When Chelsea FC comes to town, you want your country's best coach on the sidelines, and you want your league's best players on the field. In the MLS All Star-Game tonight at PPL Park in Philadelphia, we'll have one of those. Ben Olsen will indeed be on the sidelines, but he'll be coaching a bunch of scrubs. Well, two studs, and a bunch of scrubs.
Game time: 8:30 PM
Television: ESPN2
Projected starting lineup: Hopefully Olsen will do the right thing and put both Dwayne De Rosario and Chris Pontius on the field from the start of the match, since they are the only chance this team has against the EPL elite. Unfortunately Olsen won't be able to call on more D.C. United players, and will instead have the pitiful misfortune of having to choose from a collection of inferior athletes.
In goal, Olsen will pick between the lesser of two evils. Neither Dan Kennedy or Jimmy Nielsen has ever earned a national team cap, and therefore aren't likely to stand much of a chance in goal. In central defense, movie star Jay DeMerit will be paired with either the always tan Aurelian Collin or some local player who got knocked the eff out by Brandon McDonald in a recent U.S. Open Cup match. Olsen could also select Ramiro Corrales, who is the lone remaining player to have played in both the original NASL and MLS. The best option for the MLS All-Stars might be to start Steven Beitashour and Justin Morrow. I haven't heard of either of them, which I assume means that they were randomly selected from a pool of fans attending the game, and that they will therefore probably be better than any of the MLS defenders on the team.
All the stars of MLS are on this team. Get it? All the stars. The stars are David Beckham and Thierry Henry. And maybe Landon Donovan. That's all of ‘em. All the stars. Signed, Piers Morgan. The central defensive midfield position will be hotly contested between Osvaldo Alonso, who defected from Cuba, and Kyle Beckerman, whose hair defected from Jamaica. The other attacking midfielder on the roster is Graham Zusi, who went to Maryland and is therefore ineligible for slandering. Chris Wondolowski will probably start at forward and you might expect him to score a few goals, except then you realize that this isn't a San Jose Earthquakes game and that Wondo has never scored a single goal while wearing something other than an Earthquakes uniform.
Oh yeah, and Eddie Johnson. No punchline necessary. Just Eddie Johnson.
Prediction: I'm predicting a 5-1 win for Chelsea, with the lone MLS goal being scored by Pontius and assisted by De Rosario.
What are you drinking? Have you been reading along? I'm already drunk. (Not really, but I wish I was.)
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