Revolution v. L.A. Galaxy, 5.28.11 (and Barcelona!)

I’ve had this date circled on my calendar for weeks: Champions League final at 2:45 p.m. and Revolution at home against the L.A. Galaxy at 8:00 p.m. And so . . .

Far greater pens than mine have expounded on the merits of this year’s incarnation of FC Barcelona, which some put in the company of best-ever sports teams. The club’s season-punctuating thrashing of Manchester United will of course support those arguments. I was lucky enough to watch Barcelona play about a dozen times this year and I was always rewarded by amazingly good, some would say artistic, soccer. Here are a few observations about Barcelona that have been made before, but which may be worth laying out in a bureaucratic bulleted format, even by someone with my pedestrian knowledge of the game:

·      Messi virtually never leaves the field, even in garbage time of meaningless games. This might be the most amazing fact about Barca, given Messi’s diminutive size, the amount of talent around him, his importance to the team, his high salary, and the strength and speed of opposing players and attendant threat of physical harm. How cool is it that probably the best athlete now walking the planet refuses to rest?

·      Barca players rarely cross the ball in the air for headers in front of the goal, preferring instead to patiently pass in incredibly tight spaces in the offensive half of the field, biding their time for a shot. They even play most of their corner kicks short.

·      For large stretches of their matches, Barca effectively plays with only two defenders—its outside backs (particularly Dani Alves) almost constantly making offensive runs.

·      Barca players are tenacious defenders, pressing all over the field. In other words, they aren’t just more skilled than other teams' players, they outhustle them too.

To move from great teams to small, the Revolution lost another one today, 1-0 to the Galaxy. Despite getting blanked, the Revs had their chances. The first opportunity came early, in the second minute. Benny Feilhaber took a pass from Rajko Lekic and sprinted up the left wing. He then made a deft pass with the outside of his right foot, curling the ball back to a charging Zak Boggs, who had gotten in behind the L.A. defense. Boggs’s finish from close range was horrible, high and wide of the goal. The Revs wouldn’t actually get a shot on the frame until the 53^rd minute, which is one measure of their performance. Another is corner kicks: the Revolution took 0, the Galaxy 10.

Still, New England came tantalizingly close to tying the game in the final minutes. In the second minute of stoppage time, they had three—count ‘em three—excruciating near-goals in the span of about 20 seconds. It wasn’t the surreal end-of-game surge that Ghana laid on Uruguay at the end of that amazing 2010 World Cup match-up, but it was reminiscent of it.

The Revolution’s first shot of the sequence came off a ball ineffectively punched by the Galaxy’s lanky Jamaican keeper, Donovan Ricketts. Zack Schilawski stormed into the picture while Ricketts was laid out and made an accurate shot on goal. Schilawski was running laterally to celebrate his equalizer when L.A. defender A.J. DeLaGarza cleared the ball at the goal line. Sainey Nyassi eventually got that rebound and crossed the ball into the center from the right wing. Schilawski again charged onto the ball, elevated, and hammered a half volley off the cross bar. (The poor sap.) The shot caromed into the ground and bounced up to Shalrie Joseph, who seemed to tie the game himself for an instant with a header until Landon Donovan came out of nowhere to clear that ball off the line and preserve the Galaxy victory.

So the Revs came on late but again failed to finish. And after starting the same lineup for the third straight game (not including the sorry-excuse-for-a-soccer-match against KC on Wednesday), the Revs will now lose Feilhaber and (probably) Joseph to the Gold Cup. New England’s prospects of picking up points against Dallas and New York in the coming weeks don’t look good, but after their furious comeback attempt against L.A., I can’t write them off yet.

Revolution at Sporting Kansas City, U.S. Open Cup Play-In, 5.25.11

A networking opportunity prevented me from watching the first half of this U.S. Open Cup play-in game. I never thought I’d say this, but thank heaven for networking opportunities. Revolution coach Steve Nicol played a number of guys I’d never heard of before, like Otto Loewy, Ryan Kinne, and Andrew Sousa. Given the team’s performance during last night’s 5-0 destruction at the hands of Kansas City (1-6-1 in league play, for goodness sake), I may never have to familiarize myself with these players’ bios.

Depressingly, the Revs did field some players who can claim “regular” status. Didier Domi and Pat Phelan returned to action for the first time in many games, and Franco Coria, Sainey Nyassi, and Zack Schilawski also played. I don’t recall the Revs taking a single shot in the second half that could not have been saved by one of the players on the 5^th/6^th grade intramural girls team that I coach. I’m not as certain that some of my girls could have penetrated the Revs’ paper tiger defense last night, but I wouldn’t have bet much against them. (Especially given the epiphanic twenty-yard strike pounded into the back of the net last Saturday by our right back.) The ref, mercifully, tacked on zero additional time to the second half.

Sporting KC is still waiting for their new home soccer stadium to open, so the game was played at a place called the Blue Valley District Activities Complex. As far as I can tell, the “Complex” is a high-school stadium in a place called Overland Park, Kansas. To say that the facility looked bush league would be to do it a great honor, not that the Revs’ performance merited a more lavish setting. I watched the game streamed live through Sporting KC’s website. The image was grainy and jerky on my computer screen, radiating an amateur, bootleg quality that I normally associate with fan videos of 1980s alternative rock shows. The video brightness often shifted abruptly during the game, so that the players’ images were either washed out or seen through a glass darkly. A wind-whipped rain no doubt added to the technical difficulties and poor image. There were no replays.

