MLS is Back, but shouldn’t be

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/07/2020 (2234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MLS is back. It beat the NBA, NHL and MLB to North American televisions and streaming services when Orlando City and Inter Miami contested a Florida derby on Wednesday, kicking off what is styled, rather unimaginatively, the MLS is Back Tournament.

But unlike its name, the competition format is actually pretty cool.

Tournament soccer fans who didn’t get their EURO 2020 fix this summer will have the group stages and knockout rounds they crave, and the bracket competitions mimic those of March Madness. There is a CONCACAF Champions League berth to be won, and in a sport obsessed with silverware, a trophy will be lifted at the end of it all.

Additionally, a players-led organization co-ordinated a stirring Black Lives Matter demonstration to begin the event, and in Thursday’s early match against New York City FC, the Philadelphia Union squad took the pitch wearing the names of Black victims of police brutality on their jerseys.

To top it all off, the broadcast presentations have been excellent, the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World looks neat on TV, and early start times once again lend the competition a worldly, big-time feel. Acknowledging this, the league is even advertising that fans can start their matchdays with morning cappuccinos instead of afternoon beers.

Sounds awesome, right? Right!

Kudos to the planners at Major League Soccer who came up with the idea. The thing is — and it cannot be emphasized, italicized, capitalized and underlined enough, and then underlined again, and again — this event should 100 per cent have remained an idea, it should not be taking place, not now, not in a region where one in 100 people have COVID-19, not anywhere in the U.S., thank you very much, MLS should not be back, end of story, have a nice day.

Ah, but there’s still column space to fill. Fine. Let’s fill it like this.

On Tuesday, less than 48 hours before their match with the Vancouver Whitecaps, FC Dallas were withdrawn from the tournament after 10 of their players and a staff member tested positive for coronavirus. MLS had made its decision, claimed commissioner Don Garber, because of the “impact of the number of positive tests on the club’s ability to train and play competitive matches.” Strike one.

Given that line of thinking, the league should have similarly banned Nashville SC from MLS is Back on Wednesday night at the absolute latest.

Even as Nani was capping off a standout performance by scoring Orlando’s winning goal against Miami, nine Nashville players were in isolation after submitting positive tests. But MLS, ignoring its own assertion that “the health of everyone involved in our return to play has always been our top priority,” put off the decision to omit the club until Thursday morning. Then they waited until lunchtime, splitting hairs over the number of cases.

Was it really nine, they wondered, or only seven? In the end, they made the plainly obvious choice to exclude Nashville, but only after trying anything and everything to keep the expansion outfit in the tournament. Strike two.

“I think any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down,” remarked Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

On Friday, Florida confirmed 11,433 new cases of COVID-19, and the state’s hospitalization capacity spiked to nearly 90 per cent. MLS insists that its players, coaching staffs and support personnel are safe within the “bubble” of the Swan and Dolphin hotels, but the simple reality is that they shouldn’t be there at all.

Oh, and COVID “bubbles” don’t exist. Take note, other sports.

Earlier this week some of the players, who are supposed to be confined to quarters, didn’t receive their meal deliveries outside their suites. So, they went out for dinner. Bubble, meet pin. Those meals, by the way, are little more than bodega sandwiches and low-end table d’hôte. It’s not a happy time in the Magic Kingdom.

Disney World also happens to be in Florida’s most pandemic-ravaged county. That county — just the county, now — has more coronavirus cases than South Korea, Denmark, Australia, Venezuela and about 150 countries. Only 10 countries — entire countries — have more cases than Florida, and it’s only getting worse. At least one person — and one is too many — will get sick because MLS is Back, and it will be more than one, guaranteed.

That’s strike three, MLS. You’re out.

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It doesn’t matter the format is cool, that the presentation looks neat on TV, that we’re all having cappuccinos. We’d have them anyway. And no, we don’t “need soccer now more than ever,” or whatever platitude the pompom pundits are using today. We may “want” it now more than ever, which is why we’re watching the European divisions — leagues that restarted when it was actually safe to do so, and to do so in their own stadiums. The entire United States, and Florida in particular, is nowhere near that reality and won’t even see it in the distance any time soon.

Come to think of it, it’s rather appropriate that MLS is playing at Disney. What better place to make-believe that North American sports have any business returning to action. It might be the only thing about all this that makes the slightest sense.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters