Two stories yesterday, Beckhams injury and the Bahrain GP dominated the sports pages of the British papers.
The general belief is that Beckham was going to be part of Capello’s squad. I think his positive influence in the dressing room and ability to come off the bench to provide something extra late in a game made his inclusion in the 23 almost certain, even if he was unlikely to start games.
After tearing his Achilles in an Italian cup match certainly means he’s not going to his fourth world cup, the question is will he play top level football again?
He was due back in LA in July, I assume that’s not going to happen and Beckhams time in the MLS is over. Certainly as a player, however he has been linked to the ownership group of the potential Montreal MLS franchise as an investor and part owner of the team.
The 19th MLS team story gone quiet, if the 2012 date is accurate then it’s now two years until kick-off and decisions should be getting close to being made. I get the league has a lot going on right now with the collective bargaining agreement, but they have put put all sorts of banal press releases, but nothing I’ve seen about further expansion.
Montreal seems the favourite, and like Seattle, Vancouver and Portland it’s a former USL-1 team, complete with existing front office, stadium and (unlike Portland) a history of some success.
The league seems to be rather determined to get back into the Southern Florida market once again, FC Barcelona were linked with a potential expansion franchise there, but that idea seems to have died. Two teams have been tried in Miami and Tampa, and both were ultimately failures and unable to draw a crowd. The current top level franchise in South Florida is Miami FC with an average attendance of just over 600 last year (Montréal are in the same league and draw over 11,000). I really don’t understand why MLS is so determined to have another try at the Florida market as the demand does not seem to exist.
The league has hinted in the recent past that it’s changing it’s marketing policy and going after the football fan, not the family marketing that’s been done in the past. This is smart, but has one big obstacle to overcome: an existing football fan understands the game and already has an allegiance to a team. Putting an MLS franchise into a town is not going to change that supporter, it’s the gameday experience that’s got to be sold along with the local connection, as lets be clear as the quality of play on the field is going to inferior to the leagues they already watch.
I do believe (and yes as a former USL Sounder fan I ‘m biased) that building on local history, with local rivalries (relative in the US, there will not be cross town derbies) and allowing the supporter groups to lead the rest of the crowd in creating excitement and a great atmosphere is the potential recipe for success. This is why Montreal rather than Miami seems like an obvious choice.
The second big story on the back pages was what happened in Bahrain, I missed the GP itself and the reports I read all talked of the lack of overtaking chances. That is mostly down to the track, but the longer braking distances of fully fuelled up cars did not help I’m sure.
Vettel had problems and Ferrari came away with a somewhat dominant 1-2. McLaren seemed to misjudge how it’s race strategy with Hamilton making some comments about being called in for tires earlier than he thought he should be.
The little I saw was that the leaders would all come in with in a lap of each other, no one got an advantage and it’s not worked quite as the spectators hoped, two weeks until Australia and we’ll see if Bahrain was an aberration or the norm for this year. I hope it’s the former.
Bernie E called a meeting of the teams to learn what happened. after what one team principal have been the most processional F1 race in years.