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MLS 2008 - where it's soccer, not football!

Great result for the Impact last night - winning 2-1 in Honduras against Olimpia.


Not so great for D.C. though - losing 1-0 to Cruz Azul at RFK.
 
Really amazing how terrible United has gotten over the course of the season. Swirling the drain....
 
Yep.


And I'll be watching the Impact tonight - assuming the damned player will actually work this time - as they try to hold on to top spot in their CCL group.


Anyway, we have the MLS Cup playoffs on the way!


In the East, Columbus take on the Wizards in a home-and-away series, while the Revs play the Fire in the other Eastern semi-finals.

Over in the West, Real Salt Lake get to use their new stadium for playoff matches sooner than many could have expected, as they take on Chivas USA - while Houston have the wild-card entrants from the East, NYRB, in their semi.
 
United's very existence depends on them getting the stadium built

How so? Have they threatened to move if they have to keep playing in RFK? If so, I can understand that completely. RFK wore out its welcome YEARS ago...pity that such a great man as Bobby Kennedy had to have such an utterly shitty stadium named after him.
 
If they can't get a deal in Ward 8 done, they may have to move out to Maryland instead - and DESEC probably wouldn't cry overly much if United tried to play hardball.


They went and gave so much money for a ballpark hosting a crappy team, yet hold hack from giving far less money to help the most successful American soccer club in history... and that has a more vibrant fanbase than the ex-pos, too.


Oh, and in other news, Freddie Ljungberg signed for the Sounders recently!
 
Aren't soccer-specific stadiums relatively cheap compared to other major sporting venues? Bah. I'm not a United fan or anything, but they are the most successful team in the league, that should count for something.
 
Relatively cheap, yes - and Poplar Point is intended to be at the core of a new urban development, too - but there is still enough money involved to make it easy for those in the District's government who aren't overly fond of soccer to get their oars in...
 
The conference semis are done - and not without upset.


In the East, Columbus bounced the Wizards to book a place in the conference final, where they will take on Chicago - who stuffed New England 3-0 at Toyota Park to win the series on aggregate.


Out West, Real Salt Lake made it past Chivas USA to get to the other conference final, where they will take on...

...Red Bull New York!

The former-MetroStars pulled off a convincing 3-0 win in Houston to eliminate the Dynamo, and send them to the next round.


The East final will be at Crew Stadium on the 13th, while the West final is at RSL's new Rio Tinto stadium (getting quite the baptism of fire!) on the 15th.



Oh, and the Dynamo still have one last CCL game to play, on the 26th - a home match against El Salvador's Firpo - which was re-arranged due to the hurricane. If they win, they go to the quarter-finals in February... but anything less and they are out.
 
Chicago are beaten by the Crew 2-1 - who go on to their first ever MLS Cup final.
I was not at the game, but man did I ever hear about it. The crowd was VERY rowdy, giving Brian McBride some real grief. McBride first became a star when he played with the Crew way back when. After a sojourn in Europe (I forget with whom), he elected to go to Chicago instead of back to Columbus
 
And they will be joined at MLS Cup by NYRB, who beat RSL 1-0 to secure a place in the final, and a CCL berth to boot.


And they had to do it after being re-branded from MetroStars, too.
 
There'll be one last gasp for the season tonight, as the Dynamo seek to get into the CCL quarter-finals - in a game which had been postponed due to Hurricane Ike.


Also, Montréal have been bounced from the current round of expansion applications - which shows how sad it can be when a team can make it to the quarter-finals of a regional tournament ahead of any team MLS can send, yet can have a place in the league scuppered by arguments over money and egos...
 
Aren't soccer-specific stadiums relatively cheap compared to other major sporting venues? Bah. I'm not a United fan or anything, but they are the most successful team in the league, that should count for something.

Yes and No. A soccer stadium and a football stadium are very similar in design. They are decedents of a common ancestor after all. The costs are going to very similar given a similar capacity. Soccer matches are not going to draw the 60,000 fans a NFL game would draw. That allows them to build smaller and cheaper fields of around 20,000 patrons instead. If Soccer drew the same crowd, the costs would be about the same as a modern NFL stadium.
 
Dynamo win 1-0 - putting them in the CL quarter-finals.


The draw will be in the 10th of December.
 
The last gasp of info for the year - the CCL quarter-final matchups.

CCLBrackettE.jpg


UNAM Pumas and Cruz Azul will square off in an all-Mexico City quarter-final matchup, while Honduras' Marathón will take on the Puerto Rico Islanders.

On the other side of the draw, the Impact will take on Mexican side Santos Laguna, while the Houston Dynamo face Atlante in their meeting.


Roll on February!
 
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