"Random" Draw Generates a Very Fixed Result

Today's "random" draw for the "MLS Return to Play tournament" sure had a feel of predestination about it.  I have no evidence to say it was fixed, but the results were very favorable to what MLS would want.

To start the draw MLS announced that Inter Miami was going to be drawn into Orlando's group to make the first game of the tournament a Florida rivalry game.  Everything esle was random.  The Rapids ended up in group D with FSL (seeded, as one of the top teams in 2019), SKC, and Minnesota.  On top of the Rocky Mountain Cup rivalry each of the other groups "randomly" ended up with one known recognized rivalry.  The aforementioned Orlando-Miami matchup in Group A, Seattle-Vancouver in Group B, Toronto-Montreal in Group C, Cincinnati-Columbus in Group E, and LA-LAFC in Group F.  On top of that Philly and NYCFC, two close rivals, ended up in Group A as well, San Jose ended up with two other of the teams they have a minor Heritage Cup competition with (Seattle/Vancouver), adn SKC got their budding rivalry with FSL and what the league has attempted to turn into a rivalry with Minnesota.

Again, there's no evidence to say it was fixed, but the way they did the draw (with a former player having loaded the teams into numbered balls and then a member from each of the seeded teams picking a ball by number, and the convenient results certainly raised a few eyebrows.

Regardless, what's done is done.  We're still waiting to hear the schedule, but we can look at our opponents.  On paper the Rapids got the toughest group based on the two games already played in 2020, with all three undefeated Western Conference teams, plus FSL.  I think group F, with Portland, Houston, and the LA teams is actually a bit harder, but either way its a tough group.  That said, we should be able to get out of it.  I expect 6-7 points, depending on the schedule.  We can beat FSL, and we should beat Minnesota.  SKC will be the tough match depending on when it falls.  If we're both on 6 going into the last match facing each other (and thus both qualified for the knockout rounds) that might make it a bit easier, if its the first match it will be tougher.

Back MLS Is!

Sorry to go all Yoda with the headline, but I can only take so many "MLS Is Back" headlines in one day.  This morning MLS officially announced the long rumored and very leaked Orlando tournament.  The tournament will start on June 8th and run through August 11th, World Cup style.  7 groups of 4 teams and one group of 6, with the top two in each group and 4 of third placed team moving on to the 16-team knockout round.  Every team will play 3 group stage games that will count in the regular season standings.  The knockout stage games will not count in the standings.  MLS also said they expect to continue the regular season in some format back in home markets after the tournament, with playoffs and MLS Cup to follow.

We'll know the schedule of games and opponents after tomorrow's draw at 1:30, with the TV announcement coming shortly after that.  We know games will be at 7am, 6pm, and 8:30pm MT and all games will be nationally televised on ESPN, FOX, and/or Univision.  Which is good news, because the Altitude-Comcast/DISH dispute won't get in the way of fans seeing the games.  For the first 16(?) days there will be 3 games a day, much like the World Cup, with no games overlapping.

For the Rapids, it has reported that Galvan will be joining the team just before the tournament starts.  Also, following up on yesterday's news, apparently Ford's surgery was to replace a drain in his knee which is commonly done every couple of weeks with his condition.  That doesn't indicate he'll be ready to play any time soon, but its good news they aren't doing new work on the knee.

Also the Committee of 10, who organizes the Rocky Mountain Cup, has announced that any games between the Rapids and FSL in Florida will not count towards the 2020 Rocky Mountain Cup.  They said that they will wait for the post-tournament regular season plans to be announced before determining if and how the Cup will be awarded for 2020.

Full transparency, I am a member of the Committee of 10

MLS Suspended For 30 Days

As expected, MLS today announced the league will be suspended for 30 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Along with that the U.S. Open Cup has been put on hold as has the CONCACAF Champions League.  The USL has also shut down and I assume the Canadian competitions have as well, though I haven't seen specific announcements from those leagues.

Honestly, I think 30 days is optimistic.  I've been following this virus for a while and how long its taken countries to get through outbreaks and I think 60 days is probably the best we can hope for.  China really starting fighting this in earl/mid-January and they're only really starting to think they're on the down slope now.  Hopefully we can ramp up faster than that but I have my doubts.

