MLS is Back Tournament - 2020

They could and should have given the 1030 slots to the far west coast teams, and then moved their 9 am games to east coast teams. Some east teams do not have a 9am game, but some west coast teams do... thats crazy. Montreal, NE, DC, Tor all have 2 8pm games and 2 have a 9 and 2 have a 1030. they should of all had a 9am game. Same with the other east group which has half the teams with a 9am and half with a 1030. Swap those with the two west coast 9am games.
Not disagreeing, but I think they also wanted to have groups play on the same day, like group play usually does. That makes it harder to have all the west coast teams get all the 10:30 games, etc. And yet they still have some instances in which group matches straddle 2 days.

OTOH, I'm not sure I agree that 9am East coast is preferable to Noon West coast midweek. I'd probably say the opposite, notwithstanding the history of weekend breakfast time European games. And you probably cannot avoid giving East coast teams either 9am or 10:30pm.
 
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We get a 9am game and a 10:30pm game. Fun.

July 9 - New York City FC vs. Philadelphia, 9 a.m. (ESPN/ESPN Deportes, TSN)
July 14 - Orlando vs. New York City FC, 10:30 p.m. (TUDN, TSN)
July 19 - New York City FC vs. Chicago, 8 p.m (FS1, TUDN, TSN)

From: https://theathletic.com/1888929/2020/06/24/

And for anyone who thinks this is just anti-NYCFC crap ... Seattle has a 9am game, too -- which is 6am local time. Eesh.
Personally, I'd love it if NYCFC was playing at 6am local time so I could watch without having any distractions from work.
 
9 am? Great! See you all at the bar for some breakfast pints...oh wait...


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but then i see this:


damn so it was spread around in the the team. thing is i dont know if its certain or not if people can get back again and if so is it worse.

EDIT: it came from this tweet

This is a response to that tweet, and not you. HIPAA medical privacy rules are very serious and employers (and indeed everyone) violate them at substantial risk. Before the league and union worked out a deal to restart, the CBA probably had no or extremely limited provisions to allow the announcement of any medical information [ETA except of course presumably for game readiness and related injury information]. Unless a player personally and officially authorized it, the league and team were legally obligated to keep quiet. And do not think that they could have announced that player(s) tested positive without naming names. HIPAA protections do not allow that when it relates to a small group, and the team roster is a pretty small group.

They are announcing positive tests now because, again, I'm quite certain, the union agreement authorizes them to do so, and the league and union agree that transparency is in both of their interests.
 
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^ i don't think Butler's tweet about Deila saying the boys are injury free and training well has anything to do with covid. It's definitely not Deila's responsibility, and probably not within his knowledge, if anybody has a positive covid test result.

Hopefully, whoever has it is asymptomatic and is in good health. They should take the proper precautions and quarantine. Maxi's concerns are valid, as is anyone's who feels uncomfortable about the situation. Here's hoping everyone involved in this tournament behaves and follows all guidelines, everyone stays healthy and injury free, and we all get to see some entertaining (and likely rusty) play.
 
This is a response to that tweet, and not you. HIPAA medical privacy rules are very serious and employers (and indeed everyone) violate them at substantial risk. Before the league and union worked out a deal to restart, the CBA probably had no or extremely limited provisions to allow the announcement of any medical information [ETA except of course presumably for game readiness and related injury information]. Unless a player personally and officially authorized it, the league and team were legally obligated to keep quiet. And do not think that they could have announced that player(s) tested positive without naming names. HIPAA protections do not allow that when it relates to a small group, and the team roster is a pretty small group.

They are announcing positive tests now because, again, I'm quite certain, the union agreement authorizes them to do so, and the league and union agree that transparency is in both of their interests.
That would be an interesting theory if other teams didn't disclose positive covid tests before the new cba was ratified.

CBA was also ratified three weeks ago so if what you said is even kinda true, the fact that they suppressed that information for three weeks shows you their motivation.
 
