Photo by Earl Gardner
Note: PSP is looking for a volunteer to write our Thursday news roundups. If interested, please email dwalsh@phillysoccerpage.com.
Philadelphia Union
It looks like Andre Blake will make his return against Toronto FC, while Ilsinho and Oguchi Onyewu will be out against San Jose.
The Union are one of the least valuable clubs in MLS. Anyone looking to buy low?
J.D. Power deemed the Union to have the best fan experience in Philadelphia. “Trust The Process” and “E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES” are evidently no match for “DOOP!” Here is a direct link to the the study, which is worth checking out.
Two Academy players, Dante Huckaby and Selmir Miscic, were named to the US U-14 boys national team training camp.
Local
Bethlehem Steel FC fell 0-1 to Charlotte Independence. 16-year-old goalkeeper Tomas Romero is showing some promise.
MLS
Don’t feel so bad, Union. Montreal Impact dominated Chicago Fire with another 3-0 victory.
As mentioned above, Forbes released its list of most valuable MLS clubs. LA Galaxy have taken over as number one. The Union, to be more specific than before, are 16.
Steve Beitashour nearly died from a soccer injury.
Pablo Mastroeni’s firing won’t solve the Colorado Rapids’ relevance problem.
Around the globe
U.S. international John Brooks will be out three months with an injury.
ICYMI: Rafa Marquez’s legal choices in drug trafficking case.
Real Madrid beat Barcelona 2-0 and have won the Spanish Super Cup.
Everton have broken club records in signing Gylfi Sigurdsson from Swansea.
So during the 2015 summer transfer window, you could have purchased either of these two players:
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Anthony Martial for 60M euros
or
Marco Asensio for 3.5M euros
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It’s amazing where the market has gone in just two years.
Glad Everton scooped up Sigurdsson. They still need a good striker, though. Costa’s not doing anything….
I’m so conflicted about last night’s result. I’ve become accustomed to just bashing the Union and everything about them. And then I see the team that caused the most recent bashing go out and destroy one of the best teams in the league.
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Odd…
Don’t judge the other team, judge the Union. Sometimes you’re the better team and lose. Sometimes you’re the worse team and win. The Union deserved to win against Dallas and deserved to lose against Montreal. Unfortunately, they’ve had far too many games this season they deserved to lose and far too few they deserved to win.
A +1 goal differential tells me they should be at about 500. They are slightly below and therefore slightly unlucky in this regard. That said, 500 isn’t good enough so I agree.
Chicago is not that good anymore. They lost 4 of the last 5 games. Something is not right in the locker room that needs to be sorted out.
At home. That is a critical difference for MLS
Not just MLS, USL, too.
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Tampa Bay Rowdies lie fourth in the USL’s eastern conference. They have one away win. Many ties, but just one win in the other forty-nine states (Unless it was at Orlando!)
Lightning in a bottle. Seattle was out of a playoff spot – 20 points and 9th out of 10 in the West – on July 26th when they fired Sigi Schmidt last year, yet went on to win MLS Cup. When a league uses financial means to create parity it will ALWAYS result in hot and cold spells and teams can go catch fire and go from the cellar to the top with relative ease. No one in the league is truly deep as well, so injuries and suspensions can be costly.
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Along those lines, the Mastroeni firing is interesting because it continues the trend of former players failing to win. Kreis won 1 MLS Cup, but Olsen, Heaps, Curtin, Pareja, Vanney, Robinson, Petke, Marsch & Paunovic all played in MLS at some point recently but collectively have not found much success, outside a few Supporter’s Shield and Vanney’s Cup Final appearance last year. Just an interesting observation.
Seattle also signed some guy name Lodeiro I think. He’s reported to have had something to do with it. ;-).
Does the best fan experience warrant a trophy? Given the performance on the field it might. Imagine if this team were a consistent winner. My guess is that rating would be even higher.
Best fan experience doesn’t mean shttt. I want good product on the field.