Sour Manboobs

Red Bull New York manager Bruce Arena seems a little cranky these days. After the recent 0-0 snorefest, the former national team gaffer was recently described as indifferent. The gist of the article laid some of the blame for New York's boring performance on the team he assembled: (click title to read more)

"The team is not a bad team. But it is, usually, a dull team. Quite similar, in fact, to the dull team assembled by former coach Bob Bradley."

The problem with that is he coaches the only team in MLS with two designated players: Juan Pablo Angel and Claudio Reyna. Granted, the latter of the two has been showing his age and gets pushed around more than Rob Stone did in middle school. However, Angel has been a revelation having the best scoring rate in the league and is a finalist for MVP. Arena has no one to blame for having a subpar attack but himself.

Arena also seemed to make matters worse with some slights at his star here:

"New England did a good job," said Arena during his press conference in the bowels of Giants Stadium. "I don't think Juan did a good job of showing for the ball and we told him that at halftime. I think Juan could have done a better job of making himself available as well as (fellow striker Francis) Doe."

Not a good way to talk about your star who took a modest pay cut to play on astroturf in front of 16,000 fans in a stadium that seats 70k+. Speaking of which, I love this baffling quote from our favorite manatee (source):

"I don't think an MLS Cup is going to fill up Giants Stadium," Arena said before the match. "We'll try to get one and see, but the day this team gets credibility is when it moves into a soccer stadium. If Yankee Stadium was a dump, nobody would be going there."

First off, RFK has sold over 30,000 seats to MLS Cup. If Giants Stadium's a dump, RFK's a cesspool in Little Italy after the Feast of San Gennaro. And Yankee Stadium's always been a dump. They play top level baseball in a major metropolitan area. They have history and people care about them when they aren't beating their wives (couldn't resist). There's a lot more keeping people away from the Meadowlands for soccer than the stadium. Try looking at your history of failure and your owners forcing out several sponsors when they took over. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Hopefully, Arena causes enough distraction and dissent during the week and the Revs can capitalize on Saturday. Although, sometimes things like an asshole coach can galvanize a locker room.

Either way, Manboobs better look in the mirror for answers before placing blame elsewhere. If not, he'll be mumbling over the game from the announcers booth for the opening of Red Bull Park instead of from the bench. In 2011.