BLCKDGRD

Reap What You Have Soehn

This pisses me off:

"Over the past three seasons, Tommy has faced greater challenges than any other MLS coach," United President Kevin Payne said, referring to a schedule that included annual international tournaments.

Wait a fucking minute. United doesn't want to be in annual international tournaments? Kevin Payne is saying he doesn't want United to face "greater challenges" than any other MLS team? What the fuck?

Good thing United sucked this past season then, yes? No trips this coming season to Mexico and Honduras and El Salvador, just home exhibitions against better league's B-Squads, thank fucking god.

By Payne's standard, Soehn succeeded! The next coach will have a pussy schedule by comparison. Well done!

Schedule! Waah! We're fucked by our success! By this logic, the goal of the new coach next season is to suck just enough to avoid fixture congestion in 2011.

Oh, and this by The Irreplaceable Man needs noting:

"I'm a little surprised. ... It's a difficult transition for the players when you bring in a new coach. You have to re-prove yourself. You're on trial in a way and you don't know whether you fit into the new coach's plans. I hope they don't try to break up this team."

Boofuckinghoo. Suddenly, Namoff seems replaceable to me.

Manassas United

Or Dale City United?

D.C. United has engaged in serious talks with a Virginia jurisdiction about a new stadium, club president  Kevin Payne told the Insider. He declined to identify the city or county but said -- no surprise -- that the  stadium site would be outside the Capital Beltway. "Where are we going to find [affordable and available] land inside the Beltway?" he said.

Fuck that.

LOTS more on this and other stuff coming out of RFK today below the fold (updated 4PM 10/27/09):

Kansas City 2, United 2

Well hell, that aptly - and justly - captured the season's essence.

I'll mull the obituary before (and if) I write it, but here's the gist: United isn't good enough to compete for silver as currently constructed and coached.

Here's Tenorio's player ratings:

Cronin 7, James 7, Jakovic 6, Burch 6; Wallace 6, Gomez 6, Szetela 5, Simms 6, Fred 6; Emilio 5, Pontius 5.5. SUBS: Moreno 6, Olsen 6, Khumalo 5.5

One last Soehn bashing: After doghousing Szetela since Kevin Payne wasted a player allocation on him, Soehn starts Szetela over Benny in the most crucial game of the year, GUARANTEEING at least one substitute. Yes, James headed in the second goal, but he headed it in WHEN HE SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ON THE FIELD because he was playing on one leg and Soehn didn't have a substitute in his pocket. The one fracking time this season Soehn NEEDED to bunker and bring in an extra defender HE COULDN'T, and in the most important five minutes of the season United essentially played with only two defenders, which led to Fred's handball on a poor clearance off a corner.

Last we've seen of Gomez, bandaged and limping. He's the symbol, not only of this year but the last two when he was banished for Veron nee Gallardo. I'll always wonder if Chang had been the sole owner, if MacFarlane hadn't been pushing for a big signing as part of his plan for his Poplar Point development ambitions, whether United could have banged out a fair deal with Gomez and got one more useful year out of him.

(I don't think it can be overestimated the damage MacFarlane did to this franchise, from on the field product to toxic relationships between the team and local jurisdictions. Thank Ba'al that greedy fucker is off fucking up his other businesses.)

Last we've seen of Emilio, who I don't accuse of dogging it, just say he's lost a step-and-a-half and all of his turn.

Last we've seen of Fred, who earned both PKs, though only the Kansas City one fairly. He must be the best practice player ever. I wonder what he thinks of Soehn.

Last we may have seen of Namoff, the irreplaceable player, who may have been worth one or two points in the games he missed.

Not the last we've seen of Benny and Jaime, though we have seen the last of their better days as players. One or both of them will be a coach, if not the head coach, next season.

UPDATE!

While I concede that "Fred dived for your sins" is indeed the line of the season, remember, while reading this guy's Season Obituary, that he will be giggling to himself for the rest of his life every time he thinks about that line.

Here's Curmudgeon, here's Fullback. Updates, links, edits, obit, later. Or not.

Their Existence as an Awareness of Losing Their Sense of Existence

I was driving last night and, confession, listening to the Redskin-owned local sports station, and I heard one of the co-hosts, a guy one year older than me who grew up five miles from me who now lives six miles from me and who broadcasts from a building three miles from me, emotionally and forcefully defend himself against a listener's accusations that he wasn't a "true fan" because of his abject and vitriolic and passionate disgust with the shittiness of the object of his faith's adoration.

