If you are an ardent fan of my work and have followed me throughout the years you would've known I was all in for a "reptilian theme." Heck! I even named my own website Green Lizard. Over the years however I've scaled back (great pun) from doing that sort of thing. I don't think I'm going to change the name of the site simply because I am a bit of a softy...I don't want to change my core and origins. That being said, I am becoming a littler older and some maturity is starting to set it in. I am throwing away childish things. I know longer sit on my Xbox for 10 hours a day I'm down to a respectable 7.5 and with that extra two hours or so I've really started a healthy appreciation for more adult activities. For example, laundry! Which I find to be very therapeutic. Now I'm a master of washing soft Moroccan linens! This segment "Quick View," is replacing by "Random Bite," series. It is a nod to my evolution and maturity and with that its creeping into my writing. A lot of soccer players don't show their absolute best in the autumns and winters of their careers and this post is about a guy who bucks that trend and who has been lighting up in La Liga with his play last season and I couldn't remain silent anymore, I had to at least try to push out a tentative article about this seasoned vet. Basque forward Aritz Aduriz scored an impressive 20 goals in 34 appearances in La Liga last term finishing 7th on the scoring charts. Only bested by the usual suspects in the forms of Luis Suarez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Karim Benzema, Neymar and a one Antoine Greizmann. Suarez scored 40 goals in campaign which is a dizzying feat but he does play for Barcelona.His compatriots Messi and Neymar chipped in with 26 and 24 goals alongside him respectively. Thirdly Luis Suarez isn't 35 he is a more lubricated 29 to date.So when you go down the tale of the tape for the Uruguayan that makes what Aduriz has done even more remarkable and I'm not alone in my estimation, others do feel the same. I was tuned into one of my favorite late night football shows the other night and one of the pundits on view said Aduriz is the only center forward he knows that scores more goals when he turned 30 than anyone else. I don't know if that was true or if it was off the cuff but what I will say is the dexterity and durability of this 35 year-old is refreshing. My views of Athletic Bilbao and Aduriz's are limited! To the point I don't think I'm really qualified to speak on him but I believe in numbers and stats and this guy's are through the roof. Especially with stints with his hometown club Bilbao. People like to credit the Serie A with prolonging the careers of older players, just take a look at the likes of Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti. The Totti angle I particularly like because like Aduriz he has been awarded by his side a contract extension at the end of this past season. Unlike Totti however he has somehow added to his game at such an advanced age and it is a marvelous thing to see. Aduriz started his career with Athletic Bilbao and found his way to Mallorca as well as Valencia but it's his second go around of Bilbao that started back in 2012 we have to really take ponderous look at. The guy has logged so far 68 goals in 132 appearances to date and we are talking about a 30 plus year old here. These performances has forced the hand of Vincente del Bosque, the Spanish national team coach. The Euros are here and Aduriz has booked his own ticket on the plane. This isn't a joke, Aduriz was selected above a Fernando Torres who has had a great year for Atletico Madrid and Diego Costa who despite being a controversial figure is a super footballer when focused. I look forward to seeing the Basque in France no matter what capacity he plays.
