A press release from Major League Soccer says that Shalrie Joseph has been replaced on the All Star roster by Will Johnson of Real Salt Lake. So what does this mean? Will Joseph play tonite against the Dynamo or is he just getting a break from the All Star game based on his injuries.
Find out at Robertson Stadium…..
Glenn- did you catch RSL vs. FCDallas last night?
FCD came out flying, should have been 4-O at half.
Can\’t get handel on FCD. Have good roster, play great in spurts, but can\’t get results.
Cunningham a complete enigma.His opening goal was pure effort and desire. Fought off defender after stealing ball and slots it in .Then he misses point blank shot shortly after. With the game on the line in second half , he can\’t convert pk.
That loss killed any chance of FCD grabbing play off spot.
Comment by William — July 25, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
Glenn. Does ESPN pay you everytime you talk about the Seattle atmosphere? Give it a rest man, everyone effing gets it already.
Comment by Tim — July 25, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Looks like Nichol will rest Joseph until the second half if the game stays close. All the more reason for our forwards to step it up at home and finish some attempts. After watching all the point blank missed goals today in Qwest and last night in Rio Tinto, maybe I\’m expecting too much but it sure would be nice to see a scoring deluge against a depleted Revs defense tonight. No Parkhurst anymore, Heaps, Albright, and several others all out injured, no excuse for us not scoring at least two even if we don\’t have Holden, Weaver, or Ching up front. Did you ever address your feelings about our lack of scoring from our strikers recently?
Comment by Bart-1 — July 25, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
Glenn, I really get frustrated watching some of the games you call. While I really enjoy your commentary, I do NOT agree with your calls. (And please tell your co-commentator how to pronounce Jaqua-please). The Chicago/Seattle game.
I would truly enjoy your honest comment. I am insulted by the comments about Blanco! He may have been an awesome player, I see how he can pass and read the game, BUT he really smells bad and takes dives. If someone had hit Blanco like Jlunberg(sp) was hit during today’s game, can you honestly say that B would not have been screaming that they get a RED card, but instead the (poor) Ref carded Ljundberg and sent him off.
I am truly troubled by the referring I see. Honestly, you must also be. Blanco falls to the ground and does not get called, and then he whispers in the refs ear. You have to acknowledge this. He does not play defense? I do not know what kind of player he ‘was’ but he constantly takes dives and is not called for them. I do not care what anyone pays him, nor do I care about what type of skills he may have had, he is a flopper! And he stinks!
If teams have designated players (or whatever they are called) then they need to play. Houston has been and continues to be successful with the skilled players they have. They play. Ching gets mauled game after game! Should he get special calls if his salary were 10 times what it is. While I like Beckam, he still plays the game, takes hits and carries on (no matter what his salary). I’d like to see you expect the same from all players, including Blanco. He’s a flopper and he stinks!
Comment by Noreen — July 25, 2009 @ 7:09 pm
Tim, don’t get mad at Glenn for recognizing the great atmosphere that Seattle has, they are the best hands down, and there’s nothing to it, up until last year it was Galaxy and Toronto and now Seattle is the best, they probably will average more fans if they allow more seats to be opened up in the 2nd level of Qwest, and sell more season tickets, it will allow their fans to buy more individual game tickets and mini plans and day game purchases!
They are the team that sets the bar!
When KC gets the Trails they might join that 18K-20K range since their 10K minor league stadium is almost always sold out, trust me all Glenn wants is for the rest of the league to take notice and respond like good competitors, market it well, tap into the grass roots and get those thousands of families that play on the weekend to come to the games, and also put on a good product!
Comment by Edwin — July 25, 2009 @ 8:20 pm
Glenn,
After watching the game today, I have decided that from today on, I will watch all ESPN matches with the Mute button on. The Seattle fan novelty is getting old fast. They have a great atmosphere, and I will be the first to admit it, since I was there last Saturday for the Chelsea/Seattle match, but enough with it already. If I didn’t know any better, I would have assumed that you and Martino were employees of the Seattle Sounders FC. I know that you enjoy the atmosphere and that it is good for the game, but enough with it. We get it. Tell us more about the game that is going on, because the production guys miss plays because they want to show replays, and there are times the cameras are showing fans and not the game. Also, if you want to show Seattle fan, show attractive fans and not fat chicks or dudes with their shirts off showing their tattoos!
