Author Topic: Major League Soccer  (Read 1120 times)

Offline Furball

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« Reply #15 on: April 28, 2003, 09:13:40 AM »
I do like watford! i live in St.Albans which is about 10 mins drive away, so i do kinda support them :D

Arsenals training ground is nearer to me than watford is tho, so they are my local team!

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Offline Nifty

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« Reply #16 on: April 30, 2003, 02:04:47 PM »
Thanks for pointing the thread out, furball!  I missed it yesterday.  Also, your animated gif is the longest one I've ever seen, yet quite humorous!  :)

thx for the support, dowding.   I'm that weird American that actually takes soccer seriously (sorry, but an american saying "footy" is just wrong!  It's like me saying "kit" or "boot"  ;)  wait, I do say those from time to time...)  :D

Ok, explaining MLS...  

First thing you need to know about MLS is that the league itself owns all the contracts of all the players.  It's not like Europe where the individual teams handle all aspects of player contracts.  The teams here pick the players (in a variety of ways) and the monetary issues are handled by the league.  Each team also has a salary cap that they can spend on players.  This cap exists because, again, MLS owns all the contracts and they know what they can "afford to spend" on player salaries while not losing too much money.  That's where your manager game is coming up with the weekly salary thing.  Also, that's why if you ever see talk about real life transfers between other leagues and MLS the negotations take place between MLS and the individual team in the other league.  Recent example is McBride playing on loan for Everton.  Everton paid MLS (not Columbus) for McBride's services.  Everton inquired about a full transfer, but MLS' price for McBride was more than Everton wanted to pay for a 30+ year old striker.

Yes, MLS has ties now.  However, it's after 10 minutes of "golden goal" time.   The points system works like other leagues.  3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss (regardless if in regulation or overtime.)

The link Mickey posted explains the senior internationals, transitional internationals and the other player classifications.  This shouldn't be a surprise to Euro fans.  I believe most European leagues used to limit the amount of foreigners dressed on their teams.  In fact I believe they still do, however, with the European Union and the blurring of nationalities in relation to business I believe all Euro citizens don't count against the limit of foreigners.  I do know it used to exist, because Americans weren't highly sought after players, and they ended up not being dressed for most games.  This was in Germany for sure awhile back, it might not be the case anymore.  *shrugs*  Regardless, the point for this was that the majority of the players in MLS were to be American citizens.  A couple of years ago, due to American business laws, green card holders no longer counted against the senior international limit.  An example off the top of my head last year was Carlos Valderrama.  He obviously is Columbian and not a dual citizen, yet he did not count against Colorado's senior international limit.  Anyways, like I said the point here to have mostly Americans on the field during games (and as stated, other leagues used to do this as well.)  I guess they don't want the Real Madrid syndrome where a lot of the starters aren't Spanish (or Man U where a lot of 'em aren't English.)  Also, I was really to young to know about our NASL years ago, but I think that had a lot of foreigners, and they wanted to avoid that again.  They do realize we need some foreigners, so that's why each team can have 3 senior internationals.  It's really helped out the US National Team because we're finding more players and giving them some decent competition (tho obviously they get much better playing in Europe.)

I think that explains the major differences in MLS.  Oh, and the silly substitution rule.  They have the 3 subs like everywhere else, but we can also sub the keeper in addition to the 3 subs.  What this means is if you burn up your 3 subs and a field player gets hurt, you can have your current keeper swap positions with him, and then have your reserve keeper come on for the new, yet injured, keeper.  Funny thing is this happened the past week.  Josh Wolff pulled a hamstring (as usual) for Kansas City after all 3 positional subs were used.  The keeper, Tony Meola (yeah, you Euros might know of him, he was our keeper back in the 90 and 94 world cups, and our 3rd keeper in the 98 and 02 cups) ran off to get a field players shirt, and the reserve keeper came on the field.  KC still lost the game and Meola contributed nothing up front, but at least they had 11 on the field.  I think the rule sucks, and they should just have 3 subs, and not a keeper sub in addition to it.

ALSO, we have "playoffs" to determine the champion of MLS.  The teams play however many games there are in the season and the top 8 teams make the playoffs (yeah, only 2 teams don't get to participate.)  Then it's some weird best 2 out of 3 format until you have two teams left, then it's a one game championship.  (kinda like final round of Champ's League play but instead of the home/away format, it's home/away/"home if necessary" format!  I'll explain this further if you want.)

Any more questions about our silly league?  ;)  Yeah, I think the rules are weird, but sometimes the games are pretty entertaining.  The quality of play continues to improve, and I'd say the better MLS teams could compete for promotion in say the English First Division, but would definitely be relegated in any top flight of the big 4 (England, Spain, Germany and Italy.)

