Soccer Followup

First off, let me just say thanks to Roger Brown and Bob Roberts of the PD for regulary commenting and covering the whole deal with the Celtic/Boca Junior soccer match at Cleveland Browns Stadium. While I wouldn't say it has gotten a LOT of coverage, the amount of coverage has exceeded what would normally be approproate for an even with such lame attendance.

Today Roger Brown drops something that was news to me: that Champions World promoters turned down an offer by Blackburn Rovers of the English Premiership to play after AC Milan pulled out. They were turned down in favor of Argentina's Boca Juniors. Now, Boca Juniors MIGHT be a better club and it was nice to see a South American team, but Blackburn would OBVIOUSLY have been a much better choice since the team includes starting USA and Premiership "All-Pro" goalie Brad Friedel who grew up and played soccer in Bay Village. And Brown is right when he says that Friedel's presence would have drawn another 10,000 or so fans to the match. In fact, I think that number is a little low. Freidel has played superb in one of the toughest leagues in the world and was a hero in last year's World Cup. Blackburn plays in the one foreign league that has the most exposure here in America. There would have been a ton of cool promotional oppurtunities (not that Champions World would have taken advantage of them, but still....). Seriously, all they had to do was film a couple minutes of Freidel kicking a ball around with some Browns players at the recent mini-camp and the press would have been all over it. It's amazing how underwhelming last Friday's match turned out when there were apparently so many chances for a huge success.

On a related note, Cleveland Force President Paul Garofolo is leading the effort to get an MLS expansion franchise in 2005. Give him your support!!!! He seems to be a good guy and sounds like he'd promote an MLS team much better than lame-o Champions World tried to do. Plus there are, of course, countless reasons for supporting an MLS franchise here, first and foremost that the MLS league has proven itself to be a viable entity who's profile is gradually improving. When MLS players are being hand selected to go play for Man U, something good is happening. And even if you personally are not a soccer fan, you can't deny the legions of youth soccers players who are approaching college-age -- there is a good future for MLS and Cleveland should be a part of that.