Friday, January 26, 2007

hmmmm.....

The more and more I look at that photo of the Calatrava Chicago tower (yes, I read my own blog more than anyone else reads it. I'm that pathetic. . . In a handsome, superior kind of way) the more I like it.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

The State of MY Union

So anyone who actually still logs on and attempts to read this blog has probably noticed that I haven't been writing as much as I used to. I have to apologize for that. It's because I'm writing at this other page called sportingo.com and even there - I haven't written much at all. I'm just not the best at staying "on top of things." So I've got a few extra minutes here at the office with which I can devote to supplying all the loyal architectureandfootballaholics with a little info. I'll try and keep this directed towards architecture and/or football.

Newcastle have been on the up and up, and with this being the January transfer season, I've been going on and checking all my seedy tabloid websites daily when I wake up. Transfer seasons are the worst, because every morning, I wake up thinking, "maybe today's the day we signed Thierry." Then I check the seedy tabloid sites and my heart sinks as all I ever see is something about our manager or gaffer "standing behind" someone. Like although they've been playing rubbish for the past three weeks, I think I'll give him another three weeks to either turn good or drive the stock down another three points by being beaten by a championship side 5-1 in the lowly third round of the FA Cup. But besides not signing anyone, we've actually been playing fairly decently.
If no one's been following along very closely, we've had more and more devastating injury problems. We've typically been starting between 2 and 4 academy players, most of which are still in their teens. If we're STARTING academy players, its obvious that our entire bench is also made up of academy players, so if something goes wrong on the pitch, there really aren't too many options. But they've been playing out of their skin and have racked up some nice results. The only exception to this was when they were beaten 5-1 by a team in the division below theirs. Not as good as Newcastle, but the kids' inexperience really showed by obviously thinking that this game would be a breeze (this was three days after the same team tied Manchester United 2-2) and not really taking their opponents seriously. They got it handed to them 5-1, and hopefully Mr. Roeder gave them a nice belt whipping in the locker room after that.

Tonight is the third Master Disaster Architect Duel. This is a head to head competition, somewhere in NYC, between two groups of architects, where they've got a limeted amount of time and resources, and they're given a design project to work on. It's usually like 3 hours. So they have to design something, make a model of it, drawings, sketches, and a presentation. During this time, there is a LIVE audience watching them, as well as a live DJ spinning records. It's like a big party. Then after the 3 hours, they present their projects and somehow a winner is chosen. Just an AWESOME idea I think. I won't be going because the prez's S.O.T.U. is on tonight but sometime I'd really love to see one of these. Hopefully there will be photos.

Has anyone seen this monstrosity Calatrava wants to put up on Chicago's lakefront? It looks like some sort of weird popsicle, or drill bit, or sex toy, or something, and the design is old and tired and uninspiring, and it's WAYYYY too tall for its location, and just really isn't appealing. The apartments will sell for nothing less than a million dollars. This was a great opportunity for Chicago to stand out as a new architectural destination city, but Calatrava has spoiled it. (Apparently, as if this wasn't obvious from the beginning, Calatrava himself actually had and will have nothing to do with the design of the tower - it's been designed by his new "development" division (something most of the starchitects are doing these days) and it's just some schmo in his office who designed it and will be putting the Calatrava stamp on it. Shame.)

Let's see what else......my sister bought a new house. A nice little one story ranch spec house near a school. Good location. As an architect, I've got major - MAJOR - issues with this house. But as a normal person, it's really nice. It's going to make her and Adil very happy, I'm sure of that. Especially when they get their killer new bathroom put in.

Finally - we're still waiting on the Stockholm competition finalist announcement. It's the "blue foam" thing I showed you a while back. Once it's out I'll put up some pics, but it's still technically very confidential.

GO BEARS

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Friday, January 12, 2007

Posh Spice is moving where?

So yes, it's been a while since I've written (largely because I've been hard at work writing for the fast-growing, ever exciting Sportingo.com. If you're bored, go there and find my name in the Authors section. Some FINE work). I will succumb to all the emails and phone calls saying "What do you think about the Beckham thing???" and go ahead and write about it. Now, first I must preface that, as a Newcastle and Chicago Fire fan, I could not care any less, aside from the fact that the Fire will play Posh's husband a few times a year, and ticket prices potentially could go through the roof for those games, creating quite an eBay-tastic opportunity. But as a genuine football fan, and a supporter of MLS, this transaction means a great deal to me. Let me try and break down my thoughts.

First of all, I'll give a little description of how I see the MLS. I will begin that description now.