(Confession: my first team love was the Washington Redskins. I remember Elric's parents driving us around the backroads of MOCO on Sunday afternoons in Elric's father's blue Pontiac convertible listening to Steve Gilmartin and Mel Campbell on WMAL, the only way to get live home games in the mid-to-late 1960s. Sonny Jurgensen and Chris Hanburger. That I'm delighting in the clusterfuck that is Little Danny Helmetball proves devotion can be dammed and redirected but never completely unbaptized.)

For all my bitchandmoan, I'm nowhere near abandoning Uonbiatmead, which doesn't boast an Peterangelostic Snydermonster to help me past my roobity (though Praayhnme is getting there), and my stoopidity as a negotiator - and everything is a negotiation - remains: I still always settle for a handjob called better-than-shittier.

Then bitchandmoaning and the defiant defense of bitchandmoaning, the highest, most privileged reward of the happily disappointed devout. Winning isn't the prize of faith.

*

• Well, of course. The question is, when Obama is murdered, how soon before prominent rightwingers accuse Obama of assassinating himself for political gain.
• Ruth Marcus, fracking moron at Your Fucking Washington Post, is defending herself when she attacks Obamalame for attacking Fox. (She's also dimly aware that if Fox is doing nothing but "opinion," they're encroaching on her turf, so there's that self-interest she too self-denies.) (Digby points out another obvious motive.)
• Your Fucking Washington Post.
• Your Fucking Washington Post.
• UPDATE! Your Fucking Washington Post, as I type this at 1545 Wednesday 10/21/09, has this as the sublede to that linked story: Move signals determination by Democrats to punish insurers for criticism of Obama's agenda. Sen. Reid also plans repeal as part of Senate bill.
• This is not an untrue statement from their perspective.
• When Niall Ferguson says U.S. empire is over, you'd think someone on the Right would notice, but be wrong like me.
• It'll be long and slow, though.
• Squishy Totalitarianism, or, I like to think, an illustration of foreign policy by I-Know-You-Are-But-What-Am-I-ism.
• Capitalism.
• Oy, IOZ saves me yet again responding to the world's smuggest half-wit.
• Fox Pornstache.
• On lesser-evilism.
• As succinct and clear a definition of grey vampires I've read.
• Zombies, again.
• Pope invites Anglican misogynists, homophobes, to join Catholic Church!
• UPDATE! Montag on the last link.
• The Spectacle always wins.
• Blegangst!
• Blegangst!
• BLCKDGRD, translated into Czech. Who is doing this?
• Elric? He found a disc golf course in Toronto.
• Fulham and Red Sox strike marketing deal?
• This is excellent news when you remember that during WC06 Dave "The Shittiest Soccer Announcer Ever" O'Brien was ESPN's lead caller.
• Thyraphobia, part fourteen.
• Thyraphobia, part fifteen, fin.
• Burtonsville! We live ten? miles from Burtonsville as the crow flies, thirteen? maybe by road, different continent, visit-wise.
• ICC fees!
• I didn't know the Trolley Museum was being upgraded.
• Took this picture 6:45 Tuesday night: Earthgirl grew up half a mile from here, we live four miles from here:

• Keith Waldrop page.
• Frederick Seidel on his motorcycles. (sub rqrd).
• A confession: I've never read On the Road (nor feel compelled to).
• Glam for Dollars.
• Am I wrong to love The Raveonettes?
• Confession: still my favorite single of the year.
• Unless it's this.
• New Sufjan Stevens (negatively) reviewed (with sound). I confess, I thought Illinois terrific when it came out, put it on last week, and BLEH! has it aged like spam left on a sidewalk in August.
• Why the fuck is Jack White in my newspaper?
• Why the fuck is Band of Horses on my radio?
• Best XTC cover ever.
• Today's Listening Assignment.

*

POORLY GROUNDED NATIONS

Keith Waldrop

And an inability to comprehend the
flow of time. We need only think of statements
by everybody. I cannot call my-
self myself. Up to this point, the dreamer
is dreaming, but now his dream
begins. Unities of recollection, separate
from one another. Thus is this present
world, there are different injuries.

I never hear them. The come
uninvited. Silver tissue. Garlands
between them. Any activity may produce
music. Aware of their existence as an
awareness of losing their sense of ex-
istence: vague, general, nameless, like
a nothing or the absolute. I am dead. I am
not alive, a music of exceeding shrillness.

