Notes from Cascadia Summit Day 2
Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers tied 1-1. Kirsten covered it over at SBN-Seattle.
But there are some other notes from the day's events.
- Sigi Schmid is a bit concerned about the lack of protection for the offensive four in an interview with Joshua Mayers.
- From practice it is notable that Bryan Meredith and Josh Ford enter together and leave together, last. Both played in goal during various exercises. Meredith also was at RB during one drill, but purely because someone needed to be there.
- Steve Zakuani and Blaise Nkufo played a soccer version of pepper. I declare the name of the sport chem as the two spoke in French the whole time.
- Omar Salgado does not look 17. He's big, and clearly fit on the field. If he can play for the Whitecaps they will be a much better side.
- Portland's reserves today were just as physical as yesterday. They weren't a bunker and counter side today. More a English long-ball game. I'm tempted to say this is their standard style.
- Chris Henderson talked to me about building a roster for multiple trophies, including the Supporters Shield. I'll have that Q&A tomorrow morning.
- Both the Timber's Army and the Southsiders were very welcoming to all Seattle fans today. In the second half they shared the beer garden, which led to an odd moment when the TA sang their traditional 81st minute song and shortly after the Southsiders sang their 86th minute song.
- Worries about violence are quite overblown. Today was a great day to show league and team officials that they can tone down the worry a ton. We, all three fans/supporters, just want good soccer and amazing experiences - together. Portland, Seattle and Vancouver have so much in common. Ratchet it back.
- Arlo White is awesome.
- Seriously, he is just a good man. He's probably blushing. Oh, well.
- The Southsiders have silver in their scarves. The TA made a quality Cascadia scarf with a native salmon. I want one.
- There continues to be talk that this event will be more than a one time thing. I'll go every year, no matter where it is held.
Tomorrow the Seattle Sounders face the Whitecaps in what should be a match up of second teamers. Ideally we'll get to see Mauro Rosales.I actually think Seattle's second team is better built for the smaller pitch.
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How do pitch sizes in MLS compare?
Does it make sense to play (line-ups, formations, tactics) to the pitch size?
Unofficial Sounder Fan Club President - South Dakota Division
The only "small" pitch left is San Jose
KC’s last year was also smaller.
There are minimums and maximums, but variance is allowed. Designing a team for the variance is probably a good idea.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Yo Dave
Good meeting you at the match today. We’ll have to find Benjamin from EightySix Forever tomorrow.
I gave him a ride to his hotel room
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
So Dave can authoritatively say that I am not worth the meeting.
Manager at Vancouver Whitecaps and western Canadian soccer website Eighty Six Forever and infrequently-posting flunky at Edmonton Oilers blog The Copper & Blue.
by Benjamin Massey on Mar 5, 2011 9:00 PM PST up reply actions
I would say nothing of the sort
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I mostly agree with your point about fan violence
My one concern is that the folks most at risk for committing fan violence probably aren’t the ones that travel with ECS, TA, etc. but rather a) folks who are not permitted to travel with those groups, or (more likely) b) fans who aren’t part of supporters groups to begin with. If I were one of the league officials that you mention, I’d want to go through one full season — preseason, regular league matches, Open Cup matches, potentially playoffs, etc. — before feeling totally comfortable with the idea of full travelling supporters groups. Within that framework, though, it sounds like the front offices of all of the teams involved are doing their best to give fans the chance to prove you right.
Every year
I’d live to see this happen every year as well. I’m sure it would rotate who hosts it but it would have fun to have the Cascadia Cup holders get to host it every year. In the odd occasion that we are not the holders, I think I’d actually be more motivated to go to a game out of town.
So during training today, in a moment that had me cracking up.
In the short field scrimmage there was a clear and blatant handball, but the coaches didn’t whistle play dead, much to the chagrin of the players. Someone, and I’m not sure who (Roger?), screamed “F**king Portland ref.”
CougCenter, SBNation Seattle, @FloydCoug
Night Editor - SBNation.com
Hey now
He was Canadian so for some reason the Whitecaps wanted the Timbers to win.
Honestly the stream did not give me a good look at the handballs and with no replays I can’t say anything.
Contributing editor to Stumptown Footy the Portland Timbers SBN blog.
Notes on the Supporters' Summit Part
I didn’t catch the entire thing, but from what I saw there weren’t any bombshells. The most interesting parts, at least for me, came during the end when some of the questions were directed at Adrian Hanauer and Merritt Paulson, who were sitting in the stands together. To their credit, they took the questions, even if they didn’t say anything particularly different than what we’ve heard before.
That said, Paulson clearly wants to make this rivalry as big as possible. He definitely supports the idea of increasing away support, although it’s tough to say how much since his stadium has the most capacity concerns. Hanauer mainly reiterated the idea that this year is a trial run and if all goes well, there’s reason to believe away support will be allocated more than 500 tickets.
As for the future of the Cascadia Summit, something that has been oddly contentious at times around here, both said they are open to having it in the future but that there are no firm commitments to doing so. The idea would be for it to rotate between the three teams, and off-the-record I was told Portland seemed to be the logical site for next year’s event. Any number of things could keep that from happening (one of the team’s making the CCL quarterfinals would almost certainly make doing this impossible), but all parties involved seemed to like the idea of it and wouldn’t mind seeing it continue.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, North American soccer editor SB Nation and of course follow me on Twitter
Overall I think it's a good idea to continue the Cascadia Summit preseason
The games are preseason matches, sure, but they definitely have a little extra bite to them – there wasn’t nearly this much hand-wringing about a 2-0 loss to Dallas – that I think helps get players ready for the season. Even if there are no points involved, these games DO matter somewhat, which is refreshing compared to the rest of preseason.
Supporters summit
Any plans to do more of a write-up on the Supporters Summit? Or was it just not that interesting? I really wish I could have made it to Starfire for any part of this weekend!
by Sobchak on Mar 6, 2011 12:44 PM PST via mobile reply actions
I was interviewing Henderson at the time
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Honestly, I don't know that much happened
I think I honestly got the main points in my comment here, but the other stuff was more just the supporters’ groups talking. They talked about difficulties in getting their buses across the border (they said they can’t realistically do the train and Amtrak has said they can’t do a special train). We’ll see what we can do, tho
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, North American soccer editor SB Nation and of course follow me on Twitter
by Jeremiah Oshan on Mar 6, 2011 7:09 PM PST up reply actions
train travel
I took the train down, and while it was enjoyable and relaxing, it was too long (five hours) and left at 6:45am. For the $50 I could have driven down in three hours and bought a bunch of beer.
Come over to the Whitecaps Offside page:
http://vancouver.theoffside.com/
by Brenton Offside on Mar 7, 2011 9:30 AM PST up reply actions

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