The Beautiful Game Thread 10/11

[Rodster]

Bradley on the hot seat after the loss. http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slu ... ico_062511

[fsquid]

Spector should have come on for Cherundolo

[toonarmy]

I could tell this was a special goal when it happened live in real time, however it wasn't until the various angles of slo-mo replay that I realized this is one of the best goals I have ever seen. It is quite simply a work of art. The video below is in English so Howard won't cry and pitch a fit.

[Jimmydeicide]

Err ,whats number 13 doing? great goal tho

[Inuyasha]

Anyone catching the Women's World Cup? I find it just as exciting as the Men's. Really wish EA would add the women's teams in FIFA.

North Korea vs USA - what's the betting line that the US team scores over 10 goals?

[Naples39]

Anyone catching the Women's World Cup?

No.



As for the US, it was pretty obvious Mexico was a much better team. It was just surprising how it turned out getting a 2 goal lead then blowing it. At least Adu was fun, constantly drawing double and triple teams and not losing possession. I'm still trying to confirm that there was in fact a US midfield on the field.

[10spro]

Never in their 110th historic run, has Rivet Plate ever been relegated to the 2nd division. It happened officially on Sunday as they were unable to beat Belgrano at home as the Hooligans confronted the strong police force. Part of me feels for the 'Gallinas' as I will certainly miss the Boca-River rivalry but with D. Passarella's leadership they'll be back very soon.

[RobVarak]

Anyone catching the Women's World Cup?

[fsquid]

lots of rumbling that Bradley could be out.

[RobVarak]

lots of rumbling that Bradley could be out.

I think Bradley did a poor job in this tourney, or more accurately before it, in selecting the defensive personnel. His response to the Cherundolo injury was the wrong one as well. Finally, no matter who is in the squad, you can't have a back line that utterly out of sync, undisciplined and poorly organized.

All that said, I think he did the right thing by choosing to play Adu and switching off between Donovan and Dempsey up front. Moreover, he clearly knew that 2 goals was not a comfortable lead given the defensive play of this squad and Mexico's firepower. I was glad to see him have the squad pushing for more. No amount of midfield cover was going to hide the inadequacies of those defenders against the pace and movement of Mexico.

Does firing Bradley ultimately get the United States any closer to advancing deep into Brazil 2014? Does it help the US regain the upper hand, or even parity, with Mexico in CONCACAF? I'm no Bradley fan, but the answer is clearly only "yes" if his replacement is significantly better than Bradley. The USSF mafia are almost certainly too inept to identify that sort of upgrade. Even if they do, they've made it clear that they aren't interested in ceding any authority to a big-time coach. They've also made it clear that they don't want to pay top $.

They may fire Bradley because that's what national federations do in these situations. But I'm far from optimistic that it'll make any real difference in the quixotic quest to improve the US's position as a soccer power.

[fsquid]

Souleymane Coulibaly, that is all, write the name down.

[pk500]

Never in their 110th historic run, has Rivet Plate ever been relegated to the 2nd division. It happened officially on Sunday as they were unable to beat Belgrano at home as the Hooligans confronted the strong police force. Part of me feels for the 'Gallinas' as I will certainly miss the Boca-River rivalry but with D. Passarella's leadership they'll be back very soon.

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_ ... ub-history

No Boca-River, River-Boca. That's nuts to even contemplate.

[wco81]

Is Adu the only significant young player?

It seems if they went with Klinsmann, it would take years to harvest young talent, assuming a drastic organization of the talent search and development infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the current team, the best you'd expect from them is getting out of the Group stage and playing a knockout game or two. So it's not like US Soccer has a lot to lose by making a change.

[toonarmy]

I'm in the camp that firing Bradley will make little difference ultimately. Sure, he makes some baffling moves, but let's be honest here: this squad has a talent problem, and the organization as a whole is not soundly run. It will take a lot of money to lure in an elite international coach and, even then, there is only so much a great coach can do with mediocre talent. There have been countries across the pond throw big bucks at top coaches and end up having little to show for it, and that's with better players than the USA has on hand. It will take years to properly develop a truly world-class football team and I do not see the type of strategy or vision from USA soccer to make that happen any time soon. I'm sure they are trying, but this situation goes much deeper than a single coach or a few players. I believe Bradley has done a pretty decent job with what he has had at his disposal since being in charge. Some US fans (not on this forum) talk about this team and Bradley as if they are a top-tier team and should be making the semis of the World Cup and winning every tournament. When we get beat by a clearly more talented team we somehow have grossly underachieved and the bum needs to be fired, overlooking the times in which the team has overachieved. I would not be opposed to bringing in a superstar coach, but anything less would be pointless. A decision does need to be made soon, though.