May be pleasantly illustrated in the
following way. Light on the head. Felicitous,
contains some fabrication. I am
forced to shout out, trace failure to the stage
when plans are construed. I see a table
before me. I am reminded of another
table. I place table besides table. Separate
worlds. In what sense are we talking?

*

The original:

Toluca 1, United 1

Hey there, play that determined on Saturday in Kansas City, United might make it to first round of MLS playoffs (other game results pending) to lose to Columbus after all .

Here's the obligatory paragraph in which I mention Toluca had nothing to play for, rested many of their regulars, hit crossbars and rocketed shots just over the crossbar, credit Steve Cronin with remarkable saves, and say, Toluca could have - should have - won easily 4-1.

But... United fought. Pontius' wonder goal gave them hope and energy early. We'll never know how United would have reacted had Toluca scored ten minutes in, and I expected Toluca to score ten minutes in.... but, United fought. I'll grasp at that.

And TEN points in CONCACAF is about six points more than I would have guessed United would accrue when the competition started. If United earned 1.66 PPG in MLS, they'd be sitting on 47 going into Kansas City and still have a chance for Supporter's Shield.

And this is what sucks about United's MLS season (and gacking the US Cup Final v Seattle): rather than a meaningful game in October in Mexico next year, rather than a meaningful game against a Mexican team at RFK next October - we're going to get, as our extra season ticket package, meaningless exhibition games v Everton next July.

Here's Goff's player ratings:

Cronin 7; Vaughn 5, James 7, McTavish 6, John 7; Fred 5, DiRaimondo 6, Szetela 6.5, Khumalo 5; Pontius 8, Emilio 5. Subs: Wallace 6, Gomez 5, Jakovic 6.

OK, my Boyzz crush is crushed. If he was 18 and a fool who won't defend, he might evolve and develop, but he's 28, and there's a reason he was a Riverhound when he was 26. As a 70th minute sub to run at a tired defense he's useful, but if he was half as good as he thinks he is his antics would still be annoying.

Speaking of evolving and developing, has anyone suggested to Rodney Wallace that well taken shots on the ground against a flailing keeper have a better chance of scoring than punting pointblank shots over the crossbar?

Julius James is useful, more so than Lawson Vaughn or Avery James or Devon McTavish.

Here's Fullback, who's tired of Tommy's 70s prOnstar silk shirts, bitches at Boyzz. Shatz praises McTavish, James, FRED!, bitches at Boyzz. Curmudgeon commends the team's spirit.

UPDATE!

I honestly don't know if this is significant:

Will Chang now controls 100 percent of D.C. United after purchasing the very small remaining share held by a group led by Brian Davis and Christian Laettner , former Duke basketball players who are involved in real estate development these days. The company name (MacFarlane-Chang, LLC) still includes former partner Victor MacFarlane, but that will change at some point.

And Benny does an online chat:

Ben, when you beamed that guy in the head were you surprised by how accurate your shot was? Do you plan on have any surgeries in the off-season?

I was a little surprised. It was the most accurate shot I’ve had all year. No surgery plans as of now.

Is coaching something you see in your future? Do you have any coaching licenses? Do you think it's stupid that a professional soccer player should need a coaching license?

Yes, yes and… yes...

Thanks for being the heart and soul of the team ... we, the fans, love your grit! Even though the '09 season hasn't wrapped up yet, have you given any thoughts to your plans for '10?

I’m looking forward to being on the pitch next year.

would u think united moving to baltimore would add to the fan base or diminish it? thanks lionheart!

I want D.C. United to stay in DC.

Favorite United player ever.

United 1, Columbus 0

That guy, who doesn't like me (he doesn't like anybody, but he really doesn't like me), was the only regular in 232 until the fifteenth minute, when three others of his circle finally showed up. I watched the second half two sections over with the Oklahoma Kid and his sidekick Poncho.

Here's the last sentence from Goff's game report in the Post:

The club's regular season attendance average was 16,087, a significant decline from the 19,835 mark last year.

I'm talking out my ass - I have no idea what contractual agreements exist between DCU/MLS and the DC Stadium Authority - and maybe United wins in Kansas City next weekend and gets a playoff game at home in two weeks, but what if - what if - that was the last United home game?

No doubt I'll be at RFK all next summer - my deposits are in, United's sending out renewals and soliciting new season ticket holders - but remind yourself how tenuous this league is, how much money United loses for playing at RFK when the team is good and the crowds are big, how much more money United loses for playing at RFK when the team is bad and the crowds are small, how bad a product United will put on the field next season, how the owner of the team doesn't own the team to lose money and his patience isn't infinite, how the owner must know he's not getting a stadium in the DC area.