Stay home, wash your hands, and take care of yourselves.

MLS And COVID-19

I've been thinking about writing this post since mid-afternoon.  In that time the news has changed so many times what I was planning to write is out the window.  Just now the NBA has suspended its season after a member of the Utah Jazz (Utah, of course) tested positive for coronavirus.  This morning we were just at delayed games, then we jumped through "play behind closed doors" to suspended seasons.

Honestly, I'll be shocked if we see another MLS game in the next month after this week's CCL matches.  In the next two days I expect the NHL to suspend its season and MLS to follow suit.  MLB has a couple of weeks before their season starts and will delay making any decisions, but likely they'll start their season late.

Its the right move.  The massive danger from coronavirus isn't the mortality rate (though it itself is dangerous on its own) its the lack of treatment plans, built in immunity, and vaccines.  If this goes like wildfire, and it looks like it will, hospitals are going to get crushed.  There's only about 300,00 empty hospital beds empty around the country at one time.  It won't take much of a blip for those to fill up, especially if the infection flares up in certain areas.  Whatever we can do so flatten the curve so that the virus hits over time needs to be done.  This will help that.

We're all going to miss the games but we'll get through this and get back to playing when its the right time.  Until then, wash your hands, avoid groups, and take care of yourself.  As news warrants I'll post here.  And if, somehow, we have games this weekend and beyond I'll have the normal coverage.

MLS Announces New Targeted Allocation Money

Today the league announced a new source of funds for player acquisition and retention, Targeted Allocation Money.  You can read the link for more detail but essentially this is to encourage teams to go find players with a price (salary+transfer fee) in that $500K-$1M range.  Players like Torres for example.  Now as a Rapids fan I along with probably most of the readers of this thought "great, another asset the Rapids won't use" but the league seems to be serious about getting new players in the league and included a couple of provisions in the new rules that will help ...encourage... teams like Colorado.

While MLS clubs are not required to use their full $100,000 each season, they are required to use the remaining amount during the following year. For example, if a club does not use its $100,000 allotment in 2015, that club must use or trade at least that $100,000 of Targeted Allocation Money in 2016.

Or, a club could use the funds to buy down the salary budget charge of one of its existing Designated Players to below the maximum, provided the club then signs a Designated Player at an investment equal to or greater than the player being bought down.

Essentially what that means is that Colorado can't use the extra money just to buy down the contracts of Ramirez or Doyle without going out and signing another DP and they can't just sit on the money.  Really they have 3 choices with this money:

• Go sign a new player with the funds or to free up the funds to buy down Ramirez/Doyle
• Re-sign an existing non-DP to a DP contract
• Trade the funds to another team who will use it on a player

The second option requires having a player worth turning into a DP, which we don't have at the moment, though another year or two and Powers might be there.  So that leaves signing a new player or trading the funds.  There's no rule in what they have to be traded for, so sadly the Rapids will probably trade them for a 3rd round Superdraft pick or Mehdi Ballouchy but at least they will be forced to do something with them.

Team #20 Announced, New York City Football Club

Today the league announced that New York City FC, jointly owned by Manchester City FC of the EPL and the NY Yankees of MLB, will become team 20 in 2015.  For personal reasons I was rooting for Orlando City SC as with my in-laws outside Orlando it would be a cheap road trip.  A number of fans are upset about the branding or attachment to an EPL side but it doesn't bother me.  Anyone willing to drop $100 million on an expansion fee and over $300 million on a stadium in NY isn't going to ignore their team like Vergara did with Chivas USA.

Presumably Houston, or maybe KC, will move to the West in 2015, leaving 10 teams in each conference.

Timbers Lose To Lower League Side

Watch these highlights!

At lunchtime today the Timbers faced local side Green Machine and lost 10-9!

Green Machine being the club of 8-year old Atticus Lane-Dupre, who missed the end of the fall season with his team while fighting cancer. Through the Make-A-Wish foundation what he wanted to do was play the Portland Timbers with his Green Machine teammates, and the Timbers organization along with the Timbers Army went all out to make his wish come true.  About 3000 members of the Timbers Army showed up at Jeld-Wen Field at lunchtime today to root for the Green Machine and boo the Timbers, and Timbers players Will Johnson,  Jack Jewsbury, Darlington Nagbe, and Mikael Silvestre started against them.  The power of the Green Machine, led by Atticus' 4 goals (including the game winner), was too much for the Timbers though.

