What do you mean by "Perhaps some interesting news?"

I hate when they tease...

We cannot lose Moreno to injury! It has been all too apparent this season when he is not in the match that we do not hold possession as well as we do with him on the pitch. I can understand him wanting to play for Bolivia, especially with the important matches they have to start their WC qualifying campaign. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Jaime comes back unscathed!

Interesting news? Shirt sponsor?

Why would a shirt sponsor be interesting news? Financial stability?

sounds like fred's english has gotten pretty good? wasn't he not very fluent when he came here?

We'd be much obliged if you could provide a photo of the new grounds... :)

Most importantly, the new grass surface at RFK has been installed and looks gorgeous. The foul poles remain in place, but the netting and support cables behind home plate are gone. It's almost a soccer stadium again.

"I am so excited," said the always excitable Fred. "It looks smooth, very smooth."

"It's going to be awesome -- probably the best field in the league," Coach Tom Soehn said.

Best field in the league? That's a little much. I watch the Chicago/New England match on direct kick last Saturday - now that's the best natural playing surface in the league.

I would guess shirt sponsor news...

Steve, is it a 100% grass field?

It's gotta be Verizon. They're black and red.

Interesting news: Marc Fisher met with an "accident" at the WaPo building and will be unable to write for 6-10 weeks. We understand Goffinho was on a "lunch break" with DCAustinite at the time, though no one can quite explain the brown bag in Goffinho's cubicle....

JK ;-)

Fred and Moreno are going to be sorely missed. These last two games are must win. Chivas is sitting three points back in the table and has a game in hand. I'm talkin' Supporters Shield baby! Bring on the hardware!

chicagos field is not great. the players complain about how slow the ball is on the thick grass.

from du Nord:
"Very interesting note from Allen Hopkins of ESPN on the new field being laid down right now at DC United's RFK Stadium: The new field to be installed is a combination of real grass and synthetic field-turf similar to the surface at Denver's Invesco Mile High Stadium -- considered one of the best playing surfaces anywhere in the country."

"Perhaps some interesting DCU/MLS news later....."

C'mon folks, Steve is doing his job and trying to sustain interest in his craft. The phrase above is about as certain as saying "I think there will be weather today".

Yes, there will be, at some point, but who's saying what it'll be.

Now, the scoop - Steve will report that MLS will simply throw in the towel and crown DC champions next week, saying that it is never too late to recognize a good thing....

Does anyone know if they will revert to the traditional soccer seating plan? We need to gets seats behind the goals again. They only had seating behind the north end for DC United, but the World Cup and Olympic seating plans had bleachers behind the south goal. I would assume they would follow that plan for MLS Cup to maximize attendance and for TV impact of having fans in place behind each goal.

I hate looking at that miserable gap in the north end!

Any comment from Boswell re another MLS player "competing" for Cosmo's Bachelor of the Year? (Jack Stewart, RSL)

Looks like MLS is running a get out and vote campaign for him as one of the rotating stories on mlsnet

[For those who are curious here is Stewart's profile http://www.cosmopolitan.com/hot-guys/bachelors/07bachelors/utah-bach-07 ]

I think it was reported here earlier that it will not revert back to the original soccer layout. That is because the seats have been cherry picked to repair broken seats throughout the stadium. Best case scenario would be temporary bleachers for MLS Cup, but accessing them would be difficult from a life-safety perspective.

Anyone else see good 'ol Freddy Adu had some choice words for DCU?

http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/23611

Goff reported on Adu's comments yesterday morning in his "Mercenary Territory" post. Ives reported that Adu is being called into the US MNT camp for the upcoming game against Switzerland so it will be interesting to see how he and Nowak get along.

Man, Freddy really does have a big mouth. He was "overcoached" in DC...it must be tough being 16 years old and having a former Bundesliga prodigy coach be dumber than you and unable to teach you anything.

I am sure Ellinger did not "overcoach" and let him do whatever he wanted on the field. Hmmm. Makes you want to compare RSL performance with Adu-llinger vs DCU under Nowak.

Perhaps the bench at Benfica is teaching Freddy alot...different ways to sit so that his legs don't fall asleep. I just hope the staff at Benfica know their place and don't ruin a good thing by coaching Freddy.

Heaven forbid he opens his mind and soaks up what more experienced soccer minds have to teach. Is it me or does he sound like Anakin complaining about Obi-Wan? I would pay money to see a duel between Freddy and Nowak. Cage match at the auxiliary field...midnight EST, 18 November!

Erick and Eric:

The staff has told me on 2 ocassions that DCU is not willing to pay to reinstall the seats behind the north goal--too expensive. So, who paid to have them removed? Shouldn't they be charged to have them replaced? F-ing boreball!

Jaime has to be there for the game on the 20th...it's the tribute to El Diablo! No way he's missing that, right? If we have the Supporters Shield locked up, then I say bench him for the actual game...

And if the shirt sponsor is Verizon or anyone else (except Guinness), I will be buying my last jerseys ASAP so as not to have some ugly logo plastered on the front (and back?)

I hate to say it, but Jaime will probably be watching that game from the sideline. FFS, Bolivia's playing Uruguay, arguably the dirtiest side in South America! And I'm Uruguayan, so I can say that!

SoyUnited...thanks for that chisme.

It is a shame the DCU has gone cheap on that (pay $30 million for a club, but not part with a few thousand for repairs on the stadium).

You would think ABC - who owns the English language rights to MLS Cup - would pay the relatively paltry fee to get it put back in and improve the quality of the visuals for national broadcast.