Philadelphia hasn't played a game yet, and their future is brighter than DCU's. The fracking New Jersey Metros have a brighter future than DCU. If and when United's future is brighter, it won't be in DC.

United won, but Columbus is the better team with the better future. They were the better team last night, playing their B-Squad. If United does make the playoffs, it's likely they'll draw Columbus, and I'll be there to watch that full-strength Columbus squad dismantle United.

Here's Goff's player ratings:

Cronin 8; Jakovic 7.5, James 7, Burch 6.5; McTavish 5, Jacobson 5, Simms 5, Gomez 5, Wallace 7; Khumalo 7, Emilio 7. Subs: Moreno 5, Vaughn 6, Szetela 6.

O, the game. Soehn's an idiot, but look at what he's given to work with. Of the above fourteen, only Jakovic, Khumalo, and Wallace need be back (though James looks like a decent first defender off the bench).

Ba'al bless Jaime. He should be back if he wants to be back, but if he's one of United's best eleven next season, it'll be even more dismal than this one.

SWEET! Fullback does the blegaggregating, plus his own game reaction. Of interest in the agg are comment trends from Big Soccer, one of which is "Boyzzz can't defend for crap," which does explain why he's swapped out so early when he's the best offensive player on the field (if you're willing to give Soehn credit for the substitution strategy).

Herta Müller?

Never heard of her. She takes up two feet of shelf space on the 5th floor.

When I heard on the radio, I thought, O God, not another dire, dour, humorless German poking her finger around her existential angst. The flash NYT post said:

Announcing the award in Stockholm on Thursday, the Swedish Academy described Ms. Müller, “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.”

Here's the first section of the English translation of The Land of Green Plums:

When we don't speak, said Edgar, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves.
    We had been sitting and staring at the pictures on the floor for too long. My legs had fallen asleep from sitting.
    The words in our mouths do as much damage as our feet on the grass. But so do our silences.
    Edgar was silent.
    To this day, I can't really picture a grave. Only a belt, a window, a nut, and a rope. To me, each death is like a sack.
    Anyone who hears that, said Edgar, is bound to think you've lost your mind.
    And then, I have the feeling that whenever someone dies he leaves behind a sack of words. And barbers, and nail-clippers - I always think of them, too, since the dead no longer need them. And they don't need buttons either.
    Maybe the sensed the dictator was a mistake in a different way than we did, said Edgar.
    They had proof enough, because even we considered ourselves a mistake. Because in this country, we had to walk, eat, sleep, and love in fear, until it was once again time for the barber and nail-clippers.
    Anyone who makes graveyards just because he walks, eats, sleeps, and loves, said Edgar, is a bigger mistake than we are. A mistake of the first order. A master mistake.
    The grass stands tall within our heads. When we speak, it gets mowed. Even when we don't. And then the second, and the third growth springs up at will. And even so: We are the lucky ones.

Each death is like a sack. Jeebus, don't that sound like a hoot.

I've never heard of her, I can't speak to her merit, and I know it's not true, but doesn't this same archetype seem to win the Nobel every other year?

UPDATE!

Orthofer at Literary Saloon called Müller winning, has lots of pro/con info. He's set up a Müller information page.

UPDATE!

More importantly, Sasha commented:

Not on topic but I thought of you when reading the Washington Post and read of the obnoxiousness results of the Michelle Rhee regime followed by a (large) picture of naked DC United players. The players were naked, not the picture.

I didn't know what she was referencing until ten minutes later Big-C asked me if I'd seen this Sportsbog post:

 

Um, no, I hadn't. Heh, each death is a sack, though they're covering them with their hands.

"It makes you look a lot less hairy," Quaranta noted, while looking at Olsen's image.

"I look diesel," Olsen responded.

And thus concludes today's post on the newest Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Herta Müller.

Baltimore United

I'd drive to Baltimore:

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has written a letter to the Maryland Stadium Authority asking the agency to study the possibility of building a new soccer stadium for Major League Soccer's D.C. United.

The letter, dated Sept. 30, asks the stadium authority to focus on building the stadium as part of a green mixed-use project with access to light rail, Interstate 95, Baltimore-Washington Parkway and the Camden Yards sports complex.