You had to be a real soccer junkie, or someone doggedly maintaining a blog, to watch the game through. I felt particularly loyal, or diligent, as KC players notched goals 4 and 5 in the waning minutes of play. Meanwhile, KC fans could be seen sporadically getting into their Buick Enclaves and Chevy TrailBlazers to exit the small parking lot just a few yards behind the team benches. I imagine this is the kind of sacrifice Dean Benedetti made while documenting the performances of Charlie Parker, only there was no artistry on display last night from the Revolution.

Revolution at San Jose Earthquakes, 5.21.11

Earthquakes’ striker Steven Lenhart is surmounted by what looks like a wig from a Greatest American Hero Halloween costume, circa 1982. His hair is an anachronism, a throwback to an era when a significant number of American males affected a bleached-blond man-perm. In our current day and age, Lenhart’s hairstyle is more radical, and certainly more rare, than Shalrie Joseph’s dreadlocks or Rajko Lekic’s among-the-thugs shaved head. Your first inclination might be to laugh off Lenhart, as if he emerged from a Chevy van sporting white shoes, a gold medallion, and a silk shirt open at the throat. That would be a mistake. Lenhart is a strong presence in the air and plays physical soccer that’s just this side of dirty.

Though he won’t receive formal credit on the score sheet, Lenhart was instrumental in producing the game’s first goal. It came in the 71^st minute off a perfect cross from Chris Wondolowski. Wondolowski ran down the right sideline and cut the ball back to his left foot, evading A.J. Soares, who I’m sorry to say made a lame attempt to block the cross. As the ball sailed into the center, Lenhart drew the attention of two Revolution defenders at the six. That freed a trailing Ellis McLoughlin, who headed in his first MLS goal.

Wondolowski and Lenhart give San Jose an enviable duo up front. Wondolowski looked particularly impressive against the Revolution. Revs defenders forced him to his left all night long and he was still able to make them pay on that cross to McLoughlin. He almost made them pay again in the 79^th minute with a quick left-footed strike that skidded just wide of the post. I was happy to see Wondolowski was named to the U.S. national team’s Gold Cup roster yesterday. Based on this year and last, he clearly deserves the chance. The announcement is a mixed blessing for San Jose, who will miss Wondolowski over the course of the tournament. But as the silk-shirted, gold-medallion-wearing Kurtis Blow once put it: these are the breaks.

The Revs have no counterpart to Wondolowski, who incidentally last year managed to lead MLS in scoring and avoid falling below the poverty line while collecting his $48,000 annual salary. But back to the Revolution, whose new $275,000-a-year striker Lekic has only one goal and zero assists in 531 minutes of play. He never threatened against San Jose. He did, however, get under the skin of numerous Earthquake players. Veteran Bobby Convey, who played left back and scored the game winner off a great free kick, received a yellow for unsporting behavior after shoving Lekic in the back. (Convey lost his composure when Lekic ran him into the sideline advertising boards.)

With the way Lekic talks and plays, often grabbing opposing players around the shoulder and neck area while challenging for the ball, he will likely draw many more cards this year. Unfortunately, as we saw when he argued with Sainey Nyassi a couple of weeks ago against Colorado, Lekic may also be in danger of routinely antagonizing his own teammates. He and Benny Feilhaber exchanged words in the 74^th minute of this game after Lekic was called offside following a Feilhaber through ball. Feilhaber had a point. He had held the ball as long as he could, waiting for Lekic to step onside, but Lekic never did. It was a wasted chance for the Revolution on a night in which they produced few of them.

This—failing to produce chances, let alone goals—of course represents a growing trend. The Revs have now failed to score in the run of play in four straight regular-season games. (Chris Tierney got the Revolution’s only goal off a free kick just outside the box in the 86^th minute.) This is not the kind of soccer that’s going to generate excitement for the team. I wasn’t surprised to read in Soccer America Daily today that so far this year the Revs have an average home attendance of only 10,892. That’s well below the current 2011 league average of 17,378. Only Columbus and San Jose have lower attendance numbers than New England.

Revolution v. Vancouver Whitecaps, 5.14.11

 This marks the third straight game in which the Revolution have failed to score a goal in the run of play. The team looked out of sorts during the first half, particularly Darrius Barnes at left back, who was the victim of a couple of dangerous runs by Shea Salinas, the Whitecaps’ impressive young winger from Texas. The Revs’ flabby first-half performance can probably again be attributed to their ever-shifting lineups. Barnes was in for an injured Didier Domi, and Ousmane Dabo and Marko Perovic were also out. Zak Boggs was back from injury, and he started at right wing with Chris Tierney at left. They each had good games, Boggs hustling as usual and Tierney frequently and dangerously crossing the ball during the run of play and off set pieces. It must be hard to keep a guy like Tierney off the field; crosses like his make up for a multitude of deficiencies. Keeper Matt Reis also had a solid game, and the defensive line, led by Ryan Cochran and A.J. Soares in the middle, notched its second straight clean sheet despite those few shaky moments involving Barnes.

