Tag: futbol

Does an MLS Cup break the Curse of Atlanta Sports?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

No, serious question.  Don’t get wrong, I like soccer and I can sit down and watch a match and understand what’s going on, but the truth of the matter is that soccer doesn’t get a fraction of the respect and acknowledgement of The Big 3 sports (MLB, NFL, NBA) when it comes to general recognition, at least in America.  I feel like hockey and the NHL took a serious ding from their last strike and lockout, and they’ve fallen to a second-tier of prevalence where it only matters to the people whose teams are actually in contention, but it’s really difficult for those outside of those fandoms to actually care. 

And that’s where I get the impression that MLS is at, in spite of the fact that Atlanta United just won the top prize in the organization, the MLS Cup.  Personally, I don’t know how many teams there are in MLS.  I don’t even definitively know how many teams are in New York.  Obviously, I know Atlanta’s got a team, and I know for a fact that there are teams in Toronto, Seattle, Portland, Orlando, Los Angeles, and I think there’s one in Kansas City.  Otherwise, I don’t know much else about MLS as a whole, and I indulge in a lot of sports, be it on television or partaking in sports news on the internet.

That being said it brings me back to my original question, does Atlanta United winning the MLS Cup actually break the Curse of Atlanta Sports, the superstitious mythos behind the sheer inability of Atlanta sports teams to win any championships?

When sports media started coining the discussions about “cursed cities,” it almost always started with Cleveland, since for the longest time, the Browns sucked at football, the Indians sucked at baseball, and the Cavaliers sucked at basketball.  An NHL team lasted there for two seasons, a WNBA team for just six, and they’ve never had an MLS club.  Needless to say, they were undoubtedly the worst luck sports city in America, until LeBron James gave the city a second shot and basically willed the franchise to an NBA championship in 2016.

But ever since the debate of cursed cities came into existence, it really wasn’t hidden that curses and droughts really referred to championships in The Big 3; this was never made more prevalent than when the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2014, and for the ensuing weeks, there were all sorts of statements flung around about the first major sporting championship brought to Seattle in history, completely ignoring the fact that the Seattle Storm had won two WNBA titles prior to this.  The Kansas City Royals’ World Series win ended the drought in 2015, despite the fact that Sporting KC won the MLS Cup in 2013.  And Washington D.C. often ignored that D.C. United won four MLS Cups before the Capitals “broke the curse” with a Stanley Cup win just this year.

And the last two instances are prime examples of just how ignored MLS is in the grand spectrum of professional sport organizations, and why I pose the question on whether or not Atlanta United’s MLS Cup win actually breaks the Curse of Atlanta Sports.

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Don’t look now but…

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

…an Atlanta professional sports team is playing for an actual championship.  Caveat?  It’s Atlanta United, the city’s soccer team, playing for the MLS Cup.

Don’t get me wrong, I think soccer/futbol is great.  I enjoy watching the game, and I understand the vast majority of the rules, and think a 0-0 game that ends in a shootout is a marvelous thing.  It’s just that there’s no secret that it’s often perceived as a second-tier sport to most ‘Muricans who think real sports are limited to fat guys in pads who call themselves athletes crashing into one another, or who can slam dunk a basketball to make black people get out of their seats and overreact the colorfully.

When people think about which team is going to bring some championship pedigree to Atlanta, most of the time people are often thinking about the Falcons, or the Braves first; but never the Hawks, because the NBA is busted as hell and the Hawks suck lol.  But the vast majority of football americano fans probably don’t even consider the idea that Atlanta United just might do it first, and I get the impression that it would be as met in the same manner as the Washington Capitals did for DC; initial surprise, but then immediate bandwagon embracing as if the Caps held the entire fate of Washington on their shoulders, and not the Redskins, Nationals or Weezards.

Regardless, the very young Atlanta United club, two years removed from their introduction into MLS, are on the cusp of immortality, and have one more team to overcome to get there, the Portland Timbers.

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O PILSUNG COREA MOTHERFUCKERS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On this date, June 27, 2018

South Korea 2, Germany 0

I sat down to watch this game with pretty much no expectations.  With two losses already, South Korea was pretty much done already, but thanks to the low-scoring in the Group of Death™ they were still mathematically alive.  They just needed Mexico to blank Sweden, and to win their third game against Germany; you know, the defending World Cup winners, by at least a two-goal margin, to cover the differential.

Frankly, after their pitiful performance against Sweden, I stated that all I really wanted to see was for Korea to score a single goal, so that they didn’t go home after being blanked the entire time they were in Russia. 

They got their goal against Mexico, but I wasn’t satisfied by it.  It happened in the 93rd minute of the game, when Mexico was already up 2-0, so to me, it’s basically was a meaningless pity-fuck of a goal that happened long after Mexico had already begun the victory party.  However, it turned out to be an important goal nonetheless, because, due to the low-scoring of the group as a whole, goal differential turned out to be a big deal going into the final games of groups.