Major League Soccer continues its stunning growth by the addition of new clubs, stadia and lucrative financial deals. As a league it has thrived in what is over decade of service now and as a brand of entertainment. I urge anyone to catch a game in person, via any media outlet or talk to anyone associated with the league whether it be fan, executive or player and they will tell you how sensually stimulating it has become up and down the country. To run what is a worldly sport in an American style and fashion isn’t easy. Teams are in my opinion, at least more franchises than anything else. They can be rooted up and relocated if the league chooses to do use if something runs foul. A concept in soccer to the rest of the planet seems very foreign. What isn’t a foreign are teams that go defunct or dissolve. The Tampa Bay Mutiny, Miami Fusion and Chivas USA are casualties of this North American soccer system. As much good the MLS has done, by allowing these clubs to fall by the wayside and not figuring out how to save them, they ultimately failed in that respect. In Europe bad clubs do get dissolved but that’s because teams are ran privately by businessmen with the leagues only operating as shepherds. Bad business decisions by private owners lead to horror stories like the one we see in Italy with Parma and over in England with Portsmouth. Major League does allow private ownership of teams but in the end they are really good protectors of their brand and does allow for parity among the teams making sure the league is balanced. Which is a healthy trend in all major league sports in the United States which makes for good for viewing. Everybody gets a Lebron, everybody gets Cam Newton, everyone gets a David Villa despite the market they play in. Markets in pro sports in America count for a lot. Texas, New York and California gets oodles of attention. Naturally because they hold the most Metropolitan cities and thus hold the most TV wise rights and shares and all types of mumbo jumbo that they taught me in college in my media classes at university. Essentially that’s why we are here to talk about one of those big markets and a big team that is coming to Major League Soccer. In October of 2014 MLS announced that Los Angeles Football Club will become part of the league set up come 2018. As mentioned above LAFC will be entertaining us in 2018, a full two years from now and will have to watch Atlanta United Football Club take the leap first into MLS. The Georgian side are set to enter the fray in the not to far off 2017. Anything I could stir up would be pretty superficial simply because there isn’t much content to go on at the moment on the club! Which will make this post short and sweet. Word is the California outfit are looking to build a $250 million stadium in in the Los Angeles area which no doubt will be caldron of color when it is completed . Tom Penn, Henry Nguyen and Peter Gruben according to various sources head up the ownership group. Vincent Tan the same guy who owns Welsh side Cardiff City and Belgian side KV Kortrijk also is a co-owner in the LA venture. Tan is best known for trying to undo almost 117 years of footballing tradition by trying to change the home colors of Cardiff from blue to red. An effort that didn’t sit very well with the Welsh locals. So it’s a good thing this newly founded club doesn’t have domestic misnomers to fret about for Mr. Tan. Aesthetics aside LAFC has some very eye catching affiliates they can can hang their hat on. Basketball legend Magic Johnson, actor/comedian Will Ferrell and soccer icon Mia Hamm all investors. Los Angeles Football Club seems like a cool thing to do and it kinda reminds me of the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA. A trendy looking, clean and edgy looking team that is in an enclave in a big market (New York) trying to give it’s more establish neighbor (New York Knicks) a bloody nose. There is no doubt that LAFC is trying to cut into the LA Galaxy’s shares and they are using there new vibe and energy to wow a city that expects to be dazzled. As for the colors and crest I’m personally a sucker for black and gold but I feel for an artistic city like Los Angeles a wing emerging out of an “A” is a little lazy. I expected a little more flair especially from a west coast club. All around I hope LAFC’s birth can bring a real hate to the LA area something to rival Portland and Seattle’s beef. I look forward to when the Galaxy and the “Black Gold,” meet. LAFC
As a kid growing up in the 90s my image of a football coach or a manager was an elder gentleman with grayed or balding hair, a little round in the middle and having a semi permanent scowl on his face either barking orders in a British winter or standing quietly on a warm Mediterranean night with smoke choking the air surveying the scene. The likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Gerard Houllier, Vincente Del Bosque, Sven Goran-Eriksson, Sir Bobby Robson, Marcelo Lippi, Giovanni Trapattoni and Jupp Heynckes are frankly what I was use to. All of these gentlemen have lifetimes upon lifetimes of games managed between them. As I’ve aged, these men who were already for lack of a better word “old,” even when I was a kid started to fade away from the touchlines. Del Bosque and Eriksson the only two from the bunch that are still currently actively mentoring. A natural turn of events and as their ilk expired the likes of Jose Mourinho, Roberto Mancini, Didier Deschamps and Pep Guardiola finessed their way into the managerial wing. Bringing with them a tidy, clean and stylized look to the pitch. Well groomed, sharp eyed and ushering a zest and zeal to the sidelines. Maybe I can’t articulate it as much as the real students of the game but they made an ancient sport more streamline. Pep Guardiola certainly had a solid playing career but I have to be honest I can’t remember seeing him ever playing. The more decorated Didier Deschamps I certainly recall stroking the ball around for those powerful France sides of the past. Roberto Mancini as a player I only go by what people said of his career and as Jose Mourinho, he was nothing more than a lower leaguer in his playing days. My relationship with these men are recent, simply because coaching for them is all I know of them. They are the successors to the Fegusons and Robsons and now they've started a trend and their brand seems to be the one in vogue. Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger and for now England’s Roy Hodgson’s are true relics of the game. The parental, father-like coach is being phased out either naturally due to retirement or being pushed aside by these younger minds. Sounds a little outlandish but I ask. Why haven’t we seen the likes of Alan Curbishley or Harry Redknapp doing anything significant in the last few years? If we start to research maybe that claim doesn't seem so far fetched. As the popular adage goes “time waits for no man,” coaches like players retire too...they simply can not carry on forever and as for them being forced out...well you be the judge! It is hard to say from my end. Yes, the hot new thing is to have a new kid on the block coach but elder statesman like Carlo Ancelotti and Fabio Capello are still among the best managers still in circulation so a few holes can be poked in that theory. One could argue that the older manager maybe more pricy than his younger counterpart, which is a fair assessment with the better young guns like Guardiola and Klopp the two that buck the trend. I find that most clubs in these new financial times play the guessing game. Banking that a bright new young savior will rescue them which is odd from a traditional business standpoint. Elder coaches tend to demand a higher wage so financially offering a greener guy new to the role of coaching a smaller fee can only have an upside most teams hope. It has worked some of the time, prime example coming in the form of Atletico Madrid’s appointment of Argentine Diego Simeone a few years ago. His salary has no doubt increased due to the bevy of titles he has already delivered to capital club. On the other end of the spectrum the rookie coach can lead an already established side into wilderness of relegation and financial irresponsibility. Former Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur manager Tim Sherwood can attest to that. Being deployed at Tottenham was a blessing in disguise as the London club were too stable to really suffer from the newbie’s teachings. However you place him at Aston Villa and what you got was a sacked manager and a historically strong club on it’s sick bed ready to slip into relegation. Villa are one of the founding clubs of the old English 1st Division a team never to be relegated. Through financial mismanagement on the part of ownership by either not investing in on field talent and Tim Sherwood’s hiring...which I also cite as financial mismanagement this an old pillar of English will fall. A young inexperienced manager who didn’t have the know it all at the time has ultimately led to the destruction of a club’s honored status. Aston Villa will be relegated this season of 2015-16 and Sherwood would had had a huge part to play in that. Aston Villa wasn’t in most recent times a side a-washed with money but what little change they did have they could had gone out and get a manager who had the a little gray hair and proven track record. If they did maybe Villa would not be smarting. Simeone and Sherwood are just different sides of the coin when it comes to the youthful managerial debate. The new wave of coaches coming through sit a little odd for me at the age of 27. Currently Sampdoria’s Vincenzo Montella, Bordeaux’s Willy Sagnol, Real Madrid’s Zinadine Zidane and my personal favorite Deportivo la Courna’s Victor Sanchez are all players who saturate my childhood memories. How many times have seen Victor deliver a cross to Walter Pandiani or Diego Tristan in the Champions League that led to goal sending the Depor fans at the Riazor into pandemonium? Montella saving Roma from defeat with a last grasp equalizer in the Serie A for me is still vivid image in my mind. Willy Sagnol hustling up flank for Bayern Munich and France to go snatch a the ball from some other worldly striker that thought is so fresh for me. As for Zidane! Pick a game and I will tell you about it...I am getting older, this is true but seeing these guys running the show at their respective clubs is surreal for me because I still see them as when I was a little boy. Victor was my hero and so many good feelings for me personally involve him kicking a ball. Now he is the one telling people to kick a ball and the child in me wants him to do just as well. Maybe this article is a little pointless in that I’m not just highlighting new coaches coming into the frame and older ones panning out of view but rather showing me a glimpse of my life and how I saw the game then and what I see now.
I know it isn’t any different from any other chronological sequence FIFA has going on but I get the feeling I’m getting spoiled. I mean since FIFA has been around they have been rolling out the international tournaments back to back. It seems like every year now there is a tourney for me to cast my eye over but that isn’t the case. Just so happens the events are hot on the heels of each...first it was the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 then we had the CONCACAF Gold Cup and CONMEBOL’s Copa America making magic happen in the United States and Chile respectively this year. These competitions thank goodness haven’t been coming every two or three years like a good James Bond flick, they are stacked against each other and I for one am very grateful. In journalism class they said you have name what your actually talking about pretty much from the first sentence, fortunately I barely scraped by that course and as a result I’m now mentioning the phrase "EURO 2016 France.” Maybe I should have paid a little more attention in my schooling but forgive me I was too busy watching soccer anyway to on my iPad and come June 10th of next year I plan to do the same thing as this peach of a tournament fires up in Paris. A new dynamic was added to this addition of the Euros in the form of team expansion, instead of a field of 16 there will be 24 teams prancing around France in the summer. So let’s take a look at who’s in the mix.
