Sounders vs Revolution

I drafted this article in early April, but couldn't finalize it in time for anything relevant. Instead I'm posting it here in reference for future "predictions"

 

I write this on the bus to the Revs game. I have a feeling that my main point of this piece will be relevant regardless of today’s outcome. All those whiners, worriers and pessimists crying over the Sounders "poor showing" thus far: give me a fucking break. Are you serious? 

Nothing but a 3-0 blowout over the Revs will change those tunes. 

Let me recap: at the beginning of the season I opined that we were "doomed", doomed being defined as no chance in CCL, probably not the Supporters Shield, only a decent shot at the MLS cup.

So far, I've been wrong. 

First, we filled Fredy's shoes with someone who could potentially be leagues better. Instead of a hopeful Colombian national, an experienced Nigerian national.  

Second, we did something no other MLS team has accomplished: come from a 2-0 deficit to beat a MX team in the CCL. 

Third, we accomplished what few MLS teams have done: tied a MX team on their home turf. And much to my dismay, we were one measly goal away from being in the CCL final. 

That is reason to celebrate. 

Sure, we lost late in our home opener against Montreal - a much stronger team than expected. We tied late disappointingly to Portland. Our RSL match was one of those blowouts every team needs to have at least once a season. 

We have 1 point and sit at the "bottom" of the table, but so fuckin what, we're only three games in! (Post-game update: two points and four games in, still at the bottom, still so what.)

He'll, we could be at the bottom in July and thanks to LAG v2012, and I'll say "so what". 

Cause it comes down to and Onion article from years back: "only four more months until meaningful baseball". The score of these games really doesn’t matter, the first four months of MLS play are more about building a team and congealing a force for the playoffs. 

So all you distraught “fans” calling for Sigi’s head, chill out. He’s got this.

You should be more disappointed that we'll have to wait until 2015 to win the CCL cup.

Top Six LinkedIn FAILS

According to LinkedIn, I can now call myself a graphic designer!

I don’t just mean LinkedIn fails, I mean how LinkedIn fails us, as a society.

I’ve been frustrated with LinkedIn.

I’d like to berate LinkedIn for some less-than-stellar interactions I’ve had. (Case in point: here are my search results for “Steve Lewis Seattle”. Yes, it’s a common name, so why do the results include “Kelly Fetters” and “Kim McCoy”? It also doesn’t recognize “strategize” as a word, which is really weird since that word is so trendy).

But I’ll just admit that’s probably more due to my lack of tech savvy than LinkedIn’s technical flaws.

No, LinkedIn’s technical flaws -real or imaginary- are the least of its problems.

LinkedIn wants to be the go-to site of the professional world, and that’s a huge problem.

I recently graduated with a Master of Public Administration from a prestigious university; the first question from all four career advisors about my job hunt was “How’s your LinkedIn profile”?

My program had seminars devoted to LinkedIn and improving your profile. It’s fair to say that all four of those advisors were dependent on LinkedIn. Over-dependent, even.

When I say that LinkedIn fails, I don’t mean in the trendy way, “these are the top five biggest LinkedIn failures”. My critique of LinkedIn is deeper: LinkedIn’s failures aren’t with its platform; LinkedIn fails US, as a society.

Here’s how: LinkedIn likes to think of itself as “Facebook for Adults”, but its practices and policies are far more juvenile than Facebook. Even worse, it re-introduces practices that we as a society deemed long ago as bad. Very, very bad.

6. The Fluff Factor

LinkedIn’s current model promotes over-promotion and self-aggrandizement, which are somewhere between horrible and lousy traits in an employee. LinkedIn is essentially all the flaws of the job search process distilled down to one very lousy website. LinkedIn unnecessarily narrows based on criteria that are likely utterly unimportant or possibly detrimental for a job.

5. In LinkedIn, everyone is tech-savvy.

As I stated above, I’m not the most technically sophisticated guy. Tech has nothing to do with the jobs I’ve had or the jobs I’m looking for. But that doesn’t matter to LinkedIn: I have to come across as a tech-whizz or else I’m unqualified for the job. 

4. LinkedIn’s promotional tactics don’t match its air of maturity and professionalism.

LinkedIn recently prompted me to endorse my connections. Regardless of whether or not my endorsements are valid (I really don’t know how some of my classmates are at graphic design or fundraising), I found the exercise both ingenious and shallow. Ingenious for starting a efficient social media trend; shallow for being hollow, juvenile attempts at self-promotion.

Juvenile is fine for Facebook (which doesn’t pretend it’s anything but FB), but obviously not if you’re trying to be “adult” and “professional”.

3. LinkedIn’s paid-membership model is disingenuous.

I can imagine reasons for having different levels of membership, but the basic free level pretty much sucks.

