Relive the Best moments of 2009 in Montréal footy..

It's Christmas eve and I'm watching my girlfriend dye her hair blue again!? Ya..she's pushing thirty and still insists on dressing like a teenager (does that make me creepy?), and it reminded me of the 1st time she did that, right before the Impact CCL quarterfinal game at the Olympic Stadium..

So I figured we should all relive a couple of the best moments in Montréal soccer from 2009. Here we go..

Impact-Santos Laguna February 25th 2009, 55,000 people gather at the Big O in the middle of winter to watch the Impact beat a 1st division Mexican side 2-0 (Yes I know, lets just act like this wasn't a two leg affair, aiigghtt!) :

Great locker room scenes in this one..




The first all-Canadian USL-1 final Impact-Whitecaps, October 17th 2009.
Montreal wins its 3rd title:



Happy Holidays! Ahh, screw political correctness...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Awesome Goal Celebration..

I know this is a couple of weeks old and was posted elsewhere, but I'm bored and the off-season is sinking in so take a look at this very original goal celebration...

Just to put you guys in context, last January Hull City was getting drubbed 4-0 at halftime by Man City and manager Phil Brown decided to give his troops a "talking to" on the field...

Hull midfielder Jimmy Bullard, has a blast poking fun at that after scoring on a penalty to tie the match 1-1 against Man City this year in late November, enjoy!...

Decision in the NASL/USL mess to come before end of 2009

According to this Corus sports article, Neil Buethe of the USSF has stated that a decision will be rendered in this case by next week or most certainly by the end of 2009.

"La Fédération veut régler ce dossier. C'est un dossier prioritaire. Les formations impliquées dans le différend doivent s'attendre à mettre de l'eau dans leur vin mais nous annoncerons le résultat d'ici la fin de l'année. Nous espérons que notre décision sera soutenue par les équipes et leurs partisans qui continueront d'encourager leurs favoris peu importe dans quelle ligue ils évolueront."

To roughly translate the quote into english, Buethe basically explains that the USSF really wants to take care of this situation, as it is a top priority. All teams involved have to expect to make certain concessions, but we will announce the result before the end of the year. We hope that our decision will be supported by all teams and their fans, who we hope will continue to support their teams no matter what league they are playing in.

This all but confirms that we are headed to some sort of a compromise...

The saga continues.

All the latest NASL/USL news right here..

You can get all the new info right here!!!

Canadian MNT involved in a fixed match..

According to this article put out by MINA ( Macedonian International News Agency), the recent Macedonia- Canada friendly was fixed by UEFA referee Anton Genov. You can take a look, here..

If only there was this type of scrutiny after a certain Gold Cup semi-final in 2007, right Mr. Archundia??

Don Garber visits the great white north..

MLS commissioner Don Garber was in town yesterday, and apparently had a very productive meeting with Joey Saputo, Quebec finance minister Raymond Bachand and goofy-looking Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay.

Ironically, it was also the first major snowfall of the winter season in Montreal, so assuming the Impact will be announced as the 19th team at 2010 MLS First kick, as reported here by Ben Rycroft, I'm pretty sure Garber is aware that playing some kind of an August-May type schedule is for the most part impossible and stupid.

To me, this news was as refreshing as taking the "Nestea Plunge"... All the endless speculation/hearsay and tales of impending doom about 2nd division soccer on the footy blogosphere, have left me worn out and annoyed ( ya..I know, I should stop being an obsessed geek) .

So...getting back to the "Montreal MLS expansion summit" (excuse the hyperbole), apparently the meeting with the finance minister lasted 2 hours. So we can be pretty sure that this deal is done and they are just ironing out the final details, as ministers usually have better things to do then participate in preliminary discussions. Also, for the first time I believe, the Impact has officially spoken of and posted the MLS logo on their website.

One of the "little things" left to be negociated is the provincial government apparently only wanting to pony-up 20$ million, leaving Joey to foot the bill for the remaing 5$ million. This was discussed on yesterday's edition of It's Called Football, here...

This supposed government "cheapness", is all the more frustrating when you consider that Quebec premier Jean Charest was recently quoted as being all gung ho about forking over 100-150$ million for a new arena in Quebec City, for a hockey team that doesn't even exist..Oh, yes..Pardon me its hockey, so that is REALLY important..

Anyways, I'm just thankful for that small breather from all the negative drama surrounding TOA/NASL/USL/USSF/CSA/ABCDEFG ect. ect.

And I guess, seeing as its the holiday season we should be grateful for what we have, right? We could be in FCNY's situation!?

I know I should not take joy in the misery of others, but I gotta admit I kinda feel a little better now..Thanks for listening (reading??)..

A casual Montreal sports fan tries to understand USL/NASL/MLS..

With all the rumors, confusion and different scenarios being played out for the 2010 season in Northern North America's 2nd division, the typical casual sports fan in Montreal has absolutely no clue what is going on with the Impact and typically I can literally see their eyes glaze over when I attempt to explain it to them....

Usually the conversation goes something like this:

Casual Montreal sports fan (cmsf) : So..you like the Impacts, eh?

