I think I made my feelings clear about Peter Vermes and the DUI arrest the other day, rather than beating a dead horse and getting my panties into a self righteous wad I am now posting the material I was writing when the unfortunate news of Vermes’ unfortunate lapse of judgment broke. It is disappointing to me that this feels lesser for the more recent news…. but in many ways this is representative of how easy it is to tarnish something good.

A tip of the cap to Peter Vermes

Peter Vermes and Pablo Escobar: It hasn’t been a smooth ride
but the Wizards are heading in the write direction.

Football fans are a fickle bunch, really we are. When previous Wizards Head Coach Onalfo was fired there was a certain number of people who wanted Peter Vermes to go with him. As Technical Director he was seen as the guiding force of everything in Onalfo’s reign, including his signings and the teams overall performance. Once Onalfo was gone, and Peter Vermes took as Head Coach the team actually performed worse in terms of points collected than they did under Onalfo. This led to yet more people calling for the import of a new Coach and Technical Director into the ranks.

I actually thought the team performed better under Vermes and he managed to spark some life into players like Claudio Lopez however at the end of the season I was somewhat indifferent to the topic of whether change was needed or not. This changed over the post season as the squad was transformed rather aggressively with the influx of players of quality, Stephane Auvrey, and Ryan Smith especially had me excited for the new season. The resigning of Kamara and the drafting of Teal Bunbury seemed like positives and all of a sudden I was seeing attacking football and a plan and was excited to for the new season. Fire Vermes? You have to be kidding me.

I set my stall out. Essentially the gist was that Vermes as Technical Director and Head Coach was pulling all the strings and was almost solely responsible for failure or success.

I wrote the following in February:

On 27 March 2010 when we kick off against Onalfo, DC United and potentially Adam Cristman in the season opener we will have our first real idea how this torrent of fresh blood will affect things.  If Peter Vermes manages to get the Wizards into the playoffs, if we manage to score more goals than we concede, finish with a winning record and maybe even play the “attractive attacking football” that we have been promised during his tenure already then one man alone will be able to take the bulk of the credit.

The playoff birth remains to be seen but we are clearly in the hunt after our current form and may just still make it – this is a remarkable turnaround given out mid-season form but after good results against quality teams you have to believe that the team has finally settled down. We are playing well, and if we had maintained this form all season we ultimately would be sitting pretty now. If we maintain the intensity and the upward trend for the remainder of the season I will have no problem writing the season off as a success, this team feels infinitely better than it has been at points since Onalfo was fired, we do play attractive football, we are exciting attacking at times and we still have Omar Bravo to come, we are solid defensively and our midfield is hard to contend with.

We clearly do not score enough goals, but given that we have started to score more recently, are winning on the road once in a while things just seem like they are coming together. Maybe a bit to late to fit my predictions for the season but here they are.

Written in pre-season:

So yes, no supporters shield, and we probably will not be in the top four.  With the playoffs leading to the MLS Cup however I will now go on record as saying the the Wizards have the potential to win it all.  We will make the play offs, and we will not sneak in in last place. I look for the Wizards to post around 45 points on the season which is a substantial improvement over the measly 33 of 2009 but is only four wins extra, given the improvements in the squad and the apparent depth I do not think this is unreasonable.  After the regular season things  is just luck and as LA Galaxy will testify, the best team does not always win.

44 points seems to be the target right now for playoff play, it is a bit of a tall order but the players seem to be going for it. If we do actually make it we have as good a shot of winning it all as anybody. We dominated New England during our run, a team on a very similar footing to us in the league standings illustrating the raise in the playing standards, dominated the Galaxy in LA, beat Toronto and managed a draw with defending champions Real Salt Lake. The road win against MLS high fliers Columbus Crew wasn’t to shabby either. Things have improved, considerably and amazingly since the season low point of losing three back to back against the Red Bulls and Chivas at home and FC Dallas on the road.

While the more negative amongst us will say that the Wizards have simply not been good enough over the span of the season, I tend to look at us more as a team that has been through some considerable teething troubles and finally look like a solid and stable unit with a firm game plan and players than are starting to play for each other. They have never given up on themselves or the fans, and they have certainly never quit on the coach. So while I was thinking it was time to kick Peter Vermes out of Kansas City just a few weeks ago, I am going to do the fickle thing again, and say loudly and clearly that he deserves a pat on the back for sticking to his guns and getting this team rolling forward.

He is getting the job done, and whether we make the playoffs or not, I feel that if the season started today or if we maintain the core of this team into 2011 that we should expect to make it comfortably and that is a pretty good spot to be in. Baring a complete and utter collapse over the last nine games of the season I think we will be seeing Peter Vermes back in 2011 and I for one welcome that thought.