For example, I can see a few of the people who viewed by profile recently, but not all -unless I’m a paid member!

I can contact some people out of my network, but not all, unless I’m a paid member!

Actually, I’m not sure what I can do for free, everything clogs up in the hope that I’ll upgrade to a paid member.

In fact, there’s a whole realm of services you can do on FB for free that you can only do on LinkedIn if you’re a paid member, which puts me in the very awkward position of defending Facebook: at least it doesn’t force you to pay for basic services.

The words that come to mind are “disingenuous” and “trickery”. Again, not qualities usually attributed to “professional” and “adult”.

I’ll throw another word with much trepidation: Elitist. It forces you to join a club merely based on your ability to pay.

2. LinkedIn fails the non-profit sector.

Part of me wonders if it’s not just a conflict of natures: I’m a bleeding-heart community type of guy dedicated to making the world a better place, usually done through non-profits.

LinkedIn, conversely, was developed by for-profit business types for for-profit business types, the type for whom ‘trickery’ and ‘elitism’ are just part of business.

It puts me in the uncomfortable position of thinking that these are purposefully designed class divisions, false and unjust social classifications that I’m pretty good at avoiding, except when I’m on LinkedIn.

It all wouldn’t be a problem if LinkedIn were uniquely for and by the for-profit community; unfortunately, as I stated earlier, I’m in the non-profit/public sector, and LinkedIn is the #1 tool promoted by the career development center at my graduate school. Here are the results for Catholic Community Services, a large nation social-service organization. (For those who don’t want to be bothered with opening a link, the answer is ONE, the branch in New South Wales, Australia). 

I’ve found Catholic Community Services to be the best of example of what’s endemic with non-profit social service/public sector agencies and employers: none of them are on LinkedIn (or have a very minimal presence). And why should they be? LinkedIn’s business model and promotional tactics are antithesis of the public sector. Which leaves aspiring do-gooder public servants in an awkward limbo.

1. LinkedIn: Back to the headshot.

Remember the days when a job resume included a professional headshot and your marital status?

Neither do I, because that became professionally unacceptable decades ago.

Luckily, LinkedIn is here to wrong that right! Professional headshots are all but mandatory.

At the very least, it puts employer into that awkward position that they might be construed as judging potential employers by their looks; while potential employees (especially the overlooked and rejected ones) thinking they didn’t get the job because of their looks.

Or, just to state the obvious, “looks” can include race, color, age and/or “sexiness”.

IN CONCLUSION:

LinkedIn is social networking at its worst: disingenuous, money-grubbing and perfect for the discriminating employers.

That’s probably why so few of my non-profit friends and social service organizations are on here. 

We’re not in it for the money, we don’t trick people, and we’re actively working against discrimination.

I just wish it wasn’t the current tool of choice for career counselors in the non-profit and public sector.

Maybe if LinkedIn went back to its roots, focused on delivering a quality service, stopped Myspace-cerca-2006 promotional tactics, and not only acknowledged that not everyone is in it for the money, but offered services for nonprofit organizations (like have a category for “organizations”, not just “companies”), it would be worth call itself “Facebook for adults”. 

Until then, I’m going to stick with Facebook for all my networking and job hunting needs, as at least I know what I’m getting into. 

More Stuff White People Like

I recently re-read "Stuff White People Like". It's a little bitter, a little too close to home, but I thought I'd add a few things.

First off: Created worlds/universes with only white people in it. In the scifi vein that brought us "black guy dies first" another trait of white people is scifi/fantasy scenarios with only white people in it. 


I don't really want to get into a thesis of race relations in the US, or a history of racial and classist oppression, or say something like "of course race is an artificial construct perpetuated by a dominant class of rules to ensure that the masses are divide cause as Lao Tzu said, divide is conquered. Or anything like that. 
I just want to point out the long laundry list of movies/tv with only white people in it, or effectively only white people. There may by nonwhite actors, but most reflect tokenism or are just coincidently not white. 


Star Wars: Lucas caused an uproar among the secret racists when he cast Billie dee Williams. Luckily, lando was a back stabbing traitor.  I will also not try to read jar jar as a metaphor on race relations, as that would insult everyone's intelligence. Only white people in this universe, except the ewoks. What's worse just sayin there are only white people in this universe, or reading ewoks, jawas, and jar jar as racial groups. 


Serenity: In this created universe, society is the result of US and China dominance, yet there are no Asians in the series. Odd. 

Lord of the Rings: If LotR is a giant metaphor for pre-WWII Europe, then the different "races" obviously represent the different "races" in Europe. The elves are the Scandinavians, dwarves are French, men are English, hobbits are obviously Welsh and orcs German. Of course they're all white, a reflection of Tolkien's view that sadly has survived in his movies.

