WWTBAM Bored

I'll be heading out in a while for my local soccer bar.

Tonight is the first round of the Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii. Both games tonight are live on ESPN Classic if anyone else wants to stay up.

1st game at 10 pm CST (6 pm in Honolulu) - LA Galaxy v. Gamba Osaka (Japan)

2nd game at 12:30 am CST (8:30 HST) - Houston Dynamo v. Sydney FC (Australia)

We are going to have about 50 people at the bar staying up late tonight for the first "real" Dynamo game of the year. We had a few pre-season games last week in California and this is still technically a pre-season game since our regular season doesn't start until March 29 but this is for a trophy so I'm considering it a real game.

It's pre-season for the Japanese team as well and the season just ended for Sydney so it may not be the best soccer in the world. The Dynamo are going to be short-handed especially on scoring goals since two of our best goal scorers from last season signed with teams in Austria. We just signed a 21 year old forward from Argentina but he won't be able to play for a while. And the other teams are missing players as well so we'll see what happens.

The championship and 3rd place game are on Saturday night at the same times although the 3rd place game won't be live but will be tape-delayed at 2:30 am CST. So it will be another late night for that especially if we don't make the championship game.

I had thought about going to Hawaii for this but decided against it. I can get a couple of regular season road-trips for the price of this trip.

Oh, and Beckham is playing tonight if you are into that sort of thing. We'll be singing:

Who the f*ck is David Beckham?
Who the f*ck is David Beckham?
Who the f*ck is David Beckham,
Brian Ching comes marching in, OI, OI, OI!

It's about 10 degrees here, and there's a full lunar eclipse. I can see it from my living room window.

I doan need no stinkin' soccer.

But more power to you.

AJ-

At some point I would like to do the soccer thing. In the style that y'all do it.

How long is the soccer season? It seems like it goes a long time?

Bixby17 wrote:AJ-

At some point I would like to do the soccer thing. In the style that y'all do it.

How long is the soccer season? It seems like it goes a long time?

The MLS regular season runs from March 29 through October this year. With the international tournaments in the spring and the MLS playoffs in the fall you can extend that out to February to November. Teams mostly play one game a week but sometimes, especially for tournaments, they play another, midweek, game. They Dynamo are in a ton of tournaments this year so we have a lot of games.

Any time you want to hang with the Texian Army just let me know.

Home games in 2008:

3/19 - CONCACAF Champions Cup - CSD Municipal (Guatemala) - 7:30 pm

4/6 MLS - FC Dallas - 2:00 pm

5/3 - MLS - Chivas USA - 7:30 pm
5/10 - MLS - Colorado Rapids - 7:30 pm
5/31 - MLS - NY Red Bulls - 7:30 pm

6/7 - MLS - Toronto FC - 7:30 pm
6/12 - MLS - NE Revolution - 8:00 pm
6/26 - MLS - FC Dallas - 8:00 pm

7/12 - SuperLiga - Pachuca (Mexico) - 9:00 pm
7/15 - SuperLiga - Guadalajara (Mexico) - 9:00 pm

8/2 - MLS - Columbus Crew - 7:30 pm
8/16 - MLS - Real Salt Lake - 7:30 pm
8/20 - MLS - Chivas USA - 8:00 pm
8/31 - MLS - Chicago Fire - 6:00 pm

9/7 - MLS - KC Wizards - 2:00 pm
9/20 - MLS - SJ Earthquakes - 7:30 pm

10/12 - MLS - DC United - 6:00 pm
10/19 - MLS - LA Galaxy - 6:00 pm

If we beat Municipal we'll have some more CCC games in April. In September and October we will be in the new CONCACAF Champions League but that schedule hasn't been announced yet.

Results from the Pan Pacific Championship semifinals:

LA Galaxy 0-1 Gamba Osaka

The game wasn't even that close. Osaka completely dominated Beckham and the ten dwarves.