The Revs elevated their quality of play considerably in the second half, notably in the first fifteen minutes. Benny Feilhaber drew a penalty kick with a skilled trap and quick lateral move at the top of the box. Shalrie Joseph scored one of the more flawless penalty kicks you’ll ever see, striking the side netting hard and low. The goalie guessed correctly and got a good jump but still he had no chance.

The PK could not have been granted to a more deserving player. Joseph ran hard the entire game, hustling until the final whistle. He bounced back quickly from hitting his face on another player’s head in the 20^th minute when challenging for a Tierney cross. He also later recovered from a nasty ball to the groin at close range. The guy may wear a man-ponytail (defensible only on one of African descent who wears dreads, as Joseph is and does), and even occasionally man-pigtails (utterly indefensible), but he’s as tough as they come, plays hard, is good in the air, generally makes good passes, wins close challenges, and has good foot skills. I’d be surprised if he weren’t selected to his eighth MLS all-star team this year, though he is getting older and the league better.

Where would Joseph stand in the pantheon of Boston sports icons if the Revolution were widely followed? Given his accomplishments, he’d probably be up there with guys like Paul Pierce, Dustin Pedroia, Tedy Bruschi, and Ray Bourque. Some sympathetic deli ought to name a sandwich after Joseph, filling it with ingredients found in the cuisine of his native Grenada, otherwise known as the “Island of Spice.”

Let me end by saying that I miss Serbian striker Ilija Stolica, who brought skill and a touch of grizzled elegance to the Revolution roster. Stolica is on loan to some minor-league club called FC New York. That sounds like a dreadful place to be for a 32-year old with a family who once played at the highest levels with his national team.

Revolution v. Colorado Rapids, 5.7.11

Didier Domi didn’t play today due to injury, but when the game started I thought for a moment he’d snuck onto the field. It turns out that the Revolution have signed another 30-something French player of African descent with good foot skills, a shaved head, and a four-letter last name beginning with the letter D. What are the odds? The Revs’ newest player is Ousmane Dabo, a holding midfielder whose lengthy resume includes time in Italy’s Serie A and England’s Premier League. He looked solid today, controlling the ball and playing just in front of central defenders A.J. Soares and Ryan Cochrane, the latter in for an injured Franco Coria.

With the mid-season signings of Domi, Dabo, Benny Feilhaber, and Rajko Lekic, the Revolution is a team in transition. And given those signings, it appears the Revs are looking to add skill rather than speed and/or youth. This could lead to some good possession soccer after the players get to know each other, but it could also lead to a bunch of aging athletes sitting in hot tubs on game days. Last year’s team MVP Marko Perovic, another skilled player, is already injured, as is Domi. Revs fans must be eager to see Perovic, Shalrie Joseph, and all of the newcomers in action at the same time, but who knows if that will ever happen.

The Revs were decent today, which is to say infinitely better than they were against Chivas, though they couldn’t produce a goal. Fortunately, neither could Colorado, so New England managed to salvage at least a point at home. One player who was visibly displeased with this result, and with much else besides during the match, was Lekic. In the 9^th minute he got mugged and called for the foul. This set a tone of frustration for him (not that it appears he needs much provocation to be overcome by that emotion). He did have a good game, including an impressive play where he juggled the ball with a Colorado defender on his back. And he made some dangerous runs that unfortunately amounted to nothing. One of those runs came in stoppage time just before the end of the game, during one of the Revs’ best chances of the night. Sainey Nyassi received a good one-touch pass from Joseph through defenders near the top of the box. Nyassi streaked towards the right post while Lekic ran toward the left. For a brief moment Lekic was open. Nyassi hesitated and his cross was intercepted.

Lekic reacted as if Nyassi had just keyed his brand new Ferrari. He angrily and forcefully struck the left goal post with his foot. One thing’s for sure: the Dane’s schoolyard English is in working order. The camera caught him savagely jawing at Nyassi for the tardiness of his pass. When the final whistle blew a few minutes later, Lekic left the field shaking his head. He then voiced his concerns to Nichol on the sideline. I loved Lekic’s effort today, but I doubt if his ranting and complaining to the coach will ingratiate him with his new teammates.

Veteran strikers Omar Cummings and Conor Casey didn’t play for the Rapids, which was a disappointment. However, we got to see Andre Akpan instead. Akpan is a 23-year-old Harvard grad, an econ major who scored 47 goals for the Crimson and was named 2009 Ivy League player of the year. He came on as a Colorado substitute around the 30^th minute today and looked mighty impressive. He took a searing shot from about thirty yards out soon after coming in, made an impressive cut-back move on Kevin Alston a little later, and also quickly released a just-off-target shot after stealing a ball off a Revolution player’s chest trap. He’s dangerous and I’m intrigued.

Revolution at Chivas USA, 4.30.11

This was by a wide margin the sorriest performance of the season so far by the Revolution, a far cry from their promising outing against Kansas City. At about minute 50, I began simply enduring the game, like a midlevel bureaucrat slogging his way from 3:00 to 5:00 the day after a bender. I started pulling for Chivas to score even more goals at that point, since a good old-fashioned shellacking is more intriguing than a 2-0 game that’s never in doubt. Even there I was disappointed—Chivas should have netted at least 2 more goals than they did. (The final was 3-0.)

