The State of Football (soccer) in the UK

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Aadik

true dat. I don't know about San Jose- think about it this way- the best player by a mile (donavon, who has genuine world class potentiaL) was being recruited by Portsmouth- bottom feeders who are likely to end up in D1 when its all said and done. Mind you, 2 years from now- Leverkusen is going to have themselves a damn good player (When his loan expires). For now though, if the best player in the league is only attracting attention as a part time starter on a bottom feeder, I doubt they could hang in the league. I think US team in the Copa would be nice- I think them competing in the haphazard hell that is the Copa America consistently would be another good step. More so, there's a lot of potential here for football - and I think the MLS is slowly gaining mainstream acceptance, and will feel it moreso when today 15-16 year old enter the potential market.

Well I was using San Jose as an example since they won it all. Obviously MLS has talent as exports Tim Howard and Carlos Bocanegra attest. Just because they don't all end up playing in the EPL doesn't mean they aren't talent worthy. I haven't seen a whole lot of players from RKC Waalwijk make an impact in the EPL either. I thought we were talking about the ability to compete in a mid-level Euro league?

[condors]

the bruce arena coached dc united squads that won 3 titles in 4 years had alot of talent that has performed for national teams. It is a shame not many people saw the team compete as it played the game at a high level. That team did compete successfully against teams from south america (in the cups that they compete in) this success hasn't been repeated although sj did ok a couple years back, i think a problem is the best players in the mls will move on so while the teams may get a class player he won't stay there makes it tough. I am a crew fan and my favorite player on the team was brian mcbride. I am no longer be able to see him play on a regular basis. I am happy for him as a player to get to play in the premiership for fulham but the hardest working team is going to have to work a little harder without him. If the team recieved X amount of dollars and was able to put that back into the squad it wouldn't bother me as much but the mls the league gets the money and gives out compensation.

I really hope freddy adu brings more attention to the mls and maybe that will help the league but if he is as good as advertised he will be overseas playing when he is considered good enough for first team football

[OldGiants]

Just a few stray thoughts:

1) The BBC website offers live radio coverage of matches. Its hit-or-miss, but sometimes there's a good match on.

2) Mexican futbol sucks big time. Sunday afternoon broadcasts are from largely empty stadiums and the play is of the "one touch, straight to the opposition" variety. Other than the cool Puma logo, I can't get all that involved in the play.

3) ESPN2 Champions League broadcast is, at best, only every other week, istn't it?

4) In the Baltimore-Richmond area, Comcast shows tapes of Sunday EPL games on Wednesday at 1PM, which is pretty much for me, other than listening to the scrambled pay-per-view broadcasts.

[Crapshoot]

Regarding 3- right now, that's because the matches are every two weeks. They show one champions league match here for every week in which there is a fixture(s).