[pk500]

Very doubtful Gulati will spend the money or cede the power to hire Klinsmann. He already tried -- what's going to be different this time?

[Naples39]

I don't think any coach is going to come in and work miracles. Most international coaches just pass through. A guy coming and instituting meaningful structural changes is pretty rare.

That said, Bradley shouldn't have been renewed in the first place, and their repeated slow starts and falling behind to inferior competition is unacceptable. No one is going to make the US team a juggernaut, but the team looks stale.

They do have some young players though; Altidore, Agudelo, Holden, Chandler. Dempsey is playing the best soccer of his career too.

[wco81]

But pretty sure I read that that's what Klinsmann wanted to do, come in and revamp the whole organization, wanted to change the way the academy is run, etc.

We talked about the problems, that the best athletes go to other sports, that the best American players are unable to get enough time playing in the best club competition, etc.

But it's a nation of over 300 million people, with a lot of immigrants from countries with great history and tradition with the sport.

It sounded like Klinsmann wanted to come in for the challenge of it as much as anything else.

[RobVarak]

I don't think any coach is going to come in and work miracles. Most international coaches just pass through. A guy coming and instituting meaningful structural changes is pretty rare.

That said, Bradley shouldn't have been renewed in the first place, and their repeated slow starts and falling behind to inferior competition is unacceptable. No one is going to make the US team a juggernaut, but the team looks stale.

They do have some young players though; Altidore, Agudelo, Holden, Chandler. Dempsey is playing the best soccer of his career too.

I said this after the WC last summer, but I think it merits repeating. As long as youth soccer in this country is dependent upon players subsidizing development rather than the USSF and domestic leagues it will be doomed to eternal mediocrity.

It's an flawed system that has the wrong incentives, the wrong methodology for teaching and utterly lacks the ability to optimally turn talented kids into world class players on a consistent basis. The number of youth players is more than adequate. Demographics and simple math tell us there is enough talent in that pool. Where the US falls short is in turning that raw material into quality players at the senior level. The reason for that failure is an antiquated structure held in place by the biggest kleptocracy this side of Major League Baseball.

We need somebody or some organization to take an ax to the entire youth soccer club culture in this country and bring NCAA soccer to its knees as a happy secondary result. We need MLS academies in every soccer hub and large city who are voraciously looking for cheap young talent and that are adequately staffed and trained to coach up a well-rounded young player.
Instead we have situations like our local one, where the Chicago Fire had to close one of their suburban clubs because it couldn't compete with private clubs demanding thousands of dollars in tuition from the players for the right to be taught ball handling tricks to justify mom and dad's big checks.

I know it's a big ask, and it's way more complex than hiring a new manager. But these are the kinds of things that a real soccer federation needs to be looking at if it wants to compete at the top level...which is where the US should be given its size, demographics and resources. And it can happen.

[pk500]

Klinsmann wanted big money and big power, two things the USSF and Gulati were unwilling to provide.

To follow up on Rob's post, there's a massive problem about U.S. soccer that never will be solved by any manager/coach or academy: The game is not a fundamental part of pick-up sports culture here.

Every American kid is raised in a regimented soccer system, the AYSO or private academy way. How many American kids simply pick up a ball and play an 11-on-11 or even a 7-on-7 just for fun? Hardly any, outside of the ethnic communities.

Everything is drills, drills, drills. Scrimmages, scrimmages, scrimmages. Games, games, games. All organized. All the time.

My wife is the president of our local youth soccer organization, and our biggest fundraiser each year is a race of plastic ducks down the creek in our town during the annual town festival. People "buy" a duck for $5, and they win a bunch of prizes and money donated by local merchants if their duck wins or is among the top finishers in the race.

A group of us spent last Thursday night cleaning, sorting and bagging 3,200 plastic ducks at our soccer fields. The kids helped, too, and they had a great boys vs. girls match for about 30 minutes after duck duties ended. Totally impromptu, all ages, great fun.

I stood there with my wife and a few buddies and said: "Look at that. When do you ever see that in this town? When do you ever see a group of kids playing pickup soccer, like it's basketball or touch football?"

You don't. And we're a soccer town, big time. Our high school's girls and boys teams each have won state titles in the last 10 years.

