USL news and rumors

There are a few brief stories concerning USL 1 that have been hitting cyberspace this week. One of them I already reported below with the Austin Aztex announcing they will play three MLS teams in exhibition games as they prepare for their own USL season opener in April.

A new Detroit team to USL-1?
Steven Goff on his Washington Post blog, Soccer Insider, referenced a publication called Crain’s Detroit Business media, “Dan Duggan, who co-owns the Michigan Bucks soccer team in Pontiac, is meeting with investors over the next 90 days as part of a $7 million plan to launch a top-tier Detroit affiliate of the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer.”

So the question is, are we talking USL-1? I would think so. I can’t state enough how great it would be to get a few more teams from the Midwest or at least central part of the U.S. into USL-1. Cleveland is great, Detroit would be better and a team from Iowa or perhaps St. Louis would be the best. I would think that developing USL in cities that can have rivalries would automatically raise ticket sales for those games. I’m sure the Thunder would be all for it.

Pachuca also interested in USL-1
There are rumors floating around about Mexico’s most successful club in recent years, Pachuca, and their desire to launch a USL-1 team by 2010. They evidently want to play out of Orlando. Bruce McGuire noted this on du Nord Futbol. He had a reader who sent him a link in Spanish. According to Bruce, there are hurdles to the team landing there, primarily, where would they play? There are not a lot of options in Orlando.

Tampa Bay Rowdies turned down but not deterred
The word out of Tampa Bay, concerning the Tampa Bay Rowdies that will join USL-1 in 2010, is that they will play next season regardless of the fact that a commission rejected their request to build a stadium in a neighborhood called Twelve Oaks. According to Tampa Bay Online, team president Andrew Nestor said the team plans to rent a stadium when it begins play next year in the United Soccer League while continuing to look for a permanent stadium site. Nestor said stadiums at the University of South Florida or University of Tampa could possibly provide a temporary home for the team.

“At this point we’ve already come to the conclusion we’re not going to have a stadium built by April 2010,” Nestor said, referring to the start of the USL season. “(Renting) has been a contingency plan all along, but from a long-term perspective, to make sure the team is a viable operation going forward, we’re going to have to have our own home.”

Florida Soccer
All this Florida soccer talk makes me wonder how after having no teams for years, and the current Miami FC in USL-1 having poor attendance records, the state is going to sustain (possibly) 3 USL-1 teams and an MLS team, if Barcelona follow through with their attempts to enter the MLS market.

Montreal Impact selling tickets like crazy
The Montreal Impact have already sold 10,000 tickets for the home leg of the CONCACAF Champions League quarter final game on Feb. 25th. The team will play the game at Olympic Stadium and the team is hoping to have final ticket sales of 30,000. Holy cow! I am guessing that would blow attendance records clear out of the water for any USL team in a competitive match. (In other words, not counting friendlies against David Beckham)

Will guaranteed contracts steal players away from MLS in todays draft?
Steven Goff is also reporting that some USL teams are preparing to offer guaranteed contracts to some college seniors. According to Goff, these are “guys who are usually low-balled and not given contracts by MLS.” Goff goes onto say, don’t be surprised if a few of those seniors shun MLS for the USL.

This is something I’ve been saying since November with the MLS announcement that they were dropping the reserve teams and the reduction of their bench size from 28 to 24. I’ve also been saying for even longer that there are some guys who would rather be getting paid more money and actually getting playing time which they would do in USL, compared to sitting on an MLS reserve team and getting paid even less. However, as some people have pointed out to me, there is still the allure of MLS. After all, it is the highest level of soccer in our country.

It’s also being rumored that more MLS draft players are considering going abroad this year because of the changes in MLS in regards to the reduced bench sizes and elimination of the reserve teams. Of course this means fewer opportunities to play in our top league. So they would go to Europe even if that means playing on 3rd division teams and below. Wow! I would really like to see those young men staying in the states and bringing up the quality of play in USL.

I personally am more interested in this MLS draft this year than ever before, principally because I think we are really going to see some pretty high quality young players move into USL this year.