Rumors about Nate Jaqua coming to Sounders FC...

Dear lord.... Haha the unveilings are done by the teams/leagues, no manufactuer would ever purposefully submit their brand to that kind of mockery... This looks like a Farmhouse dance party circa spring 2005...

Ummm....what did I just watch?

I'm sure it made a lot more sense back in the 70s.

At least it made sense at one point.... I'm not sure about this....

32,000,000+ views for that... incredible.

How long did you have to search for that one? I want the last 3 minutes and 46 seconds of my life back. That was awful.

Rochin 54 bestowed that nugget upon me some years back.... He and 32 million apparently find it hillarious, I think we have about 32 million people who ate paint chips as a baby... Speaking of babies:

Training camp for Sounders FC has begun with Freddy Montero, LeToux, and Jaqua being standouts. Montero is one of the few really young phenoms to come to the MLS instead of going to Europe or a more established league first. I hope he stays more than a year, but, I kind of doubt it...

Former USL Sounder, Cascio, is trying out for the Timbers because he feels like he has a better shot of making the team there...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2008664181_websounders23.html?syndication=rss

It's going to be very interesting how it pans out, everything I've read says the organization is doing it the right way... I played with a handful of the players turning out for the team, and what I've heard from them the squad is going to be pretty damn competitive right off the bat. Also from what I've heard Sigi says this is the best situation he's been in, as far as local excitement surrounding the team, facilities and talent assembled right off the bat. From everything I've read they are pretty much setting the blueprint for the right way to set up a franchise.

They are definitely strong in the midfield (even if Freddy never makes the splash the franchise is hoping), and are gonna be dangerous up front with Montero and Jacqua, the big question is the men setting up shop in front of Keller... But from what I've seen with Sigi, he will definitely be addressing that...

I hope this whole mayor fiasco in PDX doesn't adversely affect the MLS dreams of the city as John Canzano lamented this week... The I-5 rivalry would be pretty exciting to be a part of.

Unfortunately, as viewed by an outsider, John Canzano in his "media" role is as much a problem of publicizing the whole mayor" fiasco" in PDX and linking it to Portland' bid for an MLS expansion team. It seems that he is violating the rule of all reporters regarding reporting the news, not being the news.

Now I am going to ask a question out of naivity not and just to stir the pot. Why aren't the Timbers part of the MLS. They certainly have the fans and from the pictures Ive seen PGE park seems like a good venue. Is the level of play different? Is it a matterr or fees to MLS? I don't know.

Canzano has pretty much made a career out of saying things to get a rise out of people, more so for entertainment than what I would consider responsible journalism. And he pretty much thrives on throwing fire on already contentious situations, a la the Blazers of a few years ago

The MLS and USL are two completely different and separate entities, and the thing that separates the two is skill (although the USL squads always seem to put up some good fights with MLS sides in the US Open Cup and whatnot) and probably more considerably money/advertising. there is a $40 million fee for an MLS franchise just to start and PGE will require additions to be MLS quality, such as adding stands, allowing them to fully encompass the field from at least 3 sides (as of right now the seating only covers 2 sides as it is a baseball grandstand) and some other upgrades.

The league has tried to take expansion at a very slow pace, so as not to spread talent too thin, and haphazardly put teams in places they aren't going to be successful as a business. I certainly hope Portland gets a team, the city will definitely support it and provide a great atmosphere for the game.

Back in 2001, when Civic Stadium was remodeled, a group named Portland Family Entertainment (PFE) bought an existing AAA baseball franchise and moved it here as well as a franchise in what was then the A-League (Now the USL first division). That's how the Timbers came to play in Portland in the league that they do.

There may have been other opportunities to join MLS, but the Beavers and Timbers have not had an owner who was in a position to make a bid until now. It's a long story with many factors, but it turns out PFE had lots of money problems. Eventually the PCL took control of the baseball franchise (don't know what happened with the Timbers). Both franchises were sold to an owner out of state who then sold them to Merritt Paulson a couple years ago. Things are looking much better now that we have an owner who lives in the Portland area and is himself a baseball and soccer fan.

The goal now is to convince the city, who owns the stadium, that it would be a good investment to convert it into a soccer stadium (the biggest change would be adding seats on the open side). Paulson also will have to find the land and funds to build the Beavers a new baseball stadium somewhere.

As for Canzano, in the afternoon it's either him on 95.5 or Dumb and Dumber on The Fan .Good thing there's stations with music.

"Canzano has pretty much made a career out of saying things to get a rise out of people, more so for entertainment than what I would consider responsible journalism."--TruRochin.

So true. He just likes to dis good athletes or sports like Lance Armstrong or soccer to see how many e-mails he will receive the next day.

That's the first time I've heard about the rule that an arena has to have 3 sides encompassing a field for it to be MLS quality. Talk about a lame rule. According to my MLS magazine, the San Jose Earthquakes were temporarily playing at Santa Clara's soccer stadium while waiting for their new arena I believe. After losing the Sonics, I'm not a big fan of arena rules... They only seem to apply to the mid-market or smaller market teams of sports. Fenway Park is a classic place, and apparently Key Arena was a dump. I don't get it.

That's my tangent remark of the day. In time, Portland will get a team. They do have tough competition from Miami from what I understand. The MLS organizers have to like the idea of adding teams in areas with large latino populations like Miami...

