The Soccer Thread

[shnsajax]

No Donovan in the next two friendlies. Will we get a win before the end of the year?

[USSoccer]

That was a much, much better performance tonight. That's why Clint needs to be in that #10 spot and not LD.

 

It was also a completely inept officiating performance. Our federation sucks.

[wolf stansson]

Other than Clint (who was a monster), our finishing was atrocious today. Decent win, good performance. Really, really like the look of the new guy, Danny Williams.

 

At this rate of improvement Break Shea will be our best player in 2014, Jozy was sharp and for once looked like the speed of the international game was easy for him (playing time!) and it was great to see Gooch back. Edu was bad, Bradley needs to start there.

 

It's interesting that one of the biggest questions in the us soccer community is how we get our best (black), inner city (again, black) athletes to play soccer and the other big question is how good would we be if those kids played soccer instead of basketball or football and here we have 4 sons of black serviceman (Johnson, Chandler, Williams and Jones) who were raised playing soccer in Germany who can start for our national team. So almost 40% of our starters come from one tiny, specific population group (black servicemen stationed in germany who had kids with German women). It's pretty astounding and at least answers the second question. Which is to say, we'd be really, really, really good if soccer was as popular as basketball and football in the black community. REALLY good. Were pretty good now and all we had to do was find some African Americans who were raised in foreign countries.

[wolf stansson]

Liverpool, City, Chelsea and United with City and Liverpool being the strongest suitors, are inquiring about Brek Shea according to his agent.

[shnsajax]

That's a damn nice list.

[wolf stansson]

If you look like a hundred pages back you'll see me post something about him being watched by Manchester United when he was like 17. 50 pages or so back there's Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. Schalke made an offer that got rejected in the summer.

 

Pretty clear that European scouts, even if he doesn't end up going to a major power like what is being rumored, think he's as real as we do. He might be the chosen one without ever being on the dreaded too much hype too soon list. A serious accomplishment in and of itself in the US Soccer world.

[USSoccer]

If you look like a hundred pages back you'll see me post something about him being watched by Manchester United when he was like 17. 50 pages or so back there's Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. Schalke made an offer that got rejected in the summer.

 

Pretty clear that European scouts, even if he doesn't end up going to a major power like what is being rumored, think he's as real as we do. He might be the chosen one without ever being on the dreaded too much hype too soon list. A serious accomplishment in and of itself in the US Soccer world.

 

When he was on youth MNT squads, people thought he was soft and not wired competitively to be a really good player.

 

Whoops

[brinoch]

Man, Beckerman is just bad.

[USSoccer]

Things we learned:

 

-Brek Shea is going to be a force. A force. Locked down the LM spot.

 

-Clint *should* be the #10. Klinsmann needs to recognize this instead of trying to shoehorn LD into that spot. LD should be on the right in place of Williams, who has no left foot and doesn't look dangerous in the final third. Clint is miles, miles ahead of our other attacking players. He's our best player ever. I'm not even going to consider the LD v CD argument anymore. Clint's a better soccer player. LD is a better athlete. The second half tonight was basically 4 Ecuadorians around Clint while everyone else sucks.

 

-Tim Ream=not ready even a little. No more callups until he actually learns to defend. That was atrocious marking for a CB. Speaking of CB...nice to see Gooch playing well tonight. Not surprising to see Boca be useless starting attacks from the back

 

-Dolo looked old tonight. We need Lichaj healthy.

 

-Edu is effing bad. He's not good. He might look good against whatever nonsense plays in the SPL, but he's bad. He makes me want Rico Clark back. Beckerman is better than he is, and Beckerman has a limited ceiling. Michael Bradley continues to be our best available CM, since Holden apparently is JOB. All the meatballs that wanted anyone playing but Bradley have seen just how mediocre everyone else is now. Torres doesn't have the lungs or strength to be a pivot at the international level. He's a good guy to have in the right situation. Edu isn't very good. Beckerman is better than Edu in my opinion (can't believe that I'm saying that) but limited. Jones needs time at the club level. Holden is made of glass and sticks. Mix is apparently not going to play until the Olympics. Who else is there?

 

-Our forward depth blows. Agudelo needs minutes at the club level. Thank god Jozy is starting to look the part, because after him comes a bunch of meh right now.

 

-We still

[wolf stansson]

-Edu is effing bad. He's not good. He might look good against whatever nonsense plays in the SPL, but he's bad.

I agree and I'd like to see Danny Williams there. I'd like to see a Danny Williams-Michael Bradley pairing. If Beckerman is going to play I want him and Bradley.