United signals, Make me an offer, Sailor:

D.C. United continues to search for an appropriate, long-term home for our team. Baltimore has demonstrated its ability to work with the state to create world-class facilities for the Orioles and Ravens. We believe a new D.C. United stadium can be an exciting and vital economic engine and look forward to the results of the Maryland Stadium Authority study of a Baltimore city location. Our conversations with other municipalities will continue.

The District just summarily fired 300 public school teachers in a demeaning and humiliating fashion. There's no new stadium coming in DC.

Other municipalities? There's no new stadium coming in Prince Georges or Arlington or Alexandria or Prince William or Fairfax or Loudoun or Frederick, and I double Fuck-Me-Jig there'll be no stadium in Moco.

This is last best case scenario. If Baltimore makes a fair offer, United would be idiots not to take it, though that assumes that United will negotiate in good faith, something to worry about after the disclosures of their less than honorable and honest negotiations during the PG clusterfuck. Perhaps with MacFarlane gone, United will.

United 0, Chivas USA 2

I got to Lot 4 at 710, with a line of permit-holders behind me, and I literally got the last parking spot because the assclowns that run parking didn't cut off the drive-ups in time. I got in line for a beer at 720, stood in line for ten minutes because the Sodexho assclowns didn't open up enough beer vendors for a crowd of 20K+ only to be told there was no Harp, no Yuengling, just fucking Miller Lite, WHICH ISN'T BEER, then stopped at a stand selling what smelled like rat meat tortillas and got a can of Modelo, and when I tipped a dollar for the Sodexho assclown to pour a can into a plastic cup, the assclown told the other vendor standing there with his thumb up his ass, See, these white boys don't tip.

Then United came out flat, disinterested, disorganized, suckful. Verily, when United's two best plays of the night were Christian Gomez disrespecting Tom Soehn and Benny My Love taking a stoopidly ghastly red, tis time to begin honing the obituary.

Here's Goff's player ratings:

Kocic 5; Vaughn 4, Jakovic 5, James 4, Burch 3; Khumalo 4, Simms 4, Olsen 3, Quaranta 4; Gomez 4, Pontius 4. Subs: Moreno 4, Fred 3, Emilio 3.

Soehn's an idiot. The only player on United in the first half who looked like he could score was subbed out at half for Fredsux? And what was the point of humiliating Gomez? Strike fear into the players?

Meh, here's the deal. The front office sucks (Peralta, Martinez, Carvalho, Niell, Gallardo, Fred, Janicki, etc); the coach sucks; the players have quit; the parking lot attendants suck; Sodexho blows donkeys.

Me, I'm putting my deposit on next season's tickets this Friday/payday, but I'm a stoopid fucking roob who finds my anger at losing as cathartic as my joy at winning and my fandom a needed outlet for my tribal and religious instincts, but there aren't enough dopes like me who'll buy this shitty product that this franchise can survive. St. Louis United, mofos.

Curmudgeon ponders his season ticket renewal, makes awesome proposal, though I wonder if it's adopted how Benny's red card would affect it. Fullback eviscerates Soehn.

Updates, edits, links, later. Or not.

United 5, Jabloteh 1

What a hoot! These games when only the true regulars show up, goddamn they are a blast. Two hours of belly-laughs. Best time I've had in weeks.

Not a hoot for United, who won easily but had no joy. Look at the expressions on Gomez' and Fred's faces after they score - think they think they've three games left in United kit? (Look at their face's as the watch Boyzz celebrate his goals - heh.)

Here are Goff's player ratings:

Kocic 7; Habarugira 6, McTavish 7, James 7, Wallace 8; Khumalo 7.5, Simms 7, Jacobson 6, Fred 7; Gomez 8, Pontius 7. Subs: Szetela 6, Shipalane 6, Burch 6.

Habarugira looks like praying mantis, plays like a midfielder - his instincts are to attack rather than defend (and it's him out of position and burned on the Jabloteh goal). Jacobson doesn't quite blow another audition, though close. Szetala - remind me why United spent their top allocation pick on a guy who can't even start v Jabloteh.

But truly, there's nothing to be taken from this game other than United could beat the 1975 Gophershole High School junior varsity. Jabloteh blows: I really did waste a Ba'al-taunt on them, though to be fair, Jabloteh wasn't the team I was Ba'al-taunting.

Mrs Curmudgeon thought the referee had nice legs. Shatz saw more joy than I did. Fullback worries about the consequences of a relatively successful end of year.

More, updates, edits, links, later. Or not.