Cicero

It was a pretty good crowd, but nowhere near capacity. Strange thing they do, every once in a while they open the section on the far end, beyond the supporters section. Normally it's covered, but then no one sits there. It's as if they're prepping for walk-ups and the rest of the seats are filled. Are most of the empty seats paid for and just no shows, or is it just attendance theatre?

I hope he develops into a defender who can compete with top 10 teams, but I don't think we saw that yet in the last three games. I'm not dissing him, but he needs to play real games, especially at his age. Two or three seasons of sitting on the bench and only training will not help his development, but I presume he'd be loaned out rather than sit and rot on the bench.

He hasn't even played a full season in MLS. Pretty small sample size for teams to assess him. Guess they just like the size and speed.

I also think it's risky. If they put money into a real stadium that is a good size for CPL, in a good location, I suspect it could develop a decent following. Bleachers on the outskirts of town, forget it. York 2.0. Probably Edmonton 2.0 actually. It's a resort city, people are looking for things to do in the summer. Put it downtown in a nice stadium and you'd get some tourist dollars on top of local support. Do I think anyone will pony up the necessary dollars to make the right situation happen? Very low probability I'd say.

This is increasingly the calculation as MLS salaries improve. I would be surprised if Shaffelburg becomes a top four league player, and below that, the salaries are not that much different. He can stay in MLS and be in a stable situation, near home, making good money, and in Nashville at least, or in Canada, have a following. In Europe, he'll likely move through many clubs to keep his career going, and he'll be a nobody. Might be interesting for a few years, but I don't see it being a great career move for a player like him.

We have a three game sample against the highest level opponents: one okay (Holland), one good (France), one mediocre/bad (Argentina). That's a decent start for him. The question is can he learn and improve against these higher level teams. We shall see.

We can say he 'should' be able to create chances, but we have a big enough sample size to know that that's not who he is as a player. He's a good passer, and a good finisher in close. He doesn't dribble himself into shooting positions, he doesn't score on headers. As a striker, he is a target man, on the ground, and he does need service. If you've watched Lille at all, you know this is true. He could be very productive as a finisher on a team with good playmakers, or as a playmaking AM, but he will not create and finish his own chances. I think he has done very well for himself at Lille, but to step up as a striker, he would have to go to an elite team with great passers behind him.

Intuitively, being more mistake-prone would seem to be the explanation for having older CB's in general, but it's just as much a result of the position being less reliant on speed and fitness in general, so CB's are more effective longer, and thus there just aren't as many spots for young CB's. Games-played is more important than age in terms of decision making, so the problem is really that since CB's can play longer, it takes young CB's longer to accumulate the necessary experience. But they have to accumulate it somehow, so to get them to the higher level, they're going to make the mistakes regardless, they'll just be spread out over a longer period, because they don't play as much when they're young. If that's true, teams should just bite the bullet and play young CB's as much as possible, live with the mistakes and have a finished product for several more years than they would otherwise.

It only appears that way because the CB is the last link in the defensive chain, but in reality, if your CM isn't effective, their mistakes can lead to just as many goals. Case in point, see Michael Bradley as CM for Toronto last season.

He needs an offensive play-maker behind him. We don't have that. If you watch Lille, you know he doesn't create his own chances.

The difference is how they change pace. They get possession, look for openings, then everyone is moving fast when they get one. We just plod along at the same pace, no surprises, just not good enough yet.

Making observations doesn't make one a hater. Having said that, I think it's more a mixed bag than just down overall. Forge and Cavalry are somewhat down from last year, by the official numbers and by my eye at games. Pacific has clearly had lower attendance. On the flipside, Ottawa's attendance has been good and Halifax holding and maybe even up slightly in spite of terrible results. The other three are more difficult to tell. No official number for Valour on that graphic, and York and Vancouver's numbers are hard to judge from official data or visuals.

I'd be very surprised if they draw any better. It's definitely more convenient, but Calgary doesn't have a great history of supporting soccer. Cavalry do okay, but not fantastic. You look at NWSL attendance outside of Portland, LA and DC and its generally similar or lower than most CPL teams, even though most are in larger cities. We'll see, but selling new sports leagues is a tough business, especially when you're trying to get the attention of customers who have all kinds of higher level options already.

They are either being wildly optimistic, or they are getting a lot of money from corporations. Corporations spending more than they would normally based on advertising impact isn't out of the question as support will bump up their ESG scores. I don't know who the owners are, so maybe they have some deep pocketed people behind it as well.

Likewise. I should have said, 'the teams' rather than 'everyone'.