Secondly, Kyle Martino has to be the dumbest announcer I have ever had to listen to. He is worse that Alexi Lalas and Tommy Smythe combined! I would rather listen to the Vuvuzuelas in South Africa that that moron. First, he talks about how great a teammate David Beckham was in Martino’s 15 minutes of fame and then he says he doesn’t want to comment on things. Second, that idiot had the gall to say that Seadorf’s goal last night against Chelsea was better than the Drogba goal. What game was he watching? Drogba hits a shot from 40 yards off the turn into the upper 90 back stick, and Seadorf hits one from the top of the box set up on a platter from Ronaldinho. Both were great shots, but Drogba’s shot was unreal, and for Martino to think that Seadorf’s was better shows that he truly is a complete and utter moron.
It is people like Martino (who I have complained about before) and Alexi Lalas that make watching soccer in this country difficult and turns off new fans to the game. I am sorry, but we don’t care about Starbucks in Seattle or other unimportant facts about the city. Also, I don’t want to hear him talk about how great players are and then watch them openly show dissent to the official. Don’t be afraid to tell the truth and that players should shut up and play.
John Thorrington is a nice player to have on your team when he is getting calls for him. When he doesn’t get those calls, he takes stupid yellow cards, like he did today, which allowed for him to be sent off for the foul in the second half. Freddie Ljunberg goes off on the official and all we hear is how Non-American players can get away with that once or twice. I am sorry, but I don’t teach my players to talk to officials, and I am sick and tired of seeing players do this and not be called out for it. Good for Toledo for sending him off for dissent! Shame on you and Martino for not calling out Freddie for his stupidity and how it hurt his team in the long run!
There, I feel better!
Comment by Coach H — July 25, 2009 @ 11:13 pm
For the love of god, would you just admit that you can\’t take anyone saying anything that is not positive towards your Chelsea boys already Coach H!
So Martino likes Seedorf\’s goal better than Drogba\’s, so what?
Seedorf had to get thru some traffic while Drogba had much more space due to AC Milan\’s innability to close gaps and actully putting pressure on him, let the guy have an opinion!
If you don\’t like the camera angles for ESPN, might want to comment on it on ESPN\’s soccernet.com or send them an email!
Did it ever occur to you that they are trying to show the cora fans and how passionate they are, you really want them showing nothing but sexy attractive woman? What do you think this is boxing or UFC?
That\’s what the cheerleaders are for! Let it go, it sounds very masogenistic and sexist and in case you forgot soccer is a family sport above all, I wonder how your kids parents would feel about your position, probably not too thrilled about it!
Don\’t let your passion get the best of you, is the same thing that happens to fans who throw stuff at players, I hope you don\’t agree with that!
You read the Chron.com, I wonder if you have an avatar that you comment with, and honestly the constant reminder of how great the atmosphere is in Seattle is needed so that the soccer haters and trolls see that indeed the beautiful game is here to stay, and that no is not a \
Comment by Edwin — July 26, 2009 @ 12:32 am
continue….
an “immigrant’s sport” or something that mainstream America doesn’t concern with!
I didn’t hear you being so upset when Ballack, Drogba and Anelka went crazy on the ref at the Champions League semi?
I already know how you feel about the unjust performance of the ref or lack there of, but Drogba, Anelka and Ballack took it too far getting in the ref’s face, specially Ballack when he was the 1st to have a handball not called in the beginning that would have changed everything!
You don’t like Seattle’s atmosphere, then rally the troops and get Rob filled up more often, they aren’t even in the top 5 in fans! Both LA teams, Seattle, Toronto and REAL SALT LAKE for the love of god!
DC with the crappy situation there are on the heels of the Dynamo, Houston can only get 2K more fans than Columbus? If Chicago didn’t have such an akward year the Dynamo would the the middle team!
