Summer football

[Naelifts]

Well said young man............eh.........................you are in Singapore .....right?

[The Mantis]

I have no problem embracing change 

           

Aye, get yourself a smartphone then.

 

Oh I see, you mean small change 

[Scotty]

The MLS  started their first game of the season last week. Vancouver Whitecaps won there 1st game at home in warm and brilliant sunshine. Naturally there was a bumper crowd.... 'nuff said.

 

think you will find that Vancouver lost their opening game on Saturday 1-3 against Toronto . You are right about the other stuff though .... 21000 crowd and nice wankcouver weather ......

 

 

As it relates to summer football, I think its overdue in Scotland ... or at least a tweak to the current schedule as CaleyD notes. Some will say (already have) that teams would be competing with summer holidays, but we already compete with Christmas holidays and spending so whats different? Some will argue about World or Euro Cup call ups etc but really, does that affect ICT that much? ... and are there not rules in place to cover an automatic postponement if one of the teams has more than 3 or 4 call ups on a scheduled match day? To me the arguments are about fear of change rather than anything realistic. A portion of January and the entire (short) month of February is typically the worst time in Scotland (and in Toronto for that matter) and yet the SPFL in their wisdom scheduled 11 games for ICT in that time ... which is comparable to how many we will play in March-June or how many we played from September to the end of November. Loading a ton of games into the statistically shittiest weather period of the year is just stupid on the part of administrators ....

 

 

MLS is a summer league and it works. Its not perfect, but it works. Toronto gets bitter winter weather - we went above 0 for pretty much the first time in 2015 just this past weekend - and we get fairly hot summers normally. MLS pretty much schedules TFC to be away during the opening month of each season to let the cold die down and we make up for it with a few home games in a row later, whereas teams in the hotter areas start with home games when its cooler for them and hit the road when the hottest weather in their state or province hits. Its not perfect, and there are some **** ups in the fixture list but they try to show common sense .... As for call ups ... a lot of MLS players went to the world cup last year and the league took a two week break to cover the group stages then started up again during the knockout phase. again, not perfect, but a reasonable compromise. 

[gingerjaggy]

I think though to add another issue do Fifa and Uefa allow leagues to carry on when there is a major tournament which would scupper our TV deal. 

[Scarlet Pimple]

Scotty--Saw an excerpt of the Vancouver goal in the  V Toronto game on the T V and the commentator was warbling on about what a start to the season it was for the home team. Sadly I didn't wait for the end of his spiel.

 

One thing I did note was that speed of the game appears to be faster and quicker than formerly.