1. When soccer “makes it” in the United States – whatever that means
Something important has changed in my 20-plus years of covering soccer: The frequency of one particular query has been mercifully reduced. Where it was once quite common, I now rarely get the question, “When will soccer ‘make it’ in the United States.”
It was always a beating, a bitter little slap of jayvee journalism, usually delivered by a TV or radio voice who didn’t know enough about soccer to ask a more pointed question.
I kind of understand the inquiry – but only “kind of.” What “makes it” in our world? Like, there was a moment when pizza “made it?” How did we know when J. Crew “made it” as a clothing brand? Was there was a moment when Boyz II Men “made it?” Or did Boyz II Men ever really make it?
It’s such a vague query, really more of a shapeless conversation starter than a more precise question presented within a framework of something worth answering. If we’re talking market share, well, say so! Or if we’re talking about TV ratings for MLS weighed against comparable sports properties, well, then say that.
Either way, in the spirit of tolerance, today I offer a potential response on when soccer in the United States has “made it:”
Soccer will climb a rung on the cultural ladder when it presents an annual event that reaches some degree of iconic status in American sports. I’m thinking of this because of the Super Bowl, as you may have guessed. That’s the granddaddy of iconic status in domestic sports.
Obviously, nothing in soccer will ever rival Super Bowl Sunday. It has become as much of an American “holiday” as Mother’s Day, probably even creeping up on Valentine’s Day in cultural significance.
Rather, think about some of the other, sports-related events that have reached iconic status or “destination event” status. I’m thinking about the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. I’m thinking about opening day in baseball. I’m thinking about the Kentucky Derby, the Final Four (a trio of games, of course, rather than just one), the NBA All-Star game, the Daytona 500, etc. These events all have lasting, cultural heft. There is a real awareness of these happenings beyond their core fan bases. Families and friends plan around the events.
In domestic soccer, it might be the MLS Cup final if it were established as a staple of the day after Thanksgiving (or on some other, more permanent calendar date). Or maybe it’s an annual national team match, one staged in the same location, on the same day of each calendar year. With some luck and more marketing muscle, perhaps it could be the U.S. Open Cup final. Or maybe it’s something we haven’t thought about yet.
Either way, it would be nice to see domestic soccer have that moment.
2. Has the year of Jozy Altidore commenced?
I’ve never quite understood the degree of animosity toward Jozy Altidore. He’s a soccer player, for Pete’s sake … he’s not some villain, some Gordon Gekko from Wall Street.
As a striker, he’s no Ronaldo or Marco van Basten. Then again, who is? More to the point, is there anyone even close to measuring up against the game’s all-time best hit men currently in the U.S. national team player pool? Nope.
First, playing target striker simply isn’t easy. It’s a point Matt “Armchair Analyst” Doyle makes eloquently here.
Second, Altidore manages to score. His game-winner against Canada late last week was No. 33 in the national team shirt. Do you realize he is the fastest ever to reachthat number, having done so in 91 caps? Yup, faster than Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey or Eric Wynalda … and they were all pretty good, eh? And yet, the social media lanes are full of passers-by honking and shaking fists of anger at Altidore because, well, I guess he just doesn’t do enough for them.
Was his first touch consistently golden during the pair of recent U.S. friendlies? No, of course not. But these are essentially pre-season matches for the national team. Nobody is supposed to be peak form! And if they are, somebody’s calendar is off.
Altidore is trimmer, having shed 10-15 pounds, which may help him dodge those pesky hamstring issues that have clipped the man at some inopportune times. He’s focused on better diet and arrived into California early for extra fitness work prior to the January camp.
His runs were generally crisp and well-considered in matches against Iceland and Canada. He scored and set up others; did you see that sweet scoop pass that put Jordan Morris into such good shooting position against Canada?
