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.

Early Thoughts on City 2025

There are few things harder to keep track of than an MLS side in their off-season, at least for me. Despite the fact it takes place roughly during the time the MLB Hot Stove season is in full swing, it is nowhere near as easy to follow along with as baseball. Part of it is how disconnected MLS is with the international soccer calendar. St. Louis City SC is still digesting the moves it made last summer even though those players have already played important games for the club. It is all weird and disjointed, and I always feel like I am playing catch-up. Happily, the moves made in the off-season this year were not numerous. German Timo Baumgartl comes over from Europe as an option at center back, which is good because that was a position that was a little rocky for City last season. Given his own troubles over the last few seasons (cancer and uneven play in the aftermath of that), a spell with City can give Baumgartl a chance to have a re-set. Given his pedigree and the fact City si...

Blues Fall Off a Cliff

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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...

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