Collinsville FC Still On Hold

After finalizing funding for a suburban soccer stadium, Philadelphia will officially receive a Major League Soccer expansion franchise next week. The announcement is scheduled for Thursday.

Jeff Cooper and St. Louis have been shut out again.

Even though Cooper fulfilled the league's No. 1 wish by securing financing for a beautiful soccer-specific stadium complex in Collinsville, the St. Louis bid has been skipped over in favor of San Jose, Seattle and now Philly.

Cooper remains undeterred and upbeat. Though Philadelphia will get the 16th MLS team, Cooper is confident that St. Louis will be No. 17, pegged to begin play in the 2010 season. And he expects that announcement to happen by early summer.

...

There should be no more waiting.

It frustrates me, the way the MLS and league commissioner Don Garber take Cooper for granted. The league couldn't ask for a better owner than Cooper. He's a soccer devotee and a goodwill ambassador, and he will build support for the sport at the grass-roots level.

One of these days, Cooper will run out of patience. Does he feel as if the MLS is misleading him with false promises?

"The MLS has always been honest and up front with me about where we stand," Cooper said. "And I've been given every indication that we're next."

Well, suppose the MLS puts Cooper off again? Suppose Miami makes a late rush to land a franchise, and the MLS ends up being seduced by South Florida's broader demographic appeal?

"I would be pretty angry," Cooper said

I've been impressed with the way Cooper has gone about his business. I don't really have any reason to believe the MLS team in Philly will be unsuccessful, although I cannot say I know that its success is assured either...but it still looks like a necessary step for a league hoping to present a larger national sporting scene footprint.

A team in St. Louis will help in that regard as well - providing a natural rival for the Chicago Fire is not a negligible benefit - but it isn't the market Philadelphia is and, right now, that matters most.

Still, I would like to see the league commit to the St. Louis effort sooner rather than later. To leave them twisting in the wind past this summer, particularly if Cooper lines up more money men as requested, would show MLS to be a pretty bush league operation.

A Note of Optimism About the Note

If you have been trying to watch the St. Louis Blues attempt to play hockey of late it would be hard to believe the word optimism could ever be in play. The losses continue relentlessly, often in the "never in the game" style, but increasingly in a "lose from winning position" flair which is enough to make someone turn on the news for an upbeat change of pace. (Wow, plane crashes and LUNACY!) This team still can't score with the regularity needed to win consistently in this league. The coaching staff knows they have precious few natural goal scorers (one is precious few), so they attempt to make up for it by getting what I call "process" goals, i.e. goals scored by virtue of constant pressure, crazy bounces, accidental deflections, etc. Basically, any goal you can get from a player who doesn't have the knack for scoring them on their own. The Blues are something like zero for their last 12-15 breakaway chances, and zero for their last 25-30 2 on 1...

Matt Damon: "James Bond Should Be A Wuss, Like Me."

Alright, maybe Damon didn't say that exactly, but he might as well have : Hollywood star Matt Damon has dismissed James Bond as being stuck in the past. The actor, who appears in the Bourne thrillers, said: "The Bond character will always be anchored in the 1960s and in the values of the 1960s." The suave spy was "so anachronistic when you put it in the world we live in today", he said, but added that Bourne was no better or worse than Bond. Damon was speaking in London, where The Bourne Ultimatum, the third film in the franchise, is having its UK premiere. "Bond is an imperialist and a misogynist who kills people and laughs about it, and drinks Martinis and cracks jokes," he told reporters. "Bourne is a serial monogamist whose girlfriend is dead and he does nothing but think about her." Bourne mooning over his dead girlfriend is something we should be excited to see? Give me a break. At least Bond lives in a world where it is killed or be ki...

Blues Beat Bugbear

The St. Louis Blues have not had many out-of-character results so far this season. For the most part they have been handling the teams they usually handle and doing nothing against the teams that seem to always have their number. There is some solace to be had just knowing that you are going to probably beat Calgary, and will probably lose to Columbus, just as the sun will most likely rise in the East tomorrow. Granted that isn't an ideal set of affairs for a sports team, but Blues fans have learned to take what they can get. Which is why it is fair to say last night's victory over Utah was unusual. The Blues do not play well against that collection of players. Ever. So, any victory would be noteworthy in this matchup, but the resilience they showed last night was an added bonus. The Blues still have crappy puck luck, but last night they didn't let it get them down and, miracle of miracles, the puck luck evened out for the game. For a change the PK wasn't always runnin...

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