The Soccer Thread

[wolf stansson]

Tim Ream is an incompetent defender. He's gotten worked, been caught ballwatching and is just not good at playing defense, tracking runners or playing defense. If we're hellbent on a center back that can build from the back, Geoff Cameron needs some burn.

Remember Michael Parkhurst? Please explain to me if I'm crazy, but the difference between Michael Parkhurst and Tim Ream is that Parky is right footed, about 2 inches shorter than Ream, as good with the ball and WAY WAY better at defending. And he plays for Nordjesjalaand. He would never get a sniff at the EPL. Let alone Arsenal. Is this because Ream plays with Henry? The left footed thing isn't that big a deal.

[shnsajax]

Tim Ream is an incompetent defender. He's gotten worked, been caught ballwatching and is just not good at playing defense, tracking runners or playing defense. If we're hellbent on a center back that can build from the back, Geoff Cameron needs some burn.

Remember Michael Parkhurst? Please explain to me if I'm crazy, but the difference between Michael Parkhurst and Tim Ream is that Parky is right footed, about 2 inches shorter than Ream, as good with the ball and WAY WAY better at defending. And he plays for Nordjesjalaand. He would never get a sniff at the EPL. Let alone Arsenal. Is this because Ream plays with Henry? The left footed thing isn't that big a deal.

 

Didn't he have one good game when they beat Arsenal at the Emirates?

 

Dallas is going to take a huge hit from the loss but I am ready to see Shea elsewhere developing.

[wolf stansson]

Yeah he looked good in the Emirates Cup, but they've wanted him since last year.

 

There's something to be said in MLS for players playing to the level of their supporting cast, especially young players, but I still don't see it for him at that level.

[USSoccer]

Tim Ream is an incompetent defender. He's gotten worked, been caught ballwatching and is just not good at playing defense, tracking runners or playing defense. If we're hellbent on a center back that can build from the back, Geoff Cameron needs some burn.

Remember Michael Parkhurst? Please explain to me if I'm crazy, but the difference between Michael Parkhurst and Tim Ream is that Parky is right footed, about 2 inches shorter than Ream, as good with the ball and WAY WAY better at defending. And he plays for Nordjesjalaand. He would never get a sniff at the EPL. Let alone Arsenal. Is this because Ream plays with Henry? The left footed thing isn't that big a deal.

 

The big knocks on Parkhurst were pace and the fact that he was an MLS-best defender in MLS 1.0 when the league wasn't nearly as competitive, and when he had a great team all around him.

 

As a CB, the left-footedness of Ream shouldn't really matter all that much. Ream hasn't developed at all beyond "wow, he's calm on the ball". He's an atrocious defender against pace, size, strength...he's not good, and I cannot fathom what Arsenal would see in him that they couldn't find in a thousand different players elsewhere. Slow, calm on the ball, soft, gets caught ballwatching...meh.

 

I guess at 24 he could still develop and mature, but his ceiling is Geoff Cameron.

[USSoccer]

Wow, Robin van Persie is off the chain like eggs Tyrone. He scores 3 and Arsenal beat Chelsea 5-3 at the Shed.

[shnsajax]

Never saw that coming. Wish YouTube would ip ban those people who just relink videos to their site.

[USSoccer]

RSL-SEA deserves to be one of the ESPN games. These are the two best teams in the league, and RSL at home just tears ish up.

[Guest]

Good win for Tottenham over QPR today. After getting smashed by City and Utd the first two games, they've taken 19 points out of 21 (only dropped points was a road tie vs. Newcastle) and sit tied with Chelsea and Newcastle for third with a game in hand (Newcastle does also but they play tomorrow).

 

They've got a chance over the next three months to really run up a lot of points. They have 11 games before playing City on Jan. 22. In that span, they play only one team in the top 7 (Chelsea on Dec. 22) and four in the top-10 (the 8-9-10 teams). Hopefully they can get a nice cushion because after that stretch they play @City, @Liverpool, vs. Newcastle, @Arsenal, vs. Utd in a six game span.