As for my MLS allegiance?  lol, I don't have one.  I supported Tampa, but they were disbanded when MLS went from 12 teams back to 10.  I just watch who's ever on and pick a team to pull for.  :)  As for foreign allegiance?  :)  Newcastle United all the way!  I picked them solely because when I started really following the English game (meaning when we finally started getting a game of the week to watch) they were sponsored by Newcastle Brown Ale, which is my favorite beer!  ;)  I have two "kits," a 1996 short sleeve and the 1999 long sleeve (last one with the Brown Ale sponsor.)  :(
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Offline fd ski

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« Reply #17 on: April 30, 2003, 02:27:54 PM »
nice team Furball :) How did you get Dudek from Liverpool ? :)

Offline Nifty

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« Reply #18 on: April 30, 2003, 02:36:13 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by fd ski
nice team Furball :) How did you get Dudek from Liverpool ? :)

heh, forget that, how'd he manage to afford the transfers of both Raul and Ronaldo from Real Madrid!!!  :eek:

and speaking of football games, do any of you play the FIFA series or the game from Konami (Winning Eleven International in the states, I think it's called Pro Soccer Evolution in the UK and Europe)???
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Offline Furball

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« Reply #19 on: April 30, 2003, 10:51:02 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Nifty
heh, forget that, how'd he manage to afford the transfers of both Raul and Ronaldo from Real Madrid!!!  :eek:

and speaking of football games, do any of you play the FIFA series or the game from Konami (Winning Eleven International in the states, I think it's called Pro Soccer Evolution in the UK and Europe)???


Well, dudek was transfer listed in the second season (chris kirkland stole his place)

I could afford Ronaldo (£20m - start of 2nd season, you can get him cheaper than 20) because i had so much prize money and selling a lot of useless players like Kanu, Cygan, no-leg Luzhny and Lurch... i mean Stepanovs.

I managed to get Raśl at the start of my 3rd season for a bargain £10m, Real madrid finished 6th in the league and all their players were unhappy, and somehow they were in debt (probably wagebill + not winning anything)

I have sold a few original arsenal players to afford Zanetti, Cannavaro and Thuram.  Freddie went to Inter as p/x for Zanetti, Gio Van Bronckhorst went to liverpool, Gilberto to Barcelona, Bergkamp to Ajax.

And Nifty MLS is ruined by those rules, now i understand why the majority of americans hate footy.

If you dont have this game nifty - you should get it!

thankyou for clearing up the rules for me btw!

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« Last Edit: April 30, 2003, 10:53:10 PM by Furball »
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Offline RightF00T

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« Reply #20 on: April 30, 2003, 11:06:28 PM »
"I'm going to tell you the truth.  Soccer was created by young European women to give them something to do while their husbands cooked dinner."

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Offline Dowding

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« Reply #21 on: May 01, 2003, 03:36:23 AM »
Thanks for the post Nifty. Interesting stuff!

I'm not so sure the rules ruin MLS. Afterall, the league is not like a well established European League - it sounds like they've gone for stability. Which is a good thing, if the US is to become the force I'm sure it will become. It sounds a bit artificial, but salary caps are something that have been considered over here. The gap between the Premier League is enormous and widening, mainly due to player wages.

And sadly, my team, Sheffield Wednesday has been relegated to the Second Division. :( A crying shame given the fan base we have - we should be mid-table Premiership. Our ground is very modern and large.

I blame Danny Wilson.
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Offline -tronski-

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« Reply #22 on: May 01, 2003, 04:43:24 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Dowding
Thanks for the post Nifty. Interesting stuff!

I'm not so sure the rules ruin MLS. Afterall, the league is not like a well established European League - it sounds like they've gone for stability. Which is a good thing, if the US is to become the force I'm sure it will become. It sounds a bit artificial, but salary caps are something that have been considered over here. The gap between the Premier League is enormous and widening, mainly due to player wages.

And sadly, my team, Sheffield Wednesday has been relegated to the Second Division. :( A crying shame given the fan base we have - we should be mid-table Premiership. Our ground is very modern and large.

I blame Danny Wilson.


I remember when Wednesday were quite the 1st division stalwart...mind you...I remember when Nott Forest where the same...

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Offline Dowding

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« Reply #23 on: May 01, 2003, 04:50:28 AM »
You mean the old Division 1? We were regular mid-table Premiership (what Division 1 became) from its inception to about '99. We had some great players - Di Canio, Carbone, Hinchcliffe (he was actually good back then). Then everything went down hill. Wilson couldn't manage the touchy international stars and four years later we find ourselves in Division 2 playing against crappy Division 2 sides. :(

Effectively, we find ourselves in Division 3 using the old system.