There isn't a rule necessarily requiring seats on 3 sides, but as it stands now, the max capacity of seats for PGE is just a shade under 19K... By comparison the sounders already have that amount in season ticket deposits... In order to be competitive the stadium will need to at least approach the 26-30K mark.... Plus by having seats on more sides you can bring more fans closer to the field (and thus charge more for those tickets...)

haha and Key Arena wasn't a dump, it was just small and lacked the big money generating luxury boxes the NBA and their owners so desperately crave... Sigh, I remember going to the Tacoma Dome to watch sonics games when they were renovating the Coliseum... Oh how standards change quickly... I hate David Stern...

Adding the third side of seats was not a rule, just what would be needed to make the stadium bigger. There is a rule that teams must either play in soccer-specific stadiums or an NFL stadium if the owner of the NFL team also owns the MLS club. MLS wants to avoid clubs paying rent to NFL owners.

Speaking of seats on three sides, that was Key Arena's hockey configuration. Word around the WHL is that is was not a good arena for hockey at least. It was fine for basketball when I saw the NCAAs there.

Yeah it was, but they Thunderbirds actually play at a brand new, smaller arena in Kent now...

I saw the Women's World Cup at Civic, and it was fine for soccer then. I would think that if Santa Clara's college field (which had about 10,000 fan in one game) could be a sufficient temporary facility for the MLS' San Jose Earthquakes, then Civic would be just fine too as long as there were definite plans and funding for expansion. There are still plenty of MLS sites that don't completely fill their arenas. I saw a lot of bare seats at the Columbus Crew games that were televised. I think that PDX would have one of the more vibrant fan bases like Toronto and Seattle.

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By the way, I e-mailed the Seattle UP alumni group today, and there are still plans for a group to attend the Sounders FC opener and see Jaqua and Keller play on March 19th... Hopefully, there will be tickets purchased at the group rate in the coming weeks.

Full schedule released today...

http://web.mlsnet.com/schedule/season_print.jsp?team=t260

And here's their whole preseason schedule:

Date Time Game Location
Feb. 9 3:00 at L.A. Galaxy Home Depot Ctr. Fld. 1/2, Carson, Calif. (training game)
Feb. 10 4:00 Shandong Luneng Oxnard College, Oxnard, Calif. (training game)
Feb. 11 7:00 at Ventura County Fusion Buena High School, Ventura, Calif. (public)
Feb. 13 7:00 San Jose Earthquakes Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Calif. (public)
Feb. 20 7:00 at University of Portland Merlo Field, Portland, Ore. (public)
Feb. 22 12:00 Vancouver Whitecaps Qwest Field, Seattle, Wash. (closed)
Feb. 27 TBD Argentina
Feb. 28 TBD Argentina
Mar. 3 TBD Argentina
Mar. 5 TBD Argentina
Mar. 12 7:00 Colorado Rapids Qwest Field, Seattle (closed)

four games with ARgentina? WOW!

Even if it's their "C" team it would be worth seeing.
I may have to break my "no Sounder's game" rule.

DaTruRochin wrote:
Feb. 20 7:00 at University of Portland Merlo Field, Portland, Ore. (public)

This makes my day.
"We'll be coming, we'll be coming, we'll be coming down the roaaaaad....."

Purplegeezer wrote:four games with ARgentina? WOW!

Even if it's their "C" team it would be worth seeing.
I may have to break my "no Sounder's game" rule.

Actually, I think those games are in Argentina. Unless you would like to spend about $975 on a plane ticket to South America to see a pre-season MLS game, that's probably going to be tough to catch...and I don't think they are against the Argentina National Team...

athleticjames wrote:
Actually, I think those games are in Argentina. Unless you would like to spend about $975 on a plane ticket to South America to see a pre-season MLS game, that's probably going to be tough to catch...and I don't think they are against the Argentina National Team...

It might be worth it to go back to Argentina to see some of this:

Boca Juniors vs Newell's Old Boys last spring


But I'm not sure who they'd be playing. It's before the Aperatura begins, so the players will be scattered playing internationals and on loan other places, or vacationing.

Were you actually in the Bombonera?

Easy to see why it's named "the candybox."

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:Were you actually in the Bombonera?

Easy to see why it's named "the candybox."

Indeed, and I noticed that they had signs for one of our Pilot players.
The women's team is followed even down there



The stadium is concrete, and it was oscillating a couple of inches from the fans jumping up and down.
Also notice the Coke sign is in black and white instead of the River colors of red and white.

Notice the 5 tiers of sky boxes on the swell's side? That's what they should do with the Chiles center side of Merlo.

One thing I thought was a little odd - no scoreboard.

That's impressive that they follow the women's team there. The national passion for soccer in South America is amazing... People in Seattle are pretty stoked to see the team on local tv for 21 games. Check out the poll on the website. It's amusing:

http://www.soundersfc.com/

46% think that Portland is the darkhorse city to get an MLS franchise. The rivalry continues...

According to Ticketmaster, kickoff is at 7 pm on the 20th. Tickets on sale 11 am Feb. 2d.

Maybe I'm worrying too much, but how quickly do you think they can build a Latin America-style moat and fence on the Chiles Center side? Just sayin'.