[wolf stansson]

LA 1, NY 0. after the whistle, Rafa Marquez throws the ball at Landon, Cristman shoves Marquez, Juninho grabs Kiel's arm who immediately flops grabbing his face, Marquez sees and immediately also flops clutching his face too. High comedy. Zero chance that worthless douche suits up in MLS next year.

[USSoccer]

LA 1, NY 0. after the whistle, Rafa Marquez throws the ball at Landon, Cristman shoves Marquez, Juninho grabs Kiel's arm who immediately flops grabbing his face, Marquez sees and immediately also flops clutching his face too. High comedy. Zero chance that worthless douche suits up in MLS next year.

 

Between his terrible play and his calling out of his (better) teammates, he'd better be gone next year. Waste of money by the league.

[Guest]

LA 1, NY 0. after the whistle, Rafa Marquez throws the ball at Landon, Cristman shoves Marquez, Juninho grabs Kiel's arm who immediately flops grabbing his face, Marquez sees and immediately also flops clutching his face too. High comedy. Zero chance that worthless douche suits up in MLS next year.

 

Between his terrible play and his calling out of his (better) teammates, he'd better be gone next year. Waste of money by the league.

 

Just saw the ending of that game. The announcer comments were the best.

 

Harkes at the end of

says "Marques went down. I think maybe a fly went into his eye."

 

Lalas (I think) in

says "The only thing he connected on was the throw of the ball. Then he takes a swing and misses. Then he goes down and takes a dive. Is anybody really surprised?"

 

Man do I hate Marquez.

[wolf stansson]

I liked Alejandro Moreno. Impressive as a first-time pundit in his second language. "You can live with behavior like this if a player is producing on the field, but Marquez is not. I don't think they can justify the troubles he causes."

[wolf stansson]

http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2011/11/usa-u23-u20-camp-roster.html

USA U-23/U-20 NOVEMBER CAMP ROSTER

GOALKEEPERS - David Bingham (San Jose Earthquakes; Pleasanton, Calif.), Cody Cropper (Ipswich Town; Athens, Ga.), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire, Lilburn, Ga.), Jon Kempin (Sporting KC; Leawood, Kan.).

 

DEFENDERS - Gale Agbossoumonde (Eintracht Frankfurt; Syracuse, N.Y.), Anthony Brooks (Hertha Berlin; Berlin, Germany), Sean Cunningham (Molde; Troy, Mich.), Royal-Dominique Fennell (Stuttgarter Kickers; Göppingen, Germany), Greg Garza (Out of Contract; Grapevine, Texas), Perry Kitchen (D.C. United; Indianapolis, Ind.), Will Packwood (Birmingham City; Concord, Mass.), Zarek Valentin (Chivas USA; Lancaster, Pa.), Ethan White (D.C. United; Kensington, Md.)

 

MIDFIELDERS - Joe Corona (Club Tijuana; Chula Vista, Calif.), Mixx Diskerud (Stabæk; Oslo, Norway), Dilly Duka (Columbus Crew; Montville, N.J.), Jared Jeffrey (Mainz; Richardson, Texas), Sebastian Lletget (West Ham United; San Francisco, Calif.), Tyrone McCargo (Nürnberg; Nürnberg, Germany), Charles Renken (Hoffenheim; Edwardsville, Ill.), Caleb Stanko (Freiburg: Holly, Mich.), Jose Villarreal (LA Galaxy; Inglewood, Calif.).

 

FORWARDS - Terrence Boyd (Borussia Dortmund; Berlin, Germany), Conor Doyle (Derby County; McKinney, Texas), Josh Gatt (Molde; Plymouth, Mich.), Joe Gyau (Hoffenheim; Silver Spring, Md.), Jerome Kiesewetter (Hertha Berlin; Berlin, Germany), Omar Salgado (Vancouver Whitecaps; El Paso, Texas), Tony Taylor (Atlético Clube de Portugal; Jacksonville, Fla.), Bobby Wood (1860 Munich; Irvine, Calif.), Andrew Wooten (Kaiserslautern; Worms, Germany).

