Our Dear Leader

Hi there. If you haven't heard of us before (and you probably have), we're the Revolutionary Council for American Soccer Change. It's our mission in life to purify and improve American soccer, preferably by removing anything vaguely American from it. Now, not that we'd ever be caught dead watching any Major League Soccer, but we know in our guts that it's terrible. But there is hope, and we're here with our manifesto to tell you how American soccer can finally come into the light.

• Get rid of Don Garber and replace him with John Harkes. Garber got his start with the NFL, which frankly, doesn't cut it with us. There's no way he could know anything about soccer. John Harkes, on the other hand, not only played soccer in Europe, but also played a European soccer player in a movie. A no-brainer for us.

• Have MLS buy USL and the NASL, and introduce promotion and relegation. Simple, really. Promotion/relegation... gives teams some thing to play for. And it's cool. And we like understanding how it works while casual fans don't, it makes us feel superior. Which we are.

• Make every team have a kit sponsor. There's nothing more boring than acres of open space on the front of a shirt. Real clubs advertise alcohol, online gambling, and consumer electronics. Except for Barcelona, the greatest organization ever in the history of anything. Did you know they fought the Spanish Civil War over Barca's club crest?

• No more stupid names like Fire, Galaxy, or Timbers. An abridged list list of acceptable modifiers includes: AC, FC, SC, United, City, Town, County, Rovers, Wanderers. Houston can keep their name, but have to move "Dynamo" to the front.

• Get rid of salary caps. San Jose and Columbus are small markets, and have no right to be doing better than DC or Seattle. MLS should be signing players like Zidane, Figo, Del Piero, Cannavaro, Henry, Ze Roberto, and any other thirty-something player who ever won any kind of medal in Europe.

• Make Landon Donovan go back to Europe. MLS, as we all know, is a terrible league, and there is no way it could ever develop a player the way Europe can. American coaches are inherently inferior. Most don't even have accents.

Now, we'll send out press releases from time to time, to tell our fellow Eurosnobs what to think, but this should be enough to galvanize the community around us and get our revolution started. If you want to help, we've got Cafepress shirts with Jonathan Spector as Che Guevara for sale. Viva La RCASC!