A couple of things I would like to address.  First, player rumors. According to the blogs and bigsoccer.com, Watson is the latest to be given notice that he will be released after the expansion draft.  People are going nuts about this and I can understand.  Like an unfortunately long list of players, I don't think Jamie was really given a fair chance.  I think it would have been beneficial to have started him in one of meaningless games at the end of the season after RSL no longer had a realistic shot of making the playoffs.  The few times Watson did make it into games, he played well.  That said, I will never forget this year shortly after Kreis took the reigns when Watson was the only one to take a shot in the game and Kreis felt the need to publicly call him out for not finishing.  In fact, I think that for me was the first indication that Kreis really doesn't have a clue as to what he's doing.  I also thought it was a bad sign that he was in the broadcast booth for the final cRapids game in Denver.  That's usually not a good sign, even though I thought he did a much better job than Dunseth in the color commentator role.  I won't even go into RSL broadcasts here, that's enough for an entire post by itself.  Of all the players on the team, Jamie Watson is one who "gets it" when it comes to fan relations.  Watson stays after every game to sign autographs for anyone who wants one and doesn't leave until the last fan is gone.  It is partly for this reason why my 3 year old loves Watson.  I can be watching any soccer game on TV and she will come up and start cheering for Jamie.  I just would have liked to see him get more of a shot with the team before we throw him away.

Now, other rumors have been floating around too, I guess the Christian Jimenez rumors ended up getting yet another fine from the league.  I think we are getting close to having the team fined Kreis' total salary value.  Isn't that a scary thought. 

Now there has also been talk lamenting the demise of KSL's Nightside Project.  I personally don't see what the big deal is.  Nightside I thought after my experience with them from the China match were typical journalists.  Simply muckrakers who totally missed the point of the whole thing and turned that protest into something else.  To me, and I was one of the leaders of the protest, it was not at all about RSL, but about China and China's civil rights record.  It was about how China gets a free pass on their civil rights because they are the world's largest new market and are a rising economic power.  Nightside, especially Castner, turned it into another chance to bash RSL.  I was so often misquoted it was sickening.  I was misrepresented to the point that the message I wanted to get across got lost in all the rhetoric.  Why have I not joined in on any lawsuits against RSL, first, I don't want their money and second, it was never about RSL in the first place.  I said my peace, made my point and wanted it dropped, but thanks in large part to Nightside, it turned into something completely unintended and completely missing the point.  Instead of having a discussion about China and freely asking why we are so willing, as a country, to give them a pass on their human rights record, it turned into a discussion about RSL and stadium funding and how RSL stepped in another pile of dog shit again.  My rights were not violated, in my opinion, by RSL staff, but by representatives of the People's (funny how they stick that in) Republic of China.  I have a lot of venom saved up for those commie bastards, but I'll let it go for now.  Just don't be surprised to see more toxic toys shipped to the US from China.

I still have yet to renew my season tickets.  As long as the only selling point they have is the new stadium, I don't think I will.  Let's be realistic here, average attendance in RES is what, about 13,000?  And the stadium will seat about 20,000?  I don't think I'll have much of a problem getting a seat for anything but one of the international friendlies they bring in.  Even then, other than Real Madrid, the friendlies have usually not even been close to selling 20,000 tickets.  I will probably break down and buy them, but right now, until I see what the roster is going to look like and by extension how serious they are about improving, I don't feel like plunking down the money for tickets. 

        

 

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