Rafa is escorting JPA to the big game

It's Wednesday.  The epic showdown of East vs. West, The Big Apple vs. La-La Land, Wall St. v. Hollywood, etc., etc., so on and so forth, is just two days away.  With fifty-ish something hours to go, let's take a look at how the hype machine is fairing, shall we?


Oof. No Titi.  Downgrade the match from a category 5 (as in DPs) to a category 4.  The lesser version has less stars, but the hype levels remain constant.


SF's little baby, the #LAvNY Twitter hashtag, has caught on and is going strong.







But...oops, Davy Becks is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Some gossip rag says he slept with a prostitute and Beckham is none too happy about it. Can you say lawsuit? That's a nice bit of spice to add to Friday's clash, don't you think? Let's hope we get a few camera shots of the supportive wife in the luxury suite (or not).


Nick Green, prior to the news that Henry wouldn't play, weighs in with his own opinion that the showdown represents something special for MLS.


Courtesy of Nick, we have comments from The Don made in Portland about the bi-coastal bruhaha:

"The stars have sort of aligned for Friday's game," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Monday. "National television, the only time we'll have five designated players on the field (at the same time this year), at least until potentially the playoffs, and a lot of interesting rivalries.

"You've got New York-L.A., and in many ways you even have Mexico and the United States, with Marquez the captain of the (Mexican) national team and Landon the star of the U.S. national team," he added. "These are the kinds of things we're in the sports business for."

Ooh, so this isn't just #LAvNY, this is #USvMEX. Double trouble.


The visually-inclined USA Today has a "Tale of the Tape." It's got everything from "Expensive foreign flop" to "Energy drink of choice."


The always excellent Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America filed a story with plenty of quotes from the head coaches of each side.


A big bold banner at the MLS website declares the match THE GAME OF THE SEASON. The banner links to a dedicated page at the LA Galaxy website with pretty graphics, video, and all the Galaxy and Red Bulls news you can handle. Oh, and ticket info of course.


It's almost here. Are you ready?


I'm Jason Davis, and this has been your LA v. NY match hype update for Wednesday, September 22, 2010.