 

-------------

 

"The goal was to put together a comprehensive group of players to further evaluate the pool while building towards Olympic qualifying," Porter said in a U.S. Soccer release. "By having a mix of domestic and overseas-based professionals, we can develop a clearer picture of who can help us in qualifying and hopefully the 2012 Olympic Games."

 

Other roster notes:

 

Josh Gatt was included for the camp but won't participate on the field because of his recent hamstring injury.

Age-eligible senior national team players such as Jozy Altidore, Juan Agudelo and Bill Hamid are not included in this camp and will most likely be part of the team that goes up against France and Slovenia later this month, but they are still under consideration (and are likely shoo-ins) for the Olympics.

Eight MLS players (White, Kitchen, Valentin, Salgado, Duka, Johnson, Kempin and Bingham) will take part in the camp, and more could be added based on how the MLS playoffs unfold.

Three players (Agbossoumonde, Diskerud and Johnson) have senior national team caps to their names.

Bayern Munich youth product Fabian Huerzeler, who was part of the U.S. U-20 World Cup qualifying team, was not included on the roster.

[shnsajax]

5 from Germany and 3 from the DFW area.

 

How's Luis Gil doing?

[USSoccer]

Why oh why couldn't Toyota Park be as awesome as Livestrong?

 

Teal Bunbury....I rate him.

[USSoccer]

Interesting foxsports.com piece with Omar Gonzalez who says he's never heard once from Klinsmann and would be open to a Mexico callup.

 

George John also claims to have yet to hear from Juergen.

 

This guy sucks at managing the pool. Mark my words; in 2 years when our defense is a sieve again we're going to regret wasting the past half year.

[USSoccer]

So the SEA-RSL tie last night was ridiculous. Basically a 99 minute power play for SEA, and they ran out of gas down 2-3 on aggregate.

 

Tony Beltran's goal line clearance in the 1st half was the best save I've seen in a very very long time.

[Guest]

So the SEA-RSL tie last night was ridiculous. Basically a 99 minute power play for SEA, and they ran out of gas down 2-3 on aggregate.

 

Tony Beltran's goal line clearance in the 1st half was the best save I've seen in a very very long time.

 

Was RSL down a man? I only saw the second half and it was really entertaining, especially once they got the 2nd goal.

[USSoccer]

So the SEA-RSL tie last night was ridiculous. Basically a 99 minute power play for SEA, and they ran out of gas down 2-3 on aggregate.

 

Tony Beltran's goal line clearance in the 1st half was the best save I've seen in a very very long time.

 

Was RSL down a man? I only saw the second half and it was really entertaining, especially once they got the 2nd goal.

 

No, but they were playing with their 3rd and 4th choice CB's due to injury and the turf at C-Link is so terrible that it murders their possession game. Beckerman was basically sitting 3 yards in front of them for most of the game, and they couldn't string more than 3 passes together all night.

 

Seattle just ran out of gas. The Fucito sub was questionable...not sure why you wouldn't pull out a defender instead of the guy who's caused havoc and hustled all over the place all night when you're more likely to score on a scrappy plan than anything else.

[wolf stansson]

FRANCE ROSTER BY POSITION

GOALKEEPERS (3): Cédric Carrasso (Bordeaux), Hugo Lloris (Lyon), Steve Mandanda (Marseille)

 

DEFENDERS (7): Eric Abidal (Barcelona), Matthieu Debuchy (Lille), Jérémy Mathieu (Valencia), Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal), Adil Rami (Valencia), Anthony Réveillère (Lyon), Mamadou Sakho (PSG)

 

MIDFIELDERS (6): Yohan Cabaye (Newcastle), Alou Diarra (Marseille), Florent Malouda (Chelsea) Yann M'Vila (Rennes), Marvin Martin, (Sochaux), Samir Nasri (Manchester City)

 

FORWARDS (6): Karim Benzema (Real Madrid), Kevin Gameiro (PSG), Jérémy Ménez (PSG), Loïc Rémy (Marseille), Franck Ribéry (Bayern Munich), Olivier Giroud (Montpellier)

[wolf stansson]

Interesting foxsports.com piece with Omar Gonzalez who says he's never heard once from Klