Pretty Vacant

I was thankfully excused from Tuesday night's debacle at RFK by a vacation out of the city. Outside of a text message from my sister telling me that "United is playing like Crap," I managed to load the game on the high-speed internet at a crappy, overpriced hotel in Philadelphia in time to see Rod Dyachenko come in for Burch... and promptly shut it off and turned on "In Bruges." I had time, while waiting for that insipid film to end, to read the comments of far more devoted DC United supporters than I and was impressed by how universal the frustration with Dyachenko is. DCenters has ably catalogued commentary on Rod's poor run of play of late; and fellow United/Terps supporter DCUMD states:

What more is there to say about Rod Dyachenko? I guess just that it's unfortunate that he is having his worst year as a professional in his third season with the club.

I'd like to see things this way as well -- rather than being angry at the player, feel bad for the circumstances of the failing. If anything, at least Dyachenko plays... Quavas Kirk apparently has not shown enough in training to even get on the pitch (check that, actually this thought leads to difficult questions about the judgement of my fellow native Chicagoan Soehn).

In any event, I am skipping going to RFK tomorrow night but will instead watch it on television where I can turn away when it gets ugly... and it will inevitably get ugly early and often.

In the interim, my enthusiasm for the sport has not waned and I am eagerly awaiting the beginning of the fizzy pop's season on the second weekend of August. When Charlton opens against Swansea City, I will, alas, not be at The Valley, but, at the same time, neither will Marcus Bent (and he will be screwing up team chemistry at Birmingham?; brilliant). While I doubt that the majority of Charlton supporters are happy with the composition of the squad at the moment, I am enthusiastic. The team has a good mixture of youthful untapped talent and veteran workmanship. My lack of technical understanding of the sport means that I am once again excited about Zheng Zhi, Lloyd Sam, Yassin Moutaouakil, Izale McLeod, Chris Dickson, Jose Semedo and Jonjo Shelvey's prospects with the first team this year. With the exception of Moo2kill and Shelvey, most of the commentary I read from other supporters seems to be very much down on these players, but I am ever hopeful that they will redeem themselves in the eyes of the red army this season.

The promise of a new season, of Saturday mornings spent reading updates on Charlton Life and following matches on ESPN's Gamecast, and of idly looking for fares to the UK from Dulles on VirginAtlantic, has me a wee bit pumped about soccer and I was able to focus some of that enthusiasm by attending my first home league fixture for Crystal Palace USA, who took on Western Mass tonight at UMBC.

This was the second chance I have had to see Crystal Palace USA live and in both matches they were, by far, the better team. Against Western Mass, they simply dominated the game and I cannot, for the life of me, fathom how this team loses any matches in the second division of the USL. The talent level on Crystal Palace's squad is beyond any reasonable explanation given the humble level of the league.

Shintaro Harada, who netted Crystal Palace's second goal of the match tonight, apparently logged significant time in the J League before deciding to come to the United States to play third division soccer because David Beckham came to the U.S.(?!)

Gary Brooks, pictured below in preparation for a bicycle kick that would put Palace on top, hearkens from far more humble beginnings, but still stepped down from the USL first division to play for the second division club.



Val Teixeira, Matthew Mbuta, and Larry Mark (as a sub for Mbuta) were, again, extremely impressive on the wings, but the player I was most interested in seeing again was Paul Robson. I am fascinated by Robson's story. After starting off as a Premier League player with Charlton, Robson made Crystal Palace USA only after surviving tryouts earlier this year against players with nothing even remotely approximating Mr. Robson's pedigree. Nevertheless, for the second game in a row, I walked away seriously impressed by Robson's skill and performance and cannot come up with any plausible explanation for what he is doing here. As pointed out on this CP Supporter message board, it is extremely difficult to gauge talent at this level, but Robson looked more than competent. He and Teixeira frequently switched positions to allow Teixeira breathers at the back and Robson acquitted himself well on the left wing. Robson made impressive runs from the back, was credited with an assist on Harada's goal, and shut down one side of Western Mass's admittedly anemic attack. I doubt anyone reads this drivel, but in case anyone does I would be grateful for any insight on Robson as his tenure with the Addicks (2001 through 2003) precedes any knowledge I have of the club.