So the RFK/city/mafia is cannibalizing the seats to repair existing seats?!? Sounds like a prudent plan...I am glad they are not in the aircraft repair business. So they never expect to utilize have anything other than baseball-altered seating platforms in the future? That easily reduces capacity by 5,000 or more.

Oh well. At least we have a proper grass pitch now.

Yeah Chief and Erick, Freddy definitely needs to learn how to zip it. Especially since as of now it seems he's pretty much a bench jockey. If Freddy's getting minimal PT over in Portugal, what if anything do you think that says about the MLS? Just wondering what the cognescenti make of that.

What in the world is wrong with saying you were overcoached? As far as criticisms go that's about as mild as skim-milk tapioca.

If that hurts Nowaks feelings (and I'm pretty sure he could care less) maybe his mommy can put a bandaid on it and kiss the ouchie.

We don't know how expensive it would be to reinstall the seating in the hole behind the north goal, so I don't think it's fair to accuse the new ownership of cheaping out.

RE: Freddy - I think he probably was overcoached, but not to the degree he thinks. Nowak, as good as he was, did display a lack of flexibility in some cases. Also, Freddy is working his way into the team at Benfica. He was the hero in a Portuguese Cup match a few weeks ago and has been included in the squad, which is a good start. Let's not continue to eat our young please.

I can imagine Verizon putting "Verizon FIOS" on the jersey just to annoy Comcast who have to broadcast the matches.

Verison FIOS carries comcast sportsnet . . .

Off topic, today's USA Today (sorry Goff) quotes Blanco as saying that MLS is just a step behind the Mexican 1st division. With Chivas Guadalajara in the middle of the pack, and the way they seemed to dominate the run of play against an MLS team known for dominating run of play in MLS matches, that sounds like hype to me.

Hell, Comcast is black and red too.

Regular Fan -- I take issue with your assertion that Chivas Gudalajara dominated the run of play against United. In the first 45 min of the first game, we scored and were evenly matched. In the second half of that game, we were playing a man down, and still scored a nice goal on break away. At Jalisco stadium, we were winning more than half the 50/50 balls, and sat back to protect a one-goal lead (albeit foolishly). We were also missing Fred and Birch (two key players) when it comes to controlling the run of play, while Chivas was at full strength. It's true that Blanco has an incentive to skew up the level of play in MLS, but I don't think this is hype, as you suggest. What's more, look at the Super Copa... that came close to being an All-MLS final. Three of the four semifinalists were MLS after legitimately eliminating the Mexican teams.

Thank Tom for the laugh about the best field in the league....PHP, HDC, Crew Stad., Toyota Park, are all much, much much better.

Uwe-

Did you miss the part of the post that mentioned the new surface that has been laid down? I would argue that the field at Home Depot Center is an abomination, given it's a "Soccer Specific" stadium.

David, as best I recall the Mexican teams were in pre-season when the Super Copa was played. So I'm not sure that's the appropriate yardstick for comparison.

We did have our moments in the first half of the game at RFK, but when Chivas fell behind and started running we had trouble keeping up with them. Players like Fred, Jaime and Gomito probably have more skill than most of the Chivas guys, but their pace was pretty impressive. The second game is hard to evaluate due to the altitude and the hostility of the crowd. When the "host" fans are spitting on players when they arrive to play, you know it's a tough environment in which to play your best.

Pics of the new RFK pitch at http://www.bobbyboswell.com/

David:

Not only was Super Liga (Super Copa?) played in the MFL pre-season, the whole thing was on US soil. The unfortunate fact is that every time an MLS team has played a MFL team on equal terms - that is, in a two-leg format - the MFL team has come out on top. The year DCU won the CCC, the final was played in one leg at RFK.

At some point the results speak for themselves. MLS is good enough to play respectably against the Mexican squads, but there's still some ground to make up.

Previous post deleted.

Please, NO links to anonymous web sites.

Thanks

Oops... sorry!

From Bozilla's piece -- Permanent international type goals!!!!!!!! Sounds wonderful to me. "It's in the net" will be truer now, more often than not!

Erick and Eric:

The staff has told me on 2 ocassions that DCU is not willing to pay to reinstall the seats behind the north goal--too expensive. So, who paid to have them removed? Shouldn't they be charged to have them replaced? F-ing boreball!

Posted by: Soy United! | October 9, 2007 02:47 PM

DC is, and always has been, a baseball town not a sissy soccer town. In my next blog I'm going to discuss the renovation of currently unused RFK so it can be dedicated as a training facility for the Nats, after the city completes a $150 million upgrade.

I have already discussed this idea with MLB and they seem to agree that DC will take the funds from our local school system since so many of our children will benefit that much more from Nats baseball and increased employment selling beer to white people from Virginia.

The pitch looks outstanding!

I payed attention to a Verizon add on FSN for the first time tonight:

"It's in the net(work)"--hmmmmm

International goals! Finally, real goals/nets.

I saw this interesting clip about the Bolivia games coming up. Looks like Moreno won't be training in the gilbert arenas-esque high altitude conditions....

"Faced with the prospect of playing two World Cup qualifiers at very different altitudes in the space of four days later this month, Bolivia will take the unusual step of splitting their squad in two. Ahead of games away to Uruguay - to be played at sea-level - and home to Colombia - at high altitude - Bolivia will allow all foreign-based players to train in the lowlands while domestic-based players will prepare in the highlands."

And it looks like gol tv will carry Bolivia v. Uruguay on Saturday. So we can have a make-shift doubleheader of Moreno's Bolivia and DCU at rfk this weekend.

I've got a comment about Jack Stewart. Why is he one of the only bachelors with his shirt ON? That's not going to win him any votes...

The new sponsor is Hooters