erinja:Hard to discuss a sport very much if you don't come from the same country.

I am a soccer fan but there is no point to discussing the DC United with a European. They have likely never heard of my local team and unless they support a large team, I may not have heard of their team. I don't follow European soccer and I barely even follow US soccer, though I like it. Discussing sports is more interesting when you are talking about the same league.

If you had an event take place at World Cup time, it's a bit different perhaps, since everyone can discuss the international game together.

On off side - it's fuori gioco ("eksterludo", outside of the game) in Italian. Seems like many Euroepan languages use a translation of this idea so I think I'd say eksterludo rather than 'ofsajdo' in Esperanto.

Wow! You know DC United? I'm from South Carolina, so they are my "local" team, being the closest team to me, yet 9 hours away. I'm a huge DCU fan (although this year they are sooooo bad I've not been watching as many of the games), but that's still really cool that you know who they are!

TheBlueTurtle:Wow! You know DC United? I'm from South Carolina, so they are my "local" team, being the closest team to me, yet 9 hours away. I'm a huge DCU fan (although this year they are sooooo bad I've not been watching as many of the games), but that's still really cool that you know who they are!

I live in DC, so it would be surprising if I did not know them! They are indeed awful this season, shockingly awful. I went to one of their games (vs. Houston) a couple of weeks ago; a friend of mine is in one of the three supporters' clubs, so we had basically front row seats. It was such a small crowd (and a rainy evening) that if you shouted something to one of the players, you could be reasonably sure that they would hear you. The most exciting part of the evening was that we got free parking because my friend drives a Volkswagen (the team's corporate sponsor, as you surely know). Very disappointing about the bad season though.

TheBlueTurtle:

erinja:Hard to discuss a sport very much if you don't come from the same country.

I am a soccer fan but there is no point to discussing the DC United with a European. They have likely never heard of my local team and unless they support a large team, I may not have heard of their team. I don't follow European soccer and I barely even follow US soccer, though I like it. Discussing sports is more interesting when you are talking about the same league.

If you had an event take place at World Cup time, it's a bit different perhaps, since everyone can discuss the international game together.

On off side - it's fuori gioco ("eksterludo", outside of the game) in Italian. Seems like many Euroepan languages use a translation of this idea so I think I'd say eksterludo rather than 'ofsajdo' in Esperanto.

Wow! You know DC United? I'm from South Carolina, so they are my "local" team, being the closest team to me, yet 9 hours away. I'm a huge DCU fan (although this year they are sooooo bad I've not been watching as many of the games), but that's still really cool that you know who they are!

You live in SC?! Seriously?! I live in North Carolina LOL.

Roberto12:Question for MLS followers: What do you think about the ten-team playoff situation? It seems to me that it undermines the whole concept of a league as opposed to a tournament - and as Mourinho once said, the best team wins the league, but not always the cup.

I think I am in the minority among American soccer fans, but I like the playoff system. Maybe it's because I am American and I like other sports with playoffs, but I think it is a more exciting way to end the season. It's true that sometimes the best team does not win the playoff, but at the same time you don't have a boring situation like in England where Manchester United wins almost every year, or in Spain where it's always Barcelona or Real Madrid. If there was a playoff in the English Premier League, for example, Everton might have a championship or two.

I do think that ten teams is too many, though. Eight, six, or even four teams are better, in my opinion.

Well, I'm Brazilian and it's sort of mandatory to be a soccer fan down here
I'm not all that into soccer, though. I follow the match results and the sports news in order to participate on conversations, which mostly revolve around soccer when a group of Brazilian men meet.

I support Vasco da Gama, but it's having a terrible season and I'm seriously worried that it might be relegated to Brazilian Second Division next year

As for what you guys have been discussing, although the World Cup is only next year, in a few weeks Confederations Cup is starting. I think either Spain or Italy should win, I'm not believing in Brazil's squad right now.

And I agree with my fellow "vascaíno" herĉjo: I believe the MLS is way more exciting than the traditional league. Brazilian championship used to be more like MLS until 2002, but from 2003 on it adopted the league format, I liked it way more back then. And I do not agree with Mourinho -- maybe in La Liga the best team will win the league, but only because that's a terribly unbalanced league where only two teams seriously compete.

In more balanced leagues, where only a few points separate the champion from the runner-ups, referee's mistakes often define the championship. In Brazil there's a website that tracks the referee's most evident mistakes throughout Brazilian Championship and in the end it sais who should have been the champion, and in the last two years it wasn't the one that won the actual league.

If the best is not always going to win anyway, I'd rather have a more entertaining tournament with playoffs, like the MLS.

Interesting. It's certainly true that in many leagues, a tiny number of teams are excessively dominant in any given era, but I wonder if playoffs are too drastic a solution. It would be better to promote equality in other ways (e.g. the system in American football where the bottom teams get first choice in signing college graduates), and at the end of the day, there are still cup competitions that "anyone" can win.

And it's always a shame when a match is decided by a refereeing mistake, but I like to remember something Aidy Boothroyd once said, after Man Utd beat his Watford in the league by means of a soft penalty. He said we shouldn't have been letting them invade our box so often that the possibility of a penalty was high.

@Vilinilo: Nice to see another vascaíno here! Vasco may be down now, but they will improve.

Roberto12:Interesting. It's certainly true that in many leagues, a tiny number of teams are excessively dominant in any given era, but I wonder if playoffs are too drastic a solution. It would be better to promote equality in other ways (e.g. the system in American football where the bottom teams get first choice in signing college graduates), and at the end of the day, there are still cup competitions that "anyone" can win.

Now I could be satisfied with that! If all the EPL did was add a draft, that would make it more exciting.