Game of thrones: not much difference with LotR, purely a white universe.  Even Esteroos is white people. The Dothraki are an attempt of portraying another 
Every lotr type of movie


Notable exceptions

Star Trek was revolutionary for many reasons, above all portrayal of race relations and proper use of scifi as a metaphor for modern society. First bi-racial on screen kiss. Can't fault it. 


Avatar: almost unique in scifi, avatar is a parallel to race/ethnic conflict. It is essentially an ethnogist's fantasy: exotic race of people attacked by whites, but they fight back and win. It's like Custers last stand, but with a happy ending. 

"Hmmm... This guy played in England. I wonder what he can do."

Disclaimer: the author is in a bit of a state of euphoria: Sounders just made a helluva triumphant second half come-back and are going to the CCL semi-finals. (Furthermore, author is also a Barcelona fan, who earlier made a *cough cough* similar -albeit far superior- come-back victory, also in a Champions League elimination game. Author is very happy).

Euphoria aside, author would like to stake the claim that Djimi Traore's volley was The Best Goal in Sounders FC History.

There have been other 'very good" goals in SSFC history: Montero had several goals of the week, even goal of the year (runner up? winner?). I also fondly (and sadly) recall O'Brien White's Mauro-fed mystical header a few years back. 

But Traore's was the simply best scored in Sounders FC short history. In good-old American fashion, here's a top ten list why:

10: My thoughts when Traore got the ball: "Hmmm... This guy played in England. I wonder what he can do." Question answered.

9: Technical: it was a phenomenal strike from a long distance. See #6,

8: Momentumal (yes, "momentumal" I get to make up works when I'm drunk and ecstatic): Yedlin's goal got us back in the game, this one showed that we could win it.

7: Yedlin's was also phenomenal, and I dare say second best in history. The fact it came from a rookie starting in his second game, the first goal in his professional career, all make a strong case. Except Traore's was just more powerful.

6: Did I say it was awesome? Every time a Sounder defender (or any defender in MLS for that matter) winds up to make that strike, it's launched twenty yards over the fieldgoals. Someone who can put it in? See my last article about Sounders-level vs Top-Level.

5: This goal had meaning: none of the other contenders for BGISH prize came in a high-stakes elimination game; or at least in not as high of a stakes game. A great goal in league play is... just a great goal. A great goal in play-offs... have we had any of those? All games at not equal, thus neither are goals.

4: Traore stepped up to the plate. Montero didn't. I'm not a Montero hater, but had he scored in playoffs, his legacy might be different.

3: HOLY SHIT A DEFENDER SCORED THAT GOAL!?! Gonzalez had a good strike once, years ago. Hurtado headed a couple in, but see Point #6.

2: Traore (and Yedlin) have made me completely re-assess my pre-season predictions. Hell, I said to kiss CCL goodbye. I LOVE being proven wrong!

1: We signed the right guy. I shuttered when we got rid of Parke and didnt' replace him with someone "as good". Parke could never make that shot. Every time Sounders sign an aging star from the Euro leagues, there's an audible rolling of the eyes. There's a collective worry that we caught the MLS Aging European Syndrome. (Case in point: Silvestre's first half as a Timber). We needed someone to save our league prospects, and in addition we get someone who helps pave the road to a CCL semi-final. 

So, that's my argument. Am I right, or am I write?

Fake Blog of the Day: Shakira is my baby-mama

I'm not Gerard Pique, but if I was, this is what my blog would be about.

What is it like being one of the world's most popular athletes, married to one of the world's hottest I mean, best and most famous singers?

You'd be surprised to learn that our life is quite mundane. We have the same trials and tribulations as any married couple. Trying to find a decent babysitter on a Friday night. Where to spend Christmas this year, Barcelona or Bogota? And of course, the challenges of maintaining the libido of two of the world's most sexiest people.

I'll be planning here to blog about my personal life, but under the pseudonym, "Insatiable Curmugeonry". It'll allow me to share a private side and hopefully you'll see how regular things are with me and Shakiriqui.  First, I have to go to work, today against AC Milan. I tell, what about of fops! These guys certainly care too much about their hair.

Speaking of short cute kids, look how small this team is! They're so cute! I love throwing them u pin the air like I do my own child. Messi has the most delightful giggle mid-air.

Freddy Adu, Part II; The Martins Boogaloo

I've been following the Obafemi Martins drama too much. (It in itself is too much: the sorta trashy soccer gossip that Europe/Mexico/the rest of the world suffers through year around, Now on American shores!)

Last week I wrote an article for Prost Amerika (reprinted here! on IC!) arguing that the Sounders need a top-notch striker in order to compete this year. Obafemi Martins is such a striker. So is Freddy Adu.

