Ramblings of a Soccer Junky
Friday, July 15, 2005
  All-Star roster now complete

Dallas coach, Colin Clarke added his selections to the All-Star team yesterday. He named Scott Garlick and Simo Valakari from his own Western Conference leading team as well as Frankie Hejduk from the Crew, Chris Albright from LA and Pat Noonan from the Revs.

Also, commissioner Don Garber added DC's Ghristian Gomez and the Revs Taylor Twellman.

No Freddy Adu which is a shock to me. Also Chicago, San Jose, Colorado and Chivas won't be represented in the match.

So, the final table of players who'll be representing MLS at the end of the month looks like this.

I've gotta admit, I'm surprised more of an effort wasn't made to insure every team was represented...but I doubt I'll watch so I guess I don't need an opinion here.

On one additional note for Galaxy fans. Did you notice that while LA have two players (Donovan and Albright) on the All-Star team...there are three former Galaxy players (Ruiz, Reis and Vanney) on the MLS squad.

 
Comments:
pz,

why does the mls have an all-star game? it appears to be amercianizing footy. footy has national teams (comprised of all-stars) that compete in competitions constantly. in the old days baseball had an all-star game because the united states was the only country that has professional baseball, now after 100 years the are going to have a "world cup" of baseball since other countries actually have players that are "major league" quality. this should be the "world series." basketball had an all-star game because the international league was nowhere near the american game.

but footy has been around for over 100 years and the World Cups for over half a century, the international matches tend to coincide with the mls season, why have an all-star game because baseball and basketball have one? it is not needed, garners very little interest, and is hardly good football.
 
I've asked the same question all the time over the last 10 years. The only real answer I can get is that MLS has geared a lot of it's marketing (TV time on ABC, sponsor promtions etc.) towards the all-star game. My only guess is that one day their realize that whatever format they come up with, it still doesn't attract a lot of attention.

Did you notice the latest promotion on the MLSnet site? Buy tickets to the All-Star game and you'll get tickets or some special deal involving the US-Mexico World Cup match in Columbus in a couple months. Something tells me ticket sales are slow as usual.

Actually, I'd have thought there'd be more interest as Brian McBride and Carlos Bochanegra are on the Fulham squad. But I guess I'm wrong there.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be some more tinkering with the format in the future.
 
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An American who fell in love with soccer while living in Europe.

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