The MLS Thread?

[Navafan29]

So does anyone here care about MLS? I got a sudden urge to become a New England Revolution fan. Going to my first MLS game this Saturday.

[gojohn99]

I would like to take my kids, but the game dates have not worked out for me.

[Navafan29]

So I have to say, I had a great time at the Revolution game. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys soccer on TV. When you're there, all the little passes and midfield stuff is interesting. You just have to get used to the low amount of scoring chances in the sport. It's really all about creating scoring chances, instead of constant scoring chance after scoring chance like all the other sports. But the fewer scoring chances makes the ones that do happen more exciting. I had $30 seats in Section 104 towards the middle and somewhat up, and the view was good. The fans there were all kinds of people: rowdy jocks, soccer nerds, families, etc. The Porch seems to be a standing room area behind one of the goals where all the rowdy fans go. My only complaint is that the NFL markings were on the field; I got used to it after a while though.

 

Revolution goalie Shuttleworth played really well and saved our butts a few times. New-to-MLS superstar Jermaine Jones was really fun to watch. He's so good under pressure and can really create scoring chances. He even scored the Revs' game winning goal! The win was important and kept the Revs safely in a playoff spot for now. Here's a recap of the game:

[Navafan29]

Doubt anyone cares, but I went to the final regular season Revs game of the year on Saturday. Another good game. They won 1-0, however it really should have been 2-0 because the Revs came extremely close to scoring about 3 times amid their scoring chances. An exciting game throughout even though only 1 goal was scored because of the closeness of the game. Lee Nguyen scored the goal. He scores seemingly every game winning goal; it's ridiculous.

 

Revs finished 2nd in the eastern conference with a 17-13-4 record (55 points). They will not have to play in the wild card game and will face the Columbus Crew, which is a team they are pretty evenly matched against, in their opening playoff round. It will be a two game aggregate-goal series, which means that the teams play two games and the winner is the team that scores the most goals total across both games. You could think of it as a giant 180 minute game where the first 90 minutes are played in one team's stadium and the last 90 minutes in the other team's stadium. The Revolution will play the first game of what I just described away this Saturday (November 1st) at 4 PM, and then host the second leg on Sunday November 9th at 5 PM. Games should be on Comcast Sportsnet or ESPN 2.

[Navafan29]

New York City has a new MLS team this year, uncreatively named New York City FC. Their home games will be at Yankee Stadium. I think the grounds crew will have to get rid of the infield dirt to make room for the soccer field before every soccer home game, and rebuild it for baseball afterwards. 22 Soccer players running around is gonna wreck the field.

[Ogden]

I don't know if they tore it up tonight, but the field surface looked great.

[pruneface]

The Sox may end up being a MLS team this year - a major league SOFTBALL team. Perhaps this thread could be redirected to the regular season forum. I fully expect the Sox to acquire a pitcher before the deadline, whether a rental or something longer. Ditto this offseason. For now, I'm content with seeing what this rotation can do the first 2 months of the season.