. . . . . . The Daily Soccer . . . . . .

The Red Bull's New York honeymoon may be nearing an abrupt end. From the very beginning of the Austrian Energy Drink's foray into the quagmire that is New York soccer, the money that Red Bull threw around made everyone giddy from the commissioner to fans. Everyone was almost as pumped-up as the original red Bull was whenever he beat the Knicks in the Garden.

To help alleviate any dust-up from abandoning the MetroStars name, Soccer's Red Bulls remodeled the locker rooms, installed sod instead of turf, ran free fan buses for away games, put on halftime concerts and promised virtually anything and everything for the future. More importantly, the Red Bull marketing machine began reaching out to those on the fringes of soccer with the seemingly daily positive developments. Red Bull didn't receive consistent back page coverage (I'd be curious if they ever received one), but at least the team was finally newsworthy.

It's my sense that there may be clouds starting to form on the horizon. RB's young GM is forced out after less than a year (which may turn out to be a good thing!), the coach talks like he's a short-timer, the turf is back, the Harrison stadium deal might be revisited and...Georgio is all but assured to be coming back. (Long aside: my soccer friends who didn't grow up in the Tri-State area are always curious about our perceived infatuation with Georgio Chinaglia. I tell them there's a long history, but suffice to say, Georgio scored A LOT of goals but he was never mistaken for a smooth businessman or a soccer artisan. I personally never booed him in his playing days as I had a bit of an affinity for any goal-poacher, but even his most ardent supporters could never pass him off as anything close to a statesman.) All of these more recent developments point to the fact that Red Bull will do things their own way and likely won't hesitate to trample on some toes along the way. That's to be expected but if they are seriously considering walking away from the arduously negotiated Harrison stadium deal (etched in my mind by the infamous library press conference), Red Bull is most definitely suffering from delusions of grandeur.

It seems like the Red Bulls (the ones in Austria, that is) may have had some unrealistic expectations for their new toy. Aside from thinking the Harrison stadium may be too small for their grand plans, the team was reportedly a bit miffed that only 35,000 or so showed up to their inaugural game. Hey guys, Giants Stadium may seat around 80,000, but on a cold April night, the fact that more than 20,000 showed up to see a below average soccer team is a rousing success. I doubt you could have paid 80,000 people to show up short of putting cleats back on Pele and Franz and turning back the clock 20 years.

I'm still very happy that Red Bull has transformed the MetroStars into a club that matters....off the field at least. And there's every indication that they'll improve the player pool as soon as possible. But I worry about their long-term commitment. What happens when they realize that soccer in the U.S.A. is a very complicated undertaking for even those who have lived their entire lives rooting for it? Franz and friends lived a bit of a dream as the Cosmos barnstormed through America in the 80's. Or did they? I remember a lot of sparsely attended games in Tulsa and Vancouver as well. Hopefully Franz remembers the good and the bad and tells his friends back in Austria that they need to take the long view. Maybe they're good listeners? We'll find out. (Bostrom)