The Point

MONKEY [Reporter]: If, say, you win here in South Carolina, what do you do then?
[Mike] MURPHY [McCain's Chief Campaign Strategist]: Fly to Michigan that night.
MONKEY: And what if hypothetically you, say, lose here in South Carolina?
MURPHY: Fly to Michigan that night win or lose.
MONKEY: Perhaps you can explain why?
MURPHY: 'Cause the plane's already paid for.
MONKEY: I think he means: can you explain why specifically Michigan?
MURPHY: 'Cause it's the next primary.
MONKEY: I think that we're trying to get you to elaborate on if you will, Mike, is: what will your goal be in Michigan?
MURPHY: To get a whole lot of votes. That's part of our secret strategy for winning the nomination.

exchange recounted in David Foster Wallace's Up, Simba from "Consider the Lobster"

One would be hard pressed to imagine a more ridiculous, although entirely predictable, turn of events today as Iwelumo is off to the Wolves and Marcus Bent is, well, Marcus Bent. Iwelumo packed up and moved to Molineux, to the (at least to me) inexplicable delight of a significant number of Charlton's faithful. Iwelumo plugged in 18 goals for Colchester in the Championship the season prior to joining the Addicks. 18. Pause on that for a moment. In Marcus Bent's entire career, according to ESPN's profile of him, Bent managed a high of 11 goals in one season with Ipswich in the Championship. 11 goals. As New York Addick notes, Bent netted a meager number of goals (five times over three years) in a Charlton kit. A younger Iwelumo has far more impressive numbers.

Now, I admit to being unrepentantly American. And, as such, I admit to a focus on statistics that is inappropriate for the beautiful game. But goals, after all, are goals. Indeed, goals are the very purpose of the game, being the "goal" and all that. And, so, when a player leads your team in goals slotted and managed to put through double digits of them at that, it is a difficult thing to look around and say with conviction that the squad could have done better. The "secret strategy" of winning a soccer game is, ultimately, scoring goals.

Also, admittedly, Bent scored seven goals with Wigan last year in the Premiership. And he had previously managed Premier League goals with Everton. But Bent was not productive, in any sense of the word, as a member of Charlton Athletic. And as the reports today indicate, he may not be any time soon. I've thought of pejorative terms to use for the player (perhaps circumstances such as these are what lead folks to refer to others as "gits" or "wankers"), but, in the end, I can only feign outrage. Bent blow off a physical and then announce he is going to play for someone else? Why not? What are the chances that burning that bridge to Wales will ever haunt him down the line (after all, he'll undoubtedly stay with Birmingham for the remainder of his prolific career)? The worst thing that Bent has done is toy with Charlton's supporters. They (we) want him to go. It can't happen soon enough. And, nevertheless, at day's end, he's still around, lurking around menacingly like some unkillable psychopathic subhuman tormentor from a teenage slasher flick.

Iwelumo out, Bent still hanging around = net negative for Charlton Athletic.

Which brings me back to the block quote above -- totally tangential to the plight of Charlton. However, Charlton Life features a fascinating thread on the financial state of the club. There is much speculation surrounding the dire (or not so dire) circumstances the team finds itself in and no end to prescriptions. Some of this is fashioned by the hysteria of the summer transfer window, some from a failure to come to grips with a fall from Premiership, and some, no doubt, is generated by Pards' bizarre statements about moving bodies in and out of the squad. Whatever the prescriptive value of any of these claims, the fact remains that soccer is a simple sport... the team that scores the most goals in a match wins the game; the teams that manage the best and second-best record in the league are promoted back to the land of milk and honey. Whatever else there might be, right now, the point is to win with the squad before you.

All of the foregoing constitutes talking loud without saying something, but this is largely because I am resigned to a longer stay than anticipated in the Championship. It is not a good thing that both Dowie and Pardew appeared to believe that scouting could be more effectively done after a player had been acquired rather than beforehand. Nor is it a good thing that players shuttle in and out of the squad. But, most of all, it is not a good thing that after all these moves, there is little confidence by the gaffer that the team could manage well on its own as it currently stands. I am simply unwilling to accept this conclusion. I've seen most of the current squad play. These lads are talented -- having enough to at least compete competently on the Championship level. And, yet, nowhere do I hear the praises of the squad ringing out from the hilltops. Instead, it is blither about how ZZ is not strong enough to compete in the Championship or how Jerome Thomas has worn out his welcome or that Ambrose and Holland simply are not good enough. That is not what I've seen -- what I've seen is untapped potential (not Ron Turner levels of untapped potential, but something reasonably approaching that level).

