Shalrie Joseph and Plot Twists

By: Jeff | March 21st, 2007

After a couple days spent wallowing in the Shalrie Joseph Saga – and a little time spent injecting bald speculation (here and here) into the blogosphere – a pause in the action has me feeling a little philosophical. Maybe it’s strife in the family that has me musing about loss and changing fortunes.

UPDATE: Never mind the “pause in the action”; this damn story just will not sit still. Here’s an interesting development. Now…back to the post.

Why do we, the fans that is, watch the game? I’m not the type who dies a little when his team loses or who impulsively buys the bar a round when they win – I’m too cheap for the latter and too indifferent for the former in any case. Really, I watch the game to be entertained, pure and simple. In other words, the quality of any given season depends quite a bit on whether something interesting happens.

This brings us to the New England Revolution. For the past four Major League Soccer (MLS) seasons, they’ve been one of the more interesting teams out there. To begin, both 2002 and 2006 featured freak-ish, late season runs that, frankly, pushed a narrowly deserving team within one game of winning the championship; in between those years came the 2005 season, when the Revs really did deserve to a shot at MLS Cup, only to come up short. But the crucial thing, for me anyway, was that the Revs were “big picture” fun – i.e. taken as a narrative, their seasons told engaging stories. On the field itself, well…2005 aside, a word other than “interesting” better fits the bill.

And this brings the conversation to the upcoming 2007 season. Until Monday, it seemed inevitable that New England would field, essentially, last year’s team, albeit minus Dempsey, who mattered, and Jose Manuel Abundis, who didn’t. This made it hard to get excited. Suddenly, word breaks that Joseph is unhappy and either itching to leave or playing hard-ball and – POW! – the Revs become worth reading about again. The question is what comes next? How does this story end?

To be totally honest about it, I’m to a point where Joseph sticking around seems a worse-case scenario – not “worst,” mind you, but “worse.” The thing is, we all know what the Revolution will look like with Joseph: a team as tough to beat as they are to watch. Without him, well, you’ve got talking points to carry you through the season.

Before leaving this alone, I want to be clear about one thing: I’m not disappointed in Joseph, or his decision to go public. I also wouldn’t blame him one bit for wanting to leave New England; two tooth-pulling series of negotiations against a tight-fisted front office since 2002 (I think) would be enough for me to reach my limit if I were as important to New England as Joseph is. I think he’s a great player – a good passer, but also such a commanding presence in the middle of the field. There’s no question it will take the Revs a while to figure out how to operate without him.

But it might not be all that bad in the end. “Plan A” – e.g. taking roughly the same team into 2007 with no significant additions – offered little hope of success as I saw it. Why not try shaking things up?

Oh, and by the way, if you want to know why my hopes of being entertained are likely to be thwarted, you can see some compelling reasons why by clicking the second link at the top…or you could just read this.