MLS Week 18 Review: Where People Like You Get Paid To Do Nothing

By: Daryl | August 6th, 2007

Where People Like You Get Paid To Do Nothing So Becks is still injured and several impatient people are very unhappy. Take the gentleman to your left for example. Apparently he thinks injured sports stars go unpaid in other countries. But how to cope with the impending Becklash? It’s not Beckham’s fault. He wants to play, but he can’t. He’s injured. If there’s any blame to be laid it’s with MLS for selling games (like the Superliga game vs Dallas and this Sunday’s game vs Toronto) as “Beckham games” and worse, forcing fans to buy ticket “packs” so they’re paying for more than one game.

Beckham’s delayed (proper) debut could increase anticipation, but more likely the immediate excitement could all fizzle out. ESPN will surely run out of patience and won’t keep broadcasting “Primetime Special Editions” of games like Toronto vs Galaxy, just to show Beckham watching in his civvies. Possibly the only one person happy about this situation is whoever’s working the “Beckham-cam” as their job remains nice and easy as long as Becks sits still.

The best solution for all is to not panic. Beckham disappointing everyone by not playing at all is better than better than Beckham disappointing EVERYONE by playing injured and being rubbish. Would the fool in the above image really be satisfied by watching Beckham hop around on one leg for 90 minutes? So everyone relax. Wait the necessary week, two weeks, three weeks for the man’s injury to heal and then pray like Ned Flanders that Galaxy scrape into the playoffs.

Meanwhile there’s still a whole league going on without Beckham, so here are the The Offside MLS Awards for Week 18…

Best Villain: Landon Donovan
We always knew Landycakes wasn’t quite the right guy to be the hero of MLS. He’s still a very talented player, he just doesn’t quite have the quality, personality or media savvy of a Beckham. But the last couple of weeks suggest he can be a great MLS marketing tool as a villain. That “game over” gesture against Dallas last week was priceless and this week the Toronto fans covered Landycakes with streamers every time he tried to take a corner. If he works on his act a little - more taunting of opposition fans, some blatant diving, maybe a few Graeme Souness style horror tackles - and voila! He’s the MLS player you love to hate and people will buy tickets just to go and boo him.

Laziest Comparison: Abel Xavier and Dennis Rodman
They both have silly hairstyles, but that’s really about it. Though Xavier did have another solid looking game as TFC more or less dominated Galaxy but failed to score

Best Birthday Celebration: Pat Noonan
Noonan had a good Thusrday night game during New England’s 2-0 win over Kansas City, scoring on his 27th birthday. The Revs stay top in the East and pull away from 2nd place KC, though they missed the chance to go even further ahead when they lost 3-0 to DC United on Sunday thanks to the…

Surprisingly Slow Reactions of…: Matt Reis
The Revs keeper saved Clyde Simms long range shot, but for some reason took an eternity to do anything else. He just lay there with the ball at his side until DC’s Josh Gros ran in to score from the rebound. Two more from Luciano Emilio gave DC a 3-0 win, and puts the Brazilian joint top of scoring charts with Eddie Johnson.

Best Upset: Real Salt Lake beating Houston
Freddy Adu never delivered for Real Salt Lake and never looked happy, so his $2m move to Benfica was the perfect chance for the worst team in MLS to make a fresh start. They did so with a 1-0 win over Houston Dynamo - the best team in MLS - thanks to an 84th minute goal by Robbie Findley. That’s the first league defeat for Houston in 11 games and according to Houston blogger Marc, the first goal Houston have conceded in the final 15 minutes all season.

Worst Bit of Defending: Colorado Rapids
The whole Colorado Rapids defence stood still as Dax McCarty’s cross bounced in their area. Keeper Bouna Coundoul came for the ball and missed by quite a distance, leaving Drew Moor the relatively easy task of heading home at the far post.

Most Encouraging 20 Minute Trio: Blanco, Wanchope and Rolfe
Or Blanchopolfe as Tom calls them. The Fire’s 0-0 draw with Columbus lacked fireworks, but Blanco looked classy again, Wanchope made his MLS debut for Chicago (after apparently rejecting New York because of their artificial field turf) and the almost forgotten Chris Rolfe returned from injury. With attacking talent like that to choose from and a 2 game non-losing streak, Fire’s season looks all set to turn around.