 

I'm not sweating Jurgen's record. I'm no believer, but I think I know what he's doing. He's doing what Bradley either didn't have the guts or the job security to do, he's being thorough. Bradley would experiment with formations or new players and the second it broke bad, he'd pack it in and role out the bucket 4-4-2. Klinsmann is persistently and thoroughly running through possible formations and players. I feel like because of him I have a better grasp on our depth than I did under Bradley at any point. I fell like we actually have more depth and I think he gets no small amount of credit for it being a German superstar and convincing these Germanicans to come to our camps. Fabian Johnson will be our left back. Timmy Chandler our right back. Williams is a valuable, young contributor. I'm very happy Gooch is healthy. He can't do it all, but he can do some things very well. His chemistry with Boca is valuable on a team where chemistry is a little lacking.

 

Clint Dempsey is the boss, Brek Shea is the wild card and Jozy for the first time in his career actually looks good playing as the target striker. He can actually receive the ball and hold it instead of panicking and either doing a stupid one v one move or skittishly getting rid of it.

 

It's weird to have a string of such bad results and actually feel comfortable with the team's direction, but how can you not? We're getting younger, we're getting more talented and there seems to be a method to JK's madness. There will certainly be a time when the results will absolutely trump progress, but I'm ok for now.

 

Juan Agudelo...I've gotten into some arguments about him vs Jozy Altidore over at gatewayredbirds with some Altidore haters. Please...Juan is a very busy player but he is not sharp, he's not a finisher and he lacks direction. That will all come with time and I certainly think he has a bright future, but Jozy at his age was a better prospect. He's still only 22 and he's the best pure striker we've had since McBride. Agudelo needs to focus on breaking into the Red Bulls first eleven.

 

It will be interesting to see where Landon slots in when he and Clint are both playing. By the way, call me crazy, but I'd rather have Brek Shea than Javier Hernandez.

[bukie]

I like where the depth of the roster is overall, but I'm really concerned about the team's ability to finish opportunities. They're just not the type of team that is going to be able to be successful by overwhelming the opposition with scoring opportunities against first-tier competition, and only Dempsey looks to be able to create any decent shots on this roster.

[wolf stansson]

This is worth a read:

http://theshinguardian.com/2011/10/12/the-us-falls-to-ecuador-1-0-in-anything-but-a-bullfight/#entry

 

my feeling is that were losing at the cost of trying to rework the foundations. That's a worthwhile sacrifice. Too much of the Bob Bradley era was about winning on the day and stunting our future in the process. That eventually caught up with them.

 

If the goal is to eventually contend for a World Cup, to reference something referenced in that article, a 0-1 loss where we dominate possession and work on combinations brings us closer to that goal than a 0-0 draw with Argentina and a fluke 2-0 win against Spain with nothing but hopeful long balls and counter attacks.

[USSoccer]

This is worth a read:

http://theshinguardian.com/2011/10/12/the-us-falls-to-ecuador-1-0-in-anything-but-a-bullfight/#entry

 

my feeling is that were losing at the cost of trying to rework the foundations. That's a worthwhile sacrifice. Too much of the Bob Bradley era was about winning on the day and stunting our future in the process. That eventually caught up with them.

 

If the goal is to eventually contend for a World Cup, to reference something referenced in that article, a 0-1 loss where we dominate possession and work on combinations brings us closer to that goal than a 0-0 draw with Argentina and a fluke 2-0 win against Spain with nothing but hopeful long balls and counter attacks.

 

I don't know, Wolf. I see what you're saying, but the "glass half empty" version of this is that Klinsmann doesn't know what he's doing and that these 5 friendlies we've spent pissing away with Orozco and Castillo and Rogers and Edu and Beasley we should have been spending on Gonzalez, John, Cameron, Gatt, et al.

 

Bradley may have been-during the games themselves-tactically limited, but the guy looked at everyone in the pool and usually had everyone in the right spot at kickoff. Adjustments? Yeah, usually nonexistent or too late, but his prep work was top notch. He trotted out a 4-6-0 in a cup final and had it working until he shot himself in the foot by not adjusting (meme). He rebuilt our midfield from scratch in a year while beating everyone we played. I feel as though he would have certainly done the same job with our CB's, and that's the big thing that is gonna bite us in the ass if it's not addressed now.

 

It's hard for me to give Klinsmann credit for doing anything similar right now. I think Shea was finna break out no matter what, and Chandler was already in the pool playing LB. What has he done that wouldn't have been done under Bob?

 

EDIT: Not advocating that Bob wasn't deservedly let go, but I'm saying that the grass may not have been as green as we had hoped on the other side of this fence.

[wolf stansson]

For me it's like the Bears. The Bears are in trouble, but last year they won a lot of games. In reality, they would be closer to a Superbowl right now if they lost a bunch of games last year and fired Mike Martz, Jerry Angelo and maybe Lovie. Instead were wasting another year of development and Jay Cutler is probably going to be murdered.

