Two Sets of Thoughts On Two Manager’s Minds On Two Flights: Whither the Nats and The Revs?

A VIEW FROM THE FORT By Jim Dow

A lot of football managers are on airplanes at the moment. Some are scouting (yes, managers do scout albeit after an actual scout has located the object of desire), some are going to the sun to chill and others have been recently flying home from heart-wrenching defeats.

In the latter category both Bob Bradley settling into his first class seat (hopefully, Sunil?) and Stevie Nicol being squashed into a chicken class coop could be forgiven for being lost in private thoughts as to what might have been and what might be.

Each manager took long flights home recently with plenty of time to brood, one back to the States after a gut wrenching loss to a team that should have been beaten. The other back to Beantown after yet another shellacking in Salt Lake in what is turning out to be a season of weekly embarrassments, some of which, like his counterpart, are not entirely of his own making.

At The End of A Decade, Ten Ways To Address The Future

A VIEW FROM THE FORT By Jim Dow

This column is dedicated to the memory of Nick Katz, as devoted a Revs supporter as has graced the Halls of Foxborough Stadium. I suspect he would approve of these suggestions, offered below.

A lot of people have been moaning on various subjects since the sad but spectacular end to the New England Revolution’s season played out on real grass in front of a sellout crowd with real flares and with no quarter given by either side. The fact is, while the Windy City’s resident Olympic diving master, the aging, bandy-legged Kid from Tepito, now the sleaze ball from Veracruz, dominated the match providing service left and right, his season stats (games played 21 – games started 15 – total minutes 1452 – 5 goals – 8 assists ) a carbon copy of the other, injured, younger (by one year) mid-western maestro Steve Ralston (GP 20 – GS 17 – min 1543 – 7 goals – 7 assists ) to the point where they might as well be twins.

The difference, of course, was that Blanco played and Ralston sat for the second post season in a row but for those who think that the Revs are significantly less of a team than their Chicago counterparts, imagine what might have happened had Ralston been on the field, even with no forwards to speak of.

A VIEW FROM THE FORT: Nostalgia Breeds Nausea; Some Perspective On The Pats, Revs and the Future.

By: Jim Dow

When viewed through New England Revolution-biased eyes watching the re-branded “Boston” Patriots open up this season’s NFL campaign was a painful exercise in myriad ways. While the old-school uniforms were certainly an improvement on the Fashion Institute techno-tighties with accompanying Elvis logo inspired by some marketing idiot with the visual taste of a meatball, horrific memories rushed back of a cash-starved franchise constantly that long labored in the shadow of a more prosperous big brother.

A View from The Fort: If We Aren’t Arsenal in Disguise, Can We Aspire to Be Burnley?

Plus an Inteview with Pat Phelan

By: Jim Dow

Heading into the Super Liga break, a contradiction in terms since the games have proven to be pitched battles, a number of things have been clarified for the New England Revolution. To begin with, if Taylor Twellman isn’t a bargain basement but brittle version of a Designated Player, then who is? Remember, both Luciano Emilio and Guillermo Barros Schellotto earned promotion to that exalted rank held by the likes of Angel, Becks and Blanco after stellar 2008 seasons and no one has been more instrumental in hauling Stevie Nicol’s charges out of their first third torpor and making it possible for the fans to begin to think of a post-season. Of course recent rumors have it that TnT’s recent recovery and return may be sporadic at best, possibly short-lived, maybe even a chimera, thus making the acquisition of a supporting, or even replacement striker absolutely necessary.

A VIEW FROM THE FORT: Fixing The Present, Forecasting The Future, 401K’s, and an Interview With Jay Heaps

By Jim Dow

And now the Revs head south, not to hostile crowds and bottled water in places like Cancun but to the heart of the BBQ belt, both in Texas and North Carolina, to train in peace, play some games on grass against tolerable opposition and set the squad for the coming nine month slog across America, hopefully with a couple of new Ecuadorians or Ghanaians in tow, to put some bite in the backline and flash up front.

A VIEW FROM THE FORT: The MLS Middle-Class Squeeze; What Is A Footballer To Do? Plus An Interview with Paul Mariner

By Jim Dow

Among a wide variety of endangered groups that occupy our planet, the current climate seems ever more threatening to that constantly shrinking species, the middle-class. While the media caterwauls constantly as the market plunges and the situation is surely no laughing matter, it is interesting to analyze the task facing Major League Soccer in this regard as the league begins its’ fourteenth season with fifteen entries, including a brand-new, deep pockets club in Seattle that just may up the ante for everyone.