MLS All-Star Game Part 1

Ok, I'll try not to make this super crazy long.

On Saturday I went to the MLS All-Star game vs. Chelsea in Chicago.

We definitely had good times, but couldn't believe how uneventful the game was. Before you all yell at me and say "it's soccer, duh" let's not forget that in previous year's the All-Star Game has had scores of 9-4, 6-1, 6-6, etc.... These are notoriously high scoring matches.

Both teams were rather lackluster in their attacks. Often, a midfielder would get the ball near the top of the box and there would be no one moving, no one making a run and no one out wide. Just the poor midfielder and 5 defenders converging fast.

In that respect, the game was a little disappointing. You never really felt like you were watching world class talent. I'd say the only exception to that was Micheal Essien. He ran a few people over, gave Freddy Adu a defensive clinic, stuck a few guys and basically was Micheal Essien.

The worst thing of the whole day was the absolutely uncomfortable loudness of the public address system. I had a headache from the moment we sat down until long after the game ended. And while I do applaud them for us being able to hear and understand the PA, which is rarely, if ever, the case, at some point some employee that was walking around the stadium should have let them know. I spent the entire halftime show (which was also crap) with my fingers in my ears, I was that uncomfortable.

Now all this sounds like I didn't enjoy myself, which is far from the case. The game was good, it just wasn't great. I still got to see Chelsea, with their myriad of stars, which was absolutely awesome. The crowd booed and jeered Freddy Adu from the time he stood up to warm up to after the final whistle. There were about 12 Eastern European or Russian people behind me ( I didn't turn around and ask) who I'm fairly certain were only there to see Shevchenko. They rattled on in said language the entire game. I feel like that should have been annoying, but it ended up drowning out all the other people around us talking and since I couldn't understand them, it was easy to tune them out. There was also the guy a few rows back, whom I could hear before the Eastern European/Russians arrived, who was literally trying to coach his kid based on the All-Star teams' warm ups, which were half-assed at best. He was driving me nuts, so the EE/R's were a welcome distraction.

The other fun thing to note is that all PA announcements were in English and Spanish, as was the program. However, what the Spanish announcer would say was not the same as the English announcement. Basically, the Spanish announcement would give more information. The same was true in the program. They'd have paragraphs on each player, then underneath a small Spanish paragraph which added completely new information.

Anyway, on to the pictures.

Chelsea brought the Barclay's trophy with, and for $10 (for Charity) you could have your pic taken with it. The line was incredibly long, so we settled for these snuck inbetween type shots. Sorry for all the people in the shot!















A slightly blurry cropped shot of the trophy.

















View from our seats and a view for you all of the new Toyota Park - Chicago's brand spanking new soccer specific stadium.












Another look at the stadium.














This is the Women's World Cup trophy. You can see from the picture that it ain't much. It was surprisingly small. And also, it was just sitting on a folding table with some guys milling near it. So much for exhaltation. You could just walk up and handle the thing. It was super informal and frankly a little weird.














Teams walk onto the pitch.















Some MLS guy we don't care about clears the ball.









Lampard takes a free kick.