I might not be the worst soccer fan in America anymore

Sunday night after the kids were in bed I fired up the TV for my weekly ritual of ironing shirts and watching sports. In the fall this means NBC’s “Football Night in America” more often than not.

However this past Sunday, despite the fact that my favorite NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, was playing, I went for the MLS and the “real” Western Conference championship game (as opposed to the “Eastern” game featuring two teams from the West).

Well the Los Angeles David Beckham’s lost 3-0 to FC Dallas in an enjoyable match-up and I get some points towards earning my MLS soccer cred back after watching a record low number of games this season.

As far as the final, I don’t have a horse in the race, but I will likely pull for Colorado as it would be nice to see Pablo Mastroeni to win a title. The guy has been a great competitor for the US team for a decade, ill-timed tackles on Italians non-withstanding.

Back on the juice

It took around three weeks for me to recover from the World Cup, but I am officially back at it, watching an entire 90 minutes for the first time since July 11th.

The Chicago Fire, my "MLS team", knocked off the LA Galaxy 3-2 for their third road win of the season. An enjoyable game with some excellent finishes from the Fire and a desperate holding effort to hang on for the win. I have two main thoughts on the game:

1) When will MLS settle on a time slot for their games? From week to week I have no idea what the "Game of the Week" will be on. There is (usually) a Thursday ESPN game and a Saturday Fox Soccer Channel game. Beyond that though, please check your local listings. Case in point, this past weekend's FSC game was on Sunday night at 6:30 - random enough for you?

Now I know that it is a bit silly to compare MLS to other soccer leagues or other American sports leagues, but I will anyway. The EPL games are on at the same time every week. All season long. The NFL? I've been watching for more than 30 years and kick-off has always been at noon central.

What does this mean? For the diehard, maybe not a lot, they'll find the game anyway. For the casual fan or lapsed due to kids diehard? It means I don't think about the game until the day of, and then can't watch half the time because it is on at a bizarre time. Contrast that with the Packers, if I want to watch, I turn on the TV at noon on Sunday.

2) How is the walking red card known as Dema Kovalenko still in the MLS? This guy has been breaking legs (literally, no really ask Ronnie O'Brien) for five different teams in this league for more than a decade. He dishes out some of the nastiest fouls you will see in a soccer game, including last night's studs up lunging challenge on Krzysztof Król.

He's a competitive player, works hard, plays for the team, all good things. But he's also a guy that appears to play without any regard for the safety of his opponent. And that type of behavior is a bad advertisement for any team in any league in any sport.

The worst soccer fan in America…

Well for the moment anyway it’s me. The MLS launched its season this past weekend and I managed a whole 20 minutes live and a handful of highlights on Fox Soccer Report last night. I do have a replay of the LA-NE game running in the background today but when you already know the outcome it’s a little tougher to pay attention as a fan.

I am a big proponent of MLS. It is a huge part of the soccer landscape in our country, is a key to developing the game in the States (even with its challenges), and in my opinion American soccer fans owe it to the MLS to at least pay attention. So I felt like a bit of a hypocrite after realizing I had just missed “opening weekend” of the 2010 season.

That said, is it really, really smart to start your season during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? The small amount of live action I did watch over the weekend was from the Seattle-Philly game on Thursday night. I flipped over to watch, but kept flipping back to watch Butler knock of Syracuse and an epic battle between Kansas State and Xavier.

As a sports fan this was really no contest, even as a die-hard soccer fan. The opening game of the MLS season where half the teams are going to make the play-offs and it really only matters how well you are playing in October (case in point – Real Salt Lake last year)? Or the romance of the underdog taking the big, bad power conference school to the buzzer in the NCAA tourney?

Soccer is and will always be my number one sport. I’ll watch the MLS play-offs over a mid-season Packers or Steelers game every time. But putting the opening weekend of your season up against the 2nd biggest sporting event in America after the Super Bowl is going to be a tough, tough sell for me.

Maybe I am not as die-hard as I like to think I am or maybe it's just that for this one moment in time I am the worst soccer fan in America.

So, sorry Don Garber. Sorry new look Chicago Fire (I still love you guys). Sorry MLS. You are not going to win when you take on “One Shining Moment”.