Me: Ya, I got season tickets. You should check out a game sometime, the caliber of play slowly keeps getting a little better every year in North America...

CMSF: Uhhh ( seems uncomfortable) ... Ya..uh, maybe, but I heard they didn't do so good this year...But I'll go for sure when they play in .. MSL?? You know, the Major League.. (big smile)

Me: Well, actually they won the USL-1 championship this year..It's true they did start out slow but they finished strong and went undefeated in the playoffs and they.. (interupts me)

CMSF: So their going MLS next year?? (seems genuinely excited)

Me: No, but they will almost certainly be there in 2012 as long as they get the money from the provincial government for the stadium expansion. Ya..I'm not too sure for next year yet, they will probably be in the New North American Soccer League but nothing is sure yet..

CMSF: (gives a puzzled look) What league is that? What about that other league you said they were in, the USL?!

ME: A bunch of the owners in the USL-1 wanted to breakaway and form their own league so they could have more control over the direction the league takes, and they decided to call it NASL, you know like the old league the Manic played in?

CMSF: So, their gonna play in the North American League next year?

Me: Most probably but its still not confirmed yet, the soccer federations from the US and Canada still have to sanction the league before it can be made official..There is still a possibility they could force the teams back to USL-1...

CMSF: ( has completely phazed out) Oh, OK.

Me: .....

CMSF: Hey, the Habs played awesome yesterday!!


Me: *sigh* Ya...

USSF, CSA to meet with the TOA and USL

According to Brian Quarstad at Inside Minnesota Soccer, the United States Soccer Federation, the Canadian Soccer Association and the Puerto Rican Football Federation are scheduled to meet with the TOA and the USL this Sunday December 6th in New York. The goal of the meeting is obviously to come to some kind of conclusion to all this mess.

Read on here..

Hopefully, this means that at some point this coming week, we will be able to get some kind of news or idea as to what exactly we can expect for the Impact's 2010 season.

1) NASL will be sanctionned? It may seem logical, seeing all the work they seem to be putting into this, trademarks, domain names and hiring PR firms. However, who really knows whats going on behind the scenes..

2) The federations (and by this I mean mostly the USSF) ''force'' the teams back to USL-1, along with some kind of promise by Nurock to give the owners some form of control over the first division.

3) Sort of a mix of scenario 1 and 2, where the ''new'' Northern North American 2nd division is totally independant from USL but plays under their umbrella and pays them a small fee to use the brand, logo and for front office stuff like scheduling and other paper pushing type things.

What do you think?

Either way the season is 4 months away and some kind of a decision has to made soon as season tickets must be sold, schedules made and TV/ Internet streaming must be arranged..

So whats going on... ''New'' NASL bits and pieces

Ok, so here we go with some updates on the ''new'' NASL:

- As most of us soccer geeks already know the Cleveland City Stars have been terminated?? by the USL. Am I the only one who finds it odd that a league has the power to ''terminate'' a team, especially seeing as they were apparently in the midst of putting the finishes touches on the sale of the club? They were expected to be self-relegated to USL-2 had the sale been completed.

-Brian Quarstad of Inside Minnesota, wrote an awesome piece on how Nike should be taking its part of the blame for this whole crisis/mess. A must read here...

- Rochester Raging Rhinos (I know but it makes me smile to add the ''raging'' part) owner Rob Clark has totally flip-flopped on his vocal anti TOA stance and has signed up to be the 10th team in the ''new'' NASL.

Resident Rhinos blogger/journalist Jeff DiVeronica published an e-mail he received on his blog ''Devo's Direct kicks" from , and I'm sorry to go there, a complete douchebag who goes into a tirade about the NASL's supposed plan to strongarm the MLS into merging with them??
You can read that gem here..

- So who's left in USL-1?

Austin
Portland
Puerto Rico

? 3 teams....OUCH!! Oh, sorry maybe 4, how could I have forgot FCNY (well..everyone else did so I guess I will forgive myself)

I'm shortly expecting a case study on how to totally mess up an acquisition featuring Nurock soccer holdings or whatever their name is.

Nurock's handling of this whole mess = Ultimate Fail!

- I'm hearing all kinds of different info on when we should expect a decision on USSF sanctionning, so I won't give my own opinion about that, but I will say that I don't see how the USSF could possibly not sanction the league.

With 3 or 4 teams left in USL-1, it is obvious that Nurock has lost this battle and they would be well advised to just back off and concentrate on the PDL and their youth soccer structure. I mean you can't force millionnaire/billionnaire team owners to play by your rules and just expect them to shut up and take it.

- As for the Impact, besides announcing some player signings (David Testo back for 2 years), nothing substantial about the new league has come out of the front office. I also find it odd that Joey Saputo has still not come out and made a firm commitment about the NASL.

Perhaps he is waiting for sanctionning to be approved to make an announcement, but the reality is that Impact fans and supporters have still not been given a definite answer as to what league the team will be in next year!? All signs point to NASL but still, its December 4th and still nothing..

More ramblings soon....

( cross-posted to the 24th minute)