I was going to write about how impressed I was by Peter Vermes this season. After sticking with his game plan throughout the season I feel that it is finally starting to yield dividends on the field however the news out this evening thanks to the Kansas City Star is that Peter Vermes was arrested for Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol.

And just like that I am back to feeling negatively about somebody within the Wizards camp. I guess the thought that a selfish prig like our head coach could get into his vehicle after consuming to much alcohol and potentially kill or maim somebody on our roads is sickening.

This is without doubt the most disappointing moment of this season so far and if I was in a position to do so I would fire Peter Vermes on the spot. It would send a very strong message to this city, where so many families have been destroyed by those who have chosen to drive drunk, that this behavior is simply not acceptable.

As it is some will make excuses for Vermes, it will have been an accident, he will have forgotten how much he had to drink, or will have been stuck without a ride.  It might be something “we have all done” however the bottom line is he could have picked up phone and called a cab.  It is inexcusable in every way.

Will this be swept under the carpet by the Wizards and OnGoal?  I guess we will see.

Diop was let loose and Mike Kuhn visibly tensed. Diop raced into the box and shot high and left and Mike released the pent up potential energy and exploded a full five inches into the air gesticulating like a lunatic and then shouted indiscriminately like a man talking to a phantom in the midst of some drunken delusion …. “AND THAT IS WHY DIOP …. SHOULD …. NOT … BE PLAYING FORWARD”.

He was a mad garbage chewing dog.

I single Mike out, he just happened to be the person I happened to clap eyes on, but all around me people looked knowingly at each other.  It was going to be one of those days when the wheels just come off.  The realization that the Wizards were screwed happened much earlier in the week when Teal Bunbury finally received the suspension he had coming for his role in the off the ball shenanigans in San Jose however with Smith nursing injuries and Wolff laid up, Chhetri in India, Zoltan still recovering from a torn ACL we had no options.

The logical choice was to put Arnaud up front, plop Zusi into midfield and just try and score a goal or hold on for  a draw but the release of the starting line up triggered a cacophony of ‘What?’ around the tailgate prior to the game as the news was relayed around the parking lot.  Diop was starting.  The Diop that has not started a game in MLS for 8 years?  The Diop that has never scored an MLS goal before?  That Diop … and he is playing up front?  What?  Diop?  Like frog song in mating season.  Diop?  Up Top?  What?

This was not good news, and with only a fools hope of making the playoffs the Wizards needed wins,  not journeyman defensive midfielders playing as strikers in a team that is on pace to be the worst offensive team in the history of MLS if not for DC United suffering from an identical inability to score.

Up Top?  Diop?

I grabbed my iPhone …. just ranting at the tailgate wasn’t enough, I needed to Tweet.   “Diop starting up top? Ouchie. Petty off the ball horse shit that leads to suspensions costs us fans with this weak squad.”.  I wasn’t alone.  Charles Gooch from the Kansas City Star “Diop up top? 2nd worst scoring team in mls starting a dm at fwd. ouch. Wolff not in the 18.”.  Mad Dog Mike : “Diop? Seriously?”.

This sounds bad, but we had seen Diop in many a hopeless situations this season.  He is a tall, somewhat gangling African that is often introduced while the opposition’s fat lady is coming on for an encore.  We pump hopeless/hopeful long balls towards him and he tries to get a head on them.  It hasn’t worked once and it is our desperation move.

Desperate for goals, desperate for points.  Diop?  Up Top? Noooooo.

2o minutes later Mike was laughing heartily, our boy from Senegal had just scored his second goal.  Wizards don’t score two in one game in 2010.  Two for Diop?  And the jubilation that swept Community America Ballpark was only matched by the confusion that came with it.  “What the hell is going on?” was a common sentiment.

Not long into the second half Diop managed to keep a ball in play by the finest of margins, and showed nimble feet in doing so.  He fed a curling inch perfect pass along the ground to Kamara to score a goal that was put on a plate for him. It was perfect play.

2 goals and an assist from a written off player has kept our tenuous foolish dreams of playoff football alive.  It is a funny old game, and after thirty some years watching I love that I can still be wrong, still be surprised and I am happy that for once, it is not Kei Kamara, Jimmy Nielsen or Ryan Smith making the headlines but Birahim Diop.

He scored two and made one.  Up Top Diop!

So last night shall forevermore be known as “The Diop Game”, one of my favorite nights as an MLS and Wizards fan.All I want to do now is shake his hand.  Well played Birahim Diop, well played.