Group A
France
Albania
Romania
Switzerland
Group B
England
Russia
Slovakia
Wales
Group C
Germany
Northern Ireland
Poland
Ukraine
Group D
Croatia
Czech Republic
Spain
Turkey
Group E
Belgium
Italy
Republic of Ireland
Sweden
Group F
Austria
Hungary
Iceland
Portugal
As every sports entity that covers European football has noted millions of times over this Euros will not feature The Netherlands! From a personal standpoint its something that I won’t look forward to seeing and not having one the marquee teams in the showpiece event is a shame but we move on! Having an expanded feel makes for a more drawn out effect for me, especially when you look at some of the teams who made it. I definitely won’t be circling the date when Romania takes on Albania in "Group A." I find it hilarious that FIFA is aiming to “grow the game,” all over the globe. Obliviously they didn’t get the memo when it came to Europe. UEFA does not need any help whatsoever in branding and especially involvement of it’s peoples in the sport. If UEFA guaranteed me that; The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina and maybe a Finland were all in play at an UEFA tourney along with the tradition heavyweights and exciting new sides like Iceland sure...but if they can’t, they can keep their expansion. The whole point for me tucking into the Euros every four years is to see the exclusivity. This isn’t the Gold Cup. I don’t wanna see minnows who hit form at the right time and get hot and are able to sneak in. If I didn’t love soccer to be very honest I couldn’t watch the Gold Cup! There is only so much I can take of Haiti blasting balls at Jamaica’s shaky goalkeeper from 40 yards out. I come to the Euros and to a lesser extent the Copa America for seeing top quality ball per match constantly. With the wider class I have watch Hungary fluke the ball up the pitch and hope Balázs Dzsudzsák can somehow rain dance the ball through the back of the net. Hopefully I’m wrong and all participants put worth pure quality.
New day! New series. I’ve got a little momentum going and I’m going to capitalize on it. I won’t be too wordy on this one. This article will be pure and factual. “The Club,” will be my way to highlight great league based teams and for this post I wanted it to be really special. There is a clear lack of Women’s football on my website and I want to increase the numbers. So why not kill two birds with one stone? In this segment I will be bringing to you the viewer, the familiarity of a very special Ladies’ soccer side in the form of the ultra popular and successful Seattle Reign Football Club. I’m extremely excited and a little nervous to showcase this new category on my site simply because I just want to get it right and do these wonderful institutions a good service. Reputation is everything these clubs have massive ones so I will do all in my power to safeguard them. So without further adieu I bring to you “The Club!” Formed in November of 2012 the Seattle Reign make up what is currently a nine club National Women’s Soccer League. A league in which itself has only been in existence since around the Reign’s formation in 2012. When a club and the newly minted league was announced it was Bill Predmore who would be the owner of franchise. The colors of the club are described as white, platinum, royal blue and midnight black. A combo that does lend a regal touch. The majesty however comes in the crest. Like Ajax of the Netherlands, Olympiacos of Greece and the Kaizer Chiefs of South Africa, Seattle Reign FC boast a herm or an image of a human head. The Reign have chosen a beautiful image of a crowned queen or monarch which ties in with the name of the club. A name that taken from city’s first women’s professional sports team. A defunct basketball team that plied it’s trade in the American Basketball League. The NWSL outfit calls Memorial Stadium her home and since the inaugural season of the league back in 2012 the Seattle side has amassed two NWSL Shields. The most recent coming in the 2015. As with all American Northwest rivalries between Seattle and Portland they are hotly contested and the Reign’s beef with fellow NWSL side Portland Thorns FC is no different. When these two tangle there is the usual flair and intensity with passions shared on both sides. What’s not shared however is the affiliation that with Major League Soccer. The Thorns are connected to the Portland Timbers of the MLS however the Reign are not joint to the hugely successful Seattle Sounders due to the fact that Sounders have their own women’s team. A team that ply their trade in theUnited Soccer LeaguesW-League. What the Seattle Reign do have is the support and certainly the players the current roster boast some sublime players. Ladies like Wold Cup winners Hope Solo and Megan Rapinoe. Who arguably the the best in their positions in the game. I’m also a huge fan of creative midfielder Kim Little. The Scot puts in some dynamic performances in front of the Reign’s Royal Guard at home and on the road. A player with wonderful balance and dribbling skills. I understand that rosters change that is the nature of American sports and also soccer but with those I just mentioned I’m hard press to find a better spine in women’s soccer States side. The NWSL is a very young league but already we are seeing a trend of dominance from Seattle Reign. Those two NWSL Shields in three years just shows there is something there. The Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Mariners, Seattle Sounders and even the now defunct Seattle SuperSonics were and are champions of their respective disciplines. There is a great platform for pro sports in Washington state, as evidence in the list of champions above. There is no doubt that the Seattle Reign will carry on to lift that great Pacific city.
