Americans at home: SUM without US Soccer and actual soccer played by Americans

In a bit of surprising news SUM and US Soccer are parting ways after a nearly two decade parasitic relationship comes to an end. USSF announced that it was nationalizing its natural resources and will be seeking its own media deal no longer dependent on SUM to do the job for them.

For MLS this means that the league’s new media deal in 2022 will be all the more crucial for its long term growth. Notably, the league nearly locked out its players before the 2021 season in order to ensure that it would lock the CBA in past the 2026 season when players could have negotiated any part of a media deal that would have benefitted from the World Cup that year. That revenue is now gone and MLS is in the position where the most profitable facet of its business is the popularity of El Tri since SUM is its marketing partner in the US.

For US Soccer, it means controlling its destiny and no longer having its funds siphoned off by a third party. The nationalization announcement has not met with any repercussions by MLS, but there’s no word on if Cindy Parlow Cone has had any encounters with exploding cigars or if any signs of the resurrection have been seen over Soccer House. Absurd historical illusions aside, it at least marks a change for how USSF will do business from now on.

Oh, there were also soccer games last week.

Djordje scores a dgoal or a dbut, but Geoff Cameron wins

On a sweltering afternoon in South Florida CF Montreal temporarily of Ft. Lauderdale hosted FC Cincinnati. The nominal home team struck first on a solid team goal finished by Djordje Mihailovic who is building a solid start to the MLS season with two goals and one assist so far.

Not that it’s relevant, but Montreal would miss an open net before the half and then ship two goals in the last 20 minutes, the first assisted by Geoff Cameron, to lose 2-1.

Just a terrible scene in Portland

In what could have been a good game but was marred by one of the worst fouls in the league since the days of Nigel de Jong, the Timbers beat the LA Galaxy 3-0 following a 44th minute red card issued to Derrick Williams. In the second half the Timbers netted three goals with good showings from Jeremy Ebobisse and Eryk Williamson. The striker had five shot creating actions and Williamson held down the midfield for 90 minutes. For LA, Julian Araujo had arguably the best performance on the team with 94 touches, good for second most in the match for LA, 20 pressures, two tackles and three interceptions.

A game in Chicago

Here’s all you need to know about the Chicago Fire beating Inter Miami 1-0: 17 year old winger Brian Gutierrez started for the Fire and went 58 minutes and Robby Robinson came in for Brek Shea at the half and went 45 playing for Miami on the left wing.

Columbus won even though they maybe shouldn’t have

In a game where neither team played that well, NYCFC lost to Columbus Crew 96 SC because of two free kicks score after the 85th minute. For Americans in the game, James Sands played the full 90 and completed 32 of 35 passes, Keaton went 86 minutes and had five shot creating actions. The later was a little sloppy with the ball completing 26 of 36 passes. For the Crew, Gyasi Zardes played 90 minutes without a shot in any form as he continues to search for his form.

The unstoppable Rubio Rubin vs. every soccer young person in Dallas

Upon moving to Real Salt Lake, Rubio Rubin has been unstoppable. He has four goals and two assists, it was hard to see this coming. The striker put RSL ahead in Dallas over the weekend.

For their part, FCD came back and evened the score before taking the lead in the 83rd minute. That goal was scored by Ryan Hollingshed and assisted by Paxton Pomykal.

It wouldn’t last though as RSL found an equalizer in the 86th. Aside from the assist, Pomykal came on as a sub going for 19 minutes, Tanner Tessman started and played for the full 90. While he allowed two goals, David Ochoa made nine saves.

Obligatory Red Bulls update

The New England Gil-Bous beat NYRB 3-1 in Foxboro as the Revs rose to the top of the East. Matt Turner had an easy day facing just three shots, making two saves. The one shot he didn’t save was a goal assisted by Frankie Amaya on a corner.

Amaya would come off at the half, Caden Clark played 58 minutes and led the team with 5 shot creating action before making way for Cameron Harper who came off in the 84th minute for John Tolkin.

Memo stepping up

He might be a long way off from the USMNT picture, but Memo Rodriguez is a solid contributor for the Houston Dynamo and made an impact over the weekend with a goal and assist. He helped open the scoring and helped seal the game by providing an assist to Maxi Urutti.

A goal for Jaylin

Sporting KC soundly defeated the San Jose Earthquakes 3-1 as they continue their dominant run. San Jose opened the scoring, but Jaylin Lindsey evened things up and it was all SKC after that.

Cade, trying staying goal-side of your mark there buddy. Speaking of Cowell, he had a quiet night playing on the wing with two shots in 81 minutes while Jackson Yueill and Gianluca Busio each went the full 90. Busio had a solid night with 75 touches and completed 88% of his passes.

Baird gets LA rolling

Corey Baird helped LAFC dispatch the Colorado Rapids 2-1 with an assist to Diego Rossi on a really nice pass to start the scoring in the 14th minute.

For Colorado, Cole Basset was busy defensively with a team leading 45 pressures in midfield while Sam Vines and Kellyn Acosta wen the full 90.

The Sounders... well, they blew it

Seattle took on Atlanta United at home and took a 1-0 lead in the 9th minute. They subsequently sat back and let Atlanta try to even the score for the rest of the game. It was an odd decision given that the Five Stripes are barely scoring a goal a game and have looked unimpressive to say the least going forward. The match truly looked like the Sounders could just decide to score about three goals whenever they wanted but instead decided not to play soccer and were punished for it when Miles Robinson his a lazy pop up that fell between the center fielder and second baseman sending Brooks Lennon home and the game ended 1-1. Ok, look Josef scored the penalty but that’s a fun analogy and I’m leaving it.

It was another embarrassing performance on national TV against Atlanta in a variation of a theme where this time it really didn’t seem necessary since the Sounders are good while Atlanta is bad.

I had written about how Brian Schmetzer is good and maybe Atlanta ought to look at Seattle as an organization for cues on how to build a sustainable culture, but now he looks a bit more like a version of Chris Armas if Chris Armas was successful in-spite of himself. Look, I’m a blogger for the Atlanta site and have my biases, but... SEATTLE IS THE BEST TEAM IN THE WEST HOW DID YOU GET THIS SO WRONG AND WHY DID I HAVE TO WATCH THIS NEEDLESSLY PAINFUL GAME?

Stats:

Cristian Roldan: 90 minutes, three shots, 23/31 passing.

Emerson Hyndman: 87 minutes, 45/48 passing.

Brooks Lennon: 90 minutes, 5 shot creating actions.

George Bello: 90 minutes, 2 shot creating actions, 1 goal creating action, 86% passing

Miles Robinson: 90 minutes, 81 touches, 2 shot creating actions, 1 goal creating action

Stats from DC United 0-1 Philadelphia Union

DC is terrible and Philly managed to grind out a 1-0 win on the road. I’m not saying more than that.

Stats:

Moses Nymen: 45 minutes, 14/17 passing

Kevin Paredes: 31 minutes

Paul Arriola: 90 minutes, 4 shot creating actions

Leon Flach: 90 minutes, 29 pressures,