Reeves' Army

After a draw that included an allowed goal by Harrisburg that was far offside, Orlando has some more frustration to take out on Rochester Rhinos tonight.

How much further can the Rhinos fall? Their fans haven’t cared in a while, but at least in the past the team was still competitive. Now they are having an epically bad season.

Same match preview as the Harrisburg match last night, and the usual watch party locations.

If there is a real rivalry for our team within USL Pro, it is with the City Islanders. The team we beat for the 2011 USL Pro Championship.

We have a rough road going into our coming U.S. Open Cup opener in Ocala on Tuesday night. Shall we begin?

Orlando City has a match preview for both this match and tomorrow night’s match against Rochester.

********

The Ruckus and the ILF will have watch parties at the usual locations.

Orlando City U-23 will begin their U.S. Open Cup run tonight when they host VSI Tampa Bay FC at Seminole Soccer Complex in West Sanford.

Tickets are $8, and admission is not included with the T-PASS season ticket t-shirt. You can buy them at the gate, or go to the website.

Orlando City sent Major League Soccer a message. So did Tacoma.

The Lions dominated all afternoon long, beating the Seattle Sounders Reserves, 2-0, in front of 2,300 at Cheney Stadium.

The Sounders reserves were seemingly stacked, with Steve Zakuani and Shalrie Joseph in the midfield and Eriq Zavaleta up front. But they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn yesterday; only two of their 12 shots were on-target, and both were saved by Gallardo.

Meanwhile, Orlando City had six shots on goal, with Dom Dwyer getting two goals (4′, 52′) to widen his lead atop the Golden Boot race with 10 goals.

The crowd wasn’t bad, considering Tacoma didn’t have much notice before the match.

Orlando has a back-to-back this weekend on the road, playing in Harrisburg on Friday night, and Rochester on Saturday night. Both matches are at 7pm, with supporters’ watch parties at the usual spots.

And don’t forget to head to Seminole Soccer Complex in West Sanford on Tuesday night as Orlando City U-23 opens their season with a U.S. Open Cup match against VSI Tampa Bay FC. Game time for that is 7pm.

Orlando City will be without TV for the only time this season.

Even though Cheney Stadium in Tacoma is nominally home of the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers, and ought to have the facilities for streaming.

As I said when the move was revealed, the Sounders want to gauge the support in Tacoma for pro soccer. There are rumors that the next step for the MLS-USL alliance is for the Western Conference teams to sponsor and/or create USL teams in their markets.

With an expansion team already set for Sacramento that would make a perfect pair for San Jose, it is believed the Cascadia Cup (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver) will create their own USL Pro teams, maybe as soon as next season. It would doubtlessly finally fill out a western swing for the third tier, which historically has had an east coast bias.

The big deal with the Sounders Reserves is their goalkeeper, Marcus Hahnemann. Formerly a U.S. national, he spent over a decade in England, most prominently with Reading. In the 2005-06 season, Reading gave up just 32 goals as he led them to a second-tier record of 106 points and promotion to the Premier League. He kept 13 clean sheets in 2006-07 in the Premier League, third overall (behind Pepe Reina with 19 and Tim Howard with 14) for the season, and registered 139 saves over the 2007 calendar year.

Radio stream will be available at http://live.soundersfc.com.

With seven additional signings, Orlando City U-23 has filled out its PDL roster.

English midfielder Paul Clowes is a freshman at Clemson University, but grew up in the Manchester City academy system. (Yes, they have an academy system; they don’t buy all their talent.) Prior to leaving for the U.S., he played in the new UEFA Youth League, a U-19 level shadow competition for teams competing in the UEFA Champions League.

Midfielder David Graydon comes from Montverde Academy in Lake County, and is a sophomore at Saint Louis University. During his sophomore year, he had 2 goals and 7 assists. In his senior year at Montverde, Graydon tallied 10 goals and 18 assists, was an ESPNHS All-American and Top 150 recruit, and led his school to a state title.

Midfielder Michael Annarumma is a graduating senior from Hofstra University, via Massapequa High School on Long Island, New York.

Defender Ian Svantesson is a graduating senior from Lyman High School in Longwood.

Defender Michael Millay was a key player at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, and is a junior at Cincinnati currently. His past season, he played all but 90 minutes in their matches.

Defender Andrew Clare is a sophomore at University of Tampa, coming through the IMG Soccer Academy.

Midfielder Jehov Pardo de Figueroa helped bring Celebration High School to prominence in soccer. A graduating senior with them this year, in 2011 he had 8 goals and 7 assists as they advanced to the State Semifinal.

Orlando City U-23′s first match is their U.S. Open Cup first round match. They will host VSI Tampa Bay FC of USL Pro at Seminole Soccer Complex on Tuesday, May 14, at 7pm. Their T-Pass season ticket is not valid for this match by USSF rules; tickets for the match are $8.

The moment he took the job, Jacksonville Jaguars general manager David Caldwell said he would not pursue Tim Tebow. “Even if he is released.”

Pressure has been growing, particularly from prominent Tebow die-hards like Orlando Sentinel sports columnist Mike Bianchi and ESPN analyst Skip Bayless, for the Jaguars to sign him anyway.

The reasons are myriad. They range from the judgment that he’s better than Blaine Gabbert or Chad Henne (and yet nobody else is interested), to the myth that they need him to sell tickets (even though they have been far ahead of both the Dolphins and the Bucs in attendance for years).