For Revolution followers the game was notable for two reasons. First, it contained one of the worst defensive sequences I’ve ever seen by players in a professional match. (And they were good players.) In the 57^th minute, Franco Coria lost a challenge and allowed a Chivas player to dribble to the corner and make a cross. Shalrie Joseph, playing near the top of his penalty box amongst a trio of Chivas players, ultimately collected the cross and casually played the ball back to Didier Domi, who, astonished, trapped the ball almost politely with the inside of his foot at the six. The ball rolled to the feet of two equally astonished Chivas players, one of whom (Alejandro Moreno) gratefully put it into the net. After the goal, Domi sat on his duff, looking up and mouthing words to Joseph while gesturing in a European way towards the area just vacated by the celebrating Chivas attackers. The gist of Domi’s comments can be guessed.

The game was also notable for the naked frustration shown by the Revolution players as the game wore on. Gone was the bonhomie on display after the KC victory. In the 74^th minute against Chivas, for example, Benny Feilhaber made a laughable strike that sailed well over the height of the bar and well wide of the post. Cameras showed Rajko Lekic looking visibly upset at the “shot.” Feilhaber in turn looked equally disgusted with his teammates throughout much of the match. After a good performance in his first Revolution game, Feilhaber laid an egg in this one. He was virtually invisible, like the rest of the Revolution players. It’s only one game, obviously, but it went some small way towards justifying Chivas’s decision to pass on Feilhaber in last month’s MLS allocation draft.

Revolution v. Sporting Kansas City, 4.23.11

Benny Feilhaber made his debut for the Revolution against Kansas City and had a good game, making a number of impressive one-time passes in the quick, thoughtful-yet-instinctive manner of the natural athlete. Watching Feilhaber, it was hard for me, having grown up watching American football, not to think of Dan Marino and his famous (or if you prefer clichéd) “quick release,” in which there is almost no time between the passer seeing an open receiver and the passer’s body delivering the ball.

Feilhaber’s most memorable play came in the 12^th minute when he set up Marko Perovic with a backwards pass near the top of the box. Perovic’s blistering left-footed strike gave the Revs’ the first goal of the game. That goal came off a series of passes between Perovic, Feilhaber and Rajko Lekic. Those three players and Didier Domi—three of them newcomers this season—give the Revs an impressive quartet of skilled players. They all contributed to this 3-2 come-from-behind win, which may be cause for optimism for the Revolution. The players themselves certainly looked genuinely happy after the win. I was almost jealous of their display of camaraderie as they left the field. You don’t experience that kind of backslapping exhilaration after sitting behind a desk all day, even if you get your “deliverable” in on time.

My man Domi, I’m afraid, didn’t have a great game. KC’s first goal, a low strike to the near post, looked to me like the result of lackadaisical play by the Revs’ left back. And later in the game Domi carelessly gave away a ball near midfield that nearly led to another KC goal. More proof that foot skills don’t mean much unless they’re matched with hustle and concentration.

One Revs’ player who will probably never be accused of dogging it is Domi’s defensive mate A.J. Soares. Soares is remarkably composed and solid in the center, pairing with either the big Argentine Franco Coria or the equally solid MLS veteran Ryan Cochrane. I don’t recall Soares making a single costly error this season, and he has laudable fire. I wonder if Tim Ream, the up-and-coming Red Bulls and national team central defender, is looking over his shoulder at Soares?

But I mentioned Ryan Cochrane, another hardnosed Revolution defender. When I first saw him play this year I thought to myself, “Who is this guy that looks exactly like every saloon keeper I’ve ever seen portrayed on screen in a Western movie?” Cochrane’s saloon-keeper look has a little to do with his close-cropped hair and laconic on-field demeanor, and a hell of a lot more to do with his large and dense mustache, which looks like something a fur trapper might sling over his shoulder and take down to the local trading post. I felt smugly pleased with my powers of observation until the announcers began making frequent references to the numinous 'stache, even indicating that it has a number of fans and its own Twitter account. That brought me down to earth.

Revolution at Houston Dynamo, 4.17.11

MLS commissioner Don Garber will not be cuing up the video of this game to win over the unconverted. The Revs consistently gave the ball away, failed to string passes together, looked listless and monochromatic, and never threatened to score. Their lackluster performance may have been understandable as they were without their twin midfield stalwarts, Shalrie Joseph and Pat Phelan, both of whom sat this one out due to red cards in the last game. The Revs were also without left back Didier Domi because of a strained hamstring. Goalkeeper Matt Reis was back from injuries and Danish newcomer Rajko Lekic debuted at striker, making this a very different team from the one that took on Salt Lake a week prior. Of course, the result against Houston was no better than the one against Salt Lake, and the quality of play was worse.

For their part, the Houston Dynamo dominated the game but were unable to score through 85 minutes. Houston had many chances before that, in fact some might argue that they actually did score in the 57^th minute on a ball that Zack Schilawski cleared during some chaos following one of Houston’s corner kicks. (Houston seemed to be taking corners every other minute. Brad Davis probably had to ice his shoulder after the game from all the signaling he did before kicking them.) For my part, I think the linesman made a good call on the Schilawski clear. If a ball isn’t obviously over the line (and the replay angle left doubt), then a goal shouldn’t be called.