Basically, Germany wins and they’re in.  However, too many goals by Sweden would make things murky, as would too many goals by Mexico.  And despite the fact that they were dead last in the group, too many goals by Korea would actually have some impact on the standings as well.

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A wise man once said

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A futbol team cannot win a futbol game unless they score goals

Furthermore, a futbol team cannot score goals unless they take shots.  Although I counted two times where Sweden’s goalkeeper actually had to move in the box, the box score in Korea’s World Cup 2018 opening loss to Sweden, credits them with zero shots on goal.  ZERO.

How the fuck is it remotely possible to win a game when a team doesn’t even take a single shot?  The answer is that it’s not.  I’m pretty sure Sweden’s goalkeeper doesn’t even take a shower after the game and is able to meet up with whatever model of a wife/girlfriend for dinner without even having to reapply his deodorant, that’s how much of a day off today’s game was.  As for his teammates, they were basically in the Royal Rumble in a game that saw over 40 fouls called, but a big fat zero for shots on goal for Korea.

Yes, I know that getting in position to even take shots on goal is like 75% of the battle in the first place, but that just exemplifies Korea’s general lack of adaptability or creativity to even bother trying anything different from what wasn’t working throughout the span of 96 minutes, to where they could even take a shot.  Sweden’s defense was no slouch, but Korea wasn’t making anything harder by constantly having guys in telegraphed positions, or all the players essentially giving up once their routes were blocked.

But I’m not going to get too salty over this loss.  Korean soccer hasn’t been the same since the 2002 World Cup, and even then, they had the mother of homefield advantages throughout the entire tournament.  They were also coached by the legendary Guus Hiddink who was easily worth several of their wins by himself alone.  They’ve been good enough to qualify for all subsequent World Cups by virtue of a globally weak Asian pool, and once they get in, they’ve regularly been exposed as a class below the usual powerhouses from Europe and South America, and have been getting bounced routinely.

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Same shit, different sport

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Continuing the tradition set by all of the other professional sports teams in the city of Atlanta: Atlanta United gets bounced from the MLS playoffs with a loss to Columbus Crew SC

Prior to me writing this, I had thought about writing about how I really hoped that Atlanta United would have pulled the ultimate miracle of all expansion teams, and somehow managed win the MLS Cup.  Not only would it have been an unprecedented performance of winning a championship in their first year of existence, but there would be something so gratifying about the expansion soccer team, breaking the “curse” of Atlanta sports, and being the first team to deliver a championship to the city since the 1995 Braves, especially after the uber-meltdown of the 2017 Falcons in Super Bowl Lee.

I had a plan to twist my choice of words to ironically talk about how it probably had everything to do with the fact that ATLUTD had gargantuan fan support since their arrival, and getting into their games turned into Dragon*Con hotel registration, every single game, they were that hot of a ticket to get into throughout the season.  And how ATLUTD was demonstrative of the power of fan support, attempting to shame the fairweathered Falcons, Braves and Hawks fans who only come out to support only when they’re good.

In fact, I was all ready to start writing the night prior, but because I don’t really follow MLS or have any inkling to how their scheduling works out, by the time I sat down at a computer and prepared to write, I discovered that the playoff game had already happened, and Atlanta United had already lost.

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What a creative shocker

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Atlanta United FC unveils their official team uniforms, they turn out to be red with black stripes – almost entirely how I had predicted.

Don’t get me wrong, black and red is a cool color combination.  Very hard, very urban, kind of counter-culture.  Black denotes something a little bad, rebellious, with a dark side.  Everything goes with black.  Black and red is the nWo Wolfpac, the supposed cool nWo, as opposed to the old fogey Hulk Hogan led black and white nWo.

But black and red is also the same color combination used by the University of Georgia and the Atlanta Falcons.  I’m pretty sure the Atlanta Hawks have at least one alternate uniform that’s black and red.  If it were even remotely justifiable, there’s absolutely no doubt that the Atlanta Braves and Georgia Tech would bust out a black and red alternate uni if they could.  If Mitchell & Ness actually make hockey apparel, they’re probably already trying to figure out how to incorporate black and red Thrashers merch as throwbacks to the now-Winnipeg Jets.

Black and red is old hat, played out, overdone, here in Atlanta.  Lining everything in gold trim doesn’t change the fact that all anyone will primarily see are blacks and reds whenever Atlanta United FC is playing.

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You know what Atlanta needs?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If you said “improved mass transit,” “road repairs,” “improved mass transit,” “more police manpower,” “improved mass transit,” “southside development,” or “improved mass transit,” you’re completely wrong.

But if you said “another sporting complex,” then you’ve hit the jackpot!  Ding ding ding!

SSDD: Dekalb County has agreed to build a $30 million dollar soccer complex for the eventual Atlanta MLS team.

It’s stories like this that really make me fucking hate Atlanta, sometimes.

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