Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Not pushing -- but maybe eyeing -- the PANIC button...?
Whew, a whole week between posts...that's not part of the plan. Well, how about I blame it on the bike accident I got into on Sunday? Riding west down M St. in Georgetown, a French tourist's ill-timed opening of her cab door sent me crashing headfirst into a parked Nissan and even now I feel woozy and sore. And then I tweaked a quad playing indoor on Tuesday! Wahhh! Yeah, yeah, that's it: all that's why I haven't been posting lately.
But it's not as if there's been any shortage of online commentary or speculation about DC United this week. Perusing the local footie blogosphere in the wake of United's 0-4 whupping at the hands of Real Salt Lake (!) reveals, to me at least, a small but growing sense of concern among fans and observers. The DCU fan base is by and large a savvy one, and we all know it's April and this marathon runs until November, but I note a couple of meta-issues percolating, mainly:
* Is Gallardo overpaid and undermotivated? Why'd they trade Gomez, anyway?
* Is something wrong with Emilio? Sophomore slump, or maybe things just aren't the same since the unhappiness linked to a misunderstanding of his contract structure in the offseason?
* Does Soehn know what he's doing?
* If CONCACAF success was such a big deal to the club, SHOULDN'T the fans be peeved about crashing out of the Champions Cup?
* What are the blood/guts of this team all about, anyway? That is, how much of the heart and soul, p*ss and vinegar, etc. is missing with Ben Olsen stuck in the trainer's room?
Interesting topics, all. I'm certainly not the one to attempt to answer them at this point. But since there's an incendiary quality to some of these ideas, I will say that 1) I don't think Gallardo is overpaid -- but he still has to prove that he can impact this league the way Christian Gomez did, and still does. And 2) I do think Soehn does know what he's doing and has the full confidence of Payne and the ownership, so it's almost cute to see United fans approaching their MLS team with enough devotion and ambition to suggest that the head coach is anywhere near the hot seat.
How very worldly and cosmopolitan that would be! Yet many players are drawn to play in this country specifically because the game is not held in the insane environment, and frenzied regard, that it is elsewhere. I am presently working up an MLSnet piece about Gonzalo Peralta, United's big new center back -- who grew up in the futbol hotbed of Buenos Aires, Argentina, but clearly relishes the opportunity to play in the USA -- and here's one of the statements that struck me in our interview:
"This is a big team, they’ve always been champions, so you have pressure," he said of playing for DC United. "But I think in my country the fans are crazy – the president, everyone is crazy. So maybe here they think more of people first. I think it’s better."
But I digress. I think the themes listed above will come up again this season, unless the team reels off an extended stretch of domination akin to the summer of '06. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing how the squad looks tomorrow night against Columbus, on "Priiiiiiiiiiiimetime Thursday" -- and in the back of my mind I have this sneaky suspicion that former United stalwart Brian Carroll will do something noteworthy in his first trip back to RFK.
More tomorrow -- vaya con dios ...
But it's not as if there's been any shortage of online commentary or speculation about DC United this week. Perusing the local footie blogosphere in the wake of United's 0-4 whupping at the hands of Real Salt Lake (!) reveals, to me at least, a small but growing sense of concern among fans and observers. The DCU fan base is by and large a savvy one, and we all know it's April and this marathon runs until November, but I note a couple of meta-issues percolating, mainly:
* Is Gallardo overpaid and undermotivated? Why'd they trade Gomez, anyway?
* Is something wrong with Emilio? Sophomore slump, or maybe things just aren't the same since the unhappiness linked to a misunderstanding of his contract structure in the offseason?
* Does Soehn know what he's doing?
* If CONCACAF success was such a big deal to the club, SHOULDN'T the fans be peeved about crashing out of the Champions Cup?
* What are the blood/guts of this team all about, anyway? That is, how much of the heart and soul, p*ss and vinegar, etc. is missing with Ben Olsen stuck in the trainer's room?
Interesting topics, all. I'm certainly not the one to attempt to answer them at this point. But since there's an incendiary quality to some of these ideas, I will say that 1) I don't think Gallardo is overpaid -- but he still has to prove that he can impact this league the way Christian Gomez did, and still does. And 2) I do think Soehn does know what he's doing and has the full confidence of Payne and the ownership, so it's almost cute to see United fans approaching their MLS team with enough devotion and ambition to suggest that the head coach is anywhere near the hot seat.
How very worldly and cosmopolitan that would be! Yet many players are drawn to play in this country specifically because the game is not held in the insane environment, and frenzied regard, that it is elsewhere. I am presently working up an MLSnet piece about Gonzalo Peralta, United's big new center back -- who grew up in the futbol hotbed of Buenos Aires, Argentina, but clearly relishes the opportunity to play in the USA -- and here's one of the statements that struck me in our interview:
"This is a big team, they’ve always been champions, so you have pressure," he said of playing for DC United. "But I think in my country the fans are crazy – the president, everyone is crazy. So maybe here they think more of people first. I think it’s better."
But I digress. I think the themes listed above will come up again this season, unless the team reels off an extended stretch of domination akin to the summer of '06. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing how the squad looks tomorrow night against Columbus, on "Priiiiiiiiiiiimetime Thursday" -- and in the back of my mind I have this sneaky suspicion that former United stalwart Brian Carroll will do something noteworthy in his first trip back to RFK.
More tomorrow -- vaya con dios ...
Comment posted by Charles Boehm @ 3:37 PM 
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