Sports Forecast for Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

In today’s segment, I covered:

  • Champions League Soccer – FC Basel at Liverpool, 2:45p.m. ET, on Fox Sports 1.
  • NBA Basketball – Dallas Mavericks at Memphis Grizzlies, 8 p.m. ET on NBA TV.
  • NBA Basketball – Sacramento Kings at Los Angeles Lakers, 10:30 p.m. ET on NBA TV.
  • NCAA Basketball – Illinois vs Villanova, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
  • NCAA Basketball – Louisville vs Indiana, 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.
  • NHL Hockey – Chicago Blackhawks at New Jersey Devils, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable.
  • And more!

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link.

Music by Jesse Fischer.

What happened on Monday, December 9, 2014?

  1. Tradition has its say in England: The topsy turvy season in the British Premier League is slowly turning right-side-up as the traditional soccer powers return to the top. Yesterday Manchester City beat upstart Southampton 2-1 thanks to two goals from Robin van Persie.
    Line: Southampton had the better of the play but no striker as dangerous as van Persie.
  2. Snow in Lambeau: The beautiful falling snow at the Green Bay Packers’ home stadium was one of the highlights in a highlight filled game. The Packers ended up edging by the Atlanta Falcons 43-37 but it never felt as close as the final score would suggest. The Falcons scored 20 points in the fourth quarter while the Packers were mostly on coast-to-the-end mode.
    Line: It’s getting to the point where I find it hard to imagine any NFC title game other than Packers vs. Seahawks.
  3. Basketball players step up in Brooklyn: LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers and his teammate Kyrie Irving and four Brooklyn Nets: Jarrett Jack, Deron Williams, Alan Anderson, and Kevin Garnett wore “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirts during warm-ups in support of Eric Garner’s family and in protest of police violence and the justice system’s insufficient response. In doing so, they follow, and significantly enlarge a trend started by Chicago Bulls player, Derek Rose, a couple days ago. The Cavaliers easily handled the Nets, 110-88, but for me at least, the visibility of the players’ social gesture (in front of Prince William and Kate Middleton AND Beyonce and Jay-Z) outweighs the game by a lot.
    Line: Oh, sure, the Nets are sneaky bad at basketball, but I’m just happy about the pre-game shirts.
  4. Rangers beat Penguins in overtime: The last time the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers played, they needed overtime, a shootout, and then a second shootout to decide a winner. This game looked (I was there! Carefully following my own rules for being a fan of the away team!) like it was headed to a shootout but the Rangers scored a pretty goal in overtime to end it decisively, 4-3.
    Line: That was an entertaining game!

Five rules for being a fan of the away team

Dear Sports Fan,

I’m a Boston Celtics fan living in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve got tickets to see my team play later this week and I’m super excited about it. But then I started thinking about going to the game and I realized that I don’t really know how to act or what to wear. Can you help?

Thanks,
Kirk

Dear Kirk,

You are a sports fan. You spend dozens of hours watching your team on television. You read about your team obsessively, you follow players on twitter, you know the names of your team’s beat writers, and you have more than three bits of team paraphernalia in your closet or on your walls. You don’t live in your team’s city anymore (or maybe you never have) but you haven’t let that stop you from rooting for them. Finally, your team comes to town and you splurge for some tickets. You’re excited to see your team play in person. It’s the day of the game and suddenly, you starting thinking… oh man, what am I going to wear? How should I act? Is everything going to be cool? I’m rooting for the away team tonight. How should I act?

It’s an age old conundrum: how should you act as a fan for the away team?

I’m going to a hockey game as a fan of the away team tonight, so this is something I’ve been thinking about today. At first I thought I would write this piece with a certain amount of uncertainty. “I’m not sure what I think,” I thought I should write, “but here are the variables in play.” Actually though, the more I think about it, the more I feel certain that I do know how one should act as an away team. When you are a fan of an away team, you are basically a guest in someone’s house. You should act accordingly. Here are five rules for being a fan of the away team:

  1. By all means, wear your team colors, but do it with restraint. A hat or scarf is great. A jersey is fine. A full team warmup suit accompanied with team pom-poms and face paint? That’s a little too much. Save that for when you are going to a home game.
  2. The same holds for your behavior. Don’t get belligerently drunk and scream. That type of behavior is permissible (some might say ideal) when you are rooting for the home team, but as an away team fan, you should be more demure. Applaud your team. Cheer when they score. But you know what? Stand and applaud when the other team scores too. You’re watching with thousands of people for whom that is a good thing. If you want them to welcome you, show that you appreciate their hospitality.
  3. Don’t try to affect the game. Home teams deserve to have the advantage of being supported by their fans. In most sports, this advantage simply consists of the emotional boost players get from hearing the support of their fans. In a few sports though, fans have more direct ways to try to affect the game — by making it impossible for offenses to communicate in football or by distracting a free throw shooter in basketball. It’s not your right to do this as an away fan. You’re already limiting the impact of home court by taking a loyal supporters’ seat and you don’t have to apologize for that but you don’t get to try to impact the game as if you were at home.
  4. Being an away fan does not make you a legitimate target. Good natured ribbing is fine and can be enjoyable, but you should not put up with intimidation or abuse. If you do find yourself the target of anything from a crude or mean-spirited home fan, be firm but do not escalate. Either ignore them or remind them that you’re simply a visitor who want to watch the game and support her or his team. Ask them how they would like to be treated if they traveled to an away game with their team. If things get bad, don’t be afraid to move away from them or appeal to a stadium worker for support. There are almost always other seats that you can move to.
  5. Be knowledgeable. This goes back to acting like a good guest. It wouldn’t be nice to show up at someone’s house for dinner and not know their children’s names, what they do for work, or why they walk with a limp. That’s what you’re doing if you show up as an away fan and you don’t know the home team’s record, players, coach, history, and traditions. You don’t need to go overboard and memorize everything, but take a quick glance at the standings, a team depth chart or roster, and the team’s wikipedia page before you go. It gives you something to talk about with the people who will be sitting around you.

Sports allegiances always come down to coincidences: where you were born, who your parents were and who they rooted for, or what teams were winning championships when you were around nine years old. The relationships you create with people, even if they are only for a few hours while you watch a sports game, are more important than your devotion to a team. Being a fan of an away team can be a tricky balancing act, but it is worth it. Have fun!

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer

Sports Forecast for Monday, December 8, 2014

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

In today’s segment, I covered:

  • BPL Soccer – Manchester United at Southampton, 3 p.m. ET, on NBC Sports Network.
  • NFL Football – Atlanta Falcons at Green Bay Packers, 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
  • NBA Basketball – Denver Nuggets at Toronto Raptors, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBA TV.
  • NHL Hockey – Pittsburgh Penguins at New York Rangers, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable.
  • And more!

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link.

Music by Jesse Fischer.

Week 14 NFL One Liners

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by Google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

Week 14

Sunday, December 7, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Baltimore Ravens 28, at Miami Dolphins 13

The Dolphins went up early in this game and then… well, maybe they got distracted by Christmas shopping? Not sure how else to explain the total collapse that followed.
Line: So much for the Dolphins being a playoff team. They might still make it but they shouldn’t.

Indianapolis Colts 25, at Cleveland Browns 24

This was the heartbreaker of the day. The Browns really deserved to win this game after outplaying the Colts for at least two-thirds of the game despite being mildly outclassed.
Line: Cleveland doesn’t deserve more sports heartbreak but they sure get it often enough.

Pittsburgh Steelers 42, at Cincinnati Bengals 21

After a couple years of the Bengals outpacing the Steelers, it seems like the world is being brought back to normalcy. The Steelers traditionally beat the Bengals.
Line: Big Ben beat the Bengals. (Ten times fast.)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17, at Detroit Lions 34

It wasn’t more than a handful of years ago that the Lions were like the Buccaneers — perennial losers who can’t seem to win no matter what they do.
Line: My, how things have changed in Detroit.

Houston Texans 27, at Jacksonville Jaguars 13

The Texans keep themselves in the playoff race with this victory but you get the sense that is more of a mathematical reality than a realistic one.
Line: The Texans are just good enough to consistently beat the bad teams, which was more than good enough today.

