Saturday, May 29, 2010

Newest Player Pondering the MLS: Frank Lampard

Or so says Andrea Canales.  She notes that players used to the Premiership will be disappointed by the lack of amenities that are there on the MLS tour.


But there are a couple of assumptions here in this couple of sentences:  "American restaurants do not keep European hours. Good luck, Lamps, trying to find someplace open in Columbus, Ohio, after a match versus the Crew when you've got the munchies."


1.  Columbus has, I'm sure, plenty of 24 hour restaurants besides, as Canales sarcastically suggests, Waffle House.  This smells of more of East Coast reporter bias than anything based in truth.  Most MLS games are done by what?  9pm or 10pm local time?  Lampard can get his grub on no problem in Columbus--he's never struck me as a particularly dainty eater.


2.  Why are we assuming Lampard isn't playing for Columbus?  With Beckham in LA, and Henry in NYC, certainly Lampard is going to have to play in one of the Shitty Cities that America offers up, which in the minds of most Europeans, it seems, is every city but LA or NYC.  As Canales points out, French fop flopper Robert Pires determined Philadelphia not good enough for him to play in.  But if the MLS really becomes the European retirement tour (the MLS rules seem determined to make it so) than some of these guys (as I've pointed out before) are going to have to play in such exciting places as Dallas and Kansas City (it was good enough for Preki) and Toronto and Seattle and the like.  The entire Old Man European Expatriate Squad are not all going to play in New York City.

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