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DC United has great attendence at home. They play in rickety old RFK Stadium. They are supposed to get a soccer stadium built after the new baseball park is built. It is not the field, its the fan base. DC has a decent sized Central and South American population and they go nuts for soccer. Add in the Volvo crowd and you get a pretty good fan base. It didn't hurt that they have had a winning program.

Another thing to note about that Chivas number, that includes a crowd of 88,816 for a Los Angeles vs. Chivas matchup that was packaged with a game between Club America and CD Guadalajara. Those matches were played at LA Coliseum and the attendance was the 2nd largest MLS attendance ever.

EastStang, in the 2005 season DC United drew an average of 16,664, which was down 3.3% from the 2004 average of 17,232. 16,664 was good enough to place them fifth among MLS teams.

I love all this futbol talk. August 19, 7 pm, Ponies v. Oral Roberts. I wonder where the game will be played since I understand the field will not be ready until sometime in September. Can't wait to see what the final fall roster looks like.

I am an FCD season ticket holder as well.

MLS is improving every year. The two best teams from a talent standpoint right now are DC and FC Dallas. Once the rest of the teams in the league catch up to that level, the games will get a lot better, and be of higher quality.

The "Beckham Rule" as it is called, where each team gets an exemption on one player, is going to go into effect in the next international transfer window. That is great and all, but in my opinion, the league would be better off raising the lowest salary in the league. There are a lot of very good players who go and star for minor league teams because they don't want to take the minimum salary for MLS. If the league raised the lowest salary to 50K, the teams would have a lot more depth and the quality of the league would rise substantially. It would also bring some guys back who went to go play in Denmark and Norway.

The key to improving MLS is not through just adding a player. If you have 1 great player on a team, it doesn't do a whole lot because they won't get service, won't be as effective as they could be, and the games themselves will lack a bit of quality, so fans won't come back.

If you raise the minimum salary and make the entire team better, you have competition every week, day in, day out at practice for starting slots. That means you fight to get on the field. And that is what makes you a better player. That is what Arena is referring to when he talks about players going to Europe - in Europe, you have to bring it every single day in order to get on the field. Nobody pushes Landon for his job in LA, so he can coast a bit.

Part of that is the fans responsibility as well. I find it disturbing that I am the only person in the stadium yelling for the players to work harder when there is a lull. People are too complacent or too nice. In soccer, you have to push your home team through the 90 minutes as a fan. That is how it works in Europe.

Oh, and sorry that I omitted Kenny Cooper. He and Jaqua, I believe, will be a fantastic pairing at forward for the National Team.

totally agree!

JasonB - I agree as well. The overall quality of the MLS needs to improve. I'm tired of it being Bush League compared to the rest of the world.

The overall quality of athlete that plays soccer in this country has to improve. Let's be honest, the best athletes in this country play basketball, football and even baseball. If the US's best athletes played soccer, we would dominate.

CalallenStang wrote:JasonB - I agree as well. The overall quality of the MLS needs to improve. I'm tired of it being Bush League compared to the rest of the world.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it Bush League. It is still as good as any midlevel league in Europe, as far as the skill of the players is concerned. We just need to build depth so that the players show their skill game in and game out.

The quality of athlete in youth soccer is certainly improving, and that will impact MLS. Because people can see that you can make a viable career out of soccer, the 5'10 great athlete that has been pushed out of basketball and football is going into soccer now.

It just takes time. And that is why I am an FCD season ticket holder - for all my complaints and suggestions, I support the sport and want to see it succeed here in the US. And the only way it is going to happen is if folks like us try and help it get better.

JasonB wrote:

CalallenStang wrote:JasonB - I agree as well. The overall quality of the MLS needs to improve. I'm tired of it being Bush League compared to the rest of the world.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it Bush League. It is still as good as any midlevel league in Europe, as far as the skill of the players is concerned. We just need to build depth so that the players show their skill game in and game out.

The quality of athlete in youth soccer is certainly improving, and that will impact MLS. Because people can see that you can make a viable career out of soccer, the 5'10 great athlete that has been pushed out of basketball and football is going into soccer now.

It just takes time. And that is why I am an FCD season ticket holder - for all my complaints and suggestions, I support the sport and want to see it succeed here in the US. And the only way it is going to happen is if folks like us try and help it get better.

Jason - we don't need to be on the level of the midlevel leagues in Europe. We need to be on the level of the English and Spanish Premier Leagues.

As far as developing talent in the youth system, allow me to share a personal anecdote. I'm 17. I played soccer for a very long time. I won the state championship. I was offered (and still sometimes am offered) opportunities to play internationally. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm a pretty good athlete. So why don't I play anymore? Well, my knee was injured in soccer three times. Every time it was a cheap foul and never once was it called. The opposing teams knew the only way they were going to be able to score from my side of the field was to get me out of the game, and they stopped at nothing to do so. Two out of the three injuries were players who kicked me in the back of my knee when my foot was planted (the most vulnerable position to be in). I played football for a season, my knee got injured in that too, but it was just a reinjury in a practice. I would have surgery on my knee, but it is beyond repair. And I blame the lack of sufficient referee control of the competitive youth games in our country for what happened. If those refs would have been a little more protective, I might still be playing today and considering SMU's soccer team among other offers to play collegiately. Bottom Line: If we are going to develop talent, we need to get better trained referees. I'm not saying avoid all contact as the referees are trying to do in the Cup this year, but protect from stupid unnecessary contact away from the play that could ruin a person's body.

I know MLS and US Soccer have a long way up to go. But there's no reason why in 10-15 years, we can't be on the level of the top leagues in Europe and be able to compete for WC championships.[/b]

For Soccer they generally only sell tickets to the lower and mezzanine levels at RFK unless its for an MLS Cup or World Cup qualifier. Historically, the United have been a good draw, although the Nationals coming to town have given them more spotty dates and split the entertainment dollar since the Nationals feature quite a few well known hispanic players as well including former Ranger Alfonso Soriano.

EastStang wrote:For Soccer they generally only sell tickets to the lower and mezzanine levels at RFK unless its for an MLS Cup or World Cup qualifier. Historically, the United have been a good draw, although the Nationals coming to town have given them more spotty dates and split the entertainment dollar since the Nationals feature quite a few well known hispanic players as well including former Ranger Alfonso Soriano.

I can see the competition of the Nationals being a problem. Perhaps if RFK were renovated into a soccer-only stadium after the Nats move out, the United will draw more?

United are looking to build their own stadium and move out of RFK. RFK is a fantastic place to watch a game. The lower bowl holds the noise in and MLS Cup in 97 was the best soccer experience I have ever had in this country. The problem is that DC United don't get revenues from parking and have to give a lot of revenue from concessions and merchandise sales to the city, who own RFK. They don't have control of the revenue streams, so to make the team viable in the long term, they need their own stadium.

Calallen, I can emphasize with you. When I was younger, I was getting some trials set up in Italy before I got hacked down Right now, the refs in this country are horrible because none of them played the game at a higher level. Hopefully, over time, the refs will improve as more and more people get experience playing the game at a high level. It makes me laugh when the refs in MLS will treat the even like a youth game with some of their calls.

Obviously, the ultimate goal is to get MLS on the same level as the EPL. And someday, that will happen. But first, we need to raise the basic quality of play by getting deeper rosters and making play more consistant. Once we achieve that goal, the league will be attractive to foreign stars that want to come over here. Right now, DC United and FC Dallas have the talent level to be lower tier premiership teams. We need all of the teams to reach that level before we take the next step up.

JasonB - I agree.

Meanwhile, do you think it's better for American soccer to keep Freddy Adu in MLS for marketing purposes, or should he play in Europe to get more experience?

Absolutely send him to Europe. He needs to contribute bigtime in four years. Keep him in MLS, and he might disappear like Donovan and Beasley did this time.

Let Adu take his lumps with the big boys for the next four years, and get ready for 2010.

Corso wrote:Absolutely send him to Europe. He needs to contribute bigtime in four years. Keep him in MLS, and he might disappear like Donovan and Beasley did this time.

Let Adu take his lumps with the big boys for the next four years, and get ready for 2010.

That's what I'm thinking too. I wish we had more players as talented as he is.

Some day we won't have to send our best to Europe...