A better chance for Houston came earlier in the game, when a Will Bruin header missed its target from about two yards off. The ill-fated shot came off a perfect cross from Cam Weaver. Weaver almost won the game himself in the 86^th minute with a strong header off the crossbar. By that time, Houston had missed so many opportunities that a 0-0 result seemed to have been dictated by the Delphic oracle. It’s probably fitting that the game’s only goal came off Weaver’s rebound, not his shot, and that the goal was ugly and, the replay revealed, illegal. After Weaver’s header crashed off the bar, the ball sailed high into the air and Reis and Houston’s Hunter Freeman looked liked two basketball players fighting for position under the boards. Freeman took the analogy a little further by using his hand to sweep the ball into the goal. The referee understandably missed the call; there were just too many bodies obstructing the play. The whole rebound sequence was emblematic of an ugly game that lacked quality finishes and drama.

Revolution v. Real Salt Lake, 4.9.11

There comes a moment watching any sporting event when the fan will think, or rather instinctively know, that one team has zero chance of winning. That moment may come during the first minute, at the final whistle, or at any point in between. After watching the Revolution fall behind 1-0 early against Real Salt Lake, then fail to get a serious shot on goal against what amounted to RSL’s B-team, the Revs’ certain fate dawned on me in the 45th minute. The epiphany didn’t come about as a result of a single dramatic play, but rather through a slow and steady demonstration of one team’s superiority over the other. I almost felt pleased with my firm grasp of soccer reality a minute or so into the second half when RSL went up 2-0 off a world-class strike by Paulo Jr. The game really was over at that point.

Real Salt Lake may not be a match for a top-flight La Liga club, as its somewhat absurd and pretentious name suggests, but it may be the best club MLS has to offer, as evidenced by its recent run to the CONCACAF champions’ league final and its current gaudy MLS record. They move the ball well, often stringing passing together in tight spaces, and they close quickly defensively all over the field.

Apart from the dreadlocked and charismatic Kyle Beckerman, who baited fellow dreadlock-wearer Shalrie Joseph into a dubious red card late in the second half of this game, and the recently seriously injured Javier Morales, RSL doesn’t have much star power, just remarkably solid players who work professionally together.

Watching Salt Lake play, I was reminded of a quote by former NFL linebacker Matt Millen about the Super Bowl-winning 1991 Washington Redskins, for whom Millen played after championship stints with similarly excellent Raiders and 49ers teams. Millen said that he thought of all team rosters as being comprised of players that could each be ranked on a scale of 1 to 10. He contended that he’d played on teams with more 10s than those ’91 Redskins, but that he’d never played on a team with more 8s. I suspect that RSL’s roster is similarly stocked with MLS-standard 8s. Maybe the only downside of building a team like RSL is that while such a team may generate wins and even championships, it doesn’t necessarily generate league-wide fan excitement and it is seldom widely remembered in the years following its inevitable decline. Few people today, for example, would rank those 1991 Redskins as one of the NFL’s best-ever teams. (But those of us who followed them religiously think we know better.)

Revolution at Vancouver Whitecaps, 4.6.11

There were plenty of opportunities to watch the odd ritual of a soccer referee carding a player when the New England Revolution played the expansion Vancouver Whitecaps to a draw in early April. I’ve always thought there was something vaguely fascistic and mid-20^th-century about the sight of a ref, chest puffed and hair lacquered, approaching a player and abruptly raising a little card in a kind of salute. Or maybe it’s more reminiscent of something out of a sci-fi thriller like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Whatever the best analogy may be, the player has been caught out and publicly shamed.

Last night’s referee issued five yellows and sent off two Whitecaps’ players and A.J. Soares of the Revolution. It was a strange game. Stocky Whitecaps’ forward Eric Hassli got a second yellow after celebrating a goal by stripping off his jersey and hurling it into the crowd. That was odd in itself, but he was wearing a second, identical jersey underneath, making the gesture doubly curious. (Hassli’s first yellow came after an elbow to the face of Kevin Alston, who played much of the second half with blood-soaked cotton plugs sticking out of his nostrils, further adding to the game’s bizarre feel.) Hassli probably thought the extra jersey would protect him from a card but of course it didn’t, and he clearly felt the full weight of public shame when he got sent off. No doubt adding to his shame were the facts that he’d just come on as a substitute, that he’d received a red card two games prior, and that his goal came off a penalty shot. While I’m not one of those seemingly countless older American white guys who believes that all exuberance should be sublimated on athletic fields, excessive celebration after converting a penalty kick always strikes me as kind of lame.

So the game was one of those strange, mismatched affairs, with the Whitecaps scoring off a penalty, then falling back and trying to hold on and occasionally counter. (For about twenty minutes, the Whitecaps played with two men down.) The Revs were mostly inept trying to penetrate their defense, though they improved when Chris Tierney came on for Sainey Nyassi in the 74th minute and began raining down arcing, left-footed crosses from the wing. Ilija Stolica, another late substitute, had one goal disallowed and then scored the equalizer in extra time. That play saw Stolica use his thigh to settle a close range, headed pass from Zack Schilawski, whereupon Stolica calmly turned and slammed the ball into the upper half of the net. The goal was efficient—a classic veteran-striker goal.

Speaking of veterans, I thought Didier Domi, the Revs’ recently acquired 33-year-old left back from France, had an excellent game. He has a good first touch, passed the ball accurately (often working with Shalrie Joseph in the middle), and made frequent runs into the offensive third. He seemed to be much more active and fitter than in the Revs’ last game against Portland, which is surprising since the Whitecaps’ game went well past midnight EST. I should add that Domi nearly cost the Revs a goal by getting caught flatfooted on a Whitecaps counter attack late in the game. The play was a reminder that, while it may be harder to create than destroy, a defender is a team’s last line apart from the keeper, and one minor error on his part can ruin an otherwise stellar day.

