The 2012 MLS schedule was published this morning. A couple of nice surprises, a little disappointment, but over all I think it’s a good schedule for Seattle.

Prior to the MLS schedule we have the Champions League quarter final home and away legs. That has the potential to really open the season up in a big way. Win over the two games and it’s into the last four and that is a big deal. additionally, in August through October there is the group stages for the 2012-2013 Champions League that the Sounders have already qualified for, no play-in game this year. and somewhere in this there will be open cup. A fourth US Open cup in a row would be tough, but they are holders until someone knocks them out.

The league has given us a schedule that supports Seattle being successful in this competition, and that’s huge. They have a bye weekend between the two quarter final legs, and no east coast travel after the NYRB game in July.

What else do I see as good.

• Midweek games: I love big midweek games under the lights, it creates a special atmosphere.
• We host LA and Salt Lake twice, and only play at their place once each. Will this finally be the year we give LA the spanking they deserve?
• The three opening league games are Toronto, Houston and San Jose at home. Three winnable games and a chance to banish the slow start we’ve seen for each of the last two seasons.
• Then next home game is Colorado, I hope it’s a Seattle team that’s on a roll and a loud building that welcomes Brian Mullan (if he makes the trip this time) to Seattle.
• In May there is a series of tough home games. LA on a Wednesday night, Philadelphia three days later and then Salt Lake the following weekend. By the time we get to the middle of that month we will see what this Sounders team is made of, if they really are the contenders we believe.
• Final two games of the regular season are doozies, hosting Dallas and then away at LA. I assume the league hopes this could be for the Supporters Shield, dare we dream?

Disappointments are few.

• The obvious one is playing Vancouver and Portscum twice away, but only once at home. I’m interested to see how the supporters groups determine what counts for the Cascadia Cup this year, all games or just one home and one away.

A few games got circled on the calendar today and other than the Cascadia games, I think this is a great schedule for Seattle.

• Sat. March 17 Toronto FC
• Fri. March 23 Houston
• Sat. March 31 San Jose
• Sat. April 14 Colorado Rapids
• Wed. May 2 L.A. Galaxy
• Sat. May 5 Philadelphia Union
• Sat. May 12 Real Salt Lake
• Wed. May 23 Columbus
• Wed. June 20 Kansas City
• Sat. July 7 Colorado Rapids
• Wed. July 18 Real Salt Lake
• Sun. Aug. 5 L.A. Galaxy
• Sat. Aug. 18 Vancouver Whitecaps
• Sat. Sept. 8 Chivas
• Sun. Sept. 23 San Jose
• Sun. October 7 Portland Timbers
• Sun. October 21 FC Dallas
• Sun. October 28 at L.A.

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• Here is your Sounders FC schedule for the 2012 MLS season (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• 2012 MLS Schedule Released: Sounders, Toronto FC Get First Week Byes (sbnation.com)
• 2012 New Year’s resolutions for each of the 19 MLS teams (goal.com)
• Some quick thoughts on the 2012 schedule (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

I titled a post a few days ago “What sort of league is this?”, today the league office answered that. They are a league that wants to protect it’s players.

The league delivered a message today when it handed Mullan a 10 game ban and a $5000 fine. Playing the player rather than the ball is unacceptable, keep the game clean.

The 10 game suspension matches the ban given to Ricardo Clark for his stomp of FC Dallas’ Carlos Ruiz in 2007. At the time the Don said “In taking this action, Major League Soccer is sending a signal that it will not accept reckless and dangerous behavior on its fields,”

Well here we are four seasons later and this time it was for an on-the-ball incident rather than after play was blown dead. Zakuani never saw the reckless tackle coming and certainly did nothing to provoke it (as some agued Ruiz did).

The league has sent a message that players need to be protected from violent tackles. It’s something that has no place in the game, the league does not want players to take out frustrations in this way and the punishment is substantial enough to hopefully make players think twice before in the future.

As has been stated Mullan is a hard player, but not a dirty one. He was last Friday night, and is going to pay for the choice he made. Watching the game and then the replay while I don’t believe he meant to hurt Zakuani, I do think he wanted to send a message.

The league office stated, “Mullan’s tackle is the type of play we need to eliminate from our game and the level of discipline is consistent with our efforts to do so.”

“In making this decision, the Committee took several factors into account: the timing of the challenge, the location on the field, the moments immediately before the challenge where it is clear that Mullan is frustrated and the severity of Zakuani’s injury.”

Now it’s time to move on, the league has made it’s statement, Mullan has accepted his punishment. He will be back for the Colorado visit to Seattle in July. It would say a lot of his character if her were to face what would be a very hostile crowd.

Every year before the MLS Final Don Garber, the commissioner of MLS, gives what he calls a “State of the League” address. There were a number of interesting points made this year.

One important one was growing the league by making more attractive locally and making matchups a bigger deal

He said ”We’re very focused on local rivalries being a key driver of growing our club’s relevance… The phenomenon in the Pacific Northwest is something that we never could have dreamed of.”