Houston Dynamo 3-0 Sydney FC

Houston completely dominated this game scoring three goals in the first half and then cruising the rest of the way. Sydney had almost zero possession and the Dynamo were moving the ball at will.

So we move on to the Championship game on Saturday night, the Return of Midnight Soccer!

We wound up with more than 50 people at the bar for the game last night. There was much singing and celebrating especially after we started scoring goals. We should have closer to 100 on Saturday night.

One more bit of soccer news.

Reportedly, Philadelphia will be awarded an MLS expansion franchise to begin play in 2010. They will be the 16th team in the league. Seattle will become team #15 in 2009.

Philadelphia is about to begin construction of an 18,500 seat soccer stadium along the riverfront in Chester, PA that will be the home of the team. The stadium will be near the Harrah's Casino and Racetrack.

This means that St. Louis will probably have to wait a while to enter the league. They are attempting to get a soccer stadium built in Collinsville, IL. Most of the financing of that stadium has been approved but MLS says that Philadelphia had the stronger ownership group and is closer to being ready to enter the league.

I'd guess two more teams, St. Louis and someone else possibly Montreal, will enter the league in 2012 or so.

Midnight soccer was not so good Saturday night.

3rd place game
LA Galaxy 2-1 Sydney FC

Apparently Sydney is even worse than the 3-0 loss to Houston would indicate if they also lost to the Galaxy.

Championship
Houston 1-6 Gamba Osaka

But, hey, we scored first! Seriously, we had no answer for the speed of their forwards. Houston had most of the possession but their Brazilian forward Bare just killed us. He had four goals and could have had more.

Over 100 people at the bar to watch this game at 12:30 am so lots of interest.

And the possibility of a downtown soccer stadium in Houston is on the front page of the Houston Chronicle today. The city is supposed to vote on Wednesday on whether or not to buy the land to build the stadium. The team has already said that they will pay most of the construction costs so this thing may happen soon. The site just happens to be just outside my window so I'm very excited about that.


Ah, well, on to the CONCACAF Champions Cup and the regular season.

We play Municipal of Guatemala on March 12 away and then at home on March 19 in the CCC. That's the club championship for the North American region. If we win this series we would move on to probably play Atlante of Mexico. Their home is in Cancun which would be a nice road trip in April. The Dynam open the regular MLS season at New England on March 29.

I think we'll just try to forget about this game.

AJ-

So, typically, how early do you get out there for games before the game?

I'm thinking I'd have to do one of the games before football season starts because the spouse would get grumbly if I were leaving the house for both forms of football.

BTW, if you ever want to go to a Texans game, you need to let me know. My tailgate situation is now primo. My tailgate spot is probably worth more than my ticket.

The only way it could be any better is if I someone get my dream of a tricked out Texans beater car for a tailgating rig.

Bixby17 wrote:AJ-

So, typically, how early do you get out there for games before the game?

I'm thinking I'd have to do one of the games before football season starts because the spouse would get grumbly if I were leaving the house for both forms of football.

BTW, if you ever want to go to a Texans game, you need to let me know. My tailgate situation is now primo. My tailgate spot is probably worth more than my ticket.

The only way it could be any better is if I someone get my dream of a tricked out Texans beater car for a tailgating rig.

I'm in charge of the Texian Army tailgate so I usually get there pretty early. We try to open the tailgate three hours before the game so I'm usually at Robertson a little before that. A 7:30 game would mean a tailgate starting at 4:30 so I would be there at least by 4. We start wrapping things up about an hour before the game and then march in a half hour before the game. Or least we are supposed to. Some times it is hard to get everyone away from the kegs so it takes some encouragement to get people moving. This year we are going to try to be more strict about that.

We only do the full tailgate, all you can eat and drink, for weekend games. Weekday games are usually bring your own drinks and everyone shares. Our stuff is probably pretty basic compared to Texans tailgates. Burgers and sausages mostly and a lot of beer.

I'd like to get out to a Texans game this fall. I'll take you up on the tailgate.