MLS is not too far from some of the leagues in Europe as far as attendance, and with teams like Philly, Portland and Vancouver coming in with stadiums and great fan bases, look for the trend to keep going up, Philly has about 10K season tickets sold already, they can easily crack the top 5 if they keep up that type of fan base!
If LAG gets to their winning ways there will be 3 teams with 20K+ fans a game and 2 with almost 30 every game!
Chicago, Houston and Dallas have to step it up, Chicago has to figure out how to get more fans at Toyota Park, Houston needs a stadium and also get more fans to the games and Dallas needs well a new owner maybe and all sorts of CPR like help, I think they need to stop the DP experiment or find the right one!
Columbus will keep growing because of the great team they have, hopefully they win in CCL, they need a good academy to feed off of!
Let’s not knock on Seattle’s great season, lets match it and try to beat them, Houston already lost 2, 1 more chance at home, and possible playoffs could mean 2 more meetings, so we’ll see!
Comment by Edwin — July 26, 2009 @ 12:50 am
I agree with Edwin…be happy with the commentators you get…Seattle has a great environment and guess what? They deserve all the praise that they get…What you have to understand is that Glenn has to comment in every game as if the viewers are new to the game and havent seen a past match! Give it a rest people, instead of criticizing Glenn how about trying to make Houston’s atmosphere just as great…Eh…Flame on i could careless
Comment by Leo — July 26, 2009 @ 1:30 am
not that i need to remind y’all but remember game 2morrow at 2pm!!!! MEX v. US GOLD CUP FINAL!!!!! Will be shown on Univision (Spanish) and Fox Soccer Channel (English)!!!!
Comment by Leo — July 26, 2009 @ 3:00 am
Edwin,
I thought you were a reasonable soccer fan, but then again, I remembered that you are a Barcelona fan and it all comes back to me. Go back and read what I wrote. With Martino, it is not that he liked Seadorf’s goal better than Drogba’s. It was that he thought it was a better goal, which any unbiased soccer fan will admit is a crock of you know what! Had the goals been reversed and he said that Drogba’s was better, I would say the same thing! It is not that he likes a team more or less, it is that he is just an idiot when it comes to the game. Perhaps that is why he isn’t playing anymore, but you will defend him, since he played for the Gaylaxy!
In regards to surrounding the official, you bet I was mad with the way that Chelsea did that in the Champions League Final and I called out Ballack for acting like a moron. Drogba got what he deserved as well. The fact of the matter is that neither Glenn, nor Martino said anything about Ljunberg making a selfish decision to go after the official after he was booked for simulation. Eric Wynalda would have been all over his case, as well as Thorrington’s case for his needless yellow card for dissent in the first half, but then again, ESPN doesn’t want an announcer to be truthful. We want announcers that talk about crowds and and cities, call cheats great players who are just misunderstood here in MLS, and make sure that no one says anything bad about David Beckham! It is an insult to American Football fans, and if this is the best we have, like Leo says, then the state of football on ESPN is a joke! But then again, they talk about being a great soccer network, then put Jim Rome on the air after a game saluting the Mens National Team with a Capri Sun! Way to go guys for calling him out on that!
As for the fans, Edwin, you have to be kidding me that LA has a better fan base than Houston does. That team was struggling to get people in the door, despite AEG doing everything they could to make it happen. The only time people started going to games is when they signed Beckham. What a load of front running, get their late, leave early, bash my team and players, low lifes are Gaylaxy fans! If you think there were just 16k at the Dynamo game last night, you have to get your head examined. The stadium look and felt like a 21 to 22K crowd last night, but then again, we wouldn’t want Houston to supplant a fan base like the mighty LA!
If we want this sport to grow here in the states, then we have to be truthful and not be afraid to tell the truth, even when it might hurt someone’s feelings. Listen to La Liga or EPL matches and those announcers will not hesitate to tell you the truth, even if it is not the popular opinion, unless you listen to Ray Hudson and that guy is seriously in love with Leo Messi. I can’t wait to hear about his man crush on Ronaldo all season long on Gol TV!
