FanHouse Superliga

So far, we've learned two things from Superliga:

1.) When they care, the New England Revolution and the Houston Dynamo are the two best knockout competition sides in MLS.

2.) If you can read lips, you can see that Mexican players know at least two words in English, and they aren't very nice.

More than words were thrown, however, at the end of the Revolution's 1-0 win over Atlante tonight. Atlante ended up getting five, count 'em, five red cards, including three in post-match scuffle with Revs players. Jay Heaps was shown a red for retaliation -- try to contain your glee, Duke haters -- seconds before he was shoved to the ground by Atlante goalkeeper Federico Vilar, whom cameras spotted throwing punches the fracas after he got his red.

After order was mostly restored, Vilar allegedly told a Telefutura reporter something to the effect of, "This is a country where you can buy everything, even a game and the refs." As if it were the refs who magically guided Shalrie Joseph's clinical header into the net in the 30th minute, or the refs who made Matt Reis so dominant in front of goal. This is a country where Federico Vilar is now Spanish for douchebag.

How long has it been since the city of Boston got to celebrate a championship? A couple weeks, maybe?

Boston is going through quite the purple patch right now. The Red Sox won the last World Series, the Celtics are the reigning NBA champs, and the New England Patriots, who have won three Super Bowls this decade, might have been one amazing catch away from a fourth. (I attribute that to karma, but that's just me.)

Well, don't look now, but the New England Revolution, who won the U.S. Open Cup last year, are ready to outdo every other team in Boston. This club is up for not one, not two, but four trophies this season.

The Revs are currently five points clear in first place for the MLS Supporters Shield, which goes to the top club in the regular season. In addition, they're in the semifinals of both the Open Cup and Superliga, and they look poised to make another run in the MLS Cup Playoffs. They've reached the Final the last two seasons, only to lose both times the Houston Dynamo -- which, by the way, is the other MLS club in the Superliga semifinals.

Of course, this doesn't include the trophy that passengers on Flight 725 probably want to give them.

Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber has lashed out at the MLS Players Association over player bonuses for Superliga.

MLSPA revealed over the weekend that if an MLS club wins Superliga, its players will receive only $150,000 of the made-for-TV competition's million-dollar prize, which amounts to $5,300 per player, while Mexican players would split the entire prize if their club wins. Garber told the MLSPA yesterday that its pants were on fire:

"According to the president of Pachuca, their players did not get $1 million dollars; they got $300,000. There's bad information to begin with. So it would be in everybody's best interest if the facts were promoted instead of rumors."

Garber then added that MLS bonuses for non-league competitions are purely voluntary -- how gracious of them -- and that the league agreed to those terms with the union. He also admitted that MLS blocked D.C. United and the Houston Dynamo from offering their players a 50% cut of the Superliga prize. When Houston players filed a grievance, Garber showed them the collective bargaining agreement and told them to take it up with the union that negotiated it.

A response like that is sure to bite Garber in the butt later. The current CBA expires after the 2009 season. We might see some real fireworks over the next one.

The second edition of Superliga got off to a flying start last night with seven goals and two red cards in its opening two matches. As it turns out, though, the Major League Soccer Players Union isn't so thrilled about this made-for-TV spectacle.

In a public statement, the Players Union blasted MLS for hiding the fact that if an an MLS team wins Superliga, much of the competition's million-dollar prize won't go to the players. For MLS clubs, the players' share for winning Superliga is a mere $150,000, which breaks down to a mere $5,300 per player. The statement also says that this is not true for the Mexican clubs in the competition, as Pachuca players reportedly split the million-dollar prize amongst themselves when they won the competition last year.

The Players Union also echoed the suggestions that player rosters aren't large enough for MLS clubs to handle the extra games and that current incentive-based contracts would punish players who suffer injury during a Superliga match.

It sounds like the Players Union is using this competition to start digging in for a fight over the next collective bargaining agreement, which would begin in 2010. MLS, however, isn't expected to make a profit until 2010, and that might depend on the current CBA staying in place. Those negotiations could get very ugly.

