One of the most spectacularly poorly-written articles I've ever read.

Every now and then, an article from a writer for a major metropolitan newspaper comes along. These articles are rare because almost every single sentence needs correction, and one can only assume the author did a Google search of his subject, read for 2 minutes, then started writing.

Before I even get started on Philadelphia area writer Brad Wilson's piece on the state of American soccer, I gotta point out that his file photo makes him look like a deranged villain stock character from a Batman cartoon. As for his article, I'm all for people taking shots at soccer, but for Chrissakes know what you're talking about.

Really jazzed up by the World Cup? Do Ronaldo and Lucas Podolski and Thierry Henry have you pumped up to watch some world-class soccer in person? Can't wait to take the kids out to watch a game live? Sadly, disappointment awaits.
---After a lackluster introduction perhaps more fitting to a 10th-grade Creative Writing essay ("jazzed up?") He proceeds to make three ridiculous statements in one three-sentence paragraph. Go.

1) Philadelphia doesn't have a Major League Soccer team.
---I'm sure Philly-area soccer fans didn't know this already, and Philly-area non-soccer fans are not surprised.

2) It never has had an MLS team.
---I'm sure Philly fans didn't know this either. Likewise, the league is only in its 11th season, nearly went out of business 5 years ago and already has teams in New York and DC, each within a 2 hour drive of Philly. Cut them some slack.

3) Columbus, Ohio has one. Philadelphia does not.
---Columbus delivered a stadium. Philly had the Vet when the league was founded, and you can't play top-flight soccer on asphalt painted green, no matter how hard you try. When the Linc was built, Jeffrey Lurie wouldn't allow an MLS team in his stadium. If you can find a Philly-area investor willing to pony up the $15 million expansion fee, and plans for a soccer-specific stadium, you will have a team. Wilson's 0-for-3 off the bat.

Professional soccer hasn't existed in Philadelphia since the Fury of the North American Soccer League (NASL) folded in 1980. (Yes, I know about the Kixx. Whatever they call that game they play, it isn't soccer.)
---As far as a Division 1 men's league, no, but the WUSA, Women's World Cup, and international club friendlies have been held in Philly in the past 5 years. The game the Kixx play is called "indoor soccer." Good work showing your knowledge of the subject and depth of research so that you don't even know the name of the game you're trying to ridicule.

MLS is scheduled to arrive, tardily, in 2009...
---Tardily? Is someone taking attendance? Also, that is the LATEST it will arrive. I am hearing from some reputable sources that MLS may be in the Philadelphia area as early as NEXT SEASON! This courtesy of the potential relocation of the Kansas City Wizards, who are having trouble securing a stadium. Hopefully then Wilson can put his Columbus envy to bed.

...but it will be coming to Glassboro, N.J. That's not right around the corner. In fact, it's not near much of anything, and good luck getting there without a car.
---Glassboro is a 30 minute drive from downtown Philadelphia, and just off a major highway. In Chicago/Milwaukee parlance, this would be like saying that Oak Brook and Mequon are in the middle of nowhere.

Then again, a stadium stuck out on the outskirts of a small South Jersey college town is just the place for MLS...
---Yea, no kidding, especially since Rowan University in Glassboro said they'd build any team that came to the Philly area a stadium.

...an organization whose think-small attitude relegates it to soccer's third tier internationally.
---Actually, I would consider it the lack of absurd amounts of money and as such, the resulting style of play that relegates it. I'd rank it more 2nd-tier, because outside of England, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, I'd put MLS right with any other league in the world. But that's my opinion. I'm also interested in hearing why he thinks a league that has survived 10 seasons longer than anyone thought it would is "thinking small."

Given the caliber of players it attracts, Minor League Soccer would be a better name. U.S. World Cup coach Bruce Arena didn't do MLS any favors by saying — correctly, by the way — that the best U.S. players need to play more in Europe and less here.
---Haha clever word play on the initials MLS. By only changing two letters you made a lame pun. MLS sucks, and yet somehow this same Bruce Arena managed to get his job by leading DC United to three MLS title games in three years- winning two. His 2002 and 2006 23-man rosters both contained 11 MLS-based players. As for his European contingent in 2006, 7 of 12 had MLS experience. Arena is right that the competition is better in Europe, but don't interpret his comments as a knock on MLS. That's like bashing college football because the tougher competition is in the NFL.

So if we're not going to keep our own best players, don't expect to see Kaka or Wayne Rooney here anytime soon.
---First of all...."we"? Second, Rooney is 21 years old and has a contract with Manchester United. Kaka is not much older and plays for AC Milan. Neither Rooney nor Kaka have expressed interest in playing for MLS. However, other European-based stars like Brian McBride, David Beckham, Michael Ballack, and Ronaldo have all expressed interest in finishing their careers in America. As for a more specific point, Kaka and Rooney both played at Giants Stadium in friendlies last year. I guess the less than two-hour drive to East Rutherford was too far.

MLS doesn't think big.
---Here we go again. MLS is apparently a person capable of sentient thought.

It wants smallish soccer-only stadiums, preferably in the suburbs, populated by players few have ever heard of.
---Again with the personification of the league. Damn MLS trying to control their revenue streams instead of paying rent to NFL teams. Damn MLS for trying to create some atmosphere and demand for their product by decreasing the supply of seats. By his logic, most Broadway blockbusters think small because they only play to theatres of a thousand seats or so, using performers no one has ever heard of. I wonder if the NBA thinks small because their arenas are in the 18-25,000 seat range, just like MLS stadia. As for the suburbs, its all about where there's cheap land, and what municipality will give the best deal. Ever hear of Auburn Hills, MI or East Rutherford, NJ or Landover, MD or Orchard Park, NY or Foxboro, MA, or Irving, TX?