Anyway, off to Dallas for my 3rd Chelsea game of the trip. Any time you want to talk to a passionate soccer fan, just let me know and we can talk!
Comment by Coach H — July 26, 2009 @ 6:57 am
Funny, you call me unreasonable and call your self passionate fan, well let me see so far you’ve call me unreasonable, and you base it on the fact that I’m a Barcelona fan, gee I guess the most entertaining team in the world playing the most beautiful soccer around is a bad choice to be a fan of?
Oh and you call the team in LA, the 2nd most successful team in MLS BTW, who actually had a nice feud with your team when it won 2 MLS Cups, Oh BTW several of the Dynamo players are Galaxy rejects!
So yeah what did you call them? Gaylaxy? A little homophobic aren’t we?
Good for you to call out Ballack and Drogba, although I don’t remember you saying anything other than how Barca didn’t deserve to win and how Chelsea was the better team for having successful tactics, blah blah blah!
Martino can be a somewhat bad announcer but he was a pro player so I’ll trust him till I see him in action and listen to him at least a few games.
About criticizing our fans, look up the stats buddy, the Galaxy have been leading the MLS in attendance since about 2003, I believe they barely missed the #1 spot in 02 and were in the top 4 between in 01
Here’s how the Galaxy has done in attendance:
1996: 1st
1997: 2nd
1998: 1st
1999: 2nd
2000: 1st
2001: 4th
2002: 2nd
2003: 1st
2004: 1st
2005: 1st
2006: 1st
2007: 1st
2008: 1st
And now that Beckham’s back guess what, they’ll take sole posession of 2nd place, the only team that will have a better fan base is Seattle and it will stay that way till they get their own stadium and if that stadium is smaller, which we all know probably won’t happen since Qwest is owned the the Sounders and is great for soccer minus the turf, which in time might be put in place. So yeah LA not only has better fan base than Houston, they hold their team accountable for not winning yes they booed David, would you rather have them cheer him on like nothing happened?
Almost everyone who has sense and knows about soccer is well aware that it was the right thing to do by LA fans, including Glenn I might add, the only thing that shouldn’t of happen was the idiot jumping onto the field!
I don’t believe Rob even broke 16K, actually they barely broke 15K, so yeah might want to check your facts, it might look full on TV if all the fans were seating on the bottom part of the stadium, which most likely is the case, specially since the goal lines are the cheapest tix and fill up the quickest.
Let it go man, Glenn is trying to prove the new watcher on ESPN how great soccer is, and how great it can be in their specific city if they were to start to follow it.
Comment by Edwin — July 26, 2009 @ 9:14 am
Now people let’s stop arguing and lets be honest. We can only compare Houston Dynamo with LA Galaxy in 2006, 2007, and 2008 so let us look at the statistics.
Avg. Attendance for LA: 20,814/24,252/26,000+
Avg. Attendance for Dynamo: 18,935/15,883/16,939 but for the playoffs it has been 20,274/30,530/30,053
So there we go those are the stats, but when we compare those three years using on-field performance we’ll get LA Galaxy no MLS Cups/Playoffs, and Houston Dynamo 2 MLS Cups/3 Playoffs. International Competition has Dynamo making 1 Superliga Semi,1 Superliga Final, 2 CONCACAF Champions’ Cup Semis, and 1 CONCACAF Champions’ League Quarterfinal, while the Galaxy only has 1 Superiga Final and a CONCACAF Champions’ Cup Quarterfinal. So if we compare on-field performance Dynamo is superior all without spending outrageous amounts on players.
Chelsea and Barca both play good football, and well the Champions League already passed so lets let that go. Barca won the UCL so even if we don’t like them we have to give them props because they also took La Liga and Copa Del Rey so clearly it wasn’t just all good luck!
I have on thing we can agree on and I’m pretty sure both Edwin and Coach H will agree Pachuca is the best football team in the world and Mexico will win Gold Cup today.