And I remember the cup finals against Arsenal only 10 years ago, with Waddle, Hurst et al in the side... those were the days...
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Offline Swoop

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« Reply #24 on: May 01, 2003, 05:04:47 AM »
*sigh*

Oxford were in div 1 once......many many years ago.


Offline LLv34_Snefens

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« Reply #25 on: May 01, 2003, 06:26:16 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Nifty
and speaking of football games, do any of you play the FIFA series or the game from Konami (Winning Eleven International in the states, I think it's called Pro Soccer Evolution in the UK and Europe)???


I'm playing a great deal of Pro Evolution Soccer II for the PS2 with friends. As all games it's so much more fun when playing with someone, so we are usually 3 (2 the lowest) who play on same team. When we are more we make it human vs human (5 controllers).
I have tried EA Sports FIFA series, but they just doesn't seem right to me.
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Offline Furball

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« Reply #26 on: May 01, 2003, 08:26:16 AM »
Shame the MLS missed out on Gazza, he would have been good for the sport over there.  He went to some chinese club instead, i saw the goal he scored in his first game, went past 2 then hit a 25-30 yard left foot shot into the top right hand corner :) not bad for a kebab eating, beer guzzling 35 year old, or whatever he now is!

Oh Nifty - i really like Newcastle too, i think most football fans in england respect them (apart from sunderland) Sir Bobby Robson is a legend, then with players like Shearer, Bellamy and Jenas (PFA Young player of the year) they play really good football.
 
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Offline Dowding

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« Reply #27 on: May 01, 2003, 08:31:55 AM »
I like Bobby Robson and his style of management. I also enjoyed Keegan's 'It's just like watching Brazil' days at Newcastle United.
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Offline Nifty

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« Reply #28 on: May 01, 2003, 09:05:36 AM »
heh, can you guys tell I don't have many people to talk to about soccer?  :D

overall I don't think the rules of MLS ruin the game, though some of them are kinda weird.  However, the playoff thing makes sense in the USA as ALL of our professional leagues, and even most college leagues (except for top division college "american style" football!) have playoffs.  The regular season is just to get into the playoffs and to get seeding for the playoffs.  I guess they felt like they should make MLS more like the rest of our leagues here.  They do change things when it's completely asinine, such as that stupid shootout we used to have.  That's gone thankfully.

The salary cap makes sense because the league doesn't have a lot of money yet.   Fan base is picking up, they're averaging about 16,000 attendance so far this season.  Part of the money reason is the league has to use existing stadiums, which means they gotta pay to use them above and beyond the costs of just running the stadium (and they don't get money from other events using the stadium.)

Speaking of the PFA players of the year, you did see who was the keeper in the PFA XI this year, didn't ya???  :D

I might check out the manager game, tho I usually prefer playing over just managing.  ;)

Snefens, I'm jealous!  None of my local friends are into soccer nearly as much as me, and I doubt I could get any of them to actually play even cooperatively with me.  The one that might play is absolutely horrid at sports games though.  I just play against the computer now.  I'm still learning the controls so I'm only on 2 star level.  ;)  And I agree about FIFA.  It's not a good football game, but they have all the licensing, so they've got all the natty teams, the "real" world cup, all the "real" domestic leagues and teams...  I wish you could put the licensing of FIFA with the gameplay of Konami's game!

Dowding, Sheffield got relegated to 2nd division?  :(  that's too bad.   John Harkes used to play for Wednesday, and I think they won a Cup of some kind while he was there, didn't they?  I know he's the only American to score at Wembley, and you only had national team games and Cup finals there, correct?  Anyways, Harkes retired this year, so he's doing broadcast work on the MLS highlights show.  Poor guy, he was named "Captain for Life" of the US Nats in early 1998, then completely left off the roster for the WC 1998 in France!   No wonder we had such a bad showing that WC, our coach was an utter handsomehunk!

Oh, yeah, MLS doesn't have relegation/promotion yet, and probably not ever.  Too bad, our "second division", the A-League, has some decent teams.   Rochester regularly defeats MLS teams in the US Open Cup (much like the FA cup where everyone gets a chance to compete, including a couple of amateur teams) and they even won the Cup one year!
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Offline LLv34_Snefens

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« Reply #29 on: May 01, 2003, 09:56:19 AM »
Yeah, pity about the license. I sat down one day and changed every single one of them to the correct names. I found a list of the names on the net, so I didn't have to figure out who the hell Radolno and Larcos was :)
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