The secret strategy for winning promotion is winning more games than your competitors by, largely, putting in more goals than you give up. In the Championship, Charlton already has the tools to implement this strategy and I hope that before August, this view is echoed by those in charge.

Goats

When you wish upon a star... "Premier league hotshot" (????) Marcus Bent will be off to Wales after all. (For? One million pounds? Perhaps Cardiff's first offer really was only for free petrol for the team carriage to the away fixture). And so, Charlton are down a striker. Not to worry. There are, apparently, other options. (If you are keeping track at home, those other options are: Svetoslav Todorov; Andy Gray; Luke Varney; Chris Dickson; Izale McLeod; Stuart Fleetwood; and, for the time being, Chris Iwelumo).

Two things today temper the good news of Mr. Bent's imminent departure (he's fit, right?). The first is how Pardew's comments today unfortunately intertwined the fates of Chris Iwelumo and Marcus Bent. Iwelumo is undeserving of being mentioned in the same breath as Mr. Marcus. Whatever one thinks about Iwelumo's skill set (and on this point, a brief digression: how can Iwelumo be blamed for the team reverting to hoofing it whenever he was up top? Isn't the style of play the responsibility of the gaffer? If he can't keep discipline with the Scotsman at the point, then what does he do? Just change the pieces?), at no point did Iwelumo act as if he was too big for this little club. Iwelumo did not openly pine for premiership privilege and certainly did not receive premiership wages. It may be that with seven strikers, Iwelumo is the logical odd man out and, indeed, fixtures may be more interesting next year if Varney, Dickson, Fleetwood and McLeod are afforded significant opportunities to ply their trade. But I do not take solace in his departure and part company with those who think this is a good development for the team. Further, it is also an all to obvious reminder of Pards' obsession with tinkering. The gaffer seems to be intent on plugging men in who are of similar skill levels to those that exit: effectively, the tactic is rolling "bodies" in while others roll out. I fail to see the utility in this particular strategy, nor does it seem particularly fan-friendly (although it does fill content on message boards).

But the principal reason that my mood is sobered is D.C. United's performance tonight against Chivas Guadalajara in the SuperLiga. Check that, the performance of two D.C. United employees tonight: Coach Tom Soehn and Rod Dyachenko. I have now, I believe, reached the point that if Dyachenko starts a game for United, I need to either walk out of RFK or shut off the television. Dyachenko clearly adds value as an attacking sub late in games. He takes risks and occasionally creates chances that challenge the other side's defense. He also appears to be a nice person and is a much better athlete and soccer player than I will ever be. But he is not an MLS starter. He may not even be a USL starter. After a nice first touch to begin the game, Dyachenko was horrid until being asked to give way at the opening of the second half for Doe. His deficiencies were spotlighted on both ends of the pitch and, frankly, I have no idea why Soehn took so long to pull the trigger on his one and only substitution of the game (a game coming four days after a number of his players logged 120 minutes at the Maryland Soccerplex). D.C. United's performance in the second half improved markedly after Dyachenko's departure (at some points it looked like Rod was Chivas' 12th player, while United tried to defend with 10) and Emilio continued to look incredibly dangerous at the point. Zach Wells, although I wonder about his positioning on the free kick leading to the second goal, generally looked better than he has been in a while at the back. A quick exit from group play may be the appropriate outcome in the SuperLiga, but United should pose some difficulties on Tuesday night for an Atlante team that was thoroughly embarrassed tonight by the Dynamo.

Quarterfinal

Boyds, Maryland is a long, long way from College Park, Maryland, a fact I had not fully appreciated prior to Tuesday's U.S. Open Cup match between D.C. United and the Chicago Fire at the Maryland Soccerplex. The distance, moreover, is made all the more greater when taking five children along for the ride.

With that said (and admitting that we got inside the stadium shortly before the thirty-fifth minute), it would be difficult to find a better venue to watch a meaningful match between two MLS teams with a large number of children than the Soccerplex. Even at $25 per ticket (total entry cost for us = $275), the format could not have been friendlier and each of the kids -- ranging in age from one month to 13 years -- remained entertained throughout extra time.