See I’m willing to take all the flaming rather than seeing two great posters fight each other like a bunch of whinny ManU fans!
Comment by Leo — July 26, 2009 @ 11:23 am
Leo, I believe the alegation was that the Galaxy or Gaylaxy as Coach H likes to call them was struggling to get people to the HDC, if anything you are much more accurate on your way of comparing the two teams but he actually challenged the fan base size not the quality of the team, and well what can I tell you, a team can’t always win, but the Galaxy did make the playoffs for the 1st 10 years of the league, the only team to do that, even if you combine the earthquakes and Houston!
US vs Mexico are playing a very tight match, Medina is garbage unless he’s going down the flank to make a secondary assist and he hardly ever does that properly, this is a very questionable US team vs a talented Mexico team, Dos Santos is the only guy who is worthy right now. Torrado I don’t know why is captain, and he is a starter for Mexico has been unless he gets his dirty behind suspended, Gio started at least 6 qualifiers between the 1st 5 in hexagonal and the 8 previous ones!
Pinto has started twice in qualifying I believe, Magallon was a starter when Galindo went down, and Medina has started too.
I believe Valenzuela started some games as well, “Gringo” Castro started in the World Cup I don’t know what happened to him after that, Carlos Vela started I think 4 qualifiers so I expect Mexico to play better than this, but I’m glad is a clean game so far, a little nudge from Torrado on Ching, but I can live with that!
Comment by Edwin — July 26, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
Glenn, after attending the Dynamo match at Qwest and then getting back in the Rob last night (after way too long!) I have to say that we all need to step it up. The Dynamo need to make the stadium experience more professional (I know it’s not easy in Robertson). Pre game, stadium announcing, halftime, etc. is all rinky-dink in comparison. Us fans need to step it up as well. Seriously, what did the crowd do to make a difference last night? That crowd in Seattle makes a difference on the field and it’s not just the numbers. If I stand for too long (and I have to in order to see the corner kicks) people behind start complaining. It starts by making the presentation of the event more professional, and we must get TA and EB back on the same side of the stadium so they don’t look and sound so small. As for getting the rest of the stadium to pick it up, I don’t have the answers but the question is, are we giving our club our “full 90?” I think we can do better.
Comment by Garret — July 26, 2009 @ 3:22 pm
Mexico won…looked like a tight game…US put on a good game…enough said…
Comment by Leo — July 26, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Leo, I have to congratulate you on a great win!
I hate Bob Bradley, he really needs to learn how to choose his players, Jay Heaps was exposed, Goodson and Marshall were also exposed for the inexperienced players they are and the midfield also had no experience and no one could calm that team down!
Where was Jose Francisco Torres, Damarcus Beasley and Benny Feilhaber, all players who could use the games and have experience as of late or veteran years!
Why not use Jozy?
Hell why not make sure they tighten up the defense after the 1st goal, hell after the 2nd goal?
I’m not happy at all, not because we lost, but because it was a shame that it looked like they gave up after the 1st goal, poor poor consistancy!
Comment by Edwin — July 26, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
I agree Edwin, the worse mistake that I saw Bradley commit was leaving El Gringo Francisco Torres at home…I mean I’m happy that he’ll be available for Pachuca’s Champions’ League Qualifying but its not worth it…I mean I love El Tri and hate The USMNT but in all honesty Five to Zero is a joke…Gringo could’ve used the experience
Comment by Leo — July 26, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
He would have done more than Pause I tell you that, for all the size preference Bob has, his big guys in Marhsall, Beckerman and Goodson sure came short!
There’s no reason why Jozy and Davies weren’t in this tournament the whole way, Torres, hell Beasley could of helped much more, I would have liked to see Marvell Wynne better than Heaps, he is done and has no future in his career the guy is 32!
Why on earth not play guys like Feilhaber, treat the tournament like is not important and now you got embarrased, I just don’t want Bob to get a new contract after SA, he is only there because he is American and quite frankly is not enough!
Comment by Edwin — July 26, 2009 @ 5:32 pm