Carolina Challenge Cup Review

Well it is all over. The largely anticipated Carolina Challenge Cup is over. DC United is the Champion, the attendance and coverage of the tournament was great, and many a memory were made. Here are some notes from the tournament:

• DC is Back: Now we shouldn't get to excited, as last year they won the CCC and then preceded to finish dead last in the MLS. Davies goal against Toronto was solid, and DC is looking like as deep and complete of a team as ever.
• What's up with all the Red Cards?: Chicago had 3, Charleston had 2, Toronto had 1. Are the refs getting card happy? Maybe not, but Stephen Armstrong getting sent off in the final game against the Fire, was one of the biggest surprises of the tournament for me.
• No Extraordinary Performances: Some players did well, but when you get right down to goalscoring, every goal in the tournament was scored by a different player. When you look at the tournament in years past we've usually seen usually one, sometimes two players have an out-of-this-world performance. Last year we saw DC's Jaime Moreno score 5 goals in the tournament. The thing about these tournaments, is that nobody really gets enough consistent playing time to score a huge amount of goals.

In the end this was a successful year for the Carolina Challenge Cup. I hope to see the tournament return next year, and I don't see any reason why it won't. The Battery's organization has shown that it can bring MLS to this tournament and get good attendance numbers, while they're at it.

Sorry that I didn't write a recap of the Charleston-Chicago match, I've been out of town since Thursday and didn't have enough time to write it.

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