Man, Does The Offseason Suck Or What?

Chris Webb

December 30, 2007

Chris Webb (foreground) and Mike Martin of the Soccer Show

Chris Webb (foreground) and Mike Martin of the Soccer Show
Photo: Martin Fernandez

While other leagues roll on throughout the world, here in the good ol' US of A we have to suffer through three months of non-activity and general boredom during the winter months.

Washington, D.C. For whatever reason, this particular offseason has dragged on more than other offseasons. I guess it's the relative inactivity of DC United so far that has contributed to my general malaise.

While the non-signing of Juan Sebastion Veron has certainly been fodder for the message boarders, it's really no comparison to TradePalooza that took place a mere 12 months ago when United bid adieu (pun intended) to a number of fan favorites that included Freddy Adu, Alecko Eskandarian, Nicky Rimando, Brandon Prideaux and head coach Peter Nowak.

In their place came Tom Soehn to the top job at RFK and Brazilian goalscorer Luciano Emilio, unheralded midfielder Fred via the Australian A-League and a number of other players via the MLS SuperDraft and a few non-roster invitee's who managed to eventually make the squad.

Regardless of the activiy or inactivy, it still sucks as an American soccer fan at this time of the year. Yes, we can cheer on Clint Dempsey and Carlos Bocanegra at Fulham who are playing well but no doubt will be Coca Cola Championship bound in a few months. We can also wrack our brains over why a dogcrap team like Derby County can't seem to give USA international Benny Feilhaber a solid run out on a team doomed to relegation.

On the flip side, it has been mildly entertaining to see Michael Bradley is becoming a goal scorer in the solid Dutch 1st Division for Heerenveen and even mangaed a hat trick a few weeks ago. And of course their is the rapid rise of United alum Adu who is gaining more and more confidence at Benfica in Portugal by scoring a number of late game goals to either win or extend matches. However, Adu still hasn't gotten a start yet in either the prestigious Champions League (Benfica is now relegated to the UEFA Cup) or a Portuguese League match as of yet. A little dissapointing in that respect, but he is getting some solid late game minutes. Baby steps I guess.

And of course this is the time of the year that the National Team goes into Witness Protection and doesn't surface until Bob Bradley assembles thirty or so odd players in January for a conditioning camp and few friendlies to boot.

Still though, I'd love to have some United news to talk about. Veron is gone but the futures of Christian Gomez and Jaime Moreno are still up in the air at the moment and with the Goffenator on vacation until midweek this week, even our usual scraps of info on United are drying up. I have no idea what's going on at RFK and can't seem to get anything out of the team right about now. With that being said, there still are about two months until any of us can officially hit any kind of panic buttons in regards to the holes in United's roster at the moment.

Oh well, by this time next month we'll all be complaining about our performance at the Draft and why we didn't draft midfielder Tannen Wels out of San Diego in the fourth round.

Who the hell is Tannen Wels you might say? Well, he's the son of my boss and I thought I would throw him a bone.

Happy Holidays everyone.