Soccer may be a part of our youth sports culture. But it's not part of our youth play culture. And that's a big difference that hurts the development of improvisational and creative skills among American youth.

[XXXIV]

How many American kids simply pick up a ball and play an 11-on-11 or even a 7-on-7 just for fun? Hardly any, outside of the ethnic communities.

Excellent observation.

I did my later 11-18 growing up in a Greek hood and we did manage, along with a couple of German kids, to get games going at the local school.

Other kids would come and give us the "Hey look at the fags playing soccer" or "hey you dorks want to get a game of softball going" type bullshit.

[RobVarak]

Klinsmann wanted big money and big power, two things the USSF and Gulati were unwilling to provide.

To follow up on Rob's post, there's a massive problem about U.S. soccer that never will be solved by any manager/coach or academy: The game is not a fundamental part of pick-up sports culture here.

Every American kid is raised in a regimented soccer system, the AYSO or private academy way. How many American kids simply pick up a ball and play an 11-on-11 or even a 7-on-7 just for fun? Hardly any, outside of the ethnic communities.

Everything is drills, drills, drills. Scrimmages, scrimmages, scrimmages. Games, games, games. All organized. All the time.

My wife is the president of our local youth soccer organization, and our biggest fundraiser each year is a race of plastic ducks down the creek in our town during the annual town festival. People "buy" a duck for $5, and they win a bunch of prizes and money donated by local merchants if their duck wins or is among the top finishers in the race.

A group of us spent last Thursday night cleaning, sorting and bagging 3,200 plastic ducks at our soccer fields. The kids helped, too, and they had a great boys vs. girls match for about 30 minutes after duck duties ended. Totally impromptu, all ages, great fun.

I stood there with my wife and a few buddies and said: "Look at that. When do you ever see that in this town? When do you ever see a group of kids playing pickup soccer, like it's basketball or touch football?"

You don't. And we're a soccer town, big time. Our high school's girls and boys teams each have won state titles in the last 10 years.

Soccer may be a part of our youth sports culture. But it's not part of our youth play culture. And that's a big difference that hurts the development of improvisational and creative skills among American youth.

I'm inclined to agree...to a point. I don't see kids today playing a hell of a lot of pick up games of anything anymore. Like all of their recreation, it's organized to the nth degree. I don't think that's as big a problem as the type and quality of the coaching, but it does unarguably have an impact on their comfort level and freedom of expression on the pitch.

[Macca00]

Other kids would come and give us the "Hey look at the fags playing soccer"

To be fair, they only said that line when you were playing.

I would add something constructive to the debate but Rob and PK have pretty much nailed it on the head. It's an infinitely worse deal in Canada where soccer is the number one participation sport (yes, more than hockey) but our national team squeaks out a 1-0 win against Guadalupe.....at least you have a good team.

[XXXIV]

Other kids would come and give us the "Hey look at the fags playing soccer"

To be fair, they only said that line when you were playing.

I would add something constructive to the debate but Rob and PK have pretty much nailed it on the head. It's an infinitely worse deal in Canada where soccer is the number one participation sport (yes, more than hockey) but our national team squeaks out a 1-0 win against Guadalupe.....at least you have a good team.

I never said they were wrong. You should have seen me play.

Agree. PK and Rob are pretty much right on.

[wco81]

Isn't that why parents get their kids to play the sport, because it's organized and regimented?

Do parents drop their kids off for a couple of hours with AYSO, freeing time for themselves?

I don't know if pickup games would help produce world-class players. It won't in basketball, if all the kids do is play street ball. But maybe the US soccer apparatus doesn't make for creativity and dribbling skills. It apparently doesn't in England or some other powers.

I wonder if the kids who play the game enjoy it the same way the kids who become baseball or basketball players (football has to be organized because of the equipment and resources needed, can't really play a lot of sandlot football and develop the kind of skills needed at the higher levels). That is, do they play soccer because they gravitated to it out of all the choices they have or because their parents put them into it? Do they aspire to be pros the same way kids who play baseball and basketball do? Do they follow and idolize the big clubs in the world or is MLS inspirational enough for them to pursue this path?

Or do they grow out of it and if they have any kind of athletic ability, they move to other sports in high school (or get plucked into them)?

[Naples39]

I am a big believer that great players are made on the playground. Growing up I used to play pickup football at school every day, until middle school where it was pickup basketball every day twice a day. When that happens, most other things will take of itself.

For a USA coach, I'm just worried about getting the most out of what we already have.