alecko eskandarian was fined $250 for his goal celebration last week. i’m sure he’s crying about that. there’s no doubt that he makes more money than i do and i would consider it well worth $250, at least. joel posted something about this when it happened. i disagree. for one thing, red bull tastes like crap so i can see why he would spit it out. obviously, that’s not the point. as long as nobody is being a complete moron (racist remarks, etc) i’m all for a little taunting (“i fart in your general direction”, “your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elder berries”). take of your shirt, point to your club badge while standing in front of the rival fans. it’s not personal. it’s just a game. you just have to be mature when your being a complete juvenile.
moving on. someone posted the combined salaries for m.l.s. teams as well as the top player salaries. you have to respect what the new england revolution have done and be shocked at what chivas hasn’t. i guess money reall isn’t everything. to me, the bigger problem is the bottom of the player salaries. it’s hard to imagine many prospects wanting to stay when they’re barely making over minimum wage. maybe they aren’t that good.
lastly, we have the attendance numbers for the first couple of weeks of m.l.s. for the new season. if you could get 10,000 to 15,000 on average i would think you’re doing pretty good. the new jersey red bulls v new england revolution for a 35,000 opener is pretty impressive. even more impressive is new jersey’s drop off to 1/7 the attendance against a supposed rival d.c. united. i guess they didn’t give out as many free tickets or something. for slight comparison, granted it was a monday night, the fulham v wigan match i went to the other day only had 17,149 which is not a sell out. sure manchester united is selling out 70,000, but i would think the bigger issue is money coming in from television rights. i guess m.l.s. first needs to get from having money going out for television.
alright, so it’s not m.l.s., but it is football. i saw this while looking for the fulham figure. the bbc has info on their world cup coverage. they claim it will be available in high definition, but have no further information on how to receive it. hello? (alright, so there is a link in the side bar and you can only get it through satellite or cable) this is really the best part to me:
Viewers will have the audio choice of BBC match commentary, Five Live’s commentary, the real-time noise from the stadium – or the fascinating option of listening to commentary from foreign broadcasters.
nice. if only espn could get a clue and just go without commentators and just the stadium noise. then just get someone decent for pre game, half-time and post game. preferrably, people who actually like football.
Pointing to the badge on your jersey and using a prop are entirely different things in my mind.
I probably also ought to fess up to the fact that I thought Eskandarian was a complete douchebag even before this incident, so it doesn’t take much from him to piss me off.
One thing I read elsewhere that makes sense is that Red Bull is not only the owner of the NY franchise, but a league sponsor…which means they part of Alecko’s salary. It’s kind of the whole “Don’t shit where you eat” thing really.
Not too different than wiping your ass with a Sierra Mist t-shirt (eventhough nobody would ever do that as Sierra Mist is super tasty.)
Sorry, but again I have to go with Aleko on this one. Taunting is another thing that makes the game great. I’m still wondering why the FA “investigated” Gary Neville for goal celebration @ Old Trafford against Liverpool. That just seems normal to me. And all he was going was yelling and tugging on his ManU jersey.
“Characters” like Aleko, Mourinho, Redknapp, etc. is more of what we need (and like).
The last thing we need is a watered down, sanitized version of a working class game. Basically I don’t want to go to the stadium and not get pissed on… Where is the fun in that?
Except for the fact that soccer isn’t a working class game in the US. It probably ranks 3rd on the exclusivity/pricetag for good training:
1) Tennis
2) Golf
3) Soccer
Look how many MLS and national team players went to good colleges…heck, look at how many of them graduated college. Sure, there’s a few exceptions, but soccer in the US is still somewhat the preserve of the privledged at present.
Working class American sports:
Basketball
Baseball
Football
neville was in front of the visiting fans section. which i still say is fine.
i think the f.a. might prefer if people simply turned around a walked away after scoring a goal.