There's Never Anything Good on TV

I've finally dragged myself out from under the rock under which I was hiding for shame after the beating my CL predictions took such a beating on Wednesday. Some might think that 4-4 was respectable, by I'm a bit delicate about such things. Ok. The real reason I haven't managed to post recently is nothing more romantic than the fact that I have been busy. Apparently, "I couldn't finish because I had to work on my blog" doesn't strike many as a good excuse. In any case, I'm not going to say any more about Wednesday's matches than that I will never pick PSV to win anything outside of the Netherland ever again, Artmedia showed us that it really was the week of the minnow, and though I may have had the result wrong (Note: soccernet's match report briefly listed Shevchenko as having scored a winner for Milan, a fairly common typo for them) did I not tell you that Schalke-Milan was the match to watch?

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I had wanted to write about the only MLS game that mattered this weekend: Quakes-Revs at the Gillette (ok, so Metrostars fans, or, well, the Metrostars' fan may beg to differ about that claim, but the Metros' match against DC stopped mattering after the 55th minute). However, I found it impossible to watch the match. No, it was not because I was so nervous about the fate of my beloved Revolution. I don't get Direct Kick. I can scrape together enough money each month to subscribe to digital cable which brings me Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Sports En Espanol among others. But Direct Kick is just a bit too much. But that shouldn't be a problem in any case. MLSnet.com has been so very kind as to stream all Direct Kick games from their website. A brilliant idea and one that I hope many more people are taking advantage of. Yet, for some reason, though Quakes-Revs was listed as a DK game, the stream for it didn't work for me. Maybe this was simply a problem on my end, but I was stuck watching the vast meaninglessness that was Metros-United (it could have been Chivas-Crew but I do draw the line somewhere).

The point of this isn't to claim that MLSnet is technologically incompetent. It isn't. This situation (actually, the latest in a string of similar frustrating situations) got me thinking again about the pitifully poor media coverage of MLS and soccer in general in ths country. It is well known that ESPN and the networks think that MLS comes in just below snooker on the sporting hierarchy. Why would ESPN ever want to continue offering a weekly MLS game in the Autumn when they could, instead, televise MAC U vs. Directional Michigan. Sports television in the US has such respect for football that it has to scramble around at the last minute to televise the national team's pivotal qualifier against Mexico, eventually sticking the match on ESPNClassic. The print media may even be worse. I was fortunate enough to grow up Boston where the major paper, the Globe, actually provided reasonable coverage of the game thanks to the writing of Frank Dell'Apa (who seems to have finally gotten the wider recognition he deserves and has a column on soccernet). Now that I live in New York, I've noticed that the Times cannot always be bothered to publish the results of the home side's matches (perhaps not surprising for a paper that once thought that Baseball would never overtake Cricket as the sport of choice). When it comes to finding coverage of football, the deck is certainly stacked against the fan.

However, it would be dishonest to suggest that MLS is entirely blameless. I recall reading a relieving column that addressed MLS's culpability in the low profile carried by such events as the All Star Game. The All Star Game is not an important game by any means when considered in the context of the league season. It is a good showpiece, though. The game is often wide open and exciting with a lot of scoring. In short, it could present the best face of the league to people who believe that soccer is all 1-0 scores and prancing playactors. It also presents the top players in the country on one stage. The game provides an opportunity to teach names like Taylor Twellman to people who do not know anything beyond David Beckham. However, as was pointed out, MLS takes so long finalizing plans for the game, i.e the format etc., that ABC is left with little time to hype product or little product to hype. This needs to be rectified.

A much more subtle issue affecting the availibility of top matches, and one that is really to blame in most cases, has to do with the structure of the league itself. I will say right now that this an inherent and probably necessary difficulty for the time being. The league is structured as it is for its own preservation (and partially for cultural reasons) and we should be thankful that it is. Once there is greater stability, this issue should disappear. The combination of single entity management controling the contracts of the players and a reverse order player draft tends to promote parity. Add in a salary cap that makes it difficult to hang onto the rising stars from last year and the league has a recipe for season to season wholesale change. I'm sure that ESPN doesn't set out to select dud games for Soccer Saturday. They tend to pick the champions or "historically strong" teams (or just better supported ones). However, last year's champs are likely to be this year's chumps and vice versa (see Kansas City 2000, San Jose 2001). The relative quality of the teams changes throughout the season, as well, as new groups gel. DC are quite a decent team are playing some attractive football now but that didn't stop them from playing a number of dud matches on national TV earlier in the season. Just look back to season preview issue of Soccer America and you can see how hopeless even their so-called experts are at picking MLS. How can television do better?

There is much more to say on all of these issues. But I had better stop for the moment. In any case, it was thus that FCD-Galaxy wasn't carried by anyone back when those teams were playing some of the best football in the league and I spent last night watching streaming video of the Metros laugher against DC instead of the top of the table Quakes-Revs match.

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So I only saw the highlights of Quakes-Revs. Poor Twellman. Almost 17. It would have been quite a goal. And, though I don't think Danny Hernandez has much to complain about after raising his elbows, but am I the only one who thinks Moreno was faking? I saw the slow motion replay, but I failed to notice the part where Hernandez pulled out the gun and shot Moreno in the face. Unless your cheek has just been shattered, take a page out of the TnT playbook and rub yourself off, get up and keep going. Moreno seemed just fine to me and was obviously capable of simulating significant pain once again after Dorman's non-foul.

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Rumor has it that Ruud Van Nistelroy wants to join Real. I don't think Real nedd him, especially for what he will cost, but this sounds bad for United. Already enjoying an indifferent season, dealing with injuries to important players, facing the retirement of Roy Keane and now the horse in Man U's clothing says he wants to leave. There could be tough times ahead for the Devils. Although, we should all recall that five years after their first European Cup, they went down.

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It's the kids' championship tonight. I'll be cheering for Mexico.