Winding Down

By: Melissa | July 24th, 2008

As a follower of both the men’s and women’s sport, I often find myself smacked in the face by a certain glaring issue that pops up from time to time. Namely, the assumption by some, that I am only interested in the game for a little eye candy. Now, there certainly is quite a bit of eye candy out there (no doubt), but since I find I sometimes enter a conversation and first must prove a certain level of legitimacy, I very rarely discuss my opinions on the topic. But, it’s days like, well, yesterday, when I discovered a somewhat pointless and ridiculous post on an otherwise respected and popular soccer blog, that I feel there’s nothing holding me back from expounding on a soccer-related matter that’s more prurient than newsworthy. Right… so when I found out the Head Coach of the San Jose MLS team was suspended one game and they sent their Assistant Coach up to Toronto to hold down the fort and introduce their three new saviors – err – players, my first reaction was I needed to get a copy of that game for surely there will be loads of video of their Ass Coach (my nickname and meant as the highest form of flattery) staring ahead, looking serious and broody, and maybe even turning left once or twice. Long story short, I got a copy of the game but it appears to be in some sort of new-fangled proprietary format. After some research, I installed a few programs and started transcoding (just learned that word btw) the video from whatever weird format to a much more manageable avi file. I kicked off the process, went to bed, woke up, checked the laptop, and IT WAS STILL CHUGGING AWAY. Then it crashed my computer. This is a new dual core laptop people. Sigh.

Keeping with the MLS theme, last night brought us a bit of drama as the twice-canceled DC United vs Houston game was in danger of being canceled yet again during the half. DCU fans wound up venting a lot of their frustrations over at Steven Goff’s Soccer Insider blog and things started getting a leetle ridonkulous. Somewhere in the middle of all the banter, this conversation cropped up:

Greg Ryan and I are in love!
Posted by: Hope Solo
I would’ve stopped that storm.
Posted by: Hope Solo
I am a LA Galaxy fan
Posted by: Voice From Heaven
Don’t you ever shut up?!
Posted by: Brianna Scurry
Hope, Wanna come over to my house and work on some “goal keeping” moves? You saw my house right? It was featured on an episode of Cribs on MTV. I’d love to shoot on you all day long.
Posted by: Landon Donovan
Landon,
dream on!
Posted by:

Ok, I’m going to assume that last comment was from “Hope Solo” despite the fact that the commenter didn’t sign their name. Also, “Landon Donovan’s” attempt at sexual innuendo and wit kind of fell flat (but props for trying). Anyways, I laughed my ass off over this. I’ve been intentionally NOT commenting about last year’s Solo-gate on this blog because I think the situation is completely ridiculous and blown waay out of proportion by fans and the media – to the point where it’s laughable. Also, I feel when we continue to argue about this we downplay the fact that the people involved are competitive athletes first and foremost and not just a group of catty girls.

But here’s the part where I bring my rant round to relevance (at least I hope I’m being relevant). Last night, Andrea Canales posted some thoughts on Wambach and the repercussions of Solo-gate that I’ve thought about in the past, but never really felt qualified to write about. And honestly, I don’t really want to paraphrase what Canales wrote for fear I will misinterpret her – so just click on the link above and read the post. I made some remarks in the comments section (I’m betch – and if the reference escapes you – “those shoes are mine…”). So my point is, perhaps one main positive that will emerge from the WPS is the (I’m assuming) the elimination of the USWNT residency program and with it the social aspects of living with and playing with the same group of people all year long. As Canales explains in the comments: “In a pro league, there’s not always that high degree of identification like there is with one’s alma mater (or national team). After all, players don’t often get to choose where they play, and they can be traded at any point, so rosters turn over and people have to get along with new people, perhaps even fierce former rivals.” Well, I couldn’t have said that any better so I’ll leave the discussion there.

I’ve now got a login for the USA blog over at World Cup Blog. I’ll be switching gears to mostly cover the USWNT at the Olympics so I don’t really know if there will be much activity on this blog until after the Games are over. Either way, I do encourage all of you to please stop by and leave comments on my posts and the posts from the two guys covering the men’s team.

And with that, I’m off to try to make this video conversion thing work again…