New Soccer Fan Primer: My Favorite Goals

"And if! You know! The history! It's enough to make your heart go Whoa-oh-OH-OHH!"
Part of being new to the game is learning the history. And it's an amazing history, even just in the last few years.

In no particular order....

Argentina's Diego Maradona against England in the 1986 World Cup.


Real Madrid's Zinedine Zidane in the 2002 Champions League Final against Bayer Leverkusen


Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo against Roma in the 2007-08 Champions League Quarterfinals


Chelsea's Michael Essien against Arsenal in the 2006-07 Premier League


Celtic's Shunsuke Nakamura against Rangers in the 2007-08 Scottish Premier League


Argentina's Maxi Rodriguez against Mexico in the 2006 World Cup


Liverpool's Steven Gerrard against Olympiakos in the 2004-05 Champions League Group Stage


Manchester United's Eric Cantona against Sunderland in 1996


Manchester United's Ryan Giggs against Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup Semifinal


David Beckham for England against Greece in the 2002 World Cup Qualifiers


Henrik Larsson for Celtic against Rangers in the 2000-01 Scottish Premier League


Benny Feilhaber for the United States against Mexico in the 2007 Gold Cup Final

My Take: No Libertadores for MLS untill success in CONCACAF

Far too much talk recently has been dwelling on the possibility of MLS teams playing in the Copa Libertadores, South America's version of the UEFA Champions League. The Libertadores is largely viewed to be the second-most prestigious club competition in the world, after the UEFA Champions League. Many fans in the Western Hemisphere seem to love this idea, quaking at the idea of a packed stadium for a final clash between DC United and Boca Juniors or watching Beckham and the Galaxy take on River Plate, but I'm not convinced. Major League Soccer should not be admitted to the Libertadores, at least not yet, and here's why.

Success in CONCACAF

Major League Soccer teams should not be guests in a prestigious competition unless they have earned their way there. And they have not. Admittedly, some CONCACAF teams participate in the Libertadores, but these are Mexican teams. They have risen to the top in CONCACAF. Mexican Clubs joined the Libertadores in 1998. By that time, Mexican clubs had won 7 of the prior 11 CONCACAF Champions Cups. There was nothing left to prove, so they moved on to the bigger fish. The first few years in the Libertadores, Mexican teams routinely got destroyed by South American sides. This is because the best of North America are not on par with the best of South America. It's not even close.

On this point, Major League Soccer teams are not even the tops in their own region. The last time an MLS team played in the final of the CONCACAF Champions Cup was 2000. LA Galaxy managed to take home the title without having to play a single game outside of Southern California. The entire tournament took place on US soil, since then, MLS teams have struggled on the road. DC United lost their away semifinal leg to Pachuca 2-0 this year. Houston Dynamo lost their away semifinal 3-0 to Saprissa. The competition has been dominated by Mexican and Costa Rican teams. If MLS teams were to participate in the Libertadores, they would be routinely massacred, as Mexican teams were, but at least the Mexican sides were the biggest fish in the small pond.

Fixture Congestion

One of the main reasons MLS teams would falter is lack of depth. Players 1-12 on an MLS roster can hang with almost any team in the world, however, in continental competition, your depth is strenuously tested. Recently, DC United had a league game Saturday, a CONCACAF game midweek, a league game Saturday and a CONCACAF game midweek the following week, followed by another league game on Saturday. For deeper rosters, this is not a problem, but due to a restrictive salary cap in MLS, after the first 1-12 players, depth is very limited, even on the best teams who presumably would be competing in the Libertadores.

Now, in this recent stretch, DC went 2-2-1. And their continental trip was only to Mexico. In the Libertadores it could be to Argentina. The Libertadores runs from early spring to mid-summer. This would cause fixture pileups with CONCACAF Champions League knockout stages, the MLS league campaign, and possibly SuperLiga. Because of MLS's limited salary cap (about $2.2 million per team, plus a Beckham Rule player outside the cap), the depth just simply is not there to compete with the South American giants.

Travel

While a New England vs. Boca Juniors match-up may be very exciting, a two-legged tie between them would chart huge distances and long travel times. It is approximately 5370 miles between Boston and Buenos Aires. At that point, travelwise, it would actually be a shorter flight to have MLS teams compete in the UEFA Champions League, as it is only 3800 miles from Boston to Milan. This kind of travel is just unreasonable. The world is too big and the technology is just not fast enough to hold a meaningful hemisphere-wide competition from Canada to Chile.

Fan Interest

When MLS in the Libertadores comes up, passionate scenes and great games are always brought up. There is this general consensus that MLS sides would regularly be butting heads against star-studded Latin American sides in front of packed houses. But this ignores a critical fact. Not all Libertadores sides have significant followings, or even knowledge of their existence in the United States. Without "name" opponents like Boca Juniors, River Plate, Sao Paolo and maybe a handful of other Brazilian or Argentinian clubs, would anyone care?

Would New York be able to attract a decent crowd midweek to see the Revolution play Bolivian Champs Real Potosi? Could Chicago bring in a decent crowd in March to watch the Fire play Uruguayan champs Danubio? Not likely, and these are what could be the more "diverse" cities with a larger South American population. What about MLS's more "vanilla" towns. Could Kansas City? Could Salt Lake?

Outside of that small handful of clubs who could draw a crowd based on a name, the only teams that could guarantee a gate draw are the Mexican clubs, and MLS already has involvement with them through the CONCACAF Champions League and SuperLiga. It would be redundant and superfluous to go through the Libertadores.

I'm not saying that MLS can't play in the Libertadores eventually. They just shouldn't be there now.

In Defense of the Cup-tying Rule

In many competitions across Europe, players are "Cup-tied" each season, meaning that if you play for one team at one stage in the competition, you cannot play for another team later in the same competition. The focus of the rule is to keep the rich from getting richer by poaching players from teams already knocked out of the competition.

Mike Collet writes that it is time for the rule to go. While it would be unfair to presume, it would not suprise me if Collet is a Portsmouth FC fan. Pompey's Jermain Defoe is unable to play for Portsmouth in England's FA Cup Final against Cardiff City at Wembley in May because he played for Tottenham Hotspur earlier in the competition before coming to Pompey during the Winter Transfer Window. However, Defoe is able to play for Pompey in their English Premier League campaign, where PFC currently sit sixth in the table and are chasing a UEFA Cup slot.

Likewise in Europe, players who played for one team at one stage of the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup cannot play for another team in later stages of the same tournament, yet are allowed to play for their new clubs in their national league.

Collet says this is stupid to have one standard for cups and one standard for leagues. But in Collet's criticism lies its folly. Cups and leagues are entirely different competitions. If one team loses in a cup tie, they are out of the competition. No worries. It would have been nice to advance obviously, but it's not the end of the world. League play on the other hand carries with it the very real chance of relegation.

Teams in poor positions in league play have much less incentive to sell their players to the teams that advance (which more often than not, the teams that advance are higher in league play) due to the risk of relegation. In addition, to deny a player to participate in League play after joining a new team in the winter transfer window could mean him missing close to 20 games. Missing the Cup games means denying a footballer his trade only 3-5 times.

For these main distinguishing reasons, the cup-tying rule is good, and will affect only a handful of footballers each year, but in exchange, will allow the mid-level teams (and high-mid-level teams like Celtic, Porto, Benfica, PSV, and Olimpiacos) to keep their best players and grow as a team, rather than being glorified farm teams for a handful of conquering finalists.