| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010 11:55 pm |
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Sports 
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Has MLS finally arrived? Not yet SEATTLE — The MLS Cup logo gleams from up high, freshly painted atop the Space Needle, along with the logos of the Los Angeles Galaxy and Real Salt Lake.It’s a sign that the 14-year-old league’s championship game has finally arrived in the Northwest; it will be played today at Qwest Field between the aforementioned teams. It’s also a sign that the “dog and pony shows” have hit town. Call it hokey. Call it a sales pitch. It’s here. On Wednesday, for instance, when the M/V Tacoma lurched up to Pier 52, the ferry had on board former UCLA and Galaxy coach and current Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid, as well as former UCLA and U.S. national team winger and current Sounders technical director Chris Henderson. Wouldn’t you know it, they were bringing the sterling silver Philip F. Anschutz championship trophy to Seattle — not the way they would have preferred, of course, which would have been to win it. “MLS made a great decision in expanding to our region,” said King County executive-elect Dow Constantine, the obligatory politician on hand. “Here’s a place where darn near every kid grows up playing soccer.” Then, on Thursday, MLS Commissioner Don Garber went online and fielded questions from fans, telling the world that all was well with MLS and would be even better in the foreseeable future. “This season will forever be known as one of the key moments in the history of soccer in America,” Garber said during the day. Finally, on Friday afternoon, Galaxy forward Alan Gordon and Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Chris Seitz were cajoled into Seattle’s virtually unavoidable photo op — tossing dead fish around at Pike Place Market. It’s all about buzz and image. And in Seattle, MLS had the soccer success story of the year, perhaps of the decade. So why not celebrate? Beneath the surface, of course, and not mentioned too loudly on a championship weekend, are a number of niggling little issues and a few not-so-little ones. MLS attendance, for example, was down 2 percent in 2009 to an average of 16,037, even though the Sounders averaged a league-high 30,897, even though today’s title game is a sellout, and even though Toronto FC has sold out every game in its three-year history. The reality check comes with the knowledge that the New England Revolution drew a paltry 7,416 for a home playoff game against the Chicago Fire, or that the defending league champion Columbus Crew drew only 10,109 for its home playoff game against Real Salt Lake. Then there is that old bugaboo, the MLS Players Union, long a thorn in the side of those team owners who prefer that their employees just do the work and accept what comes to them. The league’s collective bargaining agreement with the union expires on Jan. 31. The union wants a number of things, not least of which is guaranteed contracts for its players. Talk of a strike causes Garber to bristle. “Any discussion about a strike or a work stoppage at this point is totally premature,” the commissioner said Monday during his “state of the league” teleconference from MLS headquarters in New York. Garber admitted, however, that negotiations with the union would likely be “difficult.” As difficult, in fact, as the San Jose Earthquakes, the Houston Dynamo and the Kansas City Wizards — all former MLS champions — are finding it to build their own stadiums. Image is everything. Which is precisely the point that midfielder Freddie Ljungberg was making the other day. Ljungberg, who is to the Sounders what David Beckham is to the Galaxy, was upset by the appalling condition of the threadbare field for the Sounders’ playoff game at Houston’s Robertson Stadium. It’s another of those niggling issues for MLS, but as the former Swedish international pointed out, they have to be resolved. “It’s a show. It’s a theater,” Ljungberg said in a column he writes for ESPN. “If the league wants to elevate itself to the next level, you have to give players the opportunity to play good football. In my opinion, the pitch in Houston wasn’t playable. ... My friends in Europe ask how I can play with American football lines on the pitch. Small things like that can mean a lot in terms of building respect outside of America.” But for all the faults, the future looks brighter for MLS than at any time in the past. Next year, the New York Red Bulls open their stadium in Harrison, N.J., and those who have seen it say it puts Carson’s “cathedral of soccer,” the Home Depot Center, into the shade. Also in 2010, the Philadelphia Union, new stadium and all, brings the league to 16 teams, with Portland and Vancouver set to make it 18 in 2011 and Montreal on deck after that. So if Seattle’s rain departs by kickoff tonight, the silver lining Garber is forever seeing in the clouds might not be imagined. It might be real. |
- A revolutionary 747
- Fire breaks out at Everett car dealer
- Everett rethinks boutique wineries
- A tidy lawn could be law in Lynnwood
- Snohomish County's bargain housing won't last
- Boeing's 747-8 takes off after weather delay
- Plan for I-5 closures this week
- A new bowling alley for Monroe?
- Lake Stevens man homeless after fire
- I-5 bridge joint may give you a jolt, but it isn't damaged
- Vote on school levies by Tuesday
(11) - A tidy lawn could be law in Lynnwood (10)
- State Senate votes to toss I-960's tax-raising hurdle (9)
- Lynnwood sets height limit on grass: 8 inches (8)
- Everett rethinks boutique wineries (5)
- Everett police officers cleared in 2008 shooting death (5)
- 1949 travel aid shows how few places blacks were welcome in Washington (4)
- I-5 bridge joint may give you a jolt, but it isn't damaged (4)
- A new bowling alley for Monroe? (3)
- Toyota has powerful D.C. friends (3)
- Edmonds educator, famous announcer dies
- Mill Creek to appeal ruling on annexation
- Through the air, with the greatest of ease
- E-W thriving under new coach
- The path to citizenship
- EUUC puts on ‘Pants & Shoes’
- Wolfpack wins the ‘Battle'
- Lynnwood’s annexation plans OK’d
- Arlington's Cascade Valley Hospital celebrates expansion, national award and 100 years of service
- Business Licences Feb. 2010
- Technology tips for launching your own business
- Business Events Feb. 2010
- Tech Talk: No excuse today for going without a Web site
- State already raising fees and rates that restrict business growth
- Some legislators again targeting people’s initiative petition rights
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