Regrets is something I don’t do I’m the type that let things play out. The denouement of my life will read that I was a man that stood by his own convictions and who decided to fall on his own sword. An old friend of mine told me a long time ago that if I ever decide to write online it shouldn't be just about soccer and to add other facets so I don’t become one dimensional. I agreed for a little while but quickly rubbished it because simply, nothing appeals to my soul more than slipping thoughts onto a page about soccer. He was right! I could had conquered the world a lot sooner. Believe it or not I actually have more things to say besides discussing the woes of Andalusian outfit Xerez who make their living in one of the lower regional leagues of Spain. I meet a ton of wonderful people every week and my life experiences are so varied sometimes I feel the need to share it. For example a few months ago I think I met the smartest man I have ever met in my life. I won’t say his name because I believe brilliance like his has to be sought out and not revealed. Well...we spoke for a bit while we were traveling together and he was spewing his thoughts to me which was a treat but with all conversations my turn had come and I told him I wanted to be a soccer writer. He said you must right a lot! My honesty got the best of me and I said not as often as I should. “I had a roommate that was a writer, he writes everyday until his hand cramps up and is sick of it...but when you read his work it is really good. You have to write and read everyday that’s the only way you make it.” He said. Here is a man I only had a working relationship for no more than two days and his words had more impact on my mind than people I’ve known my whole life. My soccer blog can’t highlight my life but know I will drop some gems along the way. I will though leave this kind of talk for my memoirs. A collection I will compile when I retire in my native Barbados somewhere on empty beach. Right now it’s soccer time and I’m bringing back an old underutilized favorite of mine the “Eye On Asia,” series. So let me hop into that. The last “Eye On Asia,” post was on Monday March 26th 2012. That was a crunching three and a half years ago and that's just not going to cut it. In fact this post that you're happening to skim over right now was planned like two years ago. The player that is the focus of this piece has since move to another club. Embarrassing! I know trust me I know but we are here to rectify. If you aren’t aware this series looks to highlight the players, the leagues and rumors emitting out of Asia. This edition I will be raving about South Korean hybrid forward Heung Min-Son. A rave that is long over do like as I mentioned before. Son makes his living in the German Bundesliga a league that that is very hospitable to Asian players. At the moment he is one out of 21 players from the Asian Federation working in the German top flight. Players coming from Asia have been ultra successful while playing in Germany a fact that I find a little odd. I don't if it's the culture in Germany or the mindset of Asian players but there seems to a real level of comfort when it comes to the scenario on both ends. I urge anyone to watch a documentary or scan over the multiple articles on why Asian players flock and thrive on the German soccer scene. I think Son is not only the best Asian player in the Bundesliga he is to me the best Asian player in the world. Never has there been an Asian player ever considered to be the best player in the world overall and I won’t say the 23-year-old forward is even close to that but he is a tidy footballer. The fading star of Japan’s Keisuke Honda and the inconsistency of his countryman Shinji Kagawa has open the door for the young Korean to take up the idea of being the best player from Asia. The fact of the matter is his current club Bayern Leverkusen has and his former club Hamburg SV had the best player from Asia for what is now the past three years. Evidence of this is his Asian Player of the Year award he snapped up in the 2014-15 campaign. As much as I have been watching Son over the years I couldn’t put a finger on who he reminds me of. It’s a weird combination I’ve pegged him to. In full flow he reminds me of Pedro the Spanish international. The way he cuts inside and the close the little touches he uses the manipulate the ball reminds me of the once Barcelona man. When he strikes the ball he has a quick snapshot sort of like Ronaldo and Bale. The ball leaves his foot so quick while in stride the opposition just can’t react. He isn’t of the calibre of those players but this young man is special. Hamburg couldn’t hold onto him and if he has another stellar season in a Bayer 04 shirt I will bet they won’t be able to keep grasp of him either. The energy he posses is a typical trait of players from Asia but his ball control sets him apart from the rest in the region. Him and Shinji Kagawa definitely are the point guards of the AFC. They handle the ball with such dexterity it’s unsettling. I get uneasy when I see Son and Kagawa on the ball just because it seems surreal. It’s not like Heung Min-Son is a mystery at this point I should had hopped on this article years ago. Hence why this article is a little short on the footballing side. Ironically as I write this I checked my Twitter and saw Tottenham Hotspur just tabled an 18 million bid for the Korean. I couldn’t even make this up! The week I decided to put this article to rest something comes about to debunk my findings. Let this be a lesson to all.Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. In my case don’t put off till three and a half years.
