Real Salt Lake Weekend News

Seattlepi.com

A virtually unknown 16-year-old soccer player from Maple Valley, Nikolas Besagno suddenly became recognizable on Jan. 14, 2005, when Real Salt Lake selected him first overall in the Major League Soccer Superdraft.

Casual onlookers expected the product of the United States U-17 residency program in Bradenton, Fla., to follow in the footsteps of the previous year’s top pick, 14-year-old Freddy Adu, and play right away.

go.espn.com

Welcome to The Show! On Tuesday, Real Salt Lake MF Kyle Beckerman will join us to chat some MLS and talk about the MLS Primetime Thursday game (Real Salt Lake vs. Colorado, May 15, 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

Beckerman joined Real Salt Lake last summer in a trade with Colorado. Having just turned only 26, he has already established himself in the MLS. He has been a fulltime starter in the league since 2003, his second season with Colorado. So far this season, he has two goals in six games from his midfield position.

Send in your questions now and join Beckerman on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET!

sportsnetwork.com

Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis finally had enough this week, criticizing officials for calls that “are consistently going against us.”

Kreis was rewarded with a one-game suspension and a $1,000 fine. He won’t be able to coach Saturday night’s match against FC Dallas at Rice-Eccles Stadium from the bench, but he hopes his rant will level the playing field.

latimes.com

It turned out the work-in-progress remodel already was moving along for Chivas USA, which has one victory in six games this season. On the field at practice Friday was veteran defender Carey Talley, who arrived earlier in the day. A couple of hours later, Chivas’ trade with Real Salt Lake became official. In exchange for Talley, Real Salt Lake will receive a conditional choice in either the 2010 or 2011 MLS SuperDraft.

“Carey is an experienced, consistent defender who can play both in the middle and the outside,” Preki said. “We’re glad he’s joined the squad and think he’ll be a good fit for us.”

newsnet.byu.edu

Major League Soccer, also called “football light” by soccer fans throughout the world, has been the bane of most American sports fans since the league’s inception nearly a decade ago. While the rest of the world revels in the historical prowess of “the great leagues” such as the English Premier League, the Italian League or the famous UEFA Champions’ League, the MLS has thus far been unable to garner any respect, at home or abroad.

In our own Salt Lake City, we find a prime example. While the fans of Real Salt Lake have been enthusiastic for a team that has yet to qualify for postseason play in its three-year existence, the numbers of that fan base have been less than impressive.

ON MY SOAPBOX:

The person from BYU has some interesting points, but I hate to burst his bubble, MLS has existed now for 13 years, trying to compare it to leagues that have 100 plus years of history and leagues that exist in nations where no other major sports compete against them, is simply impossible. Would all MLS fans love to see the sport become the largest sport in America, sure, but it will never happen. Not because the sport is lacking something, not because the fans or clubs don’t want success, but because it is America. You will never build a rivalry like Barcelona and Real Madrid in the US, there simply isn’t the history and the real factor geography. The US is a huge nation, with hundreds if not thousands of miles between major population centers, while fans in Europe can catch a train and in an hour or two be in almost every city their team will travel to, here in the US, imagine the 2 day train trip from Dallas to Boston, even a five hour plus flight is a long stretch for most fans. Then add in the $400 plus for the round trip flight, then a $100 for a hotel, money for food, drinks, local transportation, tickets to the event and soon your weekend trip could cost upwards of $1000 dollars. Now with the MLS doing some expansion, trips like Dallas to Houston, or LA to San Jose, even Salt Lake to Denver, are much more realistic, but even then most teams do not have sections devoted to traveling fans, like they do in Europe.

Does this mean that MLS must wallow in the reality of being a footnote in the American sports scene? Of course not, adding better players like Blanco, Angel, Beckham, and rumors of Henry coming to Seattle will get even casual fans out, the real changes will come when after next season the MLSPA contract expires and has to be reworked. That means the days of adult players getting paid 13-17,000 a year as development players will end, the salary cap will be forced to move up from the two million dollar level, probably up to three or four million. This will still prevent the world’s top players from coming in their prime, we do not have things like a multibillion dollar television contract in place, or billion dollar league sponsors, that would allow MLS to compete for the worlds best players. Will that happen someday, nope it will not, we are not England, Spain, or Italy, but I do expect that within 10 years MLS will be able to compete with the leagues of France, Germany, and Mexico. I expect within that same timeline that TV ratings for soccer will exceed the TV ratings of the NHL, and MLB, and will be close to the NBA, which should bring more money into the sport, and allow even better teams to play in better stadiums, but MLS will never be the best league in the world, and soccer will never be the biggest sport in America. And I for one am OK with that, I expect that the level of play will improve, TV coverage will get better, and the sport will continue to be the most popular youth sport in America, and millions of Americans will continue to shake their heads and simply not get it. Thus is the reality of the beautiful game in America.

OFF MY SOAPBOX

This entry was posted on May 10, 2008 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Blogs and News Links. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.