The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: The “It’s All Good” Edition

Between the Orlando City victory and some USMNT action, I think it’s been a great week. So great in fact, that everything this week has some good in it. I’m in a good mood and hopefully you are as well, as we dive into what grabbed my attention this week. Let’s get to it, because it’s all good.

The Good

I’m sure you saw this one coming, but Orlando City got its first win of the season, and that is most definitely good. The Lions surprised everyone except perhaps themselves. Both Michael and I predicted a 3-1 loss on The Mane Land PawedCast. To be fair, whenever we predict the same thing it’s bound to be wrong, but we certainly didn’t expect Orlando to go into New Jersey and get any points, let alone three. The general soccer media didn’t predict an Orlando win, and I’d be willing to bet you didn’t either, reader. If you did, kudos. Three points earned, on the road, against an Eastern Conference opponent — and Supporters’ Shield winners! It doesn’t get much better than that. Oh wait, Sacha Kljestan (former Red Bull) scored the goal. I guess it does get better.

The Bad (But Also Good)

The USMNT drew with Chile on Tuesday night. To be fair, the Yanks were probably a bit lucky to do so, given that this was a much bigger test of the new-look Gregg Berhalter USMNT. That’s good. The Yanks went up early on Christian Pulisic’s fourth-minute goal, but it wasn’t meant to last, as Chile equalized five minutes later. The actual bad is that Christian Pulisic injured his right quad in the match. Hopefully he’ll be available for Gold Cup selection, though Borussia Dortmund might hope otherwise. This is on top of Weston McKennie also being injured in the match against Ecuador.

The Ugly (But Also Good)

I’m sure you’ve heard about the “rich people buying their kids into college by paying coaches to say they’re playing sports” thing by now. While rich people have been buying their kids’ way into good schools has been going on since there were rich people, kids, and schools, this was a new twist. Unfortunately, soccer was one of the sports involved at various schools. Now, Yale has rescinded the admission of a student brought on by their soccer coach. While it should be quite obvious why this whole thing is quite the ugly stain upon colleges, college sports, and the people involved, good for Yale for doing the right thing. Hopefully, other universities and sports programs will follow their example.

That will do it for this week, folks. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Go City!