Somewhere in Brooklyn at my 9 to 5 about a few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting a friendly Austrian traveller. He told me how much he loved New York City while I replied by saying Vienna looks like a charm. To move the story along it has to be said we were in a NBA store. So the eventual topic of basketball came about. He is a foreigner and let’s be honest their fascination with basketball is not like the average American fan of the game who is more like a cross between a moose in musk and a jaded ex wife. His fandom was innocent. He was excited to be in a NBA arena (if you haven’t figured out where I work by now you may be dense). We talked about basketball...my knowledge of the game kind of overwhelmed him and he tentatively backed into a zone of comfort and said he was a more of a football (soccer) man as a way I guess to gain a little advantage in a scenario that was not even threatening. I had no problem with talking about soccer and allowing him to feel maybe a little superior and comfortable after all I am in the service industry to offer comfort is my mo’. Problem with that is that he picked the wrong black guy to talk soccer with. Our Austrian friend said he was from Innsbruck but supported FK Austrian Wien. Here is where I wish writing some how allowed people to see the story unfold in pictures because words fail to do convey his reaction when I came with my response. He said in his Germanic laced English. “Yes I love love my Wien!” I simply looked at him and in my bland Baritone voice said.”I prefer Sturm Graz.” I don’t if it was the fact that I was black, living in America or I worked for a basketball team but he was shocked. Our conversation got serious I mention to him it’s a shame Andreas Weimann has not been able to kick on and that David Alaba’s injuries real curtailed his career so far. I even threw a little Andreas Herzog factoids for good measure. The man was impressed but I struck a nerve with him when I mentioned something. Somehow the New York Red Bulls entered this footballing frenzy between the two of us and it definitely tempered his tone. It was like watching a blacksmith taking magma laced piece of iron and setting into a vat of ice water from the most northern fjord. Our footy friend said he hate the Red Bull. Well with that I knew to only offer him Gatorade if he was in need of liquid energy...but all jokes aside I knew what he meant. I know Red Bull Salzburg of Austria was seen as marketing tool for a big cooperation and how its seen to be a blot to some in Austria on their league, a symbol of unwanted modernization in a traditional sphere which is European soccer. Patrick (that was our traveler’s name by the way) echoed what I had thought when he said “In Europe we do not like franchising like America!” Ironic that he said that in a NBA arena which was the home of a newly minted NBA team the Brooklyn Nets. A team he was raving about just a few minutes ago. It got me thinking. Why are people not just in Europe but in the Americas, so against a and I use these terms loosely “farm or commercialized,” team? I happen to go to my fair share of New York RedBull games and I’m demonized by some of my friends for it...simply because the team is attached with a major cooperation and it’s root the New York/New Jersey MetroStars has been shushed away into the background. If you've ever gone on some Major League Soccer or local soccer forums the hate is venomous! Especially for the New York teams. The common term around the snooty circle of this newly found soccer bravado is “plastic.” Many claim the Red Bulls and their new crosstown rivals Manchester City’s American appendage New York City Football Club are not “real,” clubs because of their branding and new found history does not fit into the traditional. The strange thing is the concept of these type of teams popping up isn’t new. If you just scroll up you would see the iconic crest of Ajax. One of the most treasured teams in all of world football but if one knows what one is looking for the Ajax in the photo isn’t the one I speak off. I am referring to the Ajax of Amsterdam the great European power. The crest on display belongs to her feeder/farm side Ajax Cape Town of South Africa. Now I don’t live in South Africa and as hard as I try I don’t know how South African football fans feel about Ajax of Cape Town. I simply don’t know and I won’t speculate. The question I would direct to people who are opposed to these types of symbiotic relationships is if they think if these new “farm,” teams help anyone? Ajax Cape Town came about due to the merger of two