Soccer Thread

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To add additional context, had we won the last game we would have safely been in the top 3, but we lost, to Trinidad & Tobago, the last place team which had already been eliminated.

In terms of relative strength, imagine say the The Cincinnati Bengals (a non-descript middle of the road NFL team) needed to win a game against Boston College (a struggling D-1 College team) to make the playoffs, and they found a way to lose.

I think the program needs to be nuked, scrubbed, disinfected and them rebuilt from the ground up.
 
Darth Despot said:
OK for those of you who may not understand the finer points of World Cup qualifying in our confederation, there are 6 teams in the final round, the top 3 move on, the 4th has a play in game, 2 go home.

We finished 5th.

Embarrassing doesn't begin to describe the situation.
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Im a guy who will watch a Premier League game from time to time, and i understand the game at some level a little higher than rudimentary, but i am far far far away from being an expert.

I get that soccer in the US doesnt always draw the very very very best athletes (behind football, baseball, and basketball at least) but how is a country this size not capable of building a soccer program that puts together a team that is CONCACAF proof? I mean Iceland qualified and there are only like 350,000 people in the whole country. Thats like making a team just of people who live in Tampa Florida and making it to the World Cup. But the US cant find 30 guys in their 250 million residents that can beat Trinidad and Tobago (population 1.365 million)?

Seems to me that the USMT has been making a concerted effort to improve the USA's international soccer profile for 30 years and they havent moved one inch forward. The worst part isnt that they lost to T&T, its that they were in the position that the game had any meaning at all in the first place.


That must have been the saddest busride to the airport in the history of busrides to the airport.
 
Darth Despot said:
I think the program needs to be nuked, scrubbed, disinfected and them rebuilt from the ground up.
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springfield-angry-mob.jpg
 
I don't follow american soccer, but finishing behind Honduras and Panama is quite shocking.

Sad really. The US team has never had a chance to win the world cup, but it has often been a breath of fresh air. I still remember the work ethic from both sidens when you faced Belgium in the last world cup.

Edit: I notice Honduras beat Mexico and Panama beat Costa Rica in the last round. Tough break.
 
DeflateThis said:
I don't follow american soccer, but finishing behind Honduras and Panama is quite shocking.

Sad really. The US team has never had a chance to win the world cup, but it has often been a breath of fresh air. I still remember the work ethic from both sidens when you faced Belgium in the last world cup.
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I really thought we were turning the corner and getting better, not top tier but a lock to make the Cup - disappointing is not strong enough a word.
 
We should just focus all our time, energy, and resources into the women's team.

You know, the team that wins.
 
Darth Despot said:
To add additional context, had we won the last game we would have safely been in the top 3, but we lost, to Trinidad & Tobago, the last place team which had already been eliminated.

In terms of relative strength, imagine say the The Cincinnati Bengals (a non-descript middle of the road NFL team) needed to win a game against Boston College (a struggling D-1 College team) to make the playoffs, and they found a way to lose.

I think the program needs to be nuked, scrubbed, disinfected and them rebuilt from the ground up.
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Absolutely. And what's worse is that it's not like the USMNT lacks funding. It lacks just about everything else, though.
 
motherlode said:
Im a guy who will watch a Premier League game from time to time, and i understand the game at some level a little higher than rudimentary, but i am far far far away from being an expert.

I get that soccer in the US doesnt always draw the very very very best athletes (behind football, baseball, and basketball at least) but how is a country this size not capable of building a soccer program that puts together a team that is CONCACAF proof? I mean Iceland qualified and there are only like 350,000 people in the whole country. Thats like making a team just of people who live in Tampa Florida and making it to the World Cup. But the US cant find 30 guys in their 250 million residents that can beat Trinidad and Tobago (population 1.365 million)?

Seems to me that the USMT has been making a concerted effort to improve the USA's international soccer profile for 30 years and they havent moved one inch forward. The worst part isnt that they lost to T&T, its that they were in the position that the game had any meaning at all in the first place.


That must have been the saddest busride to the airport in the history of busrides to the airport.
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The problem is options.

In almost every other country, regardless of population, if you were to find the 100 most athletically gifted men, I'd estimate like 85 to 90 of them woulf be soccer players.

In the US, I'd say zero out of the top 100 are soccer players and I'm not sure how deep into the top US Athletes you'd need to go to reach a soccer player.

If I had a time machine, and I went back about 20 years at found just the kids who grew up to play Wide Receiver and defensive back in the NFL, and I convinced all those kids to focus on soccer, the US would win the World Cup next year.

Think of guys like Randy Moss, or Deion Sanders, but with foot skills. It would be breathtaking.

The best US soccer player, so far (before Pulisic) is probably Landon Donavan. He was a wash out in Germany and was a middle of the road pro in England when he was on loan. He's also 5'8" and weighs about 150.

As for your point about CONCAGAF, you're right, there is no excuse for losing to anyone in this confederation save Mexico, Costa Rica and maybe Honduras (but only on the road).
 
Shame Pulisic doesn't have a very marketable personality (seemingly).

Need the Beckhams, etc. to ensure that popularity rockets.
 
Darth Despot said:
The problem is options.

In almost every other country, regardless of population, if you were to find the 100 most athletically gifted men, I'd estimate like 85 to 90 of them woulf be soccer players.

In the US, I'd say zero out of the top 100 are soccer players and I'm not sure how deep into the top US Athletes you'd need to go to reach a soccer player.

If I had a time machine, and I went back about 20 years at found just the kids who grew up to play Wide Receiver and defensive back in the NFL, and I convinced all those kids to focus on soccer, the US would win the World Cup next year.

Think of guys like Randy Moss, or Deion Sanders, but with foot skills. It would be breathtaking.

The best US soccer player, so far (before Pulisic) is probably Landon Donavan. He was a wash out in Germany and was a middle of the road pro in England when he was on loan. He's also 5'8" and weighs about 150.

As for your point about CONCAGAF, you're right, there is no excuse for losing to anyone in this confederation save Mexico, Costa Rica and maybe Honduras (but only on the road).
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I guess my point was that this is exactly what everyone said 30 years ago. I was under the impression that the US was starting to get a few of those top flight kids, that they were starting to develop actual world class talent from within (as opposed to players born on foreign soil who moved to the US or had duel citizenship or something like that). Guys like Altidore and Bobby Woods and this Pulacic kid. I get that in the US soccer is probably never going to draw the very best athletes, especially from lower socio-economic backgrounds, but i would think that just by the sheer size of the population sample we have in the US, that enough kids would choose soccer to make our national team a viable World Cup shoo in every four years. Im not saying they would be a threat to win it, just that it would be near impossible to not make it out of qualifying.

It just seems like the entire program has been spinning its wheels for the last three decades.
 
Soccer like everything else has cycles. All nations have up cycles and down ones. Look at the Netherlands failing to qualify for the second straight major tournament. Only 4 years ago they finished 3rd at the WC. Argentina, with all their talent, needed to win on it's last match day and results in other games to go their way to qualify. Chile, after wining back to back Copa Americas is out. Germany once failed to qualify for the Euros because they could only muster a tie against a vastly inferior Albanian side. Italy could very well not qualify for the WC. They more than likely will but I don't think it would come as a huge surprise if they failed to do so judging by their recent form. Sometimes a combination of coaching, complacency and overall bad form can doom you. People thought that the USMNT problems were coaching related and the arrival of Arena would revitalize them. Turns out that the players were just as culpable for the poor results as the coach.
There is enough talent in the US to make us a shoe in for WC qualifiers. But our ceiling is low and frankly so is our floor. I fully expect them to qualify for Qatar. The Gold Cup should be used as a tournament to give young kids playing time and experience in international tournaments. Do with it what Germany did with the Confederation Cup. Send the youngsters and the B team. Does anyone really care about the Gold Cup?
They need to do their best to make sure they are invited to the Copa America tournaments every time. I'd rather get bounced at the group stage there than win the Gold Cup.
 
I don't think that the problem is that U.S. futbol has not improved over the last 20 years, because clearly it has. I think that the outster of HC Jurgen Klinsman created some doubt and friction within the team and you can't compete in the international game without everybody being on the same page.

I think that loss to Costa Rica was bad, but Arena made a number of questionable personnel moves in it's wake that led to the team losing it's mojo.

I am no soccer expert, but why Pusilic isn't featured more is puzzling to me. He's just a kid, but he just makes plays consistently and has the knack for creating space and putting the ball where it needs to be. He is the future of this team and we need to find more guys like him, only bigger and stronger versions because most our forwards are relatively small and get mauled on the regular.

I also don't think Clint Dempsey, who is clearly the teams best forward and goal creator needs to sit on the bench for the entire first half. Don't you think he can handle 90 minutes with the World Cup on the line? I'll bet he would have been happy to start and his teammates would have been pumped up by it. That guy is a beast and gets the shit beaten out of him and keeps fighting on with great results. He's the man. He has got to be on that field in that situation.

As an aside, The two biggest detriments to the game are diving and the refs allowing guys to hack more talented opponents without giving out cards.

It seems to me that whenever the US gets in against, say, Central American teams they start kicking ankles, shins, tripping and seeing what they can get away with while the U.S. generally plays it clean. Then if one of them gets lightly bumped they go into the foetal position because they are close to death. It's blatantly obvious what they are doing, but certain refs just let it go like they are happy that the banana republic is hanging in there against the Superpower U.S. as if it's the humane thing to do.

I can't say that was the case against Trinidad, but some of the previous tournament games were complete hack-fests and very poorly reffed, imo.
 
Dempsey should have started. If you see him fade you take him out. At least that way you get the most out of him as possible.
The US team needs to do business as business is being done. But on the other hand FIFA and other Football entities need to start using video assistance during and after games to punish divers and butchers alike. Every match incident needs (at least at the highest levels of the game) to be noted down for further disciplinary review post match. Warnings, and suspensions need to be handed out regularly until the diving and the faking is driven out of some of these players DNA. Also, if you have live video assistance like the Bundesliga now has, mobbing the referee needs to be a straight yellow. Only either the player affected or the captain should be allowed to talk to the ref post whistle. And upon warning from the ref they need to shut up and walk away or a yellow will follow.
Has FIFA announced if this WC will have live video assistance from the refs?
 
USA meet Tim Weah, member of the USA U-17 national team and son of former FIFA World Player of the Year George Weah

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Ironically enough, I think part of the problem is the domestic league. For years pundits were saying that US soccer would never "arrive" and the US wouldn't be able to compete at top levels internationally until there was a viable US league.

Well, we now have a viable league but it doesn't compare talent/competition-wise with the top leagues in Europe (understandably). The PROBLEM is that while Klinsman was stressing that our players needed to work hard to make it into the top leagues in Europe in order to improve, some of our "star players" were moving back to the US to take it easy in MLS and many younger players appear content to stay in the US rather than try to make it in Europe. Result is obvious.

Also many players on the national teams of the other, traditionally weaker CONCACAF teams are also playing in MLS (many of them would not have had any other decent professional options), so they are all getting the same experience as our domestic based players - further leveling the competition.
 
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