There is much that we missed during the match, including MLS-All Star Cuauhtemoc Blanco's horrific reaction to being booted from the proceeding, but what we did clearly witness was remarkable in its own right.

D.C. United's backline was, once again, impressive. Namoff, Burch, McTavish, Martinez, and, much later, Peralta, individually and collectively severely reduced any threat posed by the Fire's offense. Although one down by the time we arrived, D.C. United looked to be in control of the match up through the second extra period, with the Fire only offering meek, hopeful threats to D.C.'s goal (although Wells' play on these few chances for Chicago did not inspire great confidence). More importantly, we were at Boyds in time to see Rod Dyachenko being replaced by Jaime Moreno and watch the single substitution change the competence of D.C. United's game. Leaving aside Moreno's remarkable shot off the left post that had no business being even close to the goal, Moreno's run of play through most of the second half up through his departure in favor of Peralta ably demonstrated Dyachenko's deficiencies. I have nothing personally against Mr. Dyachenko and everything I see from him indicates that he expends every ounce of effort and skill he has for the betterment of the team, but I shudder every time I see him on the pitch. Dyachenko is not dangerous as a striker and the 24-year old lacks the discipline needed to play an effective midfielder. At his feet, the ball was frequently relinquished to the Fire despite quality runs and positioning by his teammates.

Craig Thompson, on the other hand, acquitted himself nicely on the right wing. I think Boehm's article on the official site did a great job at conveying what we witnessed first hand. Thompson's play was, at first, shaky, but as he built confidence, Thompson's exuberance and hustle starkly contrasted with Fred's approach on the left wing. Nice sliding tackles and quality touch passes excited the group of United partisans behind the post and his dispossession of Segares led to Doe slotting in the equalizer. I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings the rest of the season, with Ben Olsen's ability to contribute this season hampered by what must be very frustrating injury concerns.

Separately, we were disappointed to learn, via blackberry, that Crystal Palace had fallen to the Revolution in penalty kicks away, thus precluding a Palace-United confrontation at RFK in August. AU's Larry Mark appears, from press accounts, to once again have proved dangerous as one of Palace's wide men. A Palace victory would have meant that four of the five MLS teams in the quarterfinals would have been dismissed, but as it stands, because of Charleston's upset over FC Dallas and Seattle's PK victory over the Wizards, one non-MLS team is guaranteed the opportunity to challenge for a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League in 2009.

Finally, I am amused by the fact that the biggest news surrounding Charlton's efforts to date in the summer transfer window have swirled on what will hopefully be Marcus Bent's departure from The Valley. I was, to be frank, gravely disappointed with Pards' statement indicating that the club had rejected an approach by Cardiff City for our wayward striker and hopeful that, in fact, the gaffer is correct and there is not only one club with money simply burning holes in their metaphorical pockets such that other (better?) offers will be entertained. Although Bent was responsible for the one and only goal I saw live last year, I have never been thrilled to see him in a Charlton strip and wish him the best wherever else he, with luck, will land next season.

Sidetracked

"To be honest, without sounding too confident, it [the win] doesn't surprise me. We have a very good team. We hit the post twice. We missed two wide-open opportunities in front of the net. To be honest, it should have been 4-nil, and we were playing a man short."

-- Crystal Palace co-coach Jim Cherneski on his squad's upset win over the New York Red Bulls in the U.S. Open Cup Tuesday night.

Cherneski was being kind. Crystal Palace USA not only beat the New York Red Bulls, the team dominated their MLS opponent. By our humble accounting, the score could easily have been five to zero late in the second half. But before further treatment, a digression:

I had planned, for some time, that my daughter's first live sporting event would be D.C. United versus the LA Galaxy at RFK this last Sunday. We had 18 tickets for the match, greatly enjoyed last year's installment of the game, and believed that, once again, this game would be more pageantry than competition. Of course, plans frequently change, and a business trip out of the country scuttled these ones. Instead of watching D.C. United rip apart the star-studded Galaxy in yet another convincing home win, I was in Bangkok Sunday trying to figure out how to get to a local university to catch an 11 am match between Customs Department FC and the previous year's Thai Premier League champion, Chonburi FC. My efforts were pointless given a lack of familiarity with Thai language. The concierge at my hotel responded to my requests for help at organizing a trip to the stadium as if I was a lunatic. In broken english, the concierge stressed that I should limit myself to the Euro2008 final broadcast at 1:45 am Monday morning in my room and wondered why anyone would want to watch Thai clubs play soccer. This response coupled with better developed site-seeing plans for that morning were enough to dash my shallow dreams of attending the game and I missed Chonburi's one to nothing victory over the Customs Department.

