One big topic today, and one other topic of indeterminate size: The Miami FC will be joining the USL Championship for the 2020 season (big), and Louisville City did a somewhat cryptic tweet that has people in a tizzy (size TBD).

ITEM ONE: THE MIAMI FC

Big news first: it was reported yesterday that Riccardo Silva, impresario, billionaire, USSF agitator, and owner of The Miami FC has bought Ottawa Fury’s USL franchise and will use it for his club in Miami starting in 2020.

A few things: yes, it’s “The” Miami FC, and not Miami FC. It’s not Miami FC because that’s a mark owned by the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale Strikers, an entity that is now owned by former Rowdies owner Bill Edwards, and Silva hasn’t been inclined to buy it back. So yes, it’s The Miami FC, but no one really calls it that.

Second, Miami FC has been a winning club since its inception. It joined the NASL for its inaugural season in 2016 and finished first in the league in the fall and spring 2017 seasons. After NASL went defunct at the end of 2017, Miami joined the NPSL and won its conference and their playoffs trophy in 2018. They did it again in 2019, and then played a full season in NISA and won all the hardware there, too.

The way they’ve done that, mostly, is by actually paying their players, which most NPSL teams don’t really do. In NISA, they outspent their competition, which included the fabled New York Cosmos, by a significant margin. I see no reason not to believe they won’t do the same thing in USL once they start in the spring.

Miami’s history sort of begs the question why they hadn’t come to USL before. The answer is Riccardo Silva. He is a staunch opponent of MLS in general, from an ethos perspective, in that he wants to run his club the way he wants to without someone else telling him how much he can spend or what he can and can’t do. He’s party to a lawsuit against USSF and MLS to try and force US Soccer to open up their sanctioning system to allow for promotion and relegation. He’s also challenging USSF’s powers as a sanctioning body in the first place under US anti-trust laws. It’s all very interesting for lawyers.

Silva has likely stayed away from USL in the past because of its more centralized league structure and its relationship with MLS. However, given Jake Edwards’ recent statements about promotion and relegation within the USL setup, Silva might have been placated enough to buy in to a more stable league that still allows him to do what he wants from a roster standpoint, among other things. There’s also the possibility that USL is pretty salty about Inter Miami stealing Lockhart out from under them and a potential USL ownership group this past summer.

For those who don’t know, Inter Miami has been trying to find a stadium site in Miami proper for about seven or eight years now. They fought and won a court case to build on a property in Overtownbuy that they apparently don’t even want now, and are presently being held in the balance throes of Miami’s city government for the purchase and development of another site that the city council doesn’t seem to to want Inter to have. That’s why Inter Miami undercut USL would-be owners FXE Futbol with lots of flash and money and political maneuvering to move into and renovate old Lockhart Stadium so they could have a place to play in 2020.

Lockhart, by the way, is about 30 miles from downtown Miami. Miami FC plays at Florida International University in a stadium named after Riccardo Silva which is a quick bus ride from the A1A, and much more convenient for Miamians.

Long story short, this is a big coup for USL, and probably disrupts their relationship with MLS. MLS may care, they may not, but they probably do. More to come on that front, I’m sure.

ITEM THE SECOND: This tweet:

Man are people fired up about this. What’s it mean? Are we getting new kits? Are they changing the colors? Are they changing the crest? Is the stadium going to be polka dotted now? WHY NO PURPLE SEATS? Why is Pat frowning? WHAT IS GOING ON?

Then there’s THIS TWEET:

WHY DOES SEAN LOOK SO SCARED? WHYYYYYYYYYYY

We don’t know what this is. The club is obviously excited about it. Because this is Louisville, and specifically Louisville City internet, people are extremely agitated about any kind of change or “new look,” whatever that means. No one has yet considered the possibility that whatever this is is good or better or even nothing that they’ve considered before.

I don’t mean to sound condescending, but I do mean to say chill out and see what happens. Try it, you might like it. Or you might not, and then rail away. It’s still a free country!

VAMOS MORADOS.