I'm So Excited..I'm So Scared

There it is ladies and germs. The new Florida Marlins stadium. It is exactly what we need. A Baseball stadium. A place where they can play baseball. Professionally. I guess if you are a baseball fan this is kind of cool. And hey, I am a sports fan and I love stadiums, but seriously. Thank you MLS. Thank you Barcelona FC. Thank you John Stamos. And most importantly, thank you Mom and Dad for taking me to Striker games and enlisting me in Thomas Rongen's Soccer Academy year after year. I'm not sure why I live down here anyway. I should move to Philly.

Thank you soccer world for making South Florida the black hole of Pro Soccer.

Where Is The Bad News?

• Over 20,000 season tickets sold
• An opening day attendance of over 30,000
• A 3-0 victory on opening day

All of us here in South Florida know the pain. Our MLS franchise fizzled out after 4 years. Our USL-1 team almost folded (they sold around 1,200 season tickets by the way). We couldn't even land a team with the backing of Barcelona.



There has to be something wrong with Seattle. There must be a deal with the devil. It is either that, or we down here are so envious and pessimistic that we can't picture what Seattle has.

Maybe if we are positive enough, good things will happen. Close your eyes everyone, Fort Lauderdale will have the Strikers again!

A Model Switch

So we're swapping chiseled chests are we?


David Beckham goes to AC Milan and Freddie Ljungberg comes to the States (well, officially Seattle).


I'm not sure who got the better deal; the MLS? Seattle? Becks? AC Milan? The Sounders? Arsenal fans? Posh? Tom Cruise?

Tom Cruise always wins. Thank you MLS.

A Bright Idea

This week, MLS announced a list of prospective parties trying to get a franchise. That list included a team for Miami with a management group consisting of FC Barcelona and Marcelo Claure.

Marcelo Claure is the CEO of Brightstar, a wireless solutions company in Miami that specializes in customizing mobile technologies (mainly cell phones and related accessories).

Their proposed plan uses FIU's new "The Cage" stadium, which according to reports is "soccer ready".


Any hope this new team will be called the Strikers and completely overshadow the recent rebirth of the Tampa Bay Rowdies? Not likely. Marcelo Claure has a background working with the Bolivian National Team and FC Barcelona may want to open up their brand here ala Chivas USA.

But look closely, the FC Barcelona crest has Striker Stripes (see upper right hand corner of logo). That is enough hope for me to start digging out some Striker Liker bumper stickers.

Good luck, gentlemen and give a Striker Liker a chance.

103 British Pounds

Yeah, that's right. Some guy out there (okay, it might have been a lady) outbid me for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers Subbuteo team set (seen pictured here - if you don't know about Subboteo, get knowledge).

What is going on here? Am I safe in assuming, that if someone wouldn't mind shelling out some sterling silver for a replica of the best soccer team in South Florida, that maybe sometime soon the real thing could appear?

Don't call me a dreamer. Don't call me at home either. But I wanted that set. Unfortunately, we are in a bad economy right now and I don't think this set would make a good investment. It doesn't help with the ladies either.

So way to go "kneecaps233" you must be a George Best fan. Now come over here and join the Striker Likers! We love supporters like you. Keep the dream alive!

We don't hold grudges, really

So last week, the USL version of the Tampa Bay Rowdies unveiled their new logo and website. As a fervent Striker Liker you would expect me to bash whatever these guys came up with, but I must say, I am at a loss for words.

I'm actually sad. The logo is so bad I feel sorry for the Rowdies fans. The icing on the cake is the reasoning behind this logo on their new website here. You know, they actually paid someone to do this!

Now the original Rowdies logo wasn't the Mona Lisa, but at least it had spunk. It was a kick in the grass as they used say.

One thing is for sure, the Strikers already look cooler than the Rowdies will ever be. Ha-ha.

Striker Liker, out.

All it takes is a little...

A little teamwork folks, that is all it takes.

Anyways, just wanted to get that out there. For all those concerned click here for a short podcast from Striker faithful Rocky Ray Hudson, current commentator on GolTV. He reminisces about the glory days of the Strikers, Pier Street Annex, what happened to the Fusion and what he thinks about Bobby Convey (there's other stuff in there too).

Enjoy.