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Proof SuperLiga Could Be Done?

Drew Epperley — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:33:30 +0000

While the official league stance is still “we’re reviewing our options” when it comes to the SuperLiga tournament. Yesterday’s schedule release should show that the tournament could definitely be on it’s way out.

Look at the schedules of the potential participating clubs for this season. The Columbus Crew, the New York Red Bulls, the San Jose Earthquakes and Real Salt Lake all have full weekend slates between the months of July and August. Last year’s tournament was held during the middle part of July and finished up in early September (a month after the semifinal games). Group games last year were played from the 14th through the 21st, starting on a Wednesday and finishing the following Wednesday.

With weekends full for each of these four clubs this year you have to think the only way a SuperLiga could be played again this season is if they did one game a week on a Wednesday or Tuesday. That could be tough considering in July a couple teams have mid-week games as wel. The tournament would almost have to either start a month sooner and/or only have a group game played once a week. Both may not work with the Mexican teams that would be in it.

Throw in the potential US Open Cup games for these four clubs and you have some real loaded schedules in that timeframe. To me it just seems like there is no possible way a tournament could be held if they are requiring teams participating in it from MLS to play three games in a stretch of seven days to get this tournament in.

Even though the league is still reviewing things here for SuperLiga I think its just time to throw in the towel. The schedule says it all for me that they already have.

Good Bye SuperLiga?

Drew Epperley — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:04:13 +0000

If you believe Columbus Technical Director Brian Bliss, it could be true.

#Crew96 TD Brian Bliss said he is doubtful the SuperLiga tournament will be played this season. Crew might sked some summer friendlies.

That is news a lot of MLS fans will be happy to hear. Some will be upset their clubs won’t be hosting Mexican clubs this summer but I can imagine RSL, San Jose, New York and Columbus fans are mostly excited about that news.

The scheduling of this tournament never made sense to me and the coverage was extremely weak for it as well seeing how there wasn’t any English-speaking broadcasts for it.

I think if MLS clubs want to face Mexican teams in the summer they should just schedule friendlies with them. Most clubs seem to already be doing that as it is anymore.

According to MLS head of Communications Dan Courtemache, the league will have the 2011 season schedule and Superliga details finalized “soon.”.

Guess we’ll know more in a couple weeks. What do you want to see happen here with SuperLiga? Keep it or dump it?

Garber Talks Reviewing Schedules

Drew Epperley — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:18:26 +0000

So I caught some flack for my issues towards SuperLiga yesterday. I figured I would but I still stand by my comments the the tournament is more of a waste than good. Today I saw a post on the US Soccer Examiner’s site with Don Garber talking about re-working the club’s busy schedules.

Don Garber was in New England the other night for the SuperLiga final, showing off that in some ways SuperLiga trumps the US Open Cup where he could have easily been in Seattle or D.C. that night. The whole US Open Cup talk is probably one I’ll need to do in a separate post later on. I have thoughts on how to re-do that tournament and at least make it somewhat meaningful for the league’s teams and for the lower division teams.

But back to Garber’s comments on the schedules. He like everyone else out there who follows MLS even a bit closely know that a decent portion of the league’s teams have busy schedules from about June until October.

Garber admits that after the MLS Cup playoffs the league really needs to focus on the Champions League and US Open Cup.

“We’ve got to reassess the calendar quite a bit and we’ve been spending a lot of time doing that,” said Garber. “I’m up here today actually, with our competitive guys doing some planning, just talking about how could we do a couple things – capitalize on the excitement that took place during the World Cup that clearly proved that Americans loved this game and how do we build on that? Do we need to look at different formats? Do we need to look at our schedule again? How do we ensure that our teams are at full strength while we’re playing in very, very crowded schedules? We’re spending a lot of time planning and I want to be sure that we do well in all these tournaments. The first priority is our league tournament [MLS Cup], but certainly, so is the Champions League and again, I’d like to see the U.S. Open Cup be a bit more important to all of us.”

He does also make some interesting points about building a rival with the Mexican clubs. It looks as though they’ll continue to review the SuperLiga tournament too with the Mexican Federation. I think they definitely need to find ways to make it more popular to the non-Latino soccer fans here in American, outside of that crowd you don’t see the average fan getting jazzed for this competition.

“We’ve always very much believed in trying to build a rivalry against the Mexican club teams, similar to the rivalry that we have on a National Team level and SuperLiga was our attempt to do that,” said Garber. “Now we have a bit more of that with the Champions League and we look forward to seeing that grow in importance. Certainly we believe [SuperLiga] has got value and we’ll sit down as we do every year and figure out what we need to do to continue to make it popular and satisfy the goals that we have and also the goals that the Mexican Federation has.”

Its obvious that the Champions League has to be taken more importantly for MLS than SuperLiga but it will be interesting to see where they weigh the US Open Cup in that equation. Right now it easily appears that its the bottom of the rung after everything else.

Its good to see the league take a proactive stance here though and at least try to figure out how to make their schedule work to make the clubs in the league stand out more and do well outside of league play. Having more clubs in their own venues now really helps that out too as before the league couldn’t schedule nearly the way they wanted to. Now they can and will likely improve the quality of play for MLS in tournaments like the Champions League.

Time To Say Goodbye To SuperLiga

Drew Epperley — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:17:06 +0000

New England has been a SuperLiga staple these last three years but the tournament has to go. (Getty Images)

I may get some negative comments from folks in New England and possibly down in Houston but across the board most folks will likely agree with the following: its time to end SuperLiga once and for all.

We know the tournament is just a cash grab for SUM, Major League Soccer and USSF’s marketing arm. It brings in four Mexican teams each year to give our league some international exposure and experience which is nice but it doesn’t do much for the average MLS fan.

In year one of the tournament it all made sense as the league hyped it nicely and got four good Mexican teams to play in it. Its helped create a nice little rivalry between Houston and Pachuca but outside of that I’d imagine that most of the league’s fans couldn’t tell you what SuperLiga even is.

I’ve made my issues known about this tournament for a while now and after this year’s edition I see no reason for it to continue. Its not due to the MLS clubs not winning it each year. Nor is it about the lack of success for MLS clubs in it, in fact its pretty split overall.

After four years the exposure to the common fan isn’t there. When you can’t even watch the game on a local channel in English then getting this tournament across to fans doesn’t happen. Nationally you can watch it on a Spanish channel and maybe FSC if you’re lucky. It may be broadcasted online but sometimes that isn’t good enough for some fans.

I don’t think I even need to go into the attendance of this tournament, which has dwindled over the years.

Can fans and even players get excited to win a trophy that literally doesn’t mean anything? Sure the extra cash incentive the players get is there but the fact that we’re getting mostly mid-level teams from both leagues doesn’t always produce an exciting tournament. But this tournament doesn’t mean the winner moves on to another tournament or even gets to do anything other than say they’re the SuperLiga champions of North America.

I could be wrong about this tournament and next year’s could be the best one yet if it is able to get some fresh faces like a New York, San Jose or Colorado. I just think its time for the league to refocus their international tournament participation to the Champions League and maybe revisit this kind of tournament when fans are actually interested.

MLS Hot and Not: Midway Point

Drew Epperley — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:55:01 +0000

The Major League Soccer All-Star break is next week and so the midway point of the season is more or less finally here. Only a couple teams have yet to play half of their season slate while the rest of the league is already in the second half of their season.

I felt it was a good time to bring back the Hot and Not list for the start of the second half of the year. A couple items flipped over from the last time around but we also have plenty of new additions both good and not so good.

Feel free to pick away at these and add your own below.

HOT	NOT
Sebastian Le Toux – His all-star like stats speak for themselves. You have to wonder how much Seattle misses him.	Freddie Ljungberg - The honeymoon is over in Seattle and not the club and the DP are looking for the divcorce.
Schellas Hyndman – A couple months ago things didn’t look so promising but now it seems as though FC Dallas is hitting their stride and its mostly due to the patiences of their coach.	Peter Vermes – Looked like a genius to start the season but his club continues to struggle in front of the goal. Only D.C. has scored fewer goals this year and KC’s total is slight shewed thanks to a 4 goal effort back in March. Throw that game out and they’ve scored 9 goals in 15 games.
Friendlies- Earlier in the year these games didn’t do much for me but the Manchester United game last night in Philly was excellent.	Poor Refs in Friendlies – Who gives a red card in a friendly to a keeper? The Seattle-Celtic game went from being very good to disappointing in a flash. At least Sigi Schmid’s club stayed in the game and made it interesting.
Thierry Henry - He’s the big DP we all wanted for this year, how he handles himself on and off the field will greatly impact the league.	David Beckham - If the Galaxy weren’t doing so well this year you’d think they’d be asking for a refund from Beckham. I know the injury wasn’t his fault but he’s hardly been seen this year with the club. For all that money you’d thing the league would get more out of him.
New York Red Bulls- I know in the past I’ve given the Red Bulls a lot of grief over certain things but they’re doing things right these days off the field. Their organization no longer looks like a laughing stock of the league.	D.C. United – Hard to get excited about D.C. these days though. Almost feel sorry for this club but at least they have the US Open Cup to fall back on this season as something. They’re into the semifinals of that.
All-Star Snubs – Plenty of big names out there that deserved a nod this season to play ManU. With all the CCL games going on I’d expect some of them to end up in Houston next week.	All-Star Game Scheduling – This one probably should have been brought up earlier this year but what a terrible timing for the All-Star game for a couple clubs. LA, Toronto and Seattle all have issues with getting their players to the game next week. Seattle can’t send anyone since they play the same night. Who goofed on scheduling things like this?
Andy Najar – Everyone is talking about this kid these days. Let’s just hope MLS and D.C. can hold on to him for a while.	Ruben Luna - I know the talks are on-going in Dallas to sign this kid but Luna has been the academy star in the waiting for a while now. Dallas needs to finalize this deal sooner rather than later.
Revs and Dynamo in SuperLiga - There is something about this young tournament that brings out the best in these two clubs. Let’s just hope it carries over into the league play in a couple weeks too.	SuperLiga - Going in it looked like MLS was doomed in this year’s edition but its turned out not to be the case. Still so much as to be done to make this tournament interesting for those not in New England or Houston.
SUM U-17 Cup – We finally have all 16 clubs participating in this tournament. Want to find the next Andy Najar or Tristan Bown, look no further than to this weekend’s tournament.	Milk Cup – I’m not knocking the importance of this tournament, because it will show off the future of our national team. I’m just a tad more interested in the SUM Cup this year.
Sal Zizzo and Omar Salgado – We know Zizzo is now with Chivas and I’d imagine we’ll know soon enough where the 16-year old Salgado will end up with. Two great young additions to the league.	Young stars still getting away – Zizzo and Salgado are nice but there are still plenty of other young American stars that are constantly getting away from MLS. Hopefully a new reserve league will change that in the near future.
World Cup buzz – It may not be the effect that MLS would be hoping for but the buzz of the World Cup is there in some different ways. I’ve spoken to many new fans of the game and of the league thanks to the World Cup.	Attendance Number Lovers – I get a little tired of seeing folks go so nutty over gate figures. Gate numbers are up for different reasons so there really no reason to get so giddy over the figures as much as we used to here.

Oh SuperLiga…

Drew Epperley — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:30:02 +0000

The one good thing about SuperLiga is seeing American star Jose Torres and Pachuca. (Getty Images)

In case you didn’t know the mid-summer SUM tournament SuperLiga kicks off tomorrow. Its the same setup as before, four MLS teams and four Mexican teams. The Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo, New England Revolution and Chivas USA all will compete against Mexico’s Pachuca, Monarcas Morelia, Pumas UNAL and Puebla.

Again the question comes out, does anyone really care?

Honestly if its not in your local MLS market you probably don’t care a single bit. Hell probably even in some MLS markets that do have it don’t even care. (Excuse me for being rude if you do like this tournament, just giving an honest opinion on the subject.)

I think for once none of the MLS teams really stand a chance in winning this tournament. Chivas and New England may have won their league game this past weekend but their seasons haven’t exactly been anything special. I’d guess New England with all their injury issues this year really don’t need another few games in the middle of the season to play. Houston and Chicago haven’t exactly done anything great this season either come to think of it.

So why do we still have this tournament? Oh yeah, to see SUM make some cash off of the Mexican teams in the MLS markets. Right.

I’m sure SUM envisioned this to be a mini-Europa League type tournament but its far away from that at this point. The tournament once again comes at a time when MLS clubs don’t need an extra set of games while the Mexican teams are in their pre-season mode.

At this point I don’t know if this tournament is even fixable. I know some fans enjoy it (mostly New England or Houston fans) but to the rest of the markets most fans don’t even know of this tournament. That has to change if this will ever get bigger.

Maybe this year’s tournament will surprise me and be interesting but for now I’m not holding my breath.

2010 SuperLiga Schedule Announced

Drew Epperley — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:37:50 +0000

A brief glimpse at this summer’s SuperLiga tournament between four MLS clubs and four Mexican first division clubs was announced today. While we don’t know the four clubs from Mexico we do know that the Houston Dynamo, the Chicago Fire, the New England Revolution and Chivas USA will represent MLS.

I’ll hold back on my excitement for this tournament for another day (note the sarcasm).

Below is the schedule for this year’s tournament with some venus to be announced later on.

Wednesday, July 14

Game 1: Venue TBD – Boston / Foxborough, MA
Game 2: Toyota Park – Bridgeview, IL

Thursday, July 15

Game 3: Robertson Stadium – Houston, TX
Game 4: The Home Depot Center – Carson, CA

Saturday, July 17

Game 5: Toyota Park – Bridgeview, IL
Game 6: Toyota Park – Bridgeview, IL

Sunday, July 18

Game 7: Robertson Stadium – Houston, TX
Game 8: Robertson Stadium – Houston, TX

Tuesday, July 20

Game 9: Venue TBD – Boston / Foxborough, MA
Game 10: Toyota Park – Bridgeview, IL

Wednesday, July 21

Game 11: Robertson Stadium – Houston, TX
Game 12: The Home Depot Center – Carson, CA

Evening Links and Thoughts

Drew Epperley — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:32:18 +0000

Woo, made it to day two with this new concept or idea rather. I know I’ve been a bit quiet today with post, blame the load of actual paying work that I have at the office for that. We also have a couple MLS teams in action tonight, two facing very important matches, and the third being a big time friendly. But more on those in a second.

I mentioned earlier on Twitter that I will be doing a post about each club’s remaining schedule. That may be up by the end of the week. I was hoping to get it out today but again work kept me from getting finished with it. I believe my stopping point was either Dallas or Houston. I do hope to finish it soon though.

Anyways, down to the business at hand, a few links/stories for your evening reading.

2009 SuperLiga Final

Chicago Fire host Tigres UANL of the Mexican Primera Division.- 7pm CST on Telefutura

I would expect nothing less than a Fire win really. I hear the Fire are taking this game serious and from the sound of it so are their supporter’s, which is really good to see. Tough part is until this tournament gets an English broadcast on FSC or something like that no one will care about it (you can watch it online though). I asked folks on Twitter earlier if they cared and those that responded didn’t see too unless they were actually a Fire fan.

CONCACAF Champions League Play-In Round

New York Red Bulls host Trinidadian side W Connection – 8pm EST on FSC

This is big and it is a make or break kind of game. If the Red Bulls win and advance they could at least salvage a little bit of their pathetic season. All they need is a win or even a 0-0 or 1-1 tie to advance. It is that simple. All MLS fans need to get behind New York tonight and hope they advance. If they don’t it will just add fuel to the fire on so many things surround this club.

International Friendly

Seattle Sounders FC host FC Barcelona – 10:30pm EST on ESPN

This should be fun. Tune in to ESPN2 tonight for this one folks. I know Seattle held their own against Chelsea a while back but I would be impressed if they are able to do the same against Barca. If I were Sigi Schmid I would be resting key guys as much as possible in this one, even if it means getting beat. With the playoffs coming up you don’t want to lose someone because of this game.

Jozy Moves To England

Link

The big topic today was Jozy Altidore and all his tweeting about moving to England to play for Hill City. The best part was reading all the reports with quotes from Jozy’s Twitter feed. I guess that is the world we are starting to live in, when players say something on twitter before the press get ahold of them in person.

Cooper Introduced in Germany

Link (to photos)

No need to say much, Cooper is finally over in Europe and looks happy in the process.

Argentina League Season Put On Hold

Link

Wow, big news down in Argentina is that a new season was suppose to start in two weeks. However that has been put on indefinite hold due to a deep financial crisis at many of the clubs. No other actions were announced. This could very well mean we could see a flood of players come north if nothing is resolved soon.

SuperLiga Turns Into SuperFail

Drew Epperley — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:21:21 +0000

Yeah, another anti-SuperLiga post coming up right here. While I won’t complain about the clubs involved this time around or the lack of playing any of these games in Mexico, I will harp a little on how the first round went this year.

Thanks for Daune Rollins for posting this one on his super-Canadian soccer blog the 24th Minute, Rollins listed out the attendance for all the first round games. And as you can imagine the numbers won’t lie that this tournament will need some major changes in the very near future if it even wants to survive.

8,421

11,197

9,126

9,126

9,157

7,411

5,278

9,512

5,378

5,378

7,411

10,385

But where do we go to fix this? Moving the tournament up the calendar a bit to say March? Would that even make a difference? I know having a lot of the games in New England where the fans really could care less about some sub-park Mexican clubs really did a number on the attendence here but this is rather pathetic. Hell even FC Dallas can post better numbers than this tournament.

So is this tournament really worth saving if we are going to see numbers like this? Can SUM really continue to make money on this venture? I highly doubt it.

St. Louis SuperLiga Thoughts

Drew Epperley — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:34:20 +0000

Going back to Friday’s thoughts about the 2009 edition of SuperLiga, I realized that maybe one thing to help improve the tournament’s ability to reach people may be to do what happened in St. Louis this past weekend.

For those who don’t know the city of St. Louis hosted an opening round game for Kansas City since their current stadium was a bit busy with minor league baseball this past weekend.

St. Louis stepped up and hosted a game in a slightly smaller stadium that holds just over 6,000. It turns out that the final number of folks that were there was just a shade over 5,200.

One has to wonder if putting more games in random towns like St. Louis to test out potential MLS markets would work for SuperLiga. One also has to wonder in St. Louis’ case if they would be able to handle a MLS club full-time based on the numbers they pulled in this weekend for the SuperLiga contest. Some have said that even though the announced final attendance was pretty good for the stadium size that there were plenty of noticeable empty seats in the stands.

What do you make of St. Louis as a MLS market now that you’ve seen a fairly big game there? For me I still believe the league needs to be in that market. I know Don Garber agrees still with that even though the money just isn’t there still for a potential owner.

So what do you make of the potential with St. Louis? Also do you believe SuperLiga would be good in other markets that don’t currently have a MLS club? Would that rasie the level of interest any for this tournament?