New York Jets 24, at Minnesota Vikings 30

Quietly, after beating the hapless New York Jets in overtime, the Vikings are 6-7 and flirting with .500. That’s not bad for a team that has looked almost as bad as the very worst teams in the league at times this year.
Line: The Vikings might be sneaky good. The Jets coaches should be sneaking back home so they don’t get fired when they get off the plane.

New York Giants 36, at Tennessee Titans 7

I think that long time Giants coach Tom Coughlin might retire after this season even if he doesn’t get fired, but it’s a real credit to him the way his players rally around him even when there’s no hope left for this season.
Line: The Giants are down and out but at least they’re not the Titans.

St. Louis Rams 24, at Washington Redskins 0

Did I say “the Giants are down and out but at least they’re not the Titans”? I meant, “at least they’re not the Redskins”. What an insanely decrepit and dysfunctional organization.
Line: I think the Redskins unfavorables just passed the Congress’. And that’s saying something!

SUNDAY, December 7, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Buffalo Bills 17, at Denver Broncos 24

I don’t understand what NFL god has it out for the Bills. First they get stuck in a division forever with the Patriots. Then, the one year they’re half-decent and have a shot to make the playoffs, they are somehow scheduled to play against the Broncos just when they need a win? Gah.
Line: I guess it’s true — if it weren’t for bad luck, the Bills would have no luck at all.

 

Kansas City Chiefs 14, at Arizona Cardinals 17

Wow — this was the most exciting game of the day if you go by importance to the overall playoff picture. At halftime, the ascendant Chiefs looked ascendant and the collapsing Cardinals looked collapsy. But then the Cardinals scored 11 points in the third quarter and shut the Chiefs out for the entire second half and flipped the script.
Line: Things change fast in the NFL. Now the Cardinals look like they might have enough to hold off the Seahawks for the division lead and the Chiefs look like they’re in trouble.

San Francisco 49ers 13, at Oakland Raiders 24

All year, the story hovering around the 49ers has been that the potential departure of their coach Jim Harbaugh has been negatively affecting their play. This week, rumors that the 49ers might trade him to the Raiders were buzzing. After today’s game, Harbaugh might not mind going across the bay to Oakland.
Line: Harbaugh might as well just stay in Oakland after this game.

Seattle Seahawks 24, at Philadelphia Eagles 14

After winning the Super Bowl last year, the Seahawks started slow this year but now it’s December and they are starting to look decidedly unbeatable again.
Line: I guess that Super Bowl hangover has lifted.

SUNDAY, December 7, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

New England Patriots 23, at San Diego Chargers 14

Another close game at half-time where one team shut the other out in the second half to win. That must be all the rage these days because I think it happened two or three times yesterday. In this game it was the Patriots who shut the Chargers out in the second half while they scored 10 points of their own in the fourth quarter.
Line: I’m sure there’s some stat about the Patriots not losing two games in a row very many times over the past fifteen years while Tom Brady has been quarterback and Bill Bellichick has been coach.

What happened on Sunday, December 7, 2014?

  1. A very full day of NFL football: Because of bye weeks and Thanksgiving, yesterday was the first Sunday since ten weeks ago that featured the maximum number of NFL teams playing in one day — 28. That is a full day of football! If you missed even a small part of it or, you know, all of it, leverage our one liner recaps of all the games to find out what happened.
    Line: Sixteen games in one day is a lot to track, even if there weren’t anything else in the sports world going on.
  2. Goodbye and congratulations to Landon Donovan: Landon Donovan has been the face of U.S. soccer for the past fifteen years, even to some extent this summer when he was left off the U.S. Men’s World Cup team. Yesterday, he played his last game as a professional before retiring, and he went out on top! His team, the Los Angeles Galaxy, beat the New England Revolution in the Major League Soccer Cup 2-1 in overtime. It’s a hard pill to swallow for the Revolution, who remain the only original MLS team never to win a regular season title or championship.
    Line: Good for Landon, he gave us some great memories during his career, and frankly, I think he deserved better treatment from us and from the national team.
  3. The first college football playoffs are set: This year was supposed to be a big break through in college football. For the first time, after years of lobbying for this from fans, there is going to be a playoffs instead of simply a championship game. Yesterday, the four teams to make the playoffs were announced by the selection committee. Fans of Oregon, Alabama, Florida State, and Ohio State are happy. Fans of TCU and Baylor are unhappy. Everyone else is slowly shaking their heads and thinking that a playoff with four teams just shifts the arguments about who gets left out from the third and fourth position to the fifth and sixth.
    Line: I’m not really sure a four team playoff improves anything. Look at college basketball where there are 68 teams that make the playoffs and people still obsess and fight about the teams left out.