football clubs in the city. Seven Stars and Cape Town Stars in 1999. Ajax solidified the union by financing and instilling her philosophy and the club was born. Ajax Amsterdam placed a huge emphasis on youth and player development offering the children of locals to join a professional side not only in their own neighborhood and country but also a shot to ply their trade in the Netherlands. A reward for the most ardent students. By all accounts it is a formula that works. Go ask Everton’s Steven Pienaar. A South African kid that joined their ranks. A guy who would say and I’ve read quotes of him saying that he did not have the easiest of childhoods. A man who joined Ajax Cape Town then moved on to Amsterdam and then to the promise land of the Barclays Premier League. He isn’t the only South African boy whose dreams came true because of this Dutch outpost club. Ajax Amsterdam over the years have plucked the likes Thulani Serero who has been incorporated into their system as I speak. I’m not a fool. A dreamer but not a fool. Austria and New York isn’t South Africa. A feeder club in the prior two, yes can change a live of a young man but in the latter it can literally save a young man’s life. Ajax Orlando (yes there is an Ajax Orlando) in the United States is probably is a cash cow a ploy to tap into Americans’ wallets and the probability of a star emerging out of that organization will be a far stretch and I don’t think this will boost a community like it’s South African counterpart will. If Red Bull decides to create a team in Namibia there is no doubt even if the players produced aren’t that good there is no doubt the amount of good it will do for the area. A Red Bull team in New York isn’t really going to do anything...well except tick off a fan base. My Austrian friend and those soccer hipsters on the on their MacBook keyboards are right to bark on about tradition in the game it is a massive part of the sport and it should not be overlook. I get it. Where they stand from having a big corporation or another club coming and absorbing their side or creating a new team out of the air could be bothersome. It makes the game look cheap. They are not wrong but I will also put forth the case of the teams that are created in troubled areas of the world. What likes of Ajax Cape Town and SuperSport United Football Club in South Africa an affiliate Feyenoord Rotterdam...Yet another super club from the Netherlands has done for these areas is phenomenal. I personally love sides steep in tradition. By all accounts England’s Notts County Football Club is the oldest professional team in the world. If I was a Notts County fan I would feel just a warm glow every time I see them play. It is this kind of feeling of belonging to an old honor that makes people adore such clubs. So when a team that just was thought up in a board room by a corporate stud emerges I can see why traditionalist would be irked. I won’t ramble on any further, I could all day about the issue and for the sake of editorial quality I will close this chapter the best way I could...let’s not forget I am a fledgling writer. This notion that newly created teams are phony, cheap and a way for guys in a suit to make money is a harsh way to look at it because there always will be a scenario where that form of business will work and let’s not fool ourselves a Wolf of Wall Street character in a suit will always profit. Which is cute but I don’t care about that what so ever. If a little kid may he or she be from a football hotbed or a place that is trying to enter the heralded soccer circle...if a club can invest in that child and give them a tangible future in the sport I don’t see a problem. The kid that is in Red Bull Leipzig’s youth academy has much as a right as his counterpart in Hamburger SV to take a crack at this football thing. These arguments of newly minted and old gold football sides isn’t silly what they are is distracting. Fans and students of the game won’t ever get pass the surface level of the argument which is understandable but they should be reminded it is about the play on the pitch and the players produced and it shouldn’t matter how they got their start. What is important is that a get a start...One thing before I go and I put it to the those who despise these “farm,” or “commercialized,” teams. What if the best player in the world or of all time came from New York City FC or Red Bull Salzburg? When we tell his story will we omit the start of his career and the place where it all started because it had something to do with an energy drink?
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