Real Week is here. Umm … yay?

By: Ian Rose | April 2nd, 2007

Ahh … the season cometh. But, you say, I don’t want to wait five whole days to start the fun and excitement of soccer in Salt Lake. Well, you’re in luck, because the fine folks at RSL have managed to extend the preseason media day into a whole week. Complete with today’s kickoff event, a fashion show and $1000-a-table luncheon with the team. I’m not making this up. A fashion show. The players and their families will be sporting such designer names as Dillard’s and Lucky Pirate Denim Bar.

Give me a minute. This is too much.

Okay, I’m better. Lucky Pirate Denim Bar? I’m no fashionista, but I’m thinking when a retail department store (Dillard’s) is the headlining designer, the words “fashion show” may be a stretching a bit. Let’s call it a dress rehearsal for the next time they have to fix something around the house.

Moving on, Tuesday’s event is nearly as baffling. It is billed as the “KFC Autograph Alley”. Sounds great, right? Finally, all the players will be in one place, just for autographs, and I can get all my Freddy Adu, Nick Rimando, and Mehdi Ballouchy swag signed in one foul swoop. Nope. All of the players will in fact be in four places, at once, throughout Salt Lake City. The aforementioned stars, my favorites on the team as well as many of yours’, I’d suspect, are all in different locations. And, with the event only lasting two hours, good luck getting to all of them.

On Wednesday, in case we forgot that we’re named after a different team, the team event is the Salt Lake City premier of the documentary about Real Madrid’s 2006 tour through the United States. I literally fell asleep three times writing that sentence. It has to get better on Thursday, right?

Oh my. Thursday’s event is … dum-dum-dum … the opening of a retail kiosk where you can buy stuff that might have gotten signed on Tuesday if the players weren’t randomly distributed throughout the city. It’s not even a store - it’s a kiosk.

On Friday - ooh, look, something that fans will actually sort of want to do. There’s a walk through of the stadium with the team and management and a barbeque. There you go. It’s not even that good, but how amazing does it sound after the other stuff?

And, on Saturday, of course, FINALLY, Real opens its season at home against FC Dallas. Let’s hope that all this lame buildup doesn’t lead to a lame early season like last year, when Real went 0-5-1 in their first six. Seriously, I want to hear other opinions, because I feel like I’m being too hard on them. Worst media week ever?