Only One Football

It was reported this week that the Philadelphia MLS expansion franchise has narrowed down its potential names to a shortlist of four.  Since there’s no existing Philly club and fan base coming over from the USL, as Seattle Sounders FC had, the field is wide open.  The choices are AC Philadelphia, SC Philadelphia, Philadelphia City and Philadelphia Union.  To me, there is only one choice among the group:  AC Philadelphia.

It is interesting to note that the short list contains only Euro-style team names. There’s no Philadelphia Fury, Philadelphia Atoms or other such names as a throwback to the NASL.  Like Toronto FC, Philadelphia will go the Euro route and forsake an official nickname, regardless of the fan voting (unless you count Union as such).

Polling on sites like SoccerByIves.net and BigSoccer.com suggests AC Philadelphia and Philadelphia City are the front runners.  I personally eliminate Philadelphia City and Philadelphia Union off the bat.  Since the team will be playing in Chester, PA, not in the city of Philadelphia, it makes little sense to call the club Philadelphia City.  It’s simply inaccurate.  As for Philadelphia Union, I understand that is supposed to reference Philly’s cornerstone place in the formation of the USA and its blue collar background, but it comes off as a little too WNBA/Minor League Baseball to me.

That leaves SC Philadelphia to contend with AC Philadelphia.  I suppose the SC would stand for Soccer Club.  If you were going to go down that round, it would be better to do FC Philadelphia.  It has a better ring to it and it stakes a claim on the term football … what else would you expect from a blog called OnlyOneFootball anyway?

AC Philadelphia is not just the best of a bad batch of names … it is actually a fantastic choice in and of itself.  AC, which I assume stands for Athletic Club,  references an earlier part of Philadelphia’s sporting history, the Philadelphia Athletics.  Before the A’s were playing baseball in Oakland, they spent the better part of the first half of the 20th century being by far the best baseball team in Philly.  The Phillies edged ahead during the decade in which teams started moving out west, so it was the A’s who move to Kansas City (and later Oakland, and possibly soon to San Jose, those gypsies).  On top of this AC Philadelphia has an Italian feel to it (as in AC Milan) and Philly has a large base of Italian-Americans in the region.  While it would mean the derby with DC United will be dubbed AC/DC, its still a fantastic name.

Whichever name is chosen, its high time for a Philadelphia team in MLS.  While there have been rumors of trouble that might push the club’s debut to 2011 instead of 2010 (with the sure-fire expansion candidate Barcelona Miami filling in the 2010 spot), a Philadelphia team playing in a soccer specific stadium is a lock to be successful, especially with natural rivalries with New York and DC ready to go.  If the club is called AC Philadelphia, all the better.