The best sports stories of the week

No theme this week, just a selection of wonderful articles about sports that I flagged throughout the week. One of my favorite parts of writing Dear Sports Fan is reading other great writers cover sports in a way that’s accessible and compelling for the whole spectrum from super-fans to lay people. Here are selections from the best articles of the last week on the subject of attitude:

Wilt the Stilt Becomes Wilt the Stamp

by David Davis for the New York Times

I just love that these stamps are extra long. Fitting for a man who was 7’1″ and loved to (ahem) rack up statistics.

Chamberlain, the only man to score 100 points in an N.B.A. game, will become the first player from the league to be honored with a postage stamp in his image. And fittingly enough, the two versions being issued by the Postal Service are nearly two inches long, or about a third longer than the usual stamp.

That time an NFL team used truth serum on an injured player

by Andrew Heisel for Vice Sports

This article wins the award for craziest sports story of the week. And the craziest part of it is that the contract the Buccaneers were trying to get out of paying by proving that their employee was malingering was not even a big contract. If they went as far as injecting him with sodium pentothal, how far would they have gone to avoid paying a player with a bigger salary? 

In a drug-soaked environment where the ends almost always justified the means, is it really shocking that an NFL team doctor would shoot a player full of a substance that was used by the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s as part of a top-secret mind control program? As McCall emphasized about Diaco, when a player enters a team’s training facility, he’s not dealing with his doctor but “their doctor.” There’s a difference.

When dyslexia blocked his path to college football, Maryland high school player took unusual route

by Dave Sheinin for the Washington Post

Wait, did I say the last story won the prize for craziest sports story? Hmm… let’s just say it’s a tie then. I’m actually surprised false identities don’t happen more often in order to get around the academic requirements to play top-level college football or basketball. I guess there are so many quasi sanctioned ways to cheat the system that going this far out of the box is rare.

He wasn’t a former power-lifter who turned one season of football at a prep school in Maine into a scholarship to Kansas State. He was actually a former all-state lineman from Maryland who, after failing to qualify academically for the NCAA, assumed the identity of his best friend — John Knott — and, using Knott’s transcripts and some forged documents, went off to chase his NFL dreams.

Yes, there was a real John Knott. But instead of the 6-foot-5, 280-pound black man who showed up in Manhattan, Kan., in January 1996 — touted by the National Recruiting Advisor as the “sleeper of the class,” because he was big and fast and nobody knew much about him — the real John Knott was actually a 5-9, 140-pound former high school teammate. And he’s white.

Thunder At Dawn, Or Prayer Of A Rugby Dad

by James Howdon for The Classical

Children often find ways to separate themselves from their parents’ avocations. For some children of sports fans, that means learning to play music or joining the debate club. For others, like the son whose father lovingly describes in this article, that means choosing a sport to play which his father knows nothing about.

There are outbursts of loudness, sudden messes, emotional extremity and inexplicable decision-making in our house, part of life with a bright and hasty teenaged boy. In rugby, it’s reversed: he’s the recipient, the object of constant chaos. Especially during the first few workouts, it must’ve felt like life in a tiny random universe: balls came his way without warning, bodies careened and bumped, and the flow of play suddenly reversed or stopped or accelerated in ways utterly surprising to him.

He is learning a sport about which his old man definitely doesn’t know better. He digs that part of the deal with a really big shovel, to be the one teaching.

Fantasy Football Isn’t Just a Man’s Game

by Courtney Rubin for the New York Times

As I wrote about earlier this week, the fantasy football playoffs start this weekend in most leagues. That means people all over the country, not just men, will be going crazy — screaming with joy, frustration, and staring fixedly at their phones, hoping for miracles!

