This has to stop!

One word: YUCK!

The Tampa Rowdies announced today that they will be playing their home games at Steinbrenner Field. A baseball stadium. That means that we will have the delight of watching games in Tampa with players running around in the infield dirt. Bush League.

The United States Soccer Federation recently talked about elevating the criteria for operating a D2 soccer team, well a suitable stadium should be #1 on their list. Soccer players should not be running around in sand or kicking around the ball over American football lines. Playing fields like this cheapen the league, the game and appear amateurish to the casual sports fan that soccer on this continent desperately needs to continue its growth into the mainstream.

No proper stadium should equal no team. The Rowdies FO (or is it now FC Tampa Bay?) have plans to build a soccer specific stadium? Great! Build the stadium, then field a team.

On the brighter side of things at least we don't have to watch games at Middlefield Cheese stadium on USL Live anymore...

New players announced...

After much speculation it was with great fanfare (not really) that the Impact announced their 2 new player signings today. Midfielders Helder Filipe Da Costa Soares (pictured left) and Philippe Billy (pictured right DUH!!).

Soares 27 yrs old, also known as Filipe Pastel played in Portugal 2nd division for 10 years and was also selected for the Portuguese Under-20 National Team. He is expected to take the place of the recently departed Joey Gjertsen (does San Jose constantly scout our games or something!?) as an offensive midfielder. Here is a brief compilation video (looks pretty impressive to me) :

Excuse the annoying little background music



Billy 28 yrs old, bounced around a lot playing briefly in Serie A with Lecce, but mostly seeing action in French Ligue 2 having played the last 2 seasons with Stade Brestois.

It's kind of hard for me to give an honest opinion about these 2 new acquisitions having never actually seen them play, but both having consistently played in euro 2nd divisions they most definitely have the skills to succeed in USSF D2.

Time will tell if they adapt themselves well to the team and North American footy. Hopefully they will have as much of an Impact (not meant as a pun) as Cristian Arrieta did for Puerto Rico, when he came over from Serie B in Italy in 2008. Arrieta was named USL-1 MVP in 2009.

I'm hoping to head down to the Impact's practice facility in Brossard to check them out in person tomorrow.

More later..

Just waking up....

Excuse my long absence, I got caught up in the world of payed work and other daily annoyances. I'm back for now..

Training camp starts on Monday with a press conference to announce a new player signing. Who will it be? Dare I dream of Patrice Bernier who has been rumored to be in discussions with the Houston Dynamo? Will he take a massive hometown discounted contract? Not likely...

More on this and other Impact tidbits, rumors and bullsh*t later....