The idea seems to copy minor league baseball's formula, where fans pay more attention to the Hot Dog Race sponsored by Jimmy-Bob's Chevrolet than to the game.
---Looks like we know who's been to a few minor league games here. With this intricate knowledge of minor league baseball, his theories on MLS's business model must surely be well-thought out and valid.

Gee, that's inspiring.
---Thanks. That's not the league's job...or anyone's job...to be "inspring." Perhaps you'd like to go to a Sixers game instead and hear the inspiring atmosphere of 18,000 fans talking to each other at the same time, not watching the game and listening to the piped-in voices going "DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!" Now THAT'S inspiring.

The only time soccer has made a huge impact on the U.S. professional scene is when owners opened up their checkbooks in the late 1970's and brought in the world's best players, such as Pele and Franz Beckenbauer. That certainly made a splash, attracting all kinds of media attention and doubling attendance...
---Wow. This sounds like a great plan for MLS to adopt. Especially since NASL average attendance was about what the lowest-drawing MLS teams pull in today, and those NASL results are inflated because of all the tickets that were just given away.

...but it also quadrupled costs and the NASL sank in 1984.
---Hmmm...maybe it wasn't such a good plan after all...Perhaps there's a benefit to signing young up-and-coming players and retiring veterans and not blowing money on world-beaters in their prime. Buy low, sell high?

So unless MLS can print its own money...
---That power is reserved to Congress under the enumerated powers in Article I of the Constitution, coincidentally authored in Philadelphia...OK, maybe I'm being too hard on the guy...

...the world's best players aren't coming here anytime soon, That means that MLS' dreams of big crowds and more attention will stay fantasies
---No I'm not. MLS's average attendance is up almost 10% since 2000. Show me any "Big Four" league that can boast that kind of growth. Cities (like Philly) are now BIDDING for MLS teams, rather than having to accomodate them around their football teams. ESPN broadcasted all 64 games of the World Cup, and MLS has signed a new lucrative TV contract.

given that Americans only care about a sport if 1) Americans dominate it...
---USA Basketball: 2004 Olympic Bronze Medalists, 2002 World Championships- 6th place. The US has only won that tournament three times in 14 attempts. USA Hockey: Bounced from World Cup of Hockey by Finland, only 2 Olympic medals since 1961 in a sport where only about 10 countries compete. USA Baseball: Bounced in second round of 2006 World Baseball Classic. This outing included losses to traditional baseball powerhouses like Mexico, South Korea and Canada.

...and/or 2) the world's best players play here.
---On the Argentine team that won the gold medal and beat the United States in the Olympic semifinals in 2004, only 2 out of 12 players on the roster played in the NBA in the 2003-04 season. Nearly the entire USA roster had played in the NBA the previous year.

When neither case applies, as in soccer (or Formula One, to use another example) nobody cares. What's a newly-minted soccer fan to do? First, get satellite TV or digital cable. There are more top-shelf games shown there than even the most rabid fan could possibly watch in a week...
---But if the US team isn't dominating, and the best players aren't playing in the US, why would anyone care to buy a satellite TV package to watch this silly sport?

...But TV, as good as it is, isn't live action.
---Again. Then why get the package if it isn't as good as live action? Admit that you can like a sport if the best players aren't in the US or go to a live game where the players are better than anyone else in the stadium, but haven't been discovered by the top leagues yet. Just pick one!

European professional teams often play exhibition matches here in August, before their season opens, and while the intensity isn't World Cup-level, the managers generally play their stars and the teams do try and win, much more so than in an NFL preseason game. Manchester United and Celtic (of Glasgow) played at the Linc in 2004, drew 55,000 fans, and when Celtic won in a stunner its supporters went wild with delight. These games are not your typical “exhibition” games. If one pops up nearby, go.
---Correct, but off. Correct in that the intensity to win is there, but I imagine it is more from the supporters than the players. There's about 50,000 people who watched Manchester United's third-stringers tie Bayern Munich's reserves 0-0 at Soldier Field two years ago that would like their 50-plus dollars back. Also, why care if the best players play for leagues in other countries?

Still, there just aren't going to be many chances to watch world-class play live in the U.S. anytime soon.
---I'm assuming he means aside from the 11 players on the US National team roster who play in MLS, and international friendlies in July and August featuring Scottish Champs Celtic FC, European champion FC Barcelona, Chelsea FC and Everton of the English Premier League, Real Madrid, and tours from Mexican powerhouses Chivas, Tigres, and Club America.

But don't despair. Who needs the pros anyway? Take in AC Milan and Liverpool and Barcelona on your digital cable, and then go out and watch some high school kids play. It's the same sport, the kids play just as hard, and at many area schools, such as Germantown Academy, Archbishop Wood, and Souderton, the level of play is extremely high. And the price is unquestionably right.
---Who needs the pros? You just said the American sports fan did! Nobody cares if there isn't a US Premier League taking on the giants of Europe, remember? Your solution is high school soccer? MLS isn't worth anyone's time, but the high school kids play just as hard as the European professionals? What makes MLS players mail it in then? Your argument doesn't make any sense. As for the price being right, MLS tickets start as low as $10-20 and you get a great seat.

It's not World Cup soccer, surely — but it can be just as much fun. And who knows? Two 2006 U.S. World Cup players played in GA's league. You might see the next Brian McBride — and since you're not going to see the current McBride in person, that's what fans will have to settle for.
---This is the best argument IN FAVOR of MLS that I've heard. It may not be perfect, but it can still be fun.

Yowza.