This is why we are hated...?

The other day I received an email from my cousin (who happens to have a high quality blog View from the Couch) with the subject line: "See Seattle fans, this is why we hate you". Apparently some Seattle bloggers are not happy with the choice of Celtic and Boca Juniors as our friendly opponents this year, which has led other supporters to believe we are all arrogant up here. In particular, he points me to one posting by Sounder at Heart which says that Celtic is disappointing given last years opponents. Now I have read this article and agree that it does give the perception that the Sounders are too good for Celtic; that we should be having Barca and Chelsea every year. I won't mince words here - considering last years opponents, this DOES feel like a step down. There is no way around it - Barca won the Champions League while Chelsea made the semi's. Celtic finished last in their group. There is no debating those stats - Celtic was not as good as Chelsea and Barca last year. PERIOD. But in no way am I too arrogant to say that we are too good for Celtic. They are a great team with great history who play in the Champions League year in year out. And if this match had meaning, Celtic would probably paste us 3-0 minimum.

Now that that is out of the way, I wanted to discuss friendlies in general. We all know that soccer remains a foreign concept in the US. Casual soccer fans in America don't understand the idea of international competitions like the Champions League that occur during the season. They don't understand a single table concept. And they don't understand friendlies. Now I can defend the first two because they are brilliant. Let me tell you, if there was a single elimination competition that the Mets could compete in during the month of August, I would be all for it because they will most likely be out of the playoff push by then.

But friendlies? I don't know, they just leave a bad taste in my mouth. I get that they are critical for the financial health of MLS teams. But when we consider what the players are getting out of it, I think the pros outweigh the cons. I went to both games last year and I have to say that the second halves were the most boring 45 minutes of soccer I saw all season. It was great that Terry Boss, Lamar Neagle and Mike Fucito got once in a lifetime opportunities to play against Messi, Lampard and the likes, but at the end of the day, what did it do for the team? MLS teams are not deep - one injury can cripple a team. There are no national team players battling for playing time who can step right in. If Freddie Ljungberg gets hurt, we will have Stephen King as our starting midfielder (no offense to Stephen who I hear is a nice dude) for the rest of the season. So Sigi plays his guys for 45 minutes and thats it. As for Barca and Chelsea? They are all in pre-season form. Now maybe this is good for the scoreline (Seattle was luck to have lost both 4-0), but I want the guys to compete against the best in their top form.

Bottom line, I want a competitive game. I am not saying I will forfeit my tickets to the games. Seeing Messi work his magic (even in preseason form) was amazing. But the game was a glorified scrimmage at best and we got nothing out of it besides tired legs (in fact, we got 1 point out of 3 games after Chelsea left town and 3 points out of 3 games after Barcelona left town) and a whole lot of revenue. Competively, I would rather see a match against Club America or Saprissa or some mid table Euro squad like Sunderland or West Ham. The risk of injury would be the same, but at the end of the day it would be a competitive match that could help define us as a franchise.

We get one more friendly from our season ticket package. While it will be less sexy, I am hoping its the play-in game for the CONCACAF Champions League against an unknown team from Belize or Panama. But hey, I'm just one person. Please don't judge your opinion of Sounder Nation by what I have to say.