That would be an interesting theory if other teams didn't disclose positive covid tests before the new cba was ratified.
Other teams? Plural?
One single positive test announced by the Union on April 3. "Forward Kacper Przybylko later identified himself as the player who tested positive." The next positive test was announced June 3 by FC Dallas. That's the same day the CBA ratification was announced. Subsequently DC United announced a positive on June 13 and then the Atlanta and Miami ones last week.

If you can link to other information showing that this article (which I realizes is paywalled) is wrong about pre-June 3 positive announcements in MLS, I'd like to see them. I did both a duckduckgo and google search and came up with just the Union, DC, Dallas, Atlanta, and Miami stories. And this Boston Globe story says the Inter Miami announcement brought the list of MLS teams with positive tests to 5, which is consistent with the Soccer America report. And you can read that far before the paywall hits.

So what I see is a single positive test announced pre-CBA, by the Union,as to which the subject later self-identified, which is consistent with either he first gave limited approval, and later fully identified, or the Union erred and he decided both to forgive and self-identify to take the heat off other players who probably had friends and family all demanding to know if it was them.

CBA was also ratified three weeks ago so if what you said is even kinda true, the fact that they suppressed that information for three weeks shows you their motivation.
Have any other MLS teams gone back and supplied data in the past 3 weeks about pre-June 3 positive tests? Links again, please. I cannot find any, and neither the Soccer America nor Boston Globe from last week stories indicate that other teams had made post-CBA announcements about pre-CBA tests. When I posted the Soccer America story I said "It's almost a certainty that more than just one of the 500+ first team players had the virus in March, April and May." HIPAA aside, it's likely that some players were infected, but had limited to no symptoms and either never got tested or didn't report. Apparently the Athletic has confirmed my inference. Yet no teams that I can find made any announcements until the Athletic asked them and there's no reason to single out NYCFC. And also, I don't subscribe to the Athletic, so I cannot tell if the results they discuss from around the league are pre- or post-CBA.

I do not believe that NYCFC has some unique responsibility, unlike any other team in MLS, to invade the privacy of its employees to provide the public with information which I happen to consider none of my business. The issue of possible public concern is the public health implications of bringing infected players into the Disney bubble. Pre-June positive tests are completely irrelevant to that. As to post-CBA tests, the people uniquely positioned both to care about that and to address it are the players themselves. They have the motivation to stay safe and every player who tests positive has absolutely no legal or moral obstacle to announce it to the world. I agree the league should be announcing all post-CBA tests. Best, really, if the league and players' union make joint announcements. They can fight over whether the tournament should take place, but the basic data should come from both to make clear that player privacy is being respected.

ETA: Way back, NYCFC announced that an unnamed staff member tested positive. I believe one other MLS team made a similar announcement. For the record, I don't think they should have done that. I don't think it's a matter of legitimate public concern. I want good solid reliable public health data by geographic and jurisdictional regions. Also, an outbreak at an essential business operating during lockdown is news of legitimate public concern. But random occasional positive test data reported by closed individual companies is only relevant for gossip and morbid curiosity.
 
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I finally took a moment to read the Athletic article about positive Covid tests in the league. The good news is that in almost all cases the player in question has fully recovered and returned to training. This includes all cases involving NYCFC players.

It was a really well reported piece. The reporters seem to have canvassed across the league for the article, and had information on nearly all teams. In a situation where teams are saying very little publicly that involves a lot of work.
 
Agree with the above. They are going to be sequestered and tested and disinfected. They couldn’t be in a safer environment right now, not to mention that a young, healthy 20-something has as much to fear from the plane ride down as from the virus.

That’s not true. We don’t Know the full side effects long term yet. NBA bought a multi million dollar insurance policy for NBA players
 
FiveThirtyEight has us 2nd in Group A, behind Philadelphia.

LAFC, Toronto, and Atlanta are the favorites to win.