Unflattering stereotypes abound about the female fantasy football player — does it only because of her boyfriend/husband, picks based on how cute the players are — but these days, young women are turning to fantasy football as a way to bond with friends, especially faraway ones with whom they communicate about their hobby on social media and GChat.

She [Adrienne Allen] is so competitive that she refuses to name her favorite research sources, lest she tip off the competition. But she will reveal that her diligence includes scanning the Internet for articles about players’ personal lives because drama can affect performance. “It’s a huge soap opera,” she said of the N.F.L.

NFL Week 14 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps.

Week 14

Sunday, December 7, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Baltimore Ravens at Miami Dolphins

Good cop: This is basically a playoff game! Win and you have an inside track to the playoffs! Lose and you’re on a fast track to vacation!

Bad cop: “Inside track?” “Fast track?” You lose some money at the race track this weekend?

Indianapolis Colts at Cleveland Browns

Good cop: All week, the story has been about whether the Browns would give the starting quarterback job back to Brian Hoyer or move on to rookie Johnny Manziel!! People are missing the real story which is that the Browns are in the perfect situation to win this game and get back into the playoff race!

Bad cop: Nope. The real story is that the Browns are reverting back to classic, losing Cleveland Browns fashion with two bad losses in the last three games.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals

Good cop: Nothing is settled in the AFC North playoff race because the Steelers haven’t played the Browns yet! Their two games against each other in the final four weeks of the season will decide who wins the division!

Bad cop: You’re forgetting that after this week, the Ravens play the Jaguars, Texans, and Browns. That’s three easy wins and a playoff spot for them.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Detroit Lions

Good cop: It’s been a week and a half since the Lions won on Thanksgiving! Don’t forget about them! They’re 8-4 and one game behind the Green Bay Packers for the NFC North title!

Bad cop: No one is sleeping on the Lions. You don’t sleep around Lions unless you want to be sleeping with the fishes.

Houston Texans at Jacksonville Jaguars

Good cop: The Texans need to win this game to stay alive for a playoff spot but I have to say, after the Jaguars beat the Giants last week, I think they trip up the Texans too!

Bad cop: It doesn’t matter — the Texans are a mediocre team that’s only beat bad teams (the Titans, Browns, and the Titans again) lately. Lucky for them, they have the Jaguars twice in their last four games. They’ll end the year 8-8 and just miss the playoffs.

New York Jets at Minnesota Vikings

Good cop: Jets wide receiver, Percy Harvin, returns to Minnesota to play against his old team!

Bad cop: And still, he doesn’t have a quarterback that can get him the ball reliably. The more things change… 

New York Giants at Tennessee Titans

Good cop: Did you see Giants receiver, Odell Beckham’s catch last week?! If that guy’s playing, I’m watching!

Bad cop: You wrote that last week. Get some new… oh, I just watched the video again. Okay, this is a terrible game, but I’m in.

St. Louis Rams at Washington Redskins

Good cop: Washington’s tour of referendum, that started last week against the Colts, continues against the Rams, the team they traded so many draft picks to in order to select Robert Griffin III a few years ago! Who won the trade?!

Bad cop: No one did. The Rams still stink and RGIII has probably played his last game for Washington. Both teams lost.

 

SUNDAY, December 7, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos

Good cop: If any visiting team can handle the Denver weather, it’s Buffalo!!

Bad cop: Weather? Denver is the sunniest city in the country. It snows all the time in Buffalo. You’re just trying to distract our readers from the travesty of beat-down that will be this game. Broncos win by 36 points.

Kansas City Chiefs at Arizona Cardinals

Good cop: Let’s see if the Cardinals can stanch the bleeding and save their season against the Chiefs! After starting 9-1, the Cardinals have lost two in a row! They need to win this game!

Bad cop: But they’re not going to. It’s sad, I like the Cardinals but their season is over.

San Francisco 49ers at Oakland Raiders

Good cop: Time for the 49ers to right the ship in Oakland!

Bad cop: Seems like if there’s a scenario in which Raiders would thrive, it would be keeping someone from righting a ship. Alas, they do not thrive in a football setting.

Seattle Seahawks at Philadelphia Eagles

Good cop: This could be an NFC Championship preview! It’s the perfect contrast of style and skill: the Eagles offense against the Seahawks defense!

