Michelle's Monday Musings...

Did you stay up to watch MLS Cup last night? My thoughts...

Seattle is an awesome soccer town. 46,000 fans showed up, and their team wasn't even playing! The Sounders green and blue scarf has become a must-have fashion accessory in Seattle, which is tres cool. If only MLS could bottle that enthusiasm and sell it to the rest of the country.

Speaking of fashion, Jason Kreis wins best-dressed US coach. Bruce Arena, perhaps trying to live up to his counterpart's fashion sense, looked dapper, as well, in sport jacket. As for David Beckham's current hairdo...thumbs down.

Landon Donovan's cross for Magee goal was absolutely gorgeous. Textbook perfect. But his bad miss in PKs was brutal...Roberto Baggio bad. Poor Landon. Tough time to miss that badly. Otherwise, he played a great game.

Kyle Beckerman, formerly of Miami Fusion, was outstanding. He and his dreadlocks were flying around everywhere. RSL goalie Nick Rimando, also former Fusion player, was rock solid, stopping two PKs and saving the game for the second week in a row.

All in all, an entertaining MLS Final. Hard to believe, though, that a team with a losing regular-season record could beat the star-studded Galaxy. Nice work by RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey, former Fusion goalie, and Kreis.

Now, back to Europe...

Comments

[Son of a Pitch]

Hey Michelle,

You forgot to mention the great performance from LA backup keeper and former Miami FC star Josh Saunders. The MLS Cup was filled with former Miami players: Beckerman and Romando from the Fusion and Saunders from Miami FC.

[Michelle Kaufman]

Good point! Saunders played good game. Lots of familiar faces from
Miami...

[Ultra]

Sigh... tough to watch all those former Miami guys playing in the MLS Cup. Although in the end we could have been watching the past and future of Miami soccer: former players in Saunders, Beckerman and Rimando, but the future owner of our future MLS team in Beckham....

[Michelle Kaufman]

True enough (Beckham)...he has the option for 20th MLS team...he and Posh
seem perfect match for South Beach...but much more has to happen. I thought
Barca was a good match, too.

[Son of a Pitch]

It seems like Don Garber doesn't like the idea of a team in Miami. He's very much for promoting an All-American (and partially Canadian) league and knows that any thing in Miami will be slightly international. He doesn't even mention us as an option anymore for the 20th team and every time I've e-mailed him he just says Miami has "so many problems". I wish serious investors would step up so Miami could be in the running again. Our fans are much more organized now and I don't think another bid would fail.

[Joel]

We should be getting behind the new NASL being formed by Traffic and the other defecting USL teams, which features teams in serious soccer markets. Let's see what Traffic, which finally got what they wanted, does with this league. Who knows? Maybe it'll be a nice counterpart to MLS.