I’m not quite ready to declare my pre-season choice, but I’m leaning toward picking Altidore as my pre-season MVP pick for Major League Soccer. (That is, choice as most likely to win this year’s MVP.) Again, I’m not quite declaring … but let’s just say the guy is leading in all my personal polls. This is looking more and more like Jozy Altidore’s year.
3. Fernando Torres reminds us: it’s hard to have a good debate
As much as I love a good “Sign him / Don’t sign him” debate, most happen in the absence of the most critical information, without the answer to the most important question: “How much?”
Yes, there are other critical bites to chew on while we spin this cheese wheel of debate: age, recent production and form, attitude, locker room fit, stylistic fit, etc. But we generally have information there – some of it, at least. We may still debate the players’ recent form, arguing over context, etc., but at least we have information to form the base. (As in, “Are 8 goals in 25 matches in Italy’s Serie A roughly equivalent to 15-20 goals over an MLS season?” or something like that.)
We certainly know a player’s age. We can generally glean something about attitude or other attached baggage. A player who bounces around a lot isn’t necessarily a locker room cancer or an unlikeable guy – but that’s certainly a red flag that suggest he might be.
The point is, we have a starting point, at least, on those pieces of the informational pie. Generally, it’s just not so with the “how much?” As in, “How much will the guy cost?” Salary demands and the attached heavy weapon elements (transfer fee, if any, and length of contract demands) are the elusive, critical corner puzzle pieces here.
We arrive now at reports of Fernando Torres and some of the hopelessly nebulous “linked to” type stories from abroad. These recentreports say he has offers from three MLS clubs. (I doubt that, by the way.)
Again, I love a good soccer debate, especially when it’s paired with good pals and a nice pale ale or less-hoppy IPA. Unless we can argue about it with friends, any subject in sports becomes weaker sauce. But in this case, “Sign him / don’t sign him” debates just doesn’t work because we are usually missing most critical known unknown.
It’s the MLS salary cap that particularly crimps this hose. If you’re club resides in Liga MX or the Bundesliga or Chile’s Campeonato Nacional or wherever, they have no salary cap, per se. Yes, at some point, almost every club in the world imposes its own cap, and the “Sign / Don’t sign” arguments happen in the context of where best to spend the clubs’ (perhaps limited) stacks of cash. But lack of a hard cap softens the consequences.
And it just ain’t like that in MLS, as everyone knows. (FYI, here is a good read on how playersactually count on MLS caps.)
Someone like Torres certainly does make sense if he’s making, say, what Columbus’ Kei Kamara or Kansas City’s Dom Dwyer made in 2015; they were both at $400,000 annual base. But Torres, now at Atletico Madrid and not far removed from his days in Chelsea blue, will almost certainly demand something greater. With a contract that runs through the summer of 2017, there may well be a transfer fee involved.
So any debate about signing Torres, while understandable and still sort of fun, is like a fancy car without wheels; it’s may be a hoot to sit in for a little while, but it sure isn’t going anywhere.
4. The brilliant coming together of things at Leicester
We’re all reading, hearing and listening now to so much excited chatter about Leicester City. These unlikely Premier Leaguetable toppersare pretty much everyone’s second favorite English side right now. Unless you are Arlo White; they Foxes were always his team.
If you aren’t familiar with the Leicester story, this is a pretty good catch-up piece. Long story short, in the days of such out-of-whack financial disparity, a club two years removed from the second division winning the world’s richest soccer league would be extraordinary stuff. Alan Shearer, a respected voice in the game, says Leicester claiming a championship would pretty much be the best story of all time in the English game.
I don’t know if Leicester, backed by the out-of-nowhere, other-worldly goal scoring tear of Jamie Vardy(18 strikes this year and counting) and the only slightly less inconceivable 14 goals from Riyad Mahrez, can actually do this thing. They’ve gone from 5,000/1 odds of Premiership glory to current faves at 9/4 odds.
