MLS All-Stars to Play England's Everton
It's not often an e-mail with word of a major announcement lands in my in box at 2:15 a.m., but that's the way MLS chose to announce the opponent today for the annual game set for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday July 29 in Salt Lake City (live on ESPN2 and Telefutura).
Everton, of course, boast U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard between the posts and are FA Cup finalists this year.
Regular readers will know I'm no fan of the All-Star Game, but with the format changed to playing against a foreign team at least MLS no longer has to find 22 (plus subs) worthy all-stars and no longer is the game scheduled to gobble up a precious weekend.
Plus, playing foreign teams who are (generally) in pre-season has proved something of an advantage for MLS; the MLS All-Stars have won all five previous meetings against international opponents, outscoring them 13-4.
And it's certainly been a more authentic brand of soccer than watching, for instance, the Eastern Conference All-Stars battle to a 6-6 draw against their Western Conference counterparts as we did in 2001.
Apparently you must like British teams though; MLS has played teams from the U.K. the last four years in a row.
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About 100 Percent Soccer
Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005 for the Daily News, Daily Breeze and other Los Angeles area newspapers. The blog of the same name began in 2007. A native of England, he began writing about soccer in the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat in the stands for one in the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook and follow him on Twitter.
It sucks that they couldn't get any Spanish teams that were rumored to play in this game.