New York: the good, the bad, the very ugly and why it all matters

This has to be one of the funniest/saddest MLS Youtube videos I've ever run across:



"Keep an open mind and give us a chance to blow your mind," and "Red Bull is committed to a team the likes of which this league has never seen." You can't make stuff like that up. Considering the current state of this club, that's comedy gold.

Except it's kind of tragic. Just as Canadians hate that everything here is Toronto focused (and, say, that USL-1 championship final is overshadowed by TFC's attempt to sneak into the playoffs), Americans don't much like to have it pointed out that it's important to have a presence in the New York market. That doesn't make it any less true though. Since much of the sports media in the U.S. is focused on NYC, it is not helpful at all that the Red Bulls are a punch line.

I don't know what the answer is. If the league is going to do everything in its power to force parity you can't make New York be good. Maybe a loosening up of the academy rules would give N.Y. a slight advantage over less populated areas of the U.S. but that would not likely be enough on its own. Basically, MLS fans just have to sit back and wait for New York to get better on its own.

Obviously, Bill, the league will survive just fine without a major presence in the N.Y. market, but can it thrive? It's hard to see how. Although the NASL eventually collapsed under its own weight, the existence of the Cosmos is what gave it a few glory years. Finding a way to create sustainable Cosmos is vital to MLS if it ever wants to break through to the next level.

As an aside, I find it interesting from a trivial perspective that Toronto will be playing in the last ever game at Giants Stadium, which was once, undeniably, the Mecca of northern, North American soccer. Combine that with the fact that the Toronto Blizzard were one of two teams involved in the last ever NASL game played and you see just how ingrained Toronto and Canada is to the history of U.S. soccer. Not that the isolationists will ever see it that way, but they are a dying breed anyway, so...

We’re in this together whether we like it or not. Call it a soccer thing.