''New'' NASL bits and pieces

Ok, so here we go with some updates on the ''new'' NASL:

- As most of us soccer geeks already know the Cleveland City Stars have been terminated?? by the USL. Am I the only one who finds it odd that a league has the power to ''terminate'' a team, especially seeing as they were apparently in the midst of putting the finishes touches on the sale of the club? They were expected to be self-relegated to USL-2 had the sale been completed.

-Brian Quarstad of Inside Minnesota, wrote an awesome piece on how Nike should be taking its part of the blame for this whole crisis/mess. A must read here...

- Rochester Raging Rhinos (I know but it makes me smile to add the ''raging'' part) owner Rob Clark has totally flip-flopped on his vocal anti TOA stance and has signed up to be the 10th team in the ''new'' NASL.

Resident Rhinos blogger/journalist Jeff DiVeronica published an e-mail he received on his blog ''Devo's Direct kicks" from , and I'm sorry to go there, a complete douchebag who goes into a tirade about the NASL's supposed plan to strongarm the MLS into merging with them??
You can read that gem here..

- So who's left in USL-1?

Austin
Portland
Puerto Rico

? 3 teams....OUCH!! Oh, sorry maybe 4, how could I have forgot FCNY (well..everyone else did so I guess I will forgive myself)

I'm shortly expecting a case study on how to totally mess up an acquisition featuring Nurock soccer holdings or whatever their name is.

Nurock's handling of this whole mess = Ultimate Fail!

- I'm hearing all kinds of different info on when we should expect a decision on USSF sanctionning, so I won't give my own opinion on that, but I will say that I don't see how the USSF could possibly not sanction the league.

With 3 or 4 teams left in USL-1, it is obvious that Nurock has lost this battle and they would be well advised to just back off and concentrate on the PDL and their youth soccer structure. I mean you can't force millionnaire/billionnaire team owners to play by your rules and just expect them to shut up and take it.

- As for the Impact, besides announcing some player signings (David Testo back for 2 years), nothing substantial about the new league has come out of the front office. I also find it odd that Joey Saputo has still not come out and made a firm commitment about the NASL.

Perhaps he is waiting for sanctionning to be approved to make an announcement, but the reality is that Impact fans and supporters have still not been given a definite answer as to what league the team will be in next year!? All signs point to NASL but still, its December 4th and still nothing..

More ramblings soon....

(Cross posted to Soccer Montreal)