The Timbers Army made sure each of the kids had their own tifo, and Timber Joey cut a slice of the log for Atticus that he made sure the rest of his teammates got to hold.  In his man of the match post-game interview Atticus said he wanted to choose something that lots of people could do for his wish, instead of just going to Disneyland or something, and he said his favorite goal was when he nutmegged Will Johnson (his favorite player).  Johnson later got red carded in the match. ;)

This has nothing to do with the Rapids, but I've never seen a sports organization go this all out for something like this (not to downplay the great things other organizations have done for kids) and I wanted to call attention to it.

The Consistently Inconsistent Disciplinary Committee

That was Rafa Marquez fouling Shea Salinas over the weekend.  Today the MLS Disciplinary Committee suspended Rafa Marquez for 3 games.  As I discussed a couple of times last year, the one thing you can be sure of is that the Disciplinary Committee will be inconsistent and this is another example of it.  I don't understand how a player like Marquez, who just came off a 3 game suspension for instigating and participating in a fight in last year's playoffs, can get only 3 games for this obvious kick at Salinas.  Based on the Committee's comments over the last year about cracking down on stuff like this combined with the punishments they've handed down this deserved 5-6 games.  This won't help the belief in some circles that the Committee is going lighter on name players and big teams.

Game On!!!

The league and player's union have announced that they have reached a deal on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, avoiding the strike deadline of tomorrow night that the union set. The new deal is for 5 years, which means the season will start as planned on Thursday night with the expansion Philadelphia Union at the Seattle Sounders. The next night the Rapids will kick off in LA against Chivas.

I've been holding off on season previews and such until I knew the season would actually start, so look for a few posts this week.

2009 Competition Changes

Last night Major League Soccer announced the 2009 competition changes. Here's a quick summary and what I think of the changes.

The Reserve Division will be eliminated due to a lack of return on investment

Should have seen this one coming since they reduced the schedule this past season to only be intra-conference. This will hurt the rapids given how many players they've brought up through the reserve team in the last couple of years.

Rosters will be 20 senior players and 4 developmental players

With no reserve division there's no need for reserve players. Two reserve slots get upgraded to senior spots and 4 development slots are eliminated. While the two extra senior spots will help, the loss of 4 reserve players is really going to hurt depth for MLS teams. You have to figure the likes of Brian Graizer, Kwame Sarkodie, and Cesar Zambrano won't make the Rapids next season. Not only that but Generation Adidas players like Tim Ward, Nico Colaluca, and Ciaran O'Brien have to wonder about their futures with the Rapids given how many other developmental players have seen first team time ahead of them.

The season will start early on March 21st to allow MLS to take two FIFA weekends off or to play a limited schedule for 4 FIFA weekends

With the Gold Cup, Confederations Cup, and World Cup Qualifying next year this was a necessity. Plus the shorter the offseason the better!

30 game season. Home-and-home against each of the other 14 teams and 2 intra-conference rivalry games

That means a 3 game Rocky Mountain Cup again next season. I'm guessing the extra game will be in SLC this season since the extra one was at the Dick this year. I bet the other rivalry game will be against Dallas or Seattle (Who, as expected, is being added to the Western Conference).

Playoffs are top 2 from each conference and best 4 remaining teams as wild-cards

Same as 2007. No real change from top 3 each + 2 wildcards, but the games against the eastern teams mean just a bit more with this system.

Top 4 teams to the CONCACAF Champion's League, next 4 teams to the Superliga

The Top 4 teams are both MLS Cup finalists, the Supporter's Shield winner, and the USOC winner. In a case where one team fills two slots then the next highest regular season point total qualifies. This year that's Columbus, RBNY, DC, and Houston (filling Columbus's MLS Cup spot). The next 4 teams for Superliga are New England, Chivas, KC, and Chicago. This is a good move, Houston and New England got beat down with all the games they played this year. Plus FSL got hosed being a playoff team but not in an added competition since DC won the USOC. That's always good to see. ;)

All U.S. based teams will participate in the U.S. Open Cup

Good. The stupid qualification system MLS used the last couple of years made no sense.