The second edition of the North American SuperLiga, which pits four top MLS clubs against four top Mexican clubs, kicks off on Saturday, and we are reminded once again that this made-for-TV event is made for Spanish-language TV only. Telefutura is once again the only American TV network carrying SuperLiga matches nationally. This is in spite of the fact that three MLS clubs made it through to the knockout stage last season, even though Pachuca won the million-dollar prize.

You would think Fox Soccer Channel might want to jump in on SuperLiga to get people psyched up for the CONCACAF Champions League, which the fledgling network will air starting in August, but it seems they would rather show more Barca TV this summer. We might get English announcers on MLSLive.tv, but possibly not until the knockout stages, as was the case last year.

You can find a full preview of SuperLiga here.

UPDATE: A YouTube highlight reel of the Superliga Final is after the jump.

It wasn't a dirty play. I don't think anyone would dispute that.

In the 31st minute of last night's million-dollar Superliga final, David Beckham got to the ball at the same time as Pachuca's Fernando Salazar, and they were unfortunate to kick it at exactly the same time, creating the effect of the infamous cement ball prank. Beckham had to leave the game with a sprained knee; Salazar left with a leg injury himself just two minutes later.

Already down 1-0 thanks to an own goal by Peter Vagenas -- a fitting name for someone who scores an own goal -- the Los Angeles Galaxy soldiered on without their new captain, and they clearly played like a million bucks was riding on it. A countless string of Galaxy scoring opportunities, however, came up empty until Chris Klein's bicycle kick goal in stoppage time -- a play Klein probably wouldn't have made if he didn't have one million reasons to make it -- tied the score and took it to extra time and, ultimately, penalty kicks.

Yes, penalty kicks for million dollars.

They may have been too wiped to play against Colorado on Sunday, but with $1 million on the line, David Beckham and Landon Donovan are expected to start for the Los Angeles Galaxy in tonight's Superliga final against Mexican soccer champs Pachuca.

The biggest question, though, is this: will anyone show up? Attendance in L.A. for Superliga games has been notoriously low, and it's not going to be much higher tonight.

As it turns out, the match ... presents such a conflict with the first week of fall semester classes at Cal State Dominguez Hills, which shares its campus with the Home Depot Center, that the Galaxy has agreed to limit tickets sales to 12,500 - or less than half the stadium's 27,000-seat capacity.

You read that right, folks. David Beckham, arguably the biggest name in the world of Association Football, has to play second fiddle to Cal State Dominguez Hills. On the bright side, though, the college does offer helpful hints on avoiding traffic jams if you're trying to get to campus.

Yeah, I don't think this Superliga thing has gone as well as some MLS folks had hoped it would. On the bright side, people within shouting distance of the Home Depot Center can hear a few thousand Pachuca fans shout, "PUTA!!!" at Joe Cannon. My guess is they would never do that to Corrie Hirokawa.

As reported last night by Eric McErlain, David Beckham scored his first goal in an L.A. Galaxy uniform last night in a Superliga match against D.C. United. Here's the video. Naturally, it came off a free kick. As I watched that clip, one thought kept going through my head: "Wait a minute -- those are American announcers. I thought Superliga was only shown on Mexican TV."

The Galaxy topped D.C. United, 2-0, while Mexican club Pachuca dispatched the Houston Dynamo on penalty kicks. Thus, the Galaxy will take on the defending CONCACAF Champions Cup holders at the Home Depot Center on Wednesday, August 29, for the Superliga title. At the rate the Galaxy are going in MLS, this may be the only trophy they have a legitimate shot of winning this year.

Previously at FanHouse:
Beckham Gets His First American Goal

The MLS-Mexican League showdown dubbed the Superliga is winding down; in yesterday's semifinal between the Houston Dynamo and Pachucha, Dwayne DeRosario showed off all his lethal body parts (clip is six minutes; goal in question comes right away):



That's probably the first goal scored with someone tonsils since the Great Tonsil Games of 1934. The game would eventually end 2-2 -- the rest of the goals were scored with conventional parts of the body -- and Pachucha would get through on penalties.

(Via Who Ate All the Pies?)