How did MLS do when trying to schedule around the US national team and the CONCACAF Hexagonal? Let's compare matchdays:
CONCACAF Hex: March 28 three games - MLS has six games scheduled for March 28, another for March 29.
Hex: April 1 - MLS has no games scheduled for April 1 but one game on April 2 (Columbus-RSL)
Hex: June 3 US-Costa Rica, June 6 three games - MLS has a game on June 4 and 5, four on 6 and two on 7.
Hex: June 10 two games - MLS has one game on June 10: Chivas USA-Houston
Hex: Aug. 12 three games - MLS has no games on Aug. 12, full weekend of games before and after
Hex: Sept. 5 three games - MLS has three games scheduled for Sept. 5
Hex: Sept. 9 three games - MLS has no games scheduled for Sept. 9
Hex: Oct. 10 three games - MLS has three games scheduled for Oct. 10
Hex: Oct. 14 three games - MLS has one game scheduled (New York-RSL)
So how did MLS do? Horrendously. MLS will have games on five of the United States' 10 Hexagonal dates. They will compete head-to-head against the US national team yet again, in what is probably the United States' most important year since 2006. World Cup qualifying will be at stake, the Confederations and Gold cups will be raging on and we'll have MLS games clogging the schedule and making it difficult for fans to follow both their club and country.
Preposterous. You'd think after 13 years MLS would have been able to figure this out. Insetad, it's more of the same garbage.
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It's not just the US National team. It's all of the CONCACAF national teams that the league draws it's top players from. Good thing Canada's not in the Hex or TFC would have to put together a JV team just to field a team on those dates.
It really is preposterous.
just another thought...if the league has no problem giving teams a two week break from league play to do the SuperLiga, how in the world can they use the justifications they have for not avoiding international dates?
Maybe Jack Warner can make himself useful and find a way to fine the league.
And you know, the worst thing is that these dates all came out I think in 2007, or early 2008. It's not like they just came out and MLS didn't know about it. They had a year or more to prepare and we still get this.
It's hard to stick up for or sell MLS to non-MLS fans in general, and this doesn't help any.
i have to disagree with both. agreed that the schedule is not ideal, but there have been obvious efforts to ease the schedule and in a year when Gold cup and confed cup it would be virtually impossible to please everyone. the fact the league even made an effort to free up dates as it could is a step in the right direction. Making gold cup every four years would be another positive step. every two years is just dumb
I dunno, considering all forces at work here I think they did pretty well.
Death to the Gold Cup!
They should field a team of college kids for the Gold Cup this year. Is that possible under NCAA regulations?
Luis, if they scheduled completely around the schedule, I bet you and lots of other people would be storming the castle with pitchforks because of the large number of weekday games and busy weeks for individual teams to clear the deck.
I want them to clear the schedule as well, but to make it out as if they can snap their fingers, open up all those dates and not have a multitude of other issues to deal with is just naive.
the gold cup should be held every four years but jack warner and his cronies only see $$$. Stupid stupid time to hold this tournament. and they really ut to rotate the thing between Mex, the us central america, canada, and the carribbean. if the uncaf cup can be held down in honduras i see no reason why the gold cup couldn't be. but instead we get the same crap cup every two years that always conflicts with WC qualifying and Copa America.
guys...thing is, LB didn't even mention GC or Confed Cup dates. He simply mentioned dates when there are Hexagonal WORLD CUP QUALIFYING games!!!!
I'm not all twisted about coinciding with GC dates. I'm upset that MLS is ignoring WCQ dates.
don't you think it's possible that MLS scheduling around the gold cup dates are partially responsible for having game days on WCQ dates?
And the thing is, Luis didn't even list the instances where MLS has scheduled games the day before or the day after WCQ games, or two days before/after--so games that don't conflict with the exact date of a WCQ, but games in which its unrealistic to think that a player could play in both games.
Even for the US game against Mexico there are MLS fixtures close by. This is the biggest embarrassment for the league.
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