Innocence Abroad

It would be churlish and bitter for me to say Puerto Rico was to the Galaxy as TFC is to Cruz Azul, so I won't. But I don't see Toronto getting to the next round of the CCL, because fair to good as they are at home, they are utterly unspeakable on the road. Tonight they play Arabe Unido, who set the sport back fifty years against Salt Lake. I don't see a friendly referee giving eight minutes of stoppage time and a screw-you penalty against the home team, no matter how justified. As far as later in the group – well, I can think of many good reasons why Toronto will not be the first American club to win a game in Mexico.

Still, I think we can be tentatively excited about an MLS team actually winning in Mexico. The only Americans to do so in the past have been Landon Donovan with a lottery ticket, and Winfield Scott with an army.

Sadly, it probably won't be this week. Columbus and Salt Lake are probably among the most solid teams we've placed in the tournament in a while. But while they've looked great in the league, they're up against two of the better teams in the Primavera Aperitif so far.

Then there's Seattle, who will have to wait a month for their shot at winning in Mexico. But the Sounders, believe it or not, have a CONCACAF score to settle – at least, if you accept this Sounders as the spiritual heir of the A-League team that was stomped in the final round way back in 1997. I wonder if any current Sounders fans still hold a grudge against Cruz Azul.

But it's already been a bad week for American soccer. Start reserving your rooms for London in the summer of 2018, because it looks like football's coming home again. Even more demoralizing than the quotes from Blatter and Nick Clegg (who turns out to be the Deputy Prime Minister of Great Britain, and not the co-star of "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead") is the total afterthought status of the US bid. The Guardian literally didn't mention the US 2018 campaign until the last sentence.

How did we fall behind freaking Russia, by the way? We should be neck-and-neck with England, shouldn't we? We're rich, beautiful, have nice stadiums, and oh by the way we won our group. How'd Russia do in South Africa again? Maybe Slovenia should have a bid.

And please don't use the quality of play logic against me to support the joint bids of either Betherlands or Sportugal. We shouldn't be rewarding the perpetrators of the recent World Cup final in any case, but "joint bid" is just another way of saying you're not big enough to stay up past ten. Why not combine all four into one big bid? Hell, why not throw in Andorra and Luxembourg, while we're at it? You want a country that can host a World Cup? Reform the Holy Roman Empire or something.

You like joint bids? Fine. We've got FIFTY states in our bid!

And yet here we are, being punked by the joint Spain-Catalonia bid. I blame Bob Bradley.

Of course, I've been told that once I sign the petition at the Go USA Bid! website, that will make all the difference somehow. I'd have done it already, but I'm still recovering from the optic nerve I sprained rolling my eyes at the thought.

(I actually think we're pretty solid favorites for 2022, but I just wanted something to complain about. Those last seven words are this blog in a nutshell…hell, add porn, and it's the Internet in general.)