(Ok, if Martins is 99% what we need, Adu is 60%: a passing grade, and better than Ochoa (5%) Rosales (17%) and Estrada (24%)).

As the Martins drama winds down (?) we should at least have a Plan B. Plan B is Freddy Adu.


Back in  January I opined that we should pick up Adu- admittedly not a perfect fit, but SSFC would do him good.

Then this morning's article in WaPo nearly broke my heart. It's sort of the opposite of the Martins/Levante ordeal.

For starters he needs a good club with good coaching (Philly was such a mess last year, I feel sorry for the entire squad).  He also has potential, still. Finally he's a fraction of the cost of Martins. Sure, he may be a fraction of the player, but he's got what we need: striking ability.

Someone put these thoughts into Freddy's head: "I can either continue taking the highest bidder (currently he makes $700k, but doesn't play for, Philadelphia), and bounce from club to club, and probably end up in the Kazakhstan or somewhere. Or I can think long-term, like the US National Team, but taking a big pay cut but with a quality coach. Like Sigi Schmid."

SSFC  + Martins = MLS Cup.

SSFC + Adu would still win MLS Cup.

Sounders v.2013: "I (still) have a bad feeling about this"

I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle before opining on Sounders v.2013.

The off-season is nearly over and the dust still hasn’t settled. Rumors keep flying, and Sigi is almost purposefully confusing. Even winning the Desert Diamond Cup with a squad of reserves and trialists doesn’t calm my nerves. It’s like we’re coming out of hyper-drive into an asteroid field, and … what’s that small moon over there?

That’s no small moon, that’s los Tigres de UANL. Except on this occasion the rebels (Traore) won’t rally in time and the Death Star (Tigres) will destroy their secret base on Yavin IV (Champions League).

Why am I so nervous?

Because we started the off-season by off-loading two pillars of our team: Montero and Parke.

Problematic they may have been for different reasons, but they were one of the best forwards and defenders in the league.

Parke’s performance landed him an appearance on the USNMT (granted, the B-squad, and his age will probably keep it at that, but an appearance nonetheless).

Montero –we should hope for reasons of  good karma- will take the next step on what could be a great career: winning the Copa Libertadores with Millonarios, securing his slot on the Colombian national team which loses to the USA in the World Cup Final.

In the hierarchy of MLS soccer, Montero and Parke are both above the norm; they should be replaced with equal or better players.

The Sounders have some excellent MLS-caliber players, but that’s the problem: they are still “MLS-caliber” players.

Over the years, we’ve always managed to augment the roster with higher caliber players.

At a minimum, they had national team experience (Marshall, Gonzalez, Johansson), or played in a league considered top flight (Rosales, Tiffert). In the best cases, they brought World Cup experience (Flaco, Nkufo, Johnson).  Sometimes they came to us with copious amounts of all three (Keller, Ljungberg). Alternatively there were young talents with at least the potential of achieving those goals (Montero, Zakuani, Alonso).

The Sounders have some very good MLS players: Ianni, Estrada, Burch, Rose, Caskey, etc. But it’s these “better than MLS” players that got us into the CONCACAF Champions League and into the MLS playoffs*.

Getting rid of top-quality players (Montero, Parke) and replacing them with “good”, or even ‘very good’ MLS players (Scott, Estrada) is not a recipe for victory, especially against non-MLS teams, like Tigres.

In the middle of writing this, Sounders announced the signing of Djimi Traore. That’s good, but in order to have a successful run at the CONCACAF Champions League, they should have done this by mid-January to familiarize the new players with the team.

And we still need a high-caliber forward. Instead, we get Neagle. I like Neagle. He’s a home-town hero. He’s shown incredible growth since first joining the team, growth augmented by stints in Finland and Canada.

In fact, he’s arguably the best MLS player to have ever played in both Finland AND Canada. But that’s not what we need.

We need a top-class striker.

We have excellent midfielders, but none of them top-class up at top. I opined last month that such a player is Freddy Adu: admittedly not realistic nor perfect, but meets the requirements. I don’t think Sigi got the memo.

You can kiss any dreams of CCL success goodbye.

You can expect the first few months of league play to be rocky, perhaps even with more ties and losses than wins.

Some of the more short-sighted fans will be utterly distraught by June. Hold your breath (again!) that we catch a big fish in the summer transfer window.

But will that be too little too late?

We’ll easily make playoffs, but will miss the Supporter’s Shield by several points.

We’ll lose in the playoffs, probably to LA (the Empire striking back, yet again).

And we’ll finish the season with a big dust storm of fan outrage wondering why we didn’t win it all, hoping for a return of a world-class striker, a Jedi if you will.

Rinse and repeat in 2014.

*If you think the Sounders were going to/should have won either the Supporter’s Shield or the MLS Cup in their first four years, you’re delusional.