twsj91
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Thought the same, but there’s plenty of teams for Messi to play against that would be high profile, but I suppose it’s easier said than done when scheduling all these teams
2026 MLS Regular Season
- Thread starter mgarbowski
- Start date
This is also one of those few times where the weather is pleasant in Orlando.
Ridiculous goal by Messi to level the match. Silvetti had a banger to get them back in it before that. Makes me jealous to see shooters like that.
Credit where credit is due, that was a fun match to watch. After that first half, I thought the Lions were on their way, but they got smoked instead. Wild.Miami takes the lead after being down 0-2!
ETA: Messi puts them up 4-2.
Unbelievable
That first goal by Messi. How did he get that ball through all those defenders?
That was extraordinary. Pinpoint. Even at this age, the dude is amazing.
For those who missed it - the goal came at the end of a sequence where 2-3 Miami players carried it across the top of the box looking to get a shot off but not seeing a way through. Finally, Messi gets it going right to left, takes a cut, and the ball knifes through half a dozen guys and into the side netting.
Not sure where to put this but Doyle did an interesting AMA on reddit the other day, thought it was worth sharing:
For those that don't use reddit below are some of the NYCFc related things and some other generally interesting snippets
About the situation on SKC:
In response to being asked if NY is red or blue:
Insight about why the Media might not like Orlando:
Another NY related comment in response to an RBNJ question:
MLS tidbit
For those that don't use reddit below are some of the NYCFc related things and some other generally interesting snippets
About the situation on SKC:
In response to being asked if NY is red or blue:
Insight about why the Media might not like Orlando:
Another NY related comment in response to an RBNJ question:
MLS tidbit
he's not wrong about feeder club status. motivated , single club ownership with no ties to a corporate mothership would go a long way. Much like LAG and LAFC have done. RBNY and NYCFC should be like our LA counterparts going after big names while still developing and signing young talents.
Agreed.
Also, I saw and interesting juxtaposition. When asked about what he could not previously say he mostly deflects despite the coy answer about being able to say anything about on the field matters. wink wink
But he also gave pretty direct answers about why MLS media hate Orlando fans (which I did not even know was a thing) and the problems with having two corpglomerate teams in NYC, which has been a running complaint on my part for years. I never noticed he said anything like those points while part of MLS, and that's consistent with his "on field/off field" answer.
sure ( although aint no one starting a team with no stadium and nyc was not going to pony up tax money for one ever imo) so the feeder club was only truly viable option.
However, no way nyc is "green". Their peak was 40+ years ago and its true neither team will capture like they did because neither will get a pele level player now ( honestly there arent many options now that will push it that level, as messi in miami and cristiano aint coming here) the more time passes by the more its forgotten. LAG had beckham and that was the closest but no one else has come to that level since.
This is why The city is now more (inset foreign club team) than they are cosmos.
You're right, but I took his comment to mean that the Cosmos once owned the city (as much as a soccer team could 40-50 years ago) and and it remains nominally theirs until someone else takes it, which hasn't happened. and maybe never will.
You're also right about the stadium problem forcing MLS's hands and leading them to CFG.
I think the Green answer was more an attempt to stay neutral than anything meaningful. Someone else tried to get him to admit he used to be a RB fan in another question and he dogged it. I believe he truly us just a massive MLS fan and I also understand that he now needs to earn a living through subscriptions so he needs to remain as natural as possible.
On the ownership front I think MLS could have found an independent ownership group, especially if they waited a few years and people saw the sky rocketing team values. LACF has local ownership and funded a stadium in an expensive city, not sure why the same wouldn't be possible in NYC. I think MLS saw what CFG did for Man City and thought they'd be a huge boost for MLS. At the time CFG only owned Man City, it was reasonable to assume NYCFC could be their next vanity project. Don't think anyone could have seen this move where NYCFC was just the first step in CFG building out a giant network of feeder clubs and shifting to treating NYCFC as just another cog in the machine.
is it really theirs though? I feel its more leaning to forgotten since they went away for almost two decades came back in NASL in 2010's left and now back in NJ. if anything the city belongs to no one imo,. or like i said people have their foreign teams they love and follow.
that said. again the city wont ever be take by storm like they were back then, at least not in our lifetime
I wonder under what circumstances NYCFC would rise to a comparable level as MCFC in the CFG vanity ranks. I do think the next few years will be telling. New stadium. Post World Cup. Really, I think the big thing is the stadium. Hosting significant matches there. The significance finally of a team with a home in the city many still call the greatest city in the world. Is there a spotlight that causes them to feel that a top contending club in NYC is important beyond just a competitive in NYC?
For that matter, what is the benefit of being a top contending club in MLS? In the PL when MCFC competes for the league title, they are also competing to be in the Champions League. That has huge financial and reputational consequences. There is serious incentive therefore for them to spend to compete at the highest level.
In MLS, few people seem to care about the Shield (though to me it is as important as MLS Cup). The MLS Cup is a playoff crapshoot. Our champion's league doesn't really carry much prestige.
Beyond just having a world class stadium and being relatively competitive, can anyone help me see the business case for CFG or the oil princes to want or care about us being top contenders vs respectably competitive?
ZYanksRule
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I think as long as the UEFA Champions League remains the preeminent competition in world soccer, it doesn’t matter what NYCFC does. Man City will continue to be king.
Under the right circumstances, I do think MLS could try to force the issue and push for a more global Champions League, type competition as a replacement. If the league loosened its salary cap rules and a handful of the top clubs built toward world-class rosters, they could theoretically reach a point where it would be hard to call something a “Champions League” without including them.
The downside, of course, would be the loss of MLS parity. The salary cap would likely need to be largely eliminated, and there’s no realistic way smaller-market teams could spend at the same level as the biggest clubs. MLS would quickly start to resemble a top-heavy league like La Liga.
To answer FootyLovin question about a business case. It may sound far-fetched, but I do think there’s a business case for the biggest clubs to spend aggressively to try to reach that level. In the short term, they would almost certainly operate at a significant loss in order to grow future revenue. What makes that somewhat more plausible right now is the equity side of things. The value of the top MLS clubs has risen rapidly over the past decade, and some are already appearing on lists of the most valuable clubs in the world.
The U.S. is an enormous market with substantial upside in ticket and commercial revenue, and MLS teams have shown they can charge prices that are often far higher than what’s typical in Europe. At some point, the question becomes whether the biggest MLS clubs reach valuations high enough that they’re willing to leverage that equity, spend heavily on their rosters, and try to vault themselves into the tier of the major European clubs, betting that once they’re big enough, the revenues will eventually follow.
It's hard for me to imagine them getting rid of the regional Champions Leagues. Isn't this essentially the club world cup?
ZYanksRule
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I was about to say that. And I guess the answer could be replacing the regional champions leagues with a yearly CWC, but that seems like a long way away.
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