Colorado's Woes - Why Isn't Clavijo Fired Yet?

As mentioned a few days ago, the Colorado Rapids are winless in 10 games. Worse, they have only won 11 games out of their last 41 played in the MLS. Most disturbing is that their hasn't been a peep out of the Front Office about the coaching situation. No one has came out and said that Clavijo's job is on the line if he doesn't turn around the team soon (not that he deserves more time). Jeff Plush nor Charlie Wright have not stated if Clavijo is meeting their expectations let alone exactly what their expectations are at this point. They have not stated that they will fire Clavijo even though at this point short of a minor miracle, the Colorado Rapids are now for all practical purposes out of the playoffs. Does Enos Stan Kroenke care so little about the Rapids that he can't be bothered to bring in at least an average coach? After all, Fernando Clavijo has one of the worst all-time coaching records in the MLS. Can we at least shoot for average?

Next On The Chopping Block?

Are there any other MLS coaches that deserve to be fired? Sigi at the Crew? Fernando at the Rapids? Yallop at LA?

Hand Of God (Again)

If you haven't heard, Messi scored a hand of god goal for Barcelona. Who Ate All The Pies has a bit on it including video of the incident. My question is how can Sepp Blatter sit back and watch the game take a beating over blatant cheating like this and still insist there is no place for video replays in the game?

Drew Carey & Mooch

Props to Drew Carey for the $160,000 he donated to the Mooch Myernick Memorial Fund.

USA - Ecuador Commentary

It's too bad that Mostly Blue and White World doesn't blog more on soccer. Some interesting comments by Appoo on the match. As for me I'd sum it up in that once again Lannycakes steps it up a notch but not in a key match.

Stay Away From Blanco, Chicago

Steve Davis lays out a good case for why Chicago should not be pursuing signing Cuauhtémoc Blanco. It's not just about the money or his age, 34, but the questions over how well he's still able to play. Just as importantly, Davis questions how big of a disruption Blanco would be in the locker room and on the pitch. I think he's spot on. The question is, what players should Chicago be pursuing for their Designated Player slot?

Goldman Sachs Pulls Out Of Real Salt Lake Deal

As reported by the Deseret News, Goldman Sachs real estate investment arm Whitehall has pulled out of it's deal with Real Salt Lake. For their investment, they were going to own 50% of SCP Worldwide's Real Salt Lake. Typically these investment funds put their money into a project with a 3-5 year time horizon. Whitehall has over $30 billion in real estate investments and recently purchased the John Hancock tower in Chicago for over $300 million. What happened that caused Whitehall to pull out at the last minute?

Home Field Advantage At 5,280 Feet

If you missed it, check out FC Rocky's analysis of the home and away form for the Colorado Rapids the last 4 years. He breaks the games down by halves too. While the Rapids have clearly dominated at home, they have done just the opposite on the road. It's hard to see how a team can win the MLS Cup without being able to get the job done away from home. Would the team be better off in the long run if they weren't so dependent on winning games on the road?

What About Shevchenko?

Instead of speculating about John Terry's future at Chelsea, the real question is if Andrei Shevchenko will be with the team next year. The £30 million summer signing has only scored 3 times in 25 appearances in league play for Chelsea. As pointed by readers and the press, Mourinho's future at Chelsea is under question. He wasn't given any money to spend during the winter window. Since then he has stated he's looking to fulfill his contract that ends in 2010. Even if Mourinho stays, it doesn't mean Sheva won't be sold this summer. Players like Kezman, Veron, and Del Horno were quickly sold off when they didn't perform. And with the club looking to find a way to break even during the next few years, Chelsea very well may be ready to cast off Shevchenko to help reach that goal.

Would Terry Leave

There's a lot being made of John Terry's contract status. With new FIFA rules, he could buy out the last 2 years of his contract and move to a new club. And talks his agent has had with Chelsea are reported to have broke down. The real question here is why would John Terry want to leave Chelsea? He's reported to be pulling in £4.5 million / year. He's been with Chelsea since he was a youth with his only time away from the club being a short loan stint at Nottingham Forest. He's never expressed any interested in leaving Chelsea. Why would he now?

Metzelder : Going Anywhere?

It looks like German Christoph Metzelder will be available on a free this summer (thanks Soccer Jones for the scoop). I agree that he seems unlikely to leave Germany. I just hope he ends up with a club like Hamburg or Werder Bremen instead of joining Bayern Munich. And of course no matter how unlikely he is to move to England, it won't stop the English press from linking him with a move there.

Clavijo Looks At Rapids Upcoming Season

Soccer 365 has a nice interview with Colorado Rapids head coach Fernando Clavijo. It's good to see Clavijo again stating where his goals for the team lie :

“I’ve been saying all along it would take 3 years to put a group of players together and this is 3 years, so no excuses. Everything is falling into place and you have to believe that this is our time.”

With the MLS having a salary cap and the league's office slowing adding transparency to the player acquisition process, clubs in smaller markets should be aiming for winning it all. The question is do the Rapids really have the talent to do so? A lot has been made over the loss Joe Cannon. Zach Thornton, 33, is perceived as being at the near end of his career. The defense, tied for the worst in the league last year, has been shaken up with some new veterans (Vanney, Prideaux) brought in along with the talented Ugo Ihemelu. Clavijo will need to find a way to get all those new faces in the back to gel if the team is to make a run. More so, they need to start scoring goals. Hercules Gomez may be able to be the 15 goal scorer the team needs if he can find ways to latch on to Terry Cooke's crosses. But as we saw last year with Cunningham at Real Salt Lake, it'll take more than that. And as well as Beckerman and Mastroeni may play together in the middle, the Rapids will likely need one of their under performing vets like Mathis or Kirovski to step and show they can still play and produce some magic if the team is going to have a serious chance of winning a trophy.

Toronto And Conor Casey

It looks like the MLS has signed Conor Casey. But Toronto FC has not announced Casey's signing as of yet. So there is some speculation as to why this is. From the Toronto Sun's article it would appear that it's a matter of which allocation Toronto will need to use to bring Casey into the fold. What I'm wondering is how soon Toronto needs to finalize this before other teams get a chance to use their allocation to bring him in.

Blatter Yaps Again

I really need to expand on the things done by FIFA president Sepp Blatter that demonstrate how he's a walking soap opera. There were the moves to push out folks trying to investigate corruption in FIFA itself. There was the flap over him commenting that women's soccer would be more popular if they wore tighter uniforms. Recently Blatter showed his lack of leadership skills in saying that Columbia's bid to host the 2014 World Cup was a publicity stunt. I can understand the leader of an organization hinting that a bid is unlikely to succeed. But to just come out and say something like this isn't the sort of behavior I'd expect of someone leading an organization like such as FIFA.

MLS Roster Cuts Coming

Technically by today, Thursday March 1 all MLS teams need to be down to 18 senior roster players and 10 developmental players. They will also need to be in compliance with the allowable numbers for international players. The question will be how many if any of the teams manage to make a public announcement today on their rosters.