The inability to get information (admittedly in English) sufficient to get myself to the appropriate place to watch the match was not expected. At first glance, Bangkok is, at least superficially, soccer mad. Walking down a street in Bangkok inevitably leads one past Thais rocking Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Real Madrid jerseys. On Sunday I was tastefully decked out in an FC Schalke 04 shirt (I was, after all, on a business trip) and stood on Silom Road late in the afternoon, mouth agape, while someone else in an FC Schalke 04 jersey passed me by on the street. The billboards on the Rama highways feature the stars of European soccer and Chang Beer's (Everton's kit sponsor) street ads feature three anonymous players engaged in soccer game movements. Throughout the city, boards were placed up in public areas offering a full and comprehensive recounting of the progress of Euro2008. Nevertheless, the citizenry does not appear to be all that fond of Thai soccer. Neither the Bangkok Post nor the Nation (again, two English language papers) breathed a word about the full slate of Thai Premier league games played over the weekend -- the first weekend of such fixtures after a long suspension of match games while the Thai national team burned out (horrifically -- in six matches, Thailand managed one draw and five losses) in the group stage trying to qualify for the World Cup. Simon Hill's very perceptive piece for FoxSoccer back in March helps to provide some perspective on the current state of Thai soccer and my brief experience in the country lends further credence to Mr. Hill's observations.

So, instead of being at RFK for the United-Galaxy game or at Kasem Bundit University for Customs Department-Chonburi, I settled for Spain-Germany on the television at 1:45 the next morning. Such is life.

With a return to the states scheduled for Tuesday morning, I became a bit obsessive about compensating for the missed opportunities for live soccer on Sunday. U.S. Open Cup matches in two different locales in Maryland offered some hope of satiating this ridiculous demand and, so, shortly after landing and catching a quick nap, we set out to Annapolis to see how Crystal Palace would manage against the better, meaner, more fit Red Bulls. The initial intention of the trip was largely as a lark -- two teams with more famous European versions (Red Bulls Salzburg and the hated Crystal Palace FC for the Coca Cola Championship) lining up on a high school field in Annapolis for a tournament even soccer fans in the United States ignore. We took our time in getting to Broadneck, an inevitable byproduct of bringing along a three week old infant, but were heartened to see that the home side had built up a one goal lead by the time we arrived.

Shortly after our arrival, Crystal Palace's captain Ibrahim Kante was shown a straight red (after having already received a yellow, thereby doing something one rarely witnesses by managing to effectively pick up three cards in the course of a game) and we waited for the inevitable let down as the Red Bulls' reserves took advantage of the overmatched 10 man squad from Crystal Palace. But that never happened. Ives running commentary provides probably the most in-depth coverage of the match, but the piece in no way reflects what actually happened (at least from our perspective) in the game. For example, Ives focuses principally on the Red Bulls' failings and appears to offer excuses ranging from the state of the stadium to the width of the pitch. What we saw was a Red Bulls squad get its ass handed to it by a faster, more committed side of pretty damn good players who were routinely and disastrously disrespected by what was, frankly, a less talented squad masquerading in the uniforms of an MLS team. Ives calls Matthew Mbuta a "decent" player. The "decent" wing player, however, ran roughshod over the Red Bulls' defensive player of the year through the entirety of the second half. Mbuta, who will apparently represent Cameroon in Beijing, was far and away the best player on the field. In the face of what was supposed to be a clearly superior team, Mbuta had no interest in backing down and added insult to injury with stepovers that beguiled and bedazzled Parke on numerous counterattacks. American University's Larry Mark was impressive on the other side of the midfield for Crystal Palace and towards the end of the game the Red Bulls had no answer for the marauding runs of Mark and Mbuta when New York's team predictably gave up possession on lazy passes or inept touches. We do, however, heartily agree with Mark's friends sitting behind us... you could have done better from nine yards out... but no one will hold it against you. CP Baltimore's keeper, Matt Nelson, who Ives' incorrectly refers to as Brian Rowland, had an almost unreal game where, with one notable exception, he kept himself in great position and showed amazing reaction time to the few chances that the Red Bulls created for themselves. A man down, the defensive work of Shintaro Harada (with hyperbolic, yet infectious enthusiasm) and former Addick (?) Paul Robson was more than competent -- both routinely frustrated the Red Bulls anemic attempts at attack and allowed Mbuta and Mark to flash out on looping, dangerous runs. Indeed, the whole of Crystal Palace's team looked to be fairly accomplished, fairly talented professional soccer players that perhaps have not had the fortune of the MLS stand-ins who blew a golden opportunity to prove their mettle.