Bad cop: This game is not totally unwatchable, I suppose.

SUNDAY, December 7, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

New England Patriots at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: This is a literal rematch of the 2007-2008 AFC Championship which Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers played with a torn ACL! That’s tough!

Bad cop: As Chico said in Monkey Business, “You pay us too much, we’re too much tough.”

MONDAY, December 8, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Atlanta Falcons at Green Bay Packers

Good cop: As good as the last two months has been for the Packers, they only have a one game lead over the Detroit Lions for their division lead! They need to win this game!

Bad cop: They will. Remember that prime time game earlier this year when Atlanta went out to something like a 50-0 lead over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? That’s how bad this game is going to be but reversed.

2014 Major League Soccer Cup preview

This Sunday is not just Week 14 of the NFL season and the first weekend of many people’s fantasy football playoffs, it’s also the day of the Major League Soccer championship game. The 2014 MLS Cup will be held in Carson, California, at the StubHub Center at 3 p.m. ET. The game between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the New England Revolution will be televised live on ESPN. It will be viewed by a sold-out crowd of 27,000 and a few hundred thousand soccer fans on TV. Any single elimination championship game is compelling but this game is even more interesting than most. Coverage of the game is split between those looking at the game as a small lens through which to view the larger story of Major League Soccer and United States soccer in general and those who are focusing on the game as a culmination of months or years of effort. We’ll do a little of both in our preview here, starting with the macro view and then zooming into the micro.

The larger story

The game on Sunday is the 19th MLS Cup. It’s a time to reflect on the history of the league and the current state of soccer in the United States. You might think that next year’s 20th anniversary would be a better time for reflection, but there are forces at work making this year particularly interesting. Major League Soccer began in 1995, the year after the United States hosted the World Cup. And that’s no coincidence, it was very much a part and parcel of hosting the Cup. This year, fans in our country embraced the U.S. Men’s National Soccer team like never before. The team captured the imagination and affection of both die-hard soccer fans and complete soccer neophytes. In the aftermath of the World Cup, interest or at least curiosity about MLS has been high. The league has seen some very positive signs this year. According to a Wall Street Journal story about the league, there has been a 26% increase in television viewership from last season and signed a $720 million dollar television deal with Fox, ESPN, and Univision. There is talk of expanding into at least one, maybe two other markets in addition to the opening of a second franchise in New York, New York FC, which will begin play next year.

On the other hand, the league has taken a few hard knocks during the year as well. Chivas USA, an interesting experiment with having an MLS team function as a second tier part of a Mexican League club’s organization, has failed. The team was purchased by a new ownership group but it will shut its doors for a year or two before re-opening. The United States Men’s National Team coach, Jurgen Klinsmann has been public in his criticism of the league, which can’t be good for the MLS since he’s one of the more well respected soccer figures in the country. There’s also just continuing weirdness that makes the MLS seem like a subpar league. In order to get Manchester City’s owners to invest in NYFC, the league promised they would have special privileges in terms of transferring young players back and forth between New York and Manchester. Add that to the weirdness around bidding between teams for high profile players like Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones and you’ve got a consistent stream of information that suggests the MLS is not sufficiently interested in fair play.

The actual game

If you set the larger picture aside, this game is revealed as being unusually interesting. It’s one of those games where, unless you’re a fan of one of the teams involved, it’s almost impossible to pick a team to root for. Here are some reasons to root for each team.

Why to root for the Los Angeles Galaxy

There’s one main reason to root for the Galaxy and its Landon Donovan. This championship game will be Donovan’s last competitive soccer game. He is retiring from play after the game. You probably recognize Donovan’s name. He’s been the face of U.S. Soccer for the last dozen years. He has been one of the best players and leaders of the men’s national team during that time and scored the most dramatic and memorable goal in international competition since 1989. He’s played with the Galaxy since 2007 and, despite the international presence of David Beckham on the team, has been a central figure in their history throughout. He’s also a very interesting person. He took a brief hiatus from soccer in 2013 for psychological reasons, something that most athletes don’t do. One of my favorite sports writers, Brian Phillips, wondered in 2013 whether Donovan is even “happy playing soccer?” Earlier this year, following Donovan’s last game on the U.S. Men’s National Team, Phillips returned to writing about Donovan:

It’s not so easy to achieve emotional fusion with your avatar-champion when everything from the tension in his jaw to the way his eyes keep flicking to one side of the frame suggests there’s stuff going on with him he doesn’t want you to see.

In his final go around with the national team (after becoming a sympathetic figure when coach Klinsmann left him off the 2014 World Cup roster) and the Galaxy, Donovan has finally achieved a status he almost definitely never sought: emotional fan favorite.

Why to root for the New England Revolution

A long-suffering Boston team has a chance to end a period of losing but to do so they’ll have to beat the winningest team in league history. Sounds familiar, right? It was the sports plot that drove interest in the Boston Red Sox in the Major Baseball league for years or even decades before the Sox finally broke through the hated Yankees to win the World Series in 2004. The New England Revolution will be playing the role of the Red Sox in this drama on Sunday. The Revolution are the only original Major League Soccer team to never have won the Championship or the Supporter’s Shield given to the team with the best regular season record. To break their drought, they’ll have to beat the Galaxy… who play the role of the Yankees in the MLS. The Galaxy have won four championships, four Supporter’s Shields, and several other tournaments. They are playing in their third championship game in four years and they’ve won two of three so far. And, the Galaxy is going to be playing in their home stadium where they haven’t lost since the first game of the season.

If it sounds hopeless, well, it’s not. The Revolution are on a streak as well. They are 11-1-2 since the mid-season acquisition of Jermaine Jones. Jones was the best player not named Tim Howard on the U.S. Men’s National team this past summer at the World Cup. If you don’t remember who he is, he was the one who did this. He’s a completely solid midfielder, brilliant on offense and defense, and a physical presence wherever he goes. He’s joined by two clever attacking players, Lee Nguyen and Charlie Davies. Both Nguyen and Davies have wonderful redemption stories and are easy to root for. Nguyen made is international debut in 2007 for the U.S. team. After a few games, he fell out of favor and left the country to pursue his soccer career first in Europe and then in Vietnam where he is a dual citizen. He returned to the U.S. in 2012 and has flourished for the Revolution, so much so that he was finally asked back for a set of international games this year. Davies was also a promising young international player but his fall from grace was more violent. In 2009, Davies was involved in a terrible car crash. One woman in car (neither she nor Davies were driving) was killed and Davies suffered a litany of injuries including a broken tibia, fibia, and elbow, various facial fractures and a lacerated bladder. Despite that, he recovered in time to make a semi-serious push to rejoin the national team for the 2010 World Cup. He didn’t quite make it back and, indeed, has never quite been the same player since. The player he has become though, is still able to wreak havoc on defenses from time to time. We’ll see if its enough to beat the Galaxy on Sunday.

What happened on Thursday, December 4, 2014?

  1. Dallas dominates Chicago: The Dallas Cowboys beat the Chicago Bears far worse than the 41-28 final score makes you think. The Bears were really never in the game and the Cowboys always were. Although, really, it’s almost more accurate to say that DeMarco Murray beat the Chicago Bears. Murray touched the ball on slightly over 2/3 of the Cowboys offensive plays last night. That’s a very unusual proportion, even for the best players out there.
    Line: The Cowboys handled the Bears easily but I worry that they’re going to wear out DeMarco Murray before the playoffs.
  2. Knicks wilt at the end: The New York Knicks looked like they were going to pull off an unlikely second victory of the year over the high powered Cleveland Cavaliers but then the fourth quarter started. In the fourth quarter of the game, the Cavaliers scored 22 points while holding the Knicks to only 14. That was enough for them to edge the Knicks by three points in the final score. Point guard Kyrie Irving was the hero of the night for the Cavs — he scored 37 points.
    Line: You didn’t think the Knicks were actually going to win that game, did you?
  3. Golden State adds to their winning streak: The Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Pelicans 112-85 last night to bring their winning streak up to 11 games in a row. That’s an impressive run for their team! Anthony Davis, the phenomenal center for the Pelicans, scored 30 points and got 15 rebounds in the game but it wasn’t enough to even keep the game close.
    Line: Golden State has won 11 games in a row? That’s crazy! I had no idea!