So in a couple of short years he’s gone from being against teams using their local roots and history to embracing this as one of the ways to grow the league. Clearly this is down to the intensity of the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver games. The demand from traveling supporters for tickets is by far outstripping the league mandated 150 away tickets. The three support groups are working together and putting pressure on the front offices to accommodate larger numbers. 5% of the crowd is one number that seems to have be thrown around a lot recently as part of the debate, this is the percentage FIFA uses when I comes to away ticket allocation at internationals. This story has some distance to run and I’m sure will be resolved before the season kicks off.

Another point that got my attention was the incentive given to teams to open academies, scout and grow talent internally. This may not seem like a big deal at first glance, but after talking it over last night I think this is a significant announcement for a number of reasons.

Today a US domestic youth player has no real alternative to playing football in College. I think that’s a poor step to a professional career for a number of reasons. To be clear this argument is not about someone who sees playing football as a way to get a college education, it’s someone who has ambitions of being a professional player and the potential to back it up.

First, and sorry to harp on about Europe again but there kids are full time in the academy at 16 years old. By the time a player is 21 he’s got five years of full time coaching and five full seasons of competitive football behind him.

Secondly, not every kid fits in college. Look at some of the American Football players that colleges recruit that end up doing basket weaving in summer school because they need credits or will loose eligibility.

Comparing like-for-like, the college graduate at 21 or 22 years old has not had full time coaching and plays in the short three-month college season. The college player is way further behind on his football development curve than the academy player.

In the academy system players make (and arguably bigger) step between 16 year old with talent and professional over maybe four or five years rather than all at once when being selected in the draft. There are exceptions, players that step directly into the first team, Steve Zakuani is one, but again these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

I think if done correctly by the sides an MLS academy system give the elite kids with potential to make a living in the game a better alternative to college.

The top development league is probably Premier Development League (PDL) with around 60 teams split into eight conferences. There are a couple of other options at this level (FIFA recognize this as “Level 4” on a traditional football pyramid) in the National Premier Soccer League and the mostly Canadian based Pacific Coast Soccer League, but PDL is the one I’m most familiar with. There are a number of local teams include Kitsap Pumas, Washington Crossfire and the junior teams of the Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers.

To add a little more credibility to the elite players not playing in college football system (or the “S” word if you prefer) is Brigham Young University. BYU does not play in the NCAA alongside every other college in the country they play in the PDL. The university feels the competition is better and believe it will produce better players at the end of it. The old cliché of competition improving the breed has a lot of truth to it.

To go back to my original point and why the academy is going to be important to the MLS and the Sounders. To go along with the academy is a reserve league, next year it’s only 10 games plus playoffs. More games would be a good, but it’s a promising start.

Additionally the clubs to develop talent is the ability to sign younger players (under 24 years old) without them counting against the salary cap. There is no restriction on the number of academy players a side can sign. There are lots of incentives for a side to develop it’s own talent, it takes owners with a slightly longer term view. It may be 4 or 5 years before the effort shows, but it only takes one or two players for it to be worthwhile financially, along with increasing the sense of community that is so important to a club.

It turned out to be a fun game to watch. Seattle was not outclassed and can feel a little unlucky to have come out of this one with nothing. Both teams had good spells; LA spent most of the evening with five across the midfield and did a good job at spoiling the through balls to the Seattle attackers.

Beckham

LA’s tactics in neutralizing Seattle were more effective than most other teams. They packed midfield and man-marked Alonso in the middle. This made it difficult to get onto any balls passed to the attackers on the outside.

The LA keeper Donovan Rickets had an outstanding game, very solid when Seattle managed to get the ball into the channels.

Seattle had the ball in the net in the first minute of play. Alonso let his marker with a cut back and got space for a shot. Zakuani got onto the rebound and put it away. Unfortunately Zakuani was offside and the flag went up.

Scarves up Seattle! For the last time this season.

Shortly before half time Edson Buddle turned Pat Ianni around and made a wonderful lob that gave Keller no chance. That was the only score of what was an entertaining game.

The ref had a poor night, he let the game get away from him somewhat and allowed some heavy tackles go unpunished, especially in the first half before tightening up after the break. Seattle has something of a history with Salazar and his calls. Most players want consistency from the ref and they did not get it this evening.

Despite all that LA probably deserved the win, certainly Rickets kept them in the game, but they had more control and the better chances.

Header from Nfuko

Interestingly Zakuani and Nyassi seemed to spend a lot of time on the opposite wing from where they normally play on. Not sure why they played so much out of position, it did not seem to create much but did give LA something they’ve not seen before.

There are some good signs for Seattle, they did OK in the final third of the field and got some good looks. The LA defence looks vulnerable and if they can find space in the middle of the field and win a few more of the 50/50 balls they have a chance to pull a surprise in LA next weekend. This tie is a long way from over, next Sunday should be a fun game.

Lastly, lets not forget this was Halloween and there were a lot of costumes on show (again, I don’t understand the dressing up part, but it makes for fun people watching). There was the cookie monster in the Pyramid brewery before the game, A Sounders green Kermit the Frog and a few seats along from me the Wicked Witch of the West.

Halloween at RBP