Caught in Possession

As the DC United world turns its collective focus to tonight's game against the Chitown Fire at RFK, I thought I'd share a couple of quotes I got from Tuesday's Volkswagen sponsorship announcement that are just too good to leave in the can, to use a bit of journo-speak.

Right after the press conference Victor MacFarlane, United's principal investor, was asked if he owned a Volkswagen. MacFarlane is probably the richest person I've ever spoken with and in the real estate world he carries about as much weight as anyone in the U.S., but he still manages to exude a benevolent, engaging sort of alpha-dogness -- something akin to a blend of Daddy Warbucks and Richard Roundtree -- and his (relatively) honest answer to the question was entertaining:

"Actually, I don’t own a Volkswagen but I do own Volkswagen corporation products. My car, unfortunately, is a Bentley, not a Volkswagen. But they do own Bentley!"

I can only hope that I someday have the good fortune to utter the words, "my car, unfortunately, is a Bentley."

Personal automobile choices also came up when I talked to Clyde Simms after practice. I haven't seen him driving away from RFK lately but if I recall, Clyde drives a late-model Nissan Maxima...though VW's offer of employee pricing for DCU folks is clearly on his mind.

"Yeah, it’s exciting," he said of the VW-DCU alliance. "Hopefully we get a discount on the cars – my lease is about up, so it’d be perfect timing."

I don't know his latest address, but at one point Rod Dyachenko lived (along with PR guy Kyle Sheldon) at Josh Gros' place way, way out in Virginia, an hour+ from RFK, so you'd think he'd be fired up about the potential V-Dub hookup, but...not so much...

"Ehh, I don’t really think of anything like that. I mean, I could care less if there was a sponsor or no sponsor – I guess maybe a sponsor is going to be better, obviously more money and more opportunity. So, I know there’s this whole thing about having no sponsors on the jersey and everything, but I think sometimes a club needs a sponsor."

But it's not like he's a raging anti-corporatist, either, eh?

And finally, you gotta love VW America's Stefan Jacoby. Go listen to Dave Lipton's podcast or the Access United audio posted on behindthebadge.com to hear him talk -- it's worth it if only for his classic, jovial German accent -- then imagine him answering a question about his anticipation of the debut of his company's jersey logo at tonight's match:

"I think I will have goosebumps!"

(Actually it was more like "I zink I vill haf GOOSEbumpz!" but come on, who am I to make fun of peoples' accents? I remember about 15 words of German despite four intensive years of it in high school and I sound like the village idiot when speaking Spanish.)