With Orlando attorney John Morgan adding to the pressure with a YouTube video, real Jaguars fans have had enough.

Yes, the Jacksonville Jaguars have fans. (That they don’t is yet another myth.)

If you follow my blog, you already know about the Bold City Brigade, their new supporters’ group. Last night they launched a new website, evenifhesreleased.com. It’s simply a click counter to count people who do not want Tim Tebow on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

As of this posting, it has counted over 75,000 clicks.

This is not a judgment on Tim Tebow the person. We do not hate Tim Tebow. He is a good man who does good things.

He’s just not that good a quarterback. If he were really that good, then why hasn’t anybody else snapped him up? As for us, David Caldwell was involved in the Falcons’ drafting and development of Matt Ryan. I trust his judgment in the matter more than that of the local ambulance chaser and a hack writer.

Tim Tebow himself is not the primary problem. The problem is the media circus that surrounds him. Personally, I’m convinced they are attracted to him because he is a good, God-fearing Christian young man who wears his faith on his sleeve. And they are waiting for him to do something bad or hypocritical, so they can jump on him and pound him into the ground.

That media circus may be disrupting Tebow’s development for all we know. Joining the Jaguars would not change that; it might even make matters worse.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are trying to build themselves back into the great teams of the 1990s and early 2000s. We do not need that distraction. And nobody outside is going to change our minds.

Now to answer the biggest misconception: We do not have an attendance problem.

The big part of this misconception is caused by EverBank Field, which is enormous at 76,867. But looking back at NFL attendance numbers, as far back as ESPN has those stats, the Jaguars have had attendance in the 60,000s all but one year. 2009 was an aberration, resulting from the economic downturn combined with a terrible 2008 campaign.

The team’s attendance quickly recovered, and is now far from the bottom. They consistently outdraw the Bucs, and in recent years even the Dolphins. They were 20th out of 32 teams in 2012, with an average attendance higher than the Chicago Bears has capacity for at Soldier Field.

Wayne Weaver was always committed to Jacksonville, and when it was time for him to sell the team, he specifically looked for an owner who would resist the media and outside-fan pressure to move the team to Los Angeles. That is why he sold to Shahid Khan; his car part import business practically owns the Port of Jacksonville, so he has a commitment to the city. The Jaguars are not going anywhere. (As for the Dolphins, however…)

The Jacksonville Jaguars simply do not want Tim Tebow. Neither do their true fans. And we’re not going to allow the media to get their way. The Jaguars will be fine without Tim Tebow. And so will Tim Tebow.

It’s Tuesday again.

Dom Dwyer was named USL Pro Player of the Week this past week for his hat trick against Antigua. Rob Valentino was also named to the Team of the Week.

Dwyer currently has 8 goals, to lead the league. Jamie Watson is second, with 4 goals.

********

The draw for the second round of the 2013 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has taken place.

On Tuesday, May 21, Orlando City will host either Ocala Stampede of the PDL, or the USASA amateur team Red Force of Miami.

Meanwhile, Orlando City U-23 hosts VSI Tampa Bay FC on Tuesday night, May 14, to open the first round. The winner of that match will host the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Tuesday, May 21.

Former U.S. women’s national soccer team player Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak has taken over as head coach of the UCF Knights women’s soccer team.

She replaces former head coach Amanda Cromwell, who was head coach at UCF for 14 seasons, leading them to 11 NCAA tournament appearances, 8 regular-season conference titles (4 with C-USA, 4 with Atlantic Sun) and 5 conference tournament titles (1 with C-USA, 4 with A-Sun). Cromwell left UCF to take over at UCLA.

Roberts and Cromwell were teammates on the U.S. women’s national soccer team. They were on the team that won the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. As Cromwell retired and began her coaching career, Roberts went on and helped the U.S. win the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Roberts would be a founding player in the WUSA, playing with Carolina Courage all three seasons.

Tiffany began her coaching career as co-head coach at VCU along with her husband, former MLS player Tim Sahaydak. Tim was hired as an associate head coach.

Take one team that is running an historically impotent offense. Mix in one that has a chip on its shoulder after getting yanked around by the Florida House of Representatives. The end result is breathtakingly ugly.

Orlando City made the soccer world feel its pain, posting up a 7-2 annihilation on Antigua Barracuda FC.

It started early, with Jamie Watson getting a corner kick and feeding it to Dom Dwyer, who notched the first goal inside 1′. Not long after, Dennis Chin got behind the goalkeeper and fed an easy goal to Anthony Pulis for his first of the year at 4′.

The Lions refused to let up, with Chin getting his own goal off a pass from Watson at 12′. Dwyer stole the ball at 17′ and shot it in for his second. Orlando finally relaxed for a while, but a new opportunity came when Dwyer headed in a corner kick to notch a hat trick.

The second half was almost as bad for the Barracudas, with an own goal at 49′ and a goal by Rob Valentino at 54′ to give the Lions a 7-0 lead, breaking another USL Pro record with the most goals scored by one team in a third-tier league match. We finally showed pity on Antigua, allowing Hazeley Pyle to score on a free kick at 76′, followed by Yann Songo’o accidentally deflecting in a back-line stop at 89′ for an own goal.

Orlando City will now hit the road for most of May. It starts next Sunday when they play their away match against Seattle Sounders Reserves in Tacoma. Match time will be 4pm EDT, and the supporters groups will have their tailgates.