Opening Day!! Pt. 3

You just can't beat fun at the old ball park. A fine time had at the Fire game last night. Logan Pause put in a goal in the fourth minute (while I was still in line buying beer) and then the Fire made it stick all night long to win 1-0. It was an uncompromising game, as they say in the biz with a lot of hard tackles. It is pretty clear these two teams don't like each other much, and why should they.

One of the great things about the soccer culture here is the camaraderie of the Section 8 fans. We showed up an hour and fifteen minutes or so before game time looking for the usual Barn Burners $20 all-you-can-eat feast and it was nowhere to be found. No worries though. Made new friends soon enough and we were feasting burgers and dogs courtesy of Tommy, Candy and Mickey, Grillmaster and Designated Driver. Thanks guys and see you soon.


One more soccer thing. For those of you who don't know who he is, Eric Wynalda is one of the great American players. The all time leading scorer for the US National team, European player, Fire player and until last week the vastly entertaining color man for ESPN's MLS broadcasts. For anyone who has watched a game on The Mouse Network in the last two or three years knows that Eric knows the game and isn't afraid to call 'em like he sees 'em.

So, last week he was interviewed for a web-based publication for fans of English Premiere League team, Fulham. One could call it Wynalda Unplugged. Waldo had a few beers and laid out his raw opinons.

CF: How about soccer in the U.S. promoting itself. What are your thoughts on that?

Eric Wynalda: My son plays little league for a team in California with Yankees style uniforms. He has the number 5 jersey. And he says “Dad, whose number 5 on the Yankees?” And I said, “Joe DiMaggio. The guy was so good, they retired his number. So only you and him have that number.” And my son is the biggest Yankees fan on the planet. Here is a California kid who has no reason to like the Yankees.

Now what happens if Sunil Gulati gets off his ***** pedestal, calls Don Garber and says, “That’s it. We now mandate that nobody is allowed to name their team the Butterflies or Grasshoppers or the Little ***** Litterbugs or whatever they want to call them. And some kid in Idaho is now the Fire, he’s number 8. What’s the first question he asks his Dad? “Whose number 8 on the Fire?” How ***** hard is this to figure out?

Why can’t we just take the Major League Baseball or NFL business model. NFL is the best, because they hit every home, and every game means something. Major League Baseball has hit every ***** household they could possibly hit, because they knew in the beginning if they took the hit, they provided the uniforms, and they say “welcome to the Astros”, then kids end up knowing who people like Terry Puhl are. But these people don’t get it! They don’t get soccer.


CF: I think I understood what you said. That your son has a hard time identifying with soccer because on his t-ball team, he gets to wear a Yankees jersey, but MLS does not allow the use of their teams’ names and uniforms. Not unrelated, but if your son wanted to grab a jersey of an MLS guy, what’s the difference between him doing that and grabbing, for instance, an Henry jersey for Arsenal? Or you want it to be MLS?

Eric Wynalda: No, Rapids, Revolution, it has to be MLS. It’s branding. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best way, but if you want to brand yourself, and you want to tell some Dad, who doesn’t know shit, how to teach his son soccer, one of the best ways to tell that kid is through the history of that jersey.

CF: Let’s switch gears. My buddy and I are 30+ years old. It seems like a lot of U.S. Soccer, MLS is focused towards kids, families and younger adults. However, globally, who are the people who have the disposable income, who can fly to different places to see their team in the different cups. Do you think domestically there could be a little more focus on getting the people who think baseball, basketball, American football are the “real” sports to come around to soccer?

Eric Wynalda: As complex as everything is, with the entities who own the shop so to speak, at the professional level, their misunderstanding of where there market is, is the issue. Their inability to be businessmen about the business of soccer, not the business of stadiums, not the business of ticket sales, because that is ***** marketing. Marketing is over here.

If you want to produce soccer, the soccer players, and a product, on the field, the wrong people are in charge. They don’t want to hear that. They are trying really hard to appease the people who need to listen to it, but they don’t know that they don’t know.

I worked for Major League Soccer for four ***** years. When I was on the air, I was censored. I was fired five times over things that I said that were considered counterproductive to things the league wanted to do. When I said, “Freddy Adu is playing so bad right now, he may really be 14 years old,” that got me fired. I am allowed now to have a big mouth, because the ESPN guys have paid me a lot of money for four years now. I can’t be censored anymore!

CF: If you could pick one name, besides yourself, who is going to be a big influence on soccer in the U.S., who would that be?

Eric Wynalda: I hope, I hope, it is ESPN. ESPN has the power, they are pulling the strings, they have the influence now to say, “You want to market this thing, let’s market this thing.”

You will never get a guy, in me, who is more of a believer in the American player. Jim Rome can suck my dick! And he should be very afraid, because I’m the kind of guy, if I get too many drinks in me, I will club his ass. I’ve been on with Jim Rome, and I said, “Let me get this straight, you’re more impressed with water polo???”

Where is the avenue that the real soccer people can [gravitate towards]? Where is it? You and others are sick and ***** tired of being told we are a sleeping giant. We can kick everybody’s ass, if we figure it out.

It’s guys like you and your buddies who are the real American soccer. I play in an over-30 league and say my name is Derek. Why? Because I enjoy playing.

Alright, let’s go take a piss and get another beer.

Wynalda was suspended from the broadcast booth for ESPN's MLS opening weekend games. He has apparently "apologized" to Rome and hopefully will be back in the broadcast booth soon. The Mouse and MLS needs Wynalda, he can be to soccer what Howard Cosell was to NFL. He is the kind of catalyzing figure that people will tune in to hear no matter if they love him or hate him. That's broadcast gold.

Besides, everyone knows Jim Rome is an ass who makes no secret that he loathes soccer. So, why should he expect any respect from ESPN's primary analyst, a genuine Hall of Famer who represents ESPN's ten year multimillion dollar investment in the game.