(Vardy, for his part in this Hollywood-worthy script, had been playing in England’s seventh division just a few years ago, prompting most of us to ask, “Wait, they really have seven divisions?”)
I don’t know if manager Claudio Ranieri can finish this amazing job, steering his team through the psychological storm dead ahead. They are passing from the stage where they are scrappy underdogs proving everyone wrong (easier part) into a place where they start believing they can pull this off (a much harder part, where muscles tighten).
Here’s what I do know about one of the most incredible sports stories of our time: So, so very many things must come together for something like this to happen. Not just in soccer, but in any sport.
You need the right coach, directing the right players, with the right player rising at the right time (Vardy), all with good injury fortune, a good head start to promote belief, some random good fortune (linked to scheduling in Leicester’s case case), the right leaders with a favorable blend of willing followers, the very best of locker room accord and … well, probably a couple of other things. Oh, and it probably has to happen in the absence of one of the big five (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United) having a high water mark year.
Only then, when all these various elements align, can this airship of dreams take flight. We can (and have) seen clubs with a lot of these elements at work – just not every one of them. For the truly epochal run of delight that Leicester is having, you can’t miss a step.
In domestic soccer, maybe the closest we’ve had to something so improbable was that 2002 World Cup run. (Which came off the fairly calamitous 32nd place showing from the previous world soccer biggie, France ’98.)
Bruce Arena’s team in Asia at the 2002 World Cup was hardly stacked. Heck, Damarcus Beasley and Landon Donovan were both 20-year-old starters. But the team had this great esprit de corps. Players knew their roles. A fairly young roster was balanced with just enough “older and wiser.” It had just enough midfield skill (Claudio Reyna, John O’Brien) to mix with the blood-and-guts determination (Brian McBride, Frankie Hejduk) and lots of willing work-a-days. Again, it was right coach, right balance, fortunate start, etc.
A lot of things came together.
Leicester is in first place with 13 games to go. There are still lots of fox holes to dig; that is, the work is far from done. But it’s way past fluke stage; a lot had to happen for the Foxes to arrive here.
5. The Little Five
5a. Obviously, concerns over Zika Virus and potentially destructive labor discord are not ideal for the U.S. women’s soccer team. On the other hand, they are adding some media focus on the women’s CONCACAF qualifying efforts – efforts which usually come and go with very little notice. (Quick, where was CONCACAF qualifying for the 2012 Olympics?) That’s the downside to being so dominant in the region: there is pretty much zero chance (and therefore precious little drama) that the U.S. women will not qualify as games go on this week and early next week in Frisco.
5b. In the conversations about FC Dallas’ Je-Vaughn Watson and his understandable desire to move closer to the Northeast, a lot of the conversations center around need at right back. Yes, that’s a better position for him, but a lot of people apparently are unaware that he was pretty good last year at when stationed at left back, too. (And not altogether terrible as a fill-in center back, either.)
5c. Really smart take here from The Guardian; it seems the days of the “winter loan” may be numbered for MLS personnel.
5d. Similar to Altidore, I really cannot understand some of the Mix Diskerud discontent. The guy had a good, two-way showing vs. Canada last week. Some of the antagonism toward Diskerud is about a meek year in 2015 at NYCFC. But, seriously, how was he supposed to succeed last year at Yankee Stadium, played out of position (due to higher profile players that Jason Kreis was pressured into shoe-horning in)? He’s not Andres Iniesta, but he’s a good, versatile midfielder who is still developing.
5e. As we press through the MLS preseason and teams look to add finishing roster pieces, always remember one critical tenet to MLS construction: as much as “scouting,” it’s “bargain hunting” that makes or breaks league rosters.
Steve Davis has covered Major League Soccer since is first kick in 1996. He writes on-line for World Soccer Talk and co-hosts the weekly radio show/podcast ESPN Soccer Today on 103.3 FM in Dallas. Davis is also the radio play-by-play voice for FC Dallas on 100.7 FM.
