Photo: Paul Rudderow
Philadelphia Union
The Union PSP, MLS, Philly.com, CSNPhilly, BrotherlyGame,
Curtin has started stumping for Elliott as Rookie of the Year.
Chris Pontius relished his time at the Gold Cup.
The road doesn’t get any easier.
Local
Bethlehem lost at home 4-0 against Charlotte. Derrick Jones, Marquez, and Najem all played the full ninety. Starting XI. More from BrotherlyGame.
MLS
A recap of this weekend’s MLS action. Of note, Curtin earned “Face of the Week” honors and Sheanon Williams earned Pass of the Week honors off a throw-in.
Giovinco is officially the free kick king.
Around the globe
The U.S. Women pulled out a wild 4-3 victory over Brazil. Highlights of the comeback.
The fairy tale and the nightmare of Chapecoense. One of the survivors, Alan Ruschel, returns to action August 7.
How the computer generates the La Liga schedule, and why Valencia is special this year.
Highlight of the day
Messi doing Messi things.
Right now I equate watching the Union to watching a car crash. You feel the need to watch even though you know something bad will happen. Though I will admit the car crash is more interesting.
I kind of feel the opposite way. In this team’s existence there have been a handful of times that my interest in watching the team has really dropped off. This is one of those times. I’m usually pretty easy to please but right now my excitement level is very low. If they signed a new central attacking midfielder it would go way up again because it would be a sign that the team is interested in actually trying to win games but until that happens I am having trouble feeling like I want to watch this team lose another game without putting a shot on goal
My analogy is a bit off I guess. It’s not really that I want to watch either. I just feel a need to. It’s mostly because I feel I might miss something, rather than actually being interested. I can only assume at some point the need will start to wain. Like others had mentioned, I too turned off the match early on Saturday and missed the third goal.
If they got a real #10 they would be solid. I think there defense is actually have decent.
But I’m the cup on the left, not the middle, or far right.
http://imgur.com/gallery/zhTb6
How about the story that DC United might be putting the team on the market…. Wonder what the chances are Philly is headed for the same?
–
Union season is done. No point in running Medunjanin and Sapong into the ground. Let’s get extended looks at Najem, Jones, Epps and reintroduce Rosenberry and Yaro to playing time. Only way to take anything positive from this season as of right now is to plan for the future. Make the message clear to the squad and let young players fight their way through any difficulties they might have without worrying about being replaced. No need to pretend we’re playing for anything anymore.
I’d say the reasoning behind DC potentially selling is that they have a new stadium in a up and coming part of town about to be built. That is a great platform for a new owner to invest in.
We are at peak MLS right now. New stadium in a major market city in a gentrifying neighborhood. while franchise fees are pretty inflated. This is the best time to cash out
Wouldn’t it be nice if MLS had a schedule like La Liga rather than having some teams play 4 games in 11 days where the 4th of those is against a team playing their 2nd in the same period?
.
Tried to read through the story on Chapecoesne but I think I will have to wait until I get home tonight to make it through the whole thing. Reading it at work is going to make people wonder what the tears are for.
Is the MLS schedule a function of allowing teams some flexibility? To not play during gold cup, other breaks, or to play.
Would the Union been better off missing Bedoya for 2 more games but getting more rest between games.
The entire league was off for at least as long as the Union during the Gold Cup. The Union’s game in KC was the last one before the break (everyone else played either July 3 or 4). Union’s game in Montreal was one of 3 that started on 7:30pm that night. League had 0 games (excluding open cup and friendlies) from July 6-18.
.
With an even number of teams, there is no reason not to have Match Days like every other league so that all teams play within about 2 days of each other unless there are extenuating circumstances (such as weather, late round CCL/open cup games, etc.) The initial schedule should not call for discrepancies in rest like this.