Requiem for the Sahara Hotel

My oldest friend Bill is in Las Vegas, staying at the Paris hotel with some other guys, all of whom are probably now in bed or maybe ingesting the kind of breakfasts that ought to be served by a team of paramedics, just in case. As I try to get a nascent freelance copywriting business going, my own days of going to Vegas are on hold. I write this, though, not to lament my absence during Bill’s current trip, but to say a few words about the Sahara Hotel and Casino.

I live in Boston and Bill lives in D.C. Every year from 2001 to 2010, we met in Las Vegas for a weekend of low-roller gambling, heedless eating and drinking, and watching and betting on sports. We always stayed at the Sahara, and logged many hours at its craps and blackjack tables. Last month, he sent me an email with a link to an article indicating that the Sahara will shut down tomorrow (May 16) for the same reason that all businesses shut down: it’s losing money.

The announcement upset me for personal reasons, since an enjoyable if minor tradition has officially ended. But the Sahara’s announcement is also cause for a more general sadness, in part because of its role in Las Vegas’s short but fascinating history. Built in 1952, the Sahara is one of the oldest surviving hotels on the Strip. During its heyday, it was a genuinely hip and relevant place. Behind the front desk, there are framed pictures of Elvis Presley at the Sahara. Frank Sinatra stayed there, and Louis Prima played in its lounge. I just read that Abbott and Costello may have performed their final show at the Sahara. Marlena Dietrich performed there. The first Ocean’s Eleven movie was shot there. And on and on.

But as everyone knows, times change and they change particularly quickly and irrevocably in Las Vegas. Elvis may have stayed at the Sahara when women wore white gloves and men drove cars with fins, but whatever celebrity appeal the place once had is now long gone. Over time, the Sahara exchanged glamor for forgettable restaurants, cheap gift shops, and an overall humdrum air. It is almost impossible to imagine a celebrity of any stature setting foot in the place now, even to ask for directions to the nearest emergency room. One imagines that they would rather die of wounds on the sidewalk than risk being associated with such a colorless, middlebrow establishment.

Of course there is or should be a place for colorless, middlebrow establishments in any town, even Las Vegas, provided they offer a service. Bill and I loved the Sahara’s recent incarnation not because it was sexy or exuded a sense of history, but because it was a good value. We sometimes looked into other lodging options, but we always came back to the Sahara. It offered easy access to both downtown to the north and the glitzier casinos on the southern end of the Strip. Even more important, it was within walking distance of our favorite Las Vegas restaurant, the justly renowned (but also rather colorless) Lotus of Siam.

The Sahara’s rooms were clean. I was never once awakened by the sounds of my fellow guests, indeed never even heard a TV from the next room. The table minimums were the lowest on the Strip and as low (or lower) than any of the downtown joints. The beers were free, though you were seldom tempted to break your wedding vows on account of the youth and hipness of the waitresses who bore them, sometimes a little too slowly, to the tables. But those waitresses were usually pleasant and appreciative of a dollar-per-drink tip. And I gambled there for dozens, maybe hundreds of hours and only once encountered a rude dealer. I am sorry to think that those hard-working and professional people will soon be out of their jobs.

I wonder if the Sahara’s closing might not be another indication of the polarizing of American society, of the so-called squeezing of the American middle class. I am probably a typical Sahara customer; I’ve certainly been a loyal one over the last decade. I would have liked to go back one final time before it closed, but last summer I was laid off from my own job of fifteen years and as I’ve already hinted I am now what is often called “underemployed.”

So I won’t be going back to Las Vegas for the foreseeable future. My wealthier friends all still have their jobs, and people in the higher income brackets will likely continue to book their trips to the Bellagio or the Wynn or one of those, taking advantage of the relatively low rates now in place. Maybe those places are safe, even in this downturn. The grittier downtown casinos will probably always have a steady stream of local, low-roller customers, and maybe they’ll weather the recession too. But the Sahara, with its low margins and belt-tightening, out-of-town, middle-class clientele, is doomed. I hope that when the economy finally does recover, some similarly unflashy but reliable establishment fills the void it will have left, and that there will be a lot of unflashy but gainfully employed people to fill its rooms and tables.

Revolution v. Portland Timbers, 4.2.11

I am part of that small percentage of Americans that still watches broadcast (i.e., antenna, i.e., non-cable/dish network) television. So when the Revolution telecasts moved to Comcast SportsNet (CSN) for the 2010 season after years of airing on the local alternate CBS affiliate, I was disappointed. I was even moved to write the Revolution last year, using the “contact us” page of the team’s website. I wrote something to the effect that I realized most people in the area paid for Comcast, but that I did not, and that by moving to a cable TV station the Revs had lost at least one viewer. I urged the organization to consider moving back to non-pay TV when the CSN contract was up.

I’m sure the Revs’ staff member responsible for fielding the “contact us” emails had a good laugh over my “concerns.” I can just imagine him or her saying to a nearby coworker, “Hey, get a load of this crackpot who doesn’t have cable! Guess he and the Unabomber won’t be able to draft their manifestos while watching the Revs this year. Mbha ha ha! [Click.] Delete!”

