix-up of Unionites and music.* We need something else to argue about besides formations and substitution patterns. Music is right up there. As long as we can all agree Coldplay is the Danny Cruz of bands (tries hard but just falls down in the end), you can keep quoting lyrics in PSP’s Comments section.

  • The Fanbase: “I Stay Away” — Alice In Chains. Our letters are showing.
  • Mo Edu: “Everybody Hurts” — R.E.M. Too soon?
  • Ale Bedoya: “Sure Shot” — Beastie Boys. PKs, too soon?
  • Fabinho: “Ticket to Ride” (the bench, the Sun Rocket, whatever) — The Beatles. Too late?
  • C.J.: “Hold Up” — The Raconteurs. Well, it sure as hell isn’t Peter Gabriel’s “I Have The Touch.”
  • Roland Goalberg: “The Tourist” — Radiohead. Don’t unpack, brother.
  • Pontius/Ilsinho: “I’ll Be You” — The Replacements. See, they switched sides of the field twice.
  • Earnie Stewart: “It’s Tricky” — Run D.M.C. Welcome to MLS, Earn. How you like that Davies trade now?

* – We’ve had so many lyrics quoted in PSP’s Comments section that we’ve heard from Thom Yorke’s barrister. Might as well go all in.

18 Comments

  1. Are you saying Sugarman is Nickelback?

  2. An open comment to an open letter to and open response to an open letter:
    .
    LOL at Coldplay-Cruz connection and the groundhog’s day reference. Well done.

  3. pragmatist says:

    Considering we’re M*A*S*H unit right now, we might get another glimpse at Davies this weekend. It would be an entertaining set of conversations that would follow if he bagged a goal or two…
    .
    As for the response to the response to the (where are we in this cycle?), yeah, we all get it -they need to spend money. They won’t. This is the “Philly tough” group we’re stuck with. Enjoy the effort, don’t wait on silverware.

  4. Personally I would’ve picked “Bang The Drum All Day (I Don’t Wanna Work…)” for Alberg. Would also do double duty for the percussion guy in the Sons of Ben. But hey, that’s just me.

  5. Ahhhh Danny Cruz. The only player to ever block me on twitter for reasons unknown. It may have been my attempt to start a Danny Cruz drinking game but in the end my liver couldn’t handle it.

    • I got blocked by Freddy Adu – mostly because I promoted him promoting a vacuum cleaner. Remember, athletes are people too.

  6. Not sure if this is the right post for the comment.

    But I see a lot of comments around not changing the system. And how Ernie thinks some of the players are not capable of making the change. That is also echo’d in Bastian Schweinsteiger comment about players not implementing what was talked about in team meetings.

    “We all know that this league is just not like the Premier League or the Bundesliga and, of course, it can be frustrating on the pitch at times when things discussed [in the team meeting] are not implemented or when somebody loses a ball or just does not have an eye for the team-mate.”

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/bastian-schweinsteiger-mls-poor-quality-10389854

    Maybe it is just Euro snobbery or maybe its the truth. Or maybe a little of both. But Earnie does seam like a teacher from what I’ve seen of him at YSC.

    • Reposting as this message was stuck in moderation purgatory. Maybe the link was holding it up, so removed the link to the mirror article.

      Not sure if this is the right post for the comment.

      But I see a lot of comments around not changing the system. And how Ernie thinks some of the players are not capable of making the change. That is also echo’d in Bastian Schweinsteiger comment about players not implementing what was talked about in team meetings.

      “We all know that this league is just not like the Premier League or the Bundesliga and, of course, it can be frustrating on the pitch at times when things discussed [in the team meeting] are not implemented or when somebody loses a ball or just does not have an eye for the team-mate.”

      Maybe it is just Euro snobbery or maybe its the truth. Or maybe a little of both. But Earnie does seam like a teacher from what I’ve seen of him at YSC.

  7. Zizouisgod says:

    I heard that Einstein once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.

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  9. el Pachyderm says:

    Interesting and adept you would choose Alice in Chains specifically and Layne Staley to portray the “I Stay Away” Union Fanbase. A nod from me… as this is becoming a pressing pressing issue.
    .
    On the surface, quaint, kitchy and solid – upon deeper reflection the choice speaks to Philadelphia Fandom’s psychological make up of self loathing which is whole original much like LS— a self loathing that ultimately cost a gifted musician his life and keeps ‘us’ in a perpetual state of neurotic torment.
    .
    Hidden meaning hides.
    .
    .

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