 

If Kilnsmann isn't the guy, we're getting this experiement over sooner rather than later, which is good because he was going to get this job at some point or another. If he sucks, it's better he has it now, rather than 2015. If he's the best guy for the job, then it's better he has it now than 2015. Status Quo wasn't getting us anywhere under Bradley. You can't say with any confidence these last 5 results would have been different under his helm, because we were clearly trending down under his leadership.

[Guest]

Ireland managed to draw a seed for the Euro 2012 playoff round (they were fifth among the eight teams before the last two sets of games) so they avoided Portugal, Croatia and the Czech Republic. They ended up drawing Estonia so there's no reason they should miss out on the tournament.

 

The other matchups are Turkey-Croatia, Czech Republic-Montenegro and Bosnia-Portugal.

[shnsajax]

All 3 of those are pretty interesting. I can't wait for the draw as I will be in Holland next year during the Euro's.

 

Anyone here been following the Rugby WC? Figured no need to start a thread on it since we are in the semis now and most followers here are more likely to watch it than others.

[shnsajax]

Rooney suspended for the group stages of the Euro's.

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/7096420/wayne-rooney-only-blame-euro-2012-ban-soccer-ravi-ubha

[Mark Priors Calves]

Ireland managed to draw a seed for the Euro 2012 playoff round (they were fifth among the eight teams before the last two sets of games) so they avoided Portugal, Croatia and the Czech Republic. They ended up drawing Estonia so there's no reason they should miss out on the tournament.

 

The other matchups are Turkey-Croatia, Czech Republic-Montenegro and Bosnia-Portugal.

Great news for the Irish!

[wvcbxl]

Anyone here been following the Rugby WC? Figured no need to start a thread on it since we are in the semis now and most followers here are more likely to watch it than others.

 

Rooting for Wales' youngsters tomorrow.

[wolf stansson]

http://www.noshortcorners.com/2011/10/alright-enough-waiting.html

Sometimes things are so unwieldly and certain responses take so long because not everyone appreciates what I do quite so much as NSC devotees. So here's the deal: it's Brek Shea spill time and everyone else can just catch up to us.

 

The following is a list of 15 clubs I have fully confirmed (through a seeming source cast-of-thousands) that were in the house to watch Shea either in Belgium last month or New Jersey last week:

 

Anderlecht, AZ Alkmaar, Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham, Hamburg, Liverpool, Newcastle, PSV Eindhoven, Roda JC, Sporting CP, Stoke City, Sunderland, Werder Bremen, West Ham United

 

This list does not cover every team who sent someone to check him out in a recent USMNT friendly. There are at least another 6-8 clubs that were there, but have remained hidden to me - so far. I also have good reason to believe that a La Liga club was on hand in Brussels, but despite them being the obvious candidate, I've yet to nail down for sure that it was longtime admirer Atlético Madrid. There is also some smoke coming from a couple of other countries that I'll skip around dishing on for now.

 

To the related matters: I cannot confirm any of the other big brand EPL names mentioned in tabloid stories, but the one where I've actually had some smoke is Chelsea - again, that is not confirmation of interest, it means some clues I've found do point to it actually being real. I can confirm any tales of battling offers are bunk, as there are no serious moves for him taking place at this time.

[shnsajax]

Maybe PSV for 2 years then off again. I think he would be fine in England but I don't want him going to Chelsea just yet. Screw going to West Ham. Athletico I could be interested in see him go to.

 

Just read that the foreign owners in the EPL want to scrap the relegation system. Screw that too.

[wolf stansson]

Just read that the foreign owners in the EPL want to scrap the relegation system. Screw that too.

That will never happen. There's a better chance of MLS instituting relegation than that.

[wvcbxl]

Of course Anderlecht watched him in Brussels - they were only one underground ride away. :roll:

 

BTW, Kljestan was excellent for them yesterday, playing a full game in the clash against Standard Liège..

[wolf stansson]

FOX won the World Cup rights for 2018 & 22. That's a long ways away so obviously who knows how it'll look, but ESPN's coverage is top notch and I'm no fan of FOX's champions league coverage currently compared to ESPN's.

 

Edit - But I love the competition among networks to cover the sport. This means we'll have English speaking broadcasts over three networks in 2015. ESPN, FOX and NBC Sports. That will be like 15 channels.

[shnsajax]

I will take Fox over NBC, but I agree ESPN has been the best so far. Fox must be shelling out some dough to beat ESPN in both Champs League and now the WC.

 

Maybe ESPN will have money to spend on a 24/7 soccer channel in the US now.