The upshot was that our first Crystal Palace match could not have turned out better. At the end of the game, as we waited to leave, Nelson walked over to us to thank us for coming out and wave to our daughter and in so doing, I think, guaranteed that we'll be seeing them a few more times this year.

One more note: Ives waxes poetic about the performance of something called the Emperor's Supporters Club -- apparently a group of scores of Red Bulls "fans" that showed up in dribbles to cheer on a reasonable facsimile of their team -- and scornfully contrasts the praise for the ESC with condescension towards the supporters of Crystal Palace FC. The treatment is remarkable insofar as the ESC was pathetic. On one side of the field, a group perhaps sixty strong, sang inane ditties that would crack up Barra Brava or the Screaming Eagles, while on the other side, 1,500 enjoyed an absurdist romp on a high school pitch, while scores of children (equal to, by the by, the number of ESC members at the game) played their own soccer game in front of the metal stands. Crystal Palace USA supporters didn't sing and looked across the pitch at the ESC with slight amusement. The "You're Not Singing Over There" effort by the paltry number of Red Bull enthusiasts was more pitiable than remarkable. In short, the effort that the Red Bulls gave on the field was, by any objective assessment, fully equivalent to the effort expended by its supporters in the stands: the Red Bulls might be mistaken for an MLS team and the ESC might be mistaken for football supporters at first glance, but given time, both might have been better served by just staying home.

That's Disappointing

I like Ronny Cedeno. I have watched Ronny lock in for an at bat, fight off tough pitches and manage to squeeze in a base hit that was well-deserved. But his plate appearance tonight in the ninth inning against Sherrill with the bases-loaded and nobody out was pathetic. I would certainly not have done any better, but I am not a paid professional baseball player, and for a major leaguer swinging at two balls over your head against a pitcher struggling to find the plate in that situation is almost unforgivable. Eric Patterson may be substantially raising his trade value with his continued competent performance in the starting lineup, but any team considering picking up Mr. Cedeno ought to consider his time at the plate tonight when weighing his value.

Back in the Saddle II

I skipped the Italy-Spain match on Sunday to watch D.C. United take on the San Jose Quakes at RFK with some trepidation. If United regressed from its recent form, the frustration felt as an observer would have been augmented by the possibility of having missed an historic Spanish victory over the Azzurri.

When the game started, however, I was not terribly troubled by the decision. While I checked in back home for the status of the PKs, United's performance was enough to demand full attention. United are undefeated over their last five matches, having won four of those games, and have pulled themselves out of the cellar of the Eastern Conference. The results alone do not tell the tale of how the team has improved.

On Sunday, we watched what looked to be a comfortable backline of Namoff, McTavish, Peralta and Martinez protect a shaky Wells in goal. Wells' unfortunate bobbling of an easy ball denied the defense a well-deserved clean sheet, but other than at goal, the backs were incredible. Namoff chased down and won balls, tackled spiritedly, and effectively shut down one side of a pitch. With McTavish sacrificing in a move to center back, Peralta was able to mark any potential attackers for the Quakes and frustrate the hapless offensive assaults from San Jose. And then there was Gonzalo Martinez. Martinez's performance was a revelation. Freed from the obligations of a central defender, Martinez not only committed bone-crushing tackles, but presented a dangerous attacking option each and every time he was given space. D.C. United's second goal was simply brilliant. Martinez's maneuvers in the box to find space and then crack home a goal just inside the far post sent the crowd into delirium.

The settled back line, along with the continuing resurgence of a dangerous Luciano Emilio bode well for United as they move to SuperLiga play in July.