Howdy folks,
Mark here.
Well, it really is the summer - when the biggest story of the day is Alexi Lalas, you know you're in trouble.
Lalas, who had a spell in Italy and a successful career for Team USA is now stroking his ridiculous hair over in LA as General Manager of the Galaxy.
He seems to have a french fry on his shoulder about the English Premier League now. He claims it is an "inferior product" and is only the product of great marketing. Lalas goes onto claim that the MLS is one of the most competitive in the world, and then doesn't give any evidence to support this apart from the opinion that a lot of stars would struggle here.
The most illuminating part of the interview, however, is the following, when asked about his facial hair:
"I cleaned up on the outside but I'm still a mess on the inside. For a long time it conveyed a certain immaturity and I milked it all the way. And then I shaved it off in 2000. I was in Sydney, doing some TV work for the Olympics, and it was the end of a long night for me and Anne, my then girlfriend and now my wife.
"We all do strange things when we come in late at night so there's me, the beard, a hotel bathtap and a razor. It looked like surgery. We actually filmed it because it felt like an iconic moment - never before in the history of football has so much been made of so little facial hair. We should probably put it on YouTube, maybe on the day David arrives in Los Angeles. But it'll be Beckham, rather than the beard, that will give us a million hits and more . . ."
The summer does strange things to people, none more so than reading an interview with a fool who I wish had accidentally killed himself with that razor! Perhaps next week we can read interviews from Roy Wegerle and Tab Ramos to experience an exegesis on the cleaning of the fingernails, their shaving routines in general and what they think of the quality of Serie A vis a vis the Bulgarian league. Would Kaka struggle playing for Levski Sofia?
I'd rather read transfer gossip.
Mark,
6 comments:
I read that piece chief and his logic is as skewed as his clearances were in his Padova days. Boom and indeed boom.
Oh and Tab Ramos, what a blast from the past.
what about earnie stewart and thomas dooley. ah USA 94, what a blast!
Tony Meola now runs a mortgage company in between bein goaltender for the NY Red Bulls. It's a brave new world out there. Fat fucker too.
Since he is from my hometown and went to high school down the street from me, I hate to criticize Lalas. I think he often has some insightful points that get lost in the fact that others he makes are gobsmackingly stupid.
I think that he is right to criticize the English media for blindly casting off MLS without ever having watched it. At least from my recollection most English observers I have heard have been actually impressed with the quality. Its not big on the American stage, but attendances still compare favorably with even Serie A.
He also has a point that, as fans, we often get served an over hyped shit-sandwich from the Prem that is atrocious to watch.
However, his assertion that an MLS team could compete in England is laughable. Besides the goalkeepers (T. Howard, Friedel, and Hahnemann were three of the best last season), no American outfield player has made an impact in England. The best of the bunch have been workman like players like McBride or Reyna. Beasley may still have a chance.
Though speaking of overhyped, I would put money on an the U.S. team upsetting England in a neutral venue friendly.
I made the point a while back on the blog that the MLS can’t simply be disregarded; not only is it competitive football that wants to get better but it also gains crowds that beat the shit out of numbers in Italy. In fact, take Barcelona and Real Madrid out of Spain and the US would be way ahead of them there as well.
The Prem is often VERY over-rated and certainly in games amongst the big teams this season only Arse v Man U or Spurs and Chelsea entertained to a decent standard. Lalas however loses all of this in the stupid hyperbole. If you didn’t know who made the quotes they could have come from Madrid’s Calderon who really is a nut job.
Not to belittle your last point, I’d simply pay money not to watch a US v England game. Both offer a woeful style of football – though I haven’t seen the US since Bruce Arena left.
Yeah, I meant it to be more of an insult to England than praise for the US team. If they ever did play, it would be a horribly boring spectacle that might end 0-0 or 1-0. I might like the US in that scenario as they actually would have a decent keeper who wouldn't make an asshole mistake.
They have played better under Bradley than at the end of Arena's reign, but that isn't saying much. They had a nice win against Mexico, but other than that all the teams they have played have been shit so it is hard to really gauge.
I think that the dumbest Lalas comment was saying that Beckham was going to become bigger than Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. He was at arguably the biggest club in the world at Real Madrid, yet he still had to change to Jordan's number to sell more shirts overseas.
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