I concede that those of us who still adjust the rabbit ears on our TVs are part of a small, ever-dwindling, and understandably derided demographic. So the Revs can be excused for not taking my email seriously. But given the pitiful number of fans that actually show up for their games, they shouldn’t be excused for ignoring me. The chuckling staff member could have at least sent me information on MLS Matchday Live, which allows fans to see almost any MLS game live and/or on replay using their computers. True, MatchDay Live costs money, but my fee was only forty bucks for the entire season. I’ve watched every Revs’ game on MatchDay Live this season, only occasionally encountering technical glitches. The most excruciating of these came during the Vancouver game, when Pat Phelan’s stoppage-time cross that led to Ilija Stolica’s tying score froze in mid-flight on my screen for a full ten seconds before the image fractured into illegibility while the audio (still somehow functional) produced the announcer’s voice yelling the word, “Goal!” I could only force myself to chuckle through a disbelieving and frustrated rage. But mostly MatchDay Live has been a godsend.

Speaking of broadcasts, this is probably as good a time as any to put in a word for the Revs’ announcers: play-by-play man Brad Feldman and color analyst Jay Heaps. Feldman is not the funniest or most charismatic guy in the world (who is?), but he’s totally inoffensive and knows the game of soccer and MLS in particular. And Heaps really knows the game and the league, having played in MLS for eleven years as a defender. It’s not that I’m blown away by either of them, but I feel compelled to stick up for any non-incompetent American who presumes to announce soccer games. I have seldom talked soccer with someone who was raised outside the U.S. who failed to denigrate American soccer announcers, as if someone like Jay Heaps is necessarily a rube because he speaks without a British accent. Actually, even most American soccer fans are similarly disposed to making this tired, tired observation, always as if it’s fresh and watertight. I’m sure such observations were fully justified back in, say, 1994, when the U.S. hosted the World Cup. But that was almost twenty years ago, before MLS even existed and when, if I remember correctly, U.S. networks interrupted live games to air commercials.

So let’s be done with that subject and move on to the Revolution’s first-ever meeting against the expansion Portland Timbers. Sainey Nyassi was probably the most memorable player in the game for the Revs, not always for good reason. He had many quick runs down the left side of the field, moving to the right side for part of the second half. His speed drew at least four penalties against the Timbers, some on Purdy, their impressive right back who occasionally presses forward. Nyassi, though, had some frustrating final touches off those runs, giving the ball away. I suppose a coach puts up with this kind of thing because, as they say of wide receivers in American football, speed kills, and more specifically opens up the field.

As usual, Shalrie Joseph deserves mention for his strong play, controlling the ball and passing effectively. One such pass to Phelan at the end of the first half might have ultimately led to a goal, but Nyassi was caught offside. Joseph often overlapped with his fellow midfielders Pat Phelan and rookie Stephen McCarthy, both of whom also had good games. McCarthy scored the only goal of the match for the Revs on a killer first-touch strike at the top of the box that ripped into the bottom right side of the net. Portland’s only goal came fifteen minutes later off a similar strike by Jack Jewsbury. The build up to that goal included a run and pass into the box by the imposing striker Kenny Cooper. Jeremy Hall, playing with his back to the goal, held the ball with defenders hanging on him then laid it out on a platter for Jewsbury, who struck the ball hard with the outside of his left foot. How satisfying and fun it must be to take part in scoring a goal like that.

Revolution v. D.C. United, 3.26.11

Fifteen of the current eighteen MLS teams will play their home games in soccer-specific stadiums by 2013. The remaining three teams, which as far as I know have no firm commitments to build soccer stadiums, are: the Seattle Sounders, who actually manage to fill most of Qwest Field; the D.C. United, who play in the old, relatively small and urban RFK stadium (no longer home to the Redskins); and the Revolution, who of course play in the suburban cavern that is Gillette stadium, which was built for the New England Patriots. That means the Revolution play their home games in what is almost certainly the worst soccer venue in MLS, with no prospects of playing in a better one any time soon. (If you want to learn more about a potential soccer stadium in New England, check out this 2008 Boston Globe article.)

This is a shame for New England soccer fans. I went to see a game in the new Red Bull Arena last year and it was one of the most enjoyable sporting events I’ve ever been to. I even rooted for a New York team—a first for me. I’ve attended dozens of sporting events, but I had never actually been to a venue specifically designed for soccer. My seat wasn’t anything special by the standards of Red Bull Arena, but it was well above average by the standards of an NFL stadium. In other words, I was in the upper deck but the players were discernable as human beings. So I felt connected with those players and also with other fans. I almost certainly would not have felt those connections had the game been played in the huge and faceless Giants Stadium, where the Red Bulls used to play. Above all, I sensed that the team was important to the owners and to the fans, that it was not a dubious, embarrassing, and doomed step-sibling of an NFL team.

While I don’t think the Revs are doomed, they’ll have to soldier on at Gillette Stadium for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, their home opener against D.C. United was a success regardless of the stadium. Matt Reis would have had a richly deserved shutout were it not for Charlie Davies's penalty kick in stoppage time. New French left back Didier Domi made his first start for the Revs and showed good foot skills and had some memorable runs forward, one in which he impressively collected a Sainey Nyassi pass that was well behind him, managed to shoot on goal, then settled a similarly difficult rebound and promptly get off another shot. The guy’s fun to watch, and I imagine he’ll only get better as he gets in better shape and more familiar with his teammates.