The question is what happens now?  He looked good out there … and he has now scored as many goals as Teal Bunbury.  He also worked better with Kamara than anybody else has this season.

Side Note:  In 1991 there was a similar story when Paul Warhurst a defender was put in as a forward for Sheffield Wednesday when they had injuries to David Hirst and Mark Bright.  Amazingly 12 games later Paul Warhurst had twelve goals and was called into the England squad, not as a defender but a forward.  It has all happened before, but its special regardless.

The Omar Bravo signing is great news for the Wizards, but for our five forwards it adds added pressure
to perform and prove themselves to maintain their squad position or even their jobs.

With more than half the season gone the Kansas City Wizards things hang in the balance. Thanks to a recent run of good form and decent results, as amazing as it sounds the Wizards are within shooting distance of making the play offs. They will need to not only improve a little more, but also look to score more goals. Will we make the play offs? I don’t know – all I know is we are capable of doing so, the question marks hang over whether this team will finally start to find the consistency and goalscoring that has undermined the talent on the team so far.

The 2010 Kansas City Wizards are better than the 2009 Wizards by a country mile in terms of talent but it has taken time for things to gel and a starting eleven to become solidified. On the out seem to be Josh Wolff, who despite his early season work rate has proven to be ineffective and Jack Jewsbury who still has a role to play but will be unable to command a regular start so long as Stephane Auvrey and the increasingly impressive Craig Rocastle continue to dominate the central midfield spots. Their impressive partnership and blossoming understanding seems more than anything to have brought around the changes that have us back in contention.

The big question marks lie in the forward roles, not just for 2010 but heading beyond into 2011. With the official news that Mexican international striker Omar Bravo will be joining the Wizards in 2011 it is time not only the Wizards to continue to impress, but for the forwards to stake a claim on next years squad. None of them should feel safe, all of them have to prove and improve themselves. For others it may just be to late. The forwards are not only playing for the team and the playoffs in 2010 but also for jobs and starting positions in 2011. This is a breakdown of the forward positions as I see them.

Kei Kamara

Kei Kamara is a bit of an enigma. He has an abundance of talent, he has speed and skill and yet it has taken him seasons to become established as a starter in MLS. The Wizard’s lack of depth up front has obviously been a boon to his career and he has responded with seven goals so far this season. This is not a bad tally at all, 7 goals in 18 appearances, one as a substitute puts him on pace for a 11-12 goal season. Kudos. With zero assists to his credit he on paper appears by the numbers to be 2009 Josh Wolff, he is scoring but not contributing fully. His game and his team mates are consistently undermined by his sloppy passing, and his lack of awareness of where other players are. He almost fastidiously makes runs that take him away from attacking positions and does not create the space a man with his pace should.

Despite the goals he misses the target far more than he should.

I am not down on Kamara, however he has the potential to be a player that commands a starting spot in any team in MLS, however there is a sloppy side to his game that underlines the fact that he still needs to put some serious work in to fulfill this potential. I am tough because I hate wasted potential. As a striker he is in with a shot at starting in 2011, if he plays as a winger he will need to improve his game significantly. I believe he can, but as it is Special K isn’t so special and unless he puts the work in he is destined to become a journeyman squad player.

Teal Bunbury

Rookie Teal Bunbury came to the Wizards with high expectations. As the 2010 MLS Superdraft first round pick the Wizards acquired a young, handsome bull of a player who is physically powerful, fast and a gifted finisher. 7 starts, and 8 substitute appearances has yielded only two goals and an assist however his season long growth from a college player into an MLS pro has been evident and he has claimed the starting role that was formerly Josh Wolff’s. Alex Ferguson referred to Teal as a “handful” and that is what he is, a harrying, pacey, passionate player.

Teal is obviously still learning, however the composed and clever header over Toronto FC goalkeeper underlined the fact that he is a natural striker, and a thoughtful one at that. It was a moment of real footballing intelligence and a valuable goal for Kansas City.

That said, he needs to keep his forward progression going and start to find the net with more regularity. He isn’t an MLS starter yet, he just happens to be starting.  He needs to better recognize when he surrounded and start looking for the simple pass to help the Wizards maintain possession in the forward third and needs to control a petulant streak that has earned him cards that were entirely unnecessary.

The future is bright for Teal Bunbury, but will he compete for a starting spot with Kamara and Bravo in 2011? We will find out in these remaining twelve games. I believe he has all the tools, now we just need to see the goals.  I am confident we will.

