St. Louis is on the NASL Expansion list

How did ya'll feel about AC St. Louis?

Ya'll have also had Atletica (women's, but still kind of cool), Steamers, Stars...

But then there's always the owner groups to consider... What are they gonna do? Cardinals FC, Blues FC, Rams FC?

 

You people are just obsessed with this shit. It's the first thing that springs to everybody's mind, name and colors, name and colors, name and colors. Gotta know, gotta figure it out, gotta take suggestions, gotta create a poll. You'll end up with some lame-ass Europosing b.s. like FC or AC or Sporting or Racing or whatever.

 

That's fair enough. I'm not familiar with the specifics, but I've heard similar sentiment from St. Louis folks.

The Arch FC? Independent City FC? I dunno. I'm not local. What did you have in mind?

 

Isn't that the point? To swap favored Europosuer monikers and circlejerk about how really neato each others' based-on-templates-from-six-years-ago kit mockups are.

 

what about St.Louis Gateway FC

 

Personally a return of the AC name wouldn't bother me but there are enough who it would bother to probably make it a bad idea.

Definitely lots of potential for names although I must say I'm a fan of Piasa from the PASL. VERY unique name with a local tie.

As far as colors the return of green would be good, make it stand out among the reds and blues of the other local teams. Or you could go with black like Piasa do.

 

This is a very interesting post. Check out the proposed logos. Obviously way too many teams, but an interesting thought.
MLS Team Logos by 2020.
http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/87771-mls-by-mcrosby-and-capitalcanuck/

 

I like the Albuquerque Wanderers!

 

I like Alamo City FC too, way better than San Antonio Scorpions. Don't care for Terminus Rising, keep the Silverbacks. And I'd put Carolina in their over Edmonton.

 

Why is this "obviously way too many teams"?

Let's look at the numbers:
Barclay's Premier League, arguably the most successful soccer league in the world has 20 teams.
England & Wales have a population of approximately 55 million and a land area of 60 thousand square miles.
The United States has a population of approximately 314 million and a land area of 4 million square miles.

The US has over 5x's as many people living on 66x's the land, it would not be unreasonable to think we could support 50% more teams. Not tomorrow mind you, but with 10+ years to build up the sport it is not unrealistic.

 

I do like Alamo City FC. In the "Las Vegas is viable" thread in (I think) the NASL Expansion forum, the list is starting to include things other than Las Vegas FC and so on (Silver State FC was one I threw out, but I digress). Carolina do seem to be a little stronger than Edmonton...

Edit to remove "arguably"

 

I was trying to be diplomatic to our Spanish and Italian friends. If you judge a league on European Cup success's those two do have a legitimate claim. But on European success+popularity+$$$$$ it's no contest it's the EPL

 

Yeah, I know. I was just being a jerk

 

I don't disagree with your reasoning.
I cannot for the life of me find the regulation, but FIFA only allows a a maximum of 24 teams per sanctioned league. Again, I can't find the proof of this. So I'll bow to your reasons. : /

 

I know what you're talking about, but don't know the regulation either. But as I understand it FIFA's concern has more to do with the number of games played, they want to keep it to 46 or under. Which if you have 24 teams playing home and aways that's what you'll get.

But if MLS went to 32 teams with an unbalanced schedule you'd have the same. Two 16 team conferences, play everyone in your conference home and away (28 games) and the other conference teams either home or away (16 games), which would give you 46 games.

At least that is how I understand it. Besides this is FIFA we're talking about, I'm sure we could pursuade them to alter the regulation with the proper "motivation".

 

I don't think there's any regulation per se, it's just a (repeatedly expressed) opinion of FIFA. As far as I know there's no enforcement mechanism.

 

No Maximum teams by FIFA actual rule, just a recomendation.

Yes, FIFA wants to limit the games clubs play so players can play more FIFA international games, but the recommendation is for 18 teams, FIFA would like all leagues to only have 18 teams max, but is not a rule just one of those ideas of Blater like women wearing skirts when they play soccer. (Edit: I guess congress actually passed this rule, it is just not enforced).

http://www.nairaland.com/14864/fifa-cut-league-number-20

Blatter explained: 'We now have the green light for 18 teams.

'Instead of playing 38 matches in the league, the clubs would only play 34. I can't imagine they would not be pleased.'

FIFA congress approved that in 2006, and we know how the British, French, Spanish and Italians feel about that.

Mexico used it as an excuse to get rid of two teams, but Italy, England, Spain and France said fuck off to Blater. (Obviously MLS is also not going to follow FIFA's recommendation)

As far as I know there are only 6 Leagues wth more than 18 clubs per level on the top level (that is the level FIFA cares about because that is where most National team players are) the problem for FIFA is that 5 out of those 6 are the the top 6 leagues in the world (Germany has 18).

Edit: Argentina also has 20 clubs.

So leagues that do not follow the FIFA "rule/recomendation"

England
Spain
Italy
France
Brazil
Argentina
USA/Canada

 

BTW searching under FIFA this is all I found regarding the 18-team rule, only that it was afficially on the 2006 Agenda, but nothing more since then, I think FIFA gave up on this, at least for now.

http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/bodies/congress/news/newsid=104339/index.html

 

Thanks, Ceez. Good research. 'Preciate it.

 

"AC St. Louis" was OK for me. I did like the colors as well. I wouldn't miss the logo, but it wasn't bad. As far as other ideas, I know better ones exist, but I'm not sure what they are. I have lots of family in STL Co. But I don't know much of STL soccer besides SLU men having a good history.

My question, I guess, is did STL have a team in the original NASL? I know borrowing too many team names from that league could make us look like posers as our parents' generation. But the fact is, for any city, there's only so many team names that really work. I think some of the "heritage" names are just fine.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Stars_(soccer)

 

If STL comes back, I'd love to see the AC St.Louis name/colors/badge return. It was easily the best in D2 the one year they existed. Very clever badge, with the shape being formed by what would be the negative space of the Gateway Arch.