Second-year striker Zack Schilawski probably distinguished himself more than anyone else in this game. For starters, he had the only goal of the game scored in the run of play. He generally held the ball well, frequently playing it back to Shalrie Joseph to maintain possession. He also worked nicely with Nyassi and Kheli Dube, who came on for an injured Zak Boggs. Schilawski nearly had an assist on an impressive exchange with Dube at the end of the first half, and made a nice header towards the goal off a cross from Domi in the second. He’s a tenacious player, and it was characteristic of him to get in a United player’s face after a hard foul on Joseph at, I think, the start of the second half.

I was reflecting during the game that Schilawski might be held up as a typical American soccer player, if you had to pick one out. His foot skills aren’t going to make many highlight reels, but he’s determined and physical and he hustles, often running the length of the field while getting back on defense. There’s something about his confident but unassuming affect, his rumpled, fresh-off-the-pillow hair, and his doggedness on the field that lead me to think he could not have been produced by any other country than our own. You can just see him shuffling to class at Wake Forest (from which he graduated two years ago) in blue and white striped Adidas flip flops after a night of beer pong with the guys. I just read his player bio on the Revs’ site, which reveals that Schilawski was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, has a degree in biology and “enjoys snowboarding and going to the beach.” He also likes the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the movie Good Will Hunting. I'll rest my case there.

Revolution at Los Angeles Galaxy, 3.20.11

 There aren’t many U.S.-born-and-bred soccer players in the history of the sport that have moved people to say, “I’ve got to see that guy play live and in person, and I’ll pay for the privilege.” You could make a solid case that there has only ever been one: Landon Donovan.

Donovan may be our best-ever player, but he may also be our most widely despised, judging by how Mexican fans react to him when our national teams meet and by how European fans gloated over his underwhelming professional efforts in Germany. (And, to go forward in time a bit from this particular March game, judging by Red Bulls’ striker Luke Rodgers's profanity-spiked assessment of Donovan after a match in May.) A friend of mine who used to play soccer professionally in South Africa summed up what I take to be the prevailing view of Donovan during most of his career so far. After seeing the Galaxy play the Revolution in Foxboro a couple of years ago, my friend observed in his precise diction, “Oh, Landon Donovan is so arrogant. But he is such a strong player. The best on the field.”

I used to feel a little cold towards Donovan myself. He’s the type of guy who sometimes barks at his teammates, and he has the rigid posture and near-perpetual scowl of one of nature’s snobs. However, like Everton fans who sometimes chanted U-S-A! during his recent successful stint with that club in the English Premier League, I now not only appreciate Donovan, I really like him. He’s basically a well-prepared pro who tries his tail off, and what’s not to like about that? When you look at him that way, some of his perceived arrogance begins to look more like dignity mixed with a strong urge to win. And for those Mexican fans who love to hate him, at least he gives Spanish-language-TV interviews in fluent Spanish. I’ve also heard he can speak German. Not many of us dumb Americans can do that.

Donovan didn’t have a great game in the Revs’ opener in LA, but he had a good enough one that those who shelled out specifically to see him were not disappointed. He made some characteristic attacking runs out of the midfield punctuated by good passes (one of which was horribly, comically flubbed by the Galaxy’s Chad Barrett), made a couple of steals in the box in the second half, and twice headed shots on goal that might plausibly have gone in.

His team probably should have prevailed. The Galaxy had three goals called back, one of them on a questionable call on a play involving Revs’ keeper Matt Reis bumbling a cross that Juninho promptly collected and put into the net. The impressive Brazilian later scored for real on a beautiful shot from the edge of the box. It was the kind of blast that has the player landing on his shooting foot, the ball exploding off his laces without much spin and moving erratically from side to side and up and down as it screeches forward. Reis had zero chance. The Revs were lucky to get the final 1-1 result and go home with their point.

Shalrie Joseph had a strong game for the Revolution. He’s the engine of the team, winning balls in midfield and distributing, often out wide to the wings. He scored early on a header off a cross from Marko Perovic (who later went down with an injury), and he almost scored again in the second half with a shot that glanced off the right post. Who else? Franco Coria, the Revs’ imposing new center back from Argentina, had a strong game, particularly in the air. He must have won at least a dozen headers, many of them clearances in the box. Another tall guy, the lanky rookie midfielder Stephen McCarthy, got his first start and looked promising. He has a surprisingly soft first touch for someone who would probably look more at home on a basketball court.

The game was otherwise notable for its hard but clean play—the ref gave zero cards—and for the rain, which poured down like a monsoon the entire match. At first, the ball was skipping off the turf like a stone off a pond’s surface, but by the end of the game the ball was waterlogged and the field sodden and slow. In other words, the rain at first made the game faster, then at some point much slower, yet another of life’s examples proving that there can be too much of a good thing.

Speaking of which, the other day I was watching a Premier League match (I can’t bring myself to call it “the Premiership”—could anything sound more pretentious to American ears?), and the announcer said something like: Of course, they wet the pitch these days before matches to make the game faster. That “of course” leads me to believe that most fans are already aware of this fact, but it was news to me.