Josh Wolff

Josh Wolff is a goal poacher. The kind of player who will score if you put the ball in the penalty area with a one on one with the keeper. His 2010 season started with him being pushed to a less familiar right wing position where he was unfairly maligned for not scoring goals. Ever the scapegoat for fans Josh Wolff would have to set the world on fire to actually get any recognition from Wizards fans who are tired of what they perceived to be his most fundamental flaw: laziness. I for one believe much of the work Wolff did early season was quite good, especially as he was part of a midfield that wasn’t functional however what chances he did have he didn’t take and with one goal on the season and the development of Graham Zusi and Teal Bunbury he finds himself playing against college kids at Swope Park as part of the reserve squad.

Wolff has had his day, and there is no future in him for the Wizards. Another side in need of goals and not lacking the service which starved Wolff of goals in Kansas City could take a one year shot on him but ultimately he is a 33 year old striker having his worst season to date. In a nut shell he has no upside.

Sunil Chhetri

I am confident in one thing regarding Sunil Chhetri. He is the best natural finisher on the Kansas City Wizards roster. Finding the back of the net when given real opportunities was all he did during scrimmage games and friendlies however the Indian international did not make an impact at all when it came to MLS proper. Playing 45 minutes in a US Open Cup Qualifier that the Wizards treated very much like a friendly was all the action he got as part of the ‘first team’ not seeing the starting lineup at all until the Wizards played Manchester United.

He didn’t look bad against United, and managed to get involved and retain possession against defenders that simply made him look like a dwarf however the writing was already on the wall for his season and he was loaned to the Indian International team who are running an extended training camp ahead of the 2011 Asian Cup in January.

On one hand Sunil going looks bad, but as part of the Indian squad, and throughout India’s involvement he will be playing competitive football and that is nothing that MLS can offer a reserve player. He should be fighting fit by the time the 2011 MLS Pre-Season starts and if he is going to make an impact that will be his time to seize the day. Can he? With Bravo, Bunbury and Kamara ahead of him in line? Maybe not but if he works hard and continues to develop there is no reason he can’t sneak into the first team squad as a substitute.

Zoltan

Zoltan joined the Kansas City Wizards at the height of the great 2009 goal drought and almost immediately got sent off on his debut. Aside from this odd start he proved to be an intelligent player who the fans appreciated. When Peter Vermes took over the reigns he continued to play however by the time the final pre-season friendly was underway in St Louis (against A.C. St Louis) he seemed destined for the bench. He got a start against AC St Louis, scored, was looking good when he suffered a ruptured ACL in the second half. At the moment he is still in recovery, the word is things are going well however he is unlikely to return to first team action this season.

Where this leaves him for 2011 is unknown. MLS squads are small, and when he returns for pre-season 2011 we will have six forwards on the books before any Draft or further signings. Much like Sunil Chhetri it is hard to measure his quality against the rest of the team because we have simply not seen him.

In conclusion

The remainder of this season, and especially the 2011 pre-season should be competative.  With six forwards arguably fighting over four spots our potential depth at the position is looking good. It is unlikely the Bravo will not make the team, which essentially leaves the remainder fighting over one starting position and two reserves spots.  Who will fall?  If it is a decision about money under the wage cap then Josh Wolff may be traded if we can find a taker, otherwise Zoltan and Chhetri will need to really get busy.  The competition between current strike partners Bunbury and Kamara should be enough to drive them both forwards developmentally and that can only be a good thing.

Got an opinion on who makes the cut?  Comment below – I want to hear what you think.

Plastic is one of those words I bandy around from time to describe people who have no idea about a tradition, culture or people but latch onto a group in the quest for identity, belonging or in some cases to simply win. I used it to describe many of the Manchester United fans at the game the other weekend, and no doubt I will froth at the mouth when St Patrick’s day rolls around and millions of buffoons decide that drinking green beer, hopping around in the street dressed as a fucking leprechauns, and shouting Lucky Charms TV slogans is a celebration of being Irish. The reality is that most genuine Irishman I know would be amused, if not aghast to see their portrayal by those claiming to be Irish themselves.

Roll back to the 1990s and everybody who had a thrice removed grand father from Scotland all of a sudden wanted to visit “the homeland” and twenty-something and younger men started buying kilts and learning what Tartan was “theirs” while fully unaware that the romantic land of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart was on the whole about as exciting as Michigan.

One side of my family comes from Scotland via Ireland. We have a home on Royal Deeside. I myself was raised and born in London but two of my sisters and a brother grew up in the North East and it is a place of my childhood. I do know what “my” tartan is because I am, by name, Campbell. I lay no claims to Ireland, I have been there many a time and it is a pleasant place with good people but it is not my own.

Countless generations of my family also came from India, but then some time ago when being an indentured servant was the in thing, they shifted from India to South America and wound up in what is now known as Guyana where three generations passed before my mother moved back to the United Kingdom to become a Nurse and was fairly quickly inseminated by my old man. 10 months later I had a sweaty vagina wrapped around my head and a few minutes later James was born to be the worlds curmudgeon.

Here I am.

I could count myself as Danish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, Guyanese, Indian, and Pakistani but I was born and raised an Englishman, and while Scotland courses through my veins I am no Scot. Not a real one. I wasn’t born there, I know the country like the back of my hand and I miss it sometimes deeply. Thoughts of purple hills and clean air and quiet solitude beckon me and it is a home, but not my home.

The USA on the other hand, is a place I have lived for twelve years now. I still can’t say I have ever tossed a baseball, but after living almost all my adult life here (I moved when I was just turned 22) I find that America is home. When I arrive back at the airport, get my passport stamped and am greeted with “Welcome home” it makes me grin. Seeing Old Glory outside the airport makes me feel good, as do the familiar accents and sounds of Taxi’s. I love the USA, and my daughter will be raised as an American, not a second generations English export, who is raised to believe that somehow England is better than the USA. As the years roll by I find that I am ever more defensive of my new home, especially in the UK where “you” is often thrown my way in sentences:

“You elected George Bush”

“You invaded Iraq when you knew their where no WMDs”

“Why do you feel like you need to police the world.”

The latter from my mother last time I was home was retorted to with some anger:

“Maybe next time England and Europe are in trouble America won’t help and this whole fucking continent will slide back into the Dark Ages or into Fascism. Where would you be then? Not in England that is for sure.”

The truth of the matter is that most Europeans are rather anti-American. Not because they hate Americans necessarily, it is the same hate you see inspired by success. People hate the Yankees, people hate Manchester United, people hate the Chelsea, people hate Jose Mourinho, people hate dominant winners. “We” are blamed for so much ill in the world, and then blamed for helping, or blamed for not helping and with all the time I have spent back in the UK over the last decade I can’t help but get a little siege mentality going.

One day I will get my citizenship sorted (I am finally eligible) and I will be proud to be an American. I won’t ever stop being English, and I’ll “go home” from time to time but more often than not I feel like a stranger in my own land. There is nothing plastic or false about me becoming American, nothing fake or contrived, it just is the way it is.

I have an Anglo-American soul, with a British outlook on one hand, and an American one on the other. Sometimes the two things gel nicely. The World Cup for example was a time where as a Brit in America I was nicely at home no matter what side of the fence I was on. I rooted for England over the USA for sure, but then I about lost my shit when Landon Donovan scored his last gasp goal against Algeria. Other times things seem more contrived than real – like the naming of American soccer teams to follow European standards.

When I hear the name ‘Real Salt Lake’ it makes me cringe precisely because it is contrived. ‘DC United’ makes me cringe. ‘FC Dallas’ makes me cringe. The thought that the Wizards might becoming ‘Sporting’ makes me cringe. None of these clubs or cities have any tangible link to Spain, or England, or whatever country in Europe inspired Dallas. Not one. Real Salt Lake is simply ridiculous, up there in Mormon Utah – in possibly the whitest place in America they picked ‘Real’? And what exactly was United in DC?

I am not anti-European, I am not going to yell childishly about “Europosers” or “Eurosnobs”. It just bothers me that in this vast land, scattered with so much that is good, and right, and proud that so many MLS teams have opted to take the path of assuming false identity. It bothers me because nothing of these teams in anyway is linked to the originals in terms of culture or knowledge or heritage. It bothers me because they chosen those names intentionally to appeal to “Football fans” from other nations or because those are “what football names sound like”. This is America, and if MLS is ever going to catch on, it needs to get with the program and stopped kowtowing to the tiny majority of us that are foreign imports and start catering to Americans using the things we have that make us who we are.

So while I think the Wizards name is poor, it doesn’t piss me off nearly as much as calling us Inter KC, Sporting KC or KC United would. Those names don’t fit into our national landscape. They say nothing about Kansas City, Kansas or Missouri. They would be false names generated by a false idea – that a name needs to sound European to be respected or marketable. It is plastic paddyism at its worst, it offends the part of me that has a past and a history overseas and sees nothing of that here, and it offends the American side of my soul that is crying out for MLS teams to show some pride in the area and culture of their team’s cities and states.

By choosing a Euro-centric name for an American team, you wind up with a name that neither appeals to Americans, nor satisfies the European. So why pander? If the name has to change, make it something real, make it something about Kansas City, or leave it the hell alone.