A Faulty Premise

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If Ives Galarcep wants to be taken seriously as a "national" soccer reporter, he's going to have to start getting out of his mom's basement a bit more.

This time, it's his take on the enmity the Fire organization has for the Red Bulls in the wake of coach Juan Carlos Osorio's departure. And it all boils down to his final point:

"While there is nothing wrong with a good old soccer feud, there is just something wrong about a feud not born out of on-field battles, but off-field disputes."

The problem here is that, just like it was when he claimed the only traveling support worth even talking about before Toronto was from New Jersey to points elsewhere, Ives hasn't done a lick of investigation to support this over-arching conclusion. I can name at least one long-standing grudge where one front office refused to do any sort of business with another because of something they did off the field, and I only really know people in one MLS front office. This notion that this is somehow unprecedented or otherwise untoward is complete bullshit.

Plus, Andrew Hauptman has every right to harbor a grudge against Osorio and the Red Bulls. If he feels hard done by -- even if you accept all the facts laid out in the post, and that part of the article is pretty well-reported* -- then he does. And if this conflict was between the Fire and -- to totally pick another team at random that has nothing to do with something I said in the previous paragraph -- Kansas City, I guarantee you that Ives wouldn't be making such a big deal about it.

* I'm a little skeptical at the way Ives constructs the part about Millionarios, because it's not clear if his sources extend to the parentheses about talking to Osorio before firing Sarachan. While I've heard that myself, I've only heard it as rumor, and some of the rumors I hear are pretty dubious.