There are three types of football leagues in this world. Top-rung leagues, feeder leagues, and entertainment leagues. Top-rung leagues are ones such as the English Premiership, Italian Serie-A, the German Bundesliga, and the Spanish Primera. You could also possibly count the French Ligue in there as well. These are the leagues that the BEST players in the world migrate towards and play in, to prove to themselves and their contrymen that they are just that: truly the best. They're the most interesting leagues to watch because typically, more money is at stake in these games, the quality is exceedingly high, and thus, the drama is the greatest. A football fan will always be interested in these leagues.
Feeder leagues are the next rung on the ladder. The best example of a feeder league is the Dutch Eredivisie, and also probably the Portuguese Liga and the Scottish Premier League. If a player is successful in these leagues, that means they're probably worth a shot to play in a Top-rung league. It'll be tough, but that's where they want to be, to TRULY succeed. These leagues typically don't try to BE a top-rung league because the level of play is very high, and the football is very passionate and entertaining. They're an important part of the world game, and take pride in being a quality feeder league.
The entertainment leagues are all other leagues in the world, such as the Australian league, most Asian leagues, the Central American leagues and the like. These leagues will usually feed the feeder leagues, and VERY occasionally (such as in Jared Borgetti's case) feed into a Top-rung league. They serve as self-supporting leagues for their countries or geographical areas, but don't have a massive impact on the world game.
So that's the world of soccer leagues as I see it. I find the MLS to be CURRENTLY in the entertainment realm, with the long term goal of being one of the finest and most consistent feeder leagues in the world. We've had a number of players who have begun to be fed into both the feeder leagues AND the Top-rung leagues, which is why I think MLS has the potential for greatness (in a feeder league capacity). So if that's the goal, the MLS must work at developing talent at a YOUNG age so once these players really develop they're worth good amounts of capital to the other leagues. The MLS must have the mentality of development, and competition, with the end goal being seeing their kids hit it big overseas.

SO, What does all this mean in relation to David Beckham coming to the states? Well, I think it's quite obvious. If you know anything about David Beckham (which I admittedly don't know much) you'll know that his best years were somewhere around 1998-2000. He has since lost a lot of pace, which he never had much of to begin with, and the game has changed around him in many ways. He's not big or strong, he's not fast, but he's got the precision of a hawk, and is possibly the best dead-ball player the world has ever seen. In those instances, as we all saw even in England's pathetic display in the summer's World Cup, he can still be an effective player. But in the run of play, he's out of his league in the Top-rung.

All of this being said, however, David Beckham is STILL more dangerous and generally better than basically any player in the MLS today. He will instantly bring a new level of quality to the game that players, and kids watching, can and will aspire to meet. This is the most important impact of Beckham's move. I've always believed that the success of MLS will happen by it's impact with the young kids watching. Beckham's already got a football Academy in LA (his second academy - the first being in London) and he's got two (or is it three now) oddly-named children of his own. He cares a lot about kids and is very active in the youth community. So with his move to LA, having him in the flesh at his academy, raising expectations for football in this country, and helping to gain excitement around the sport, this could be a very very good thing for football in America.

So while this is all great and good, and I hail the MLS and Alexi Lallas of the Galexy to bring him over - you have to contrast that rosy description with the ultimate goal for the MLS - to EXPORT quality players to higher leagues. Now we're starting to see some of the restrictions being lifted on movement of players and some good deals being made to send quality American stars over to competitive leagues (well, pretty much everybody is going to Fulham, to be honest!). Strides were being taken, the initial confusing direction of the league and ownership and management rules were all beginning to be sorted out, once a certain amount of money and prestige began to flourish. And now, all of the sudden, we're pulling an NASL, straight out of 1974 move to pay an INSANE amount of money to bring over a start to play out the final five years of his career, and to serve as a stop-gap for his MOVIE career. It's all happening just at the moment that we were beginning to make a little sense as a potential FEEDER league. So this timing is quite confusing to me. Obviously the MLS couldn't control when Real Madrid was going to cut Beckham from their payroll. But this decisive action seemed very determined and planned.

So I'm hoping that this doesn't turn into another "Once in a Lifetime." And with the proper care and strategy, it won't. The BEST thing that can happen from this is that David brings a couple more influential players over, the US continues to export it's talent, and by the time Beckham retires in five years, the quality and awareness of the sport will have risen (hopefully somewhere above ice hockey and nascar) and we can then continue on our path to being a well respected and talked about feeder league. If that's the case, we'll have money coming in from other leagues, money coming in from international television broadcasts, and a great national team who can compete with anybody (much like the Dutch National team is ALWAYS expected to do well in the World Cup). The WORST that can happen from this is that old, declining players will see the easy money, exploit the league for everything it's worth, much as they did in the 70's, and drive away any true passion that young players ever saw in the sport to begin with. Once the league management cares more for the few players who they're paying exhorbitant amounts of money for than they do the quality of the league itself, then all is lost. And by the look of this initial contract, they have to be weary of this trend. But for the moment, I'll congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Beckham and their family, hope to see him in action some day as my Chicago Fire destroy them in the MLS finals, and continue rooting for Newcastle, while hoping to one day see an American or two wear the black and whites. (Did you think I wouldn't bring up the Toon in this article? HA!)

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