Summer Vacation

June 12, 2013 — Leave a comment

Hi folks:

I will be traveling a ton over the next three weeks so there won’t be any new Big Question Shows for the rest of June. My apologies to those who were looking forward to new shows.

Thanks so much, as always, for tuning into the Big Question Show each week. I can’t tell you how much Trevor and myself appreciate your time and your contributions that help make the show successful.

The show will be back in July and August with all new topics and guests as MLS enters its playoff chase and the European leagues start back up.

 

Le Mans 24h Race - Race

I’m going to be a bit more quiet for the next week or so as I’ll be in Europe attending the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race, visiting the D-Day beaches on Normandy, and attempting to eat every mussel in the country of Belgium.

The show will be back in July with all new topics and guests.

For more on the 24 Hours of Le Mans, probably my favorite sporting event on the planet, please take a look at the videos below. Continue Reading…

Vergara

From the moment Jorge Vergara began aggressively “re-Mexican’izing” Chivas USA both on and off the field, a discrimination lawsuit against Chivas USA for its hiring and personnel practices appeared inevitable. While it may be legal in Mexico to explicitly staff a team and front office solely from a single ethnic group, that is not the case in the United States. In addition, it would only take a cursory reading of the English-language material that exists about Jorge Vergara to know that any sports organization run by him would be so ham-handed and obvious in chasing the Caucasians off of the playing and coaching staff that a discrimination suit was really just a matter of time. It turns out that today is that time.

The suit announced today by the firm representing former CUSA coaches Dan Calichman and Ted Chronopoulos alleges nothing that wasn’t already suspected or outright known within the American soccer community. CUSA explicitly and intentionally sought to rid its staff of non-Mexican and non-Latino members. The on-field effects have been obvious during the past season as non-Mexican players were released or shipped out, often for very little in return.

What surprises me about this suit is not that it was filed, but that it was filed by coaches rather than players. I had figured that some players released by CUSA and unable to find new MLS spots would, with support of the players union, file suit against CUSA and MLS because, under MLS’ single entity structure, the league is as much the employer in question as the club. That fact makes any suit by players against MLS or its clubs much more complicated.  But coaches are hired by clubs as conventional salaried employees just like myself and like most of you reading this. The importance of it being coaches filing this case is that it makes the case a much more simple one to understand and, in the end, a more simple one for a judge to decide – if it ever comes to that, which I doubt it ever will.

On to the allegations. Continue Reading…

Can a team like Liverpool win the Champions League again or has the era of the "super club" taken off without them?

Can a team like Liverpool win the Champions League again, or has the era of the “super club” taken off without them?

 

Last week on the Guardian’s website, Jonathan Wilson quantified something that I had held a hunch was true for a long time. His analysis shows that the  final stages of the Champions League are being contested by fewer and fewer teams. These teams, located in England, Spain, Germany, Italy and (if PSG continues) France, constitute a new global “super-elite” that stands to both dominate the final stages of the Champions League, but that also (and, more destructively potentially) stand to dominate their respective domestic leagues. I put Wilson’s data into a simple chart. Continue Reading…

Don’t watch this for me, watch this to see my friend, and Soccer Morning host, Jason Davis squirm like crazy every time I insult someone. It’s high comedy.

The denial MLS circulated today has a hole large enough to drive a semi through. It carefully makes clear that MLS supports the current owner and denies that that owner is moving Chivas USA anywhere.

But what does it say about another owner moving the team?

I stand by what I wrote completely.

Atlanta and its eventual planned replacement for the Georgia Dome appear to be candidates join MLS sooner rather than later.

Atlanta and its planned replacement for the Georgia Dome appear to be candidates join MLS sooner rather than later.

I had a nice discussion today with a source familiar with the widely reported process underway that has Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim buying Chivas Guadalajara from Jorge Vergara. During that conversation I gleaned a bit of information about where MLS is thinking Chivas USA (CUSA) could end up.

That said, before we get to where CUSA might move, there is the pesky reality that CUSA’s valuation is apparently proving to be a point of contention between Vergara and Slim. Slim does not want to purchase an MLS team, which means that MLS needs to find a new investor/operator for the team fairly rapidly.

Beyond just the issue of the MLS club, I’ve been told could still be potential snags that could delay or derail the sale of Chivas Guadalajara and its assets to Slim. That said, I’ve been told that the sale could be announced within 12 hours if no eleventh-hour surprises emerge.

But on to the fun part, and that’s examining where CUSA could move. Here’s what I know about the cities/regions that are currently in play. Continue Reading…

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I’ve been pretty vocal that I don’t think DC United’s management group, hemorrhaging money everyday at RFK and distracted by the current success of partner Jason Levien‘s Memphis Grizzlies, wouldn’t fire coach Ben Olsen or GM Dave Kasper. Since arriving, all United’s new ownership group has done is cut costs and that has now shown dramatically on the field. Last night, though, prominent American soccer agent Robert Colosia, tweeted the following.

Continue Reading…

“The World Cup is more than just stadiums. It’s an array of social and cultural activities around the competition. It’s not rational and reasonable to play in June-July.”

 

Sepp Blatter, speaking to L’Equipe about Qatar 2022

Spring Cleaning

May 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

So I’ve updated and redesigned the site here in order to make it a little simpler for me to post something without having to spend forever formatting text and photos in order to make it look halfway decent. This new template allows me to do just that and hopefully will lead to me actually get some more content on this site.

Don’t worry, nothing is changing about the show. This is purely a change to my little site to make it a bit easier for me to post stuff that is a bit too long for a tweet.

If, in using the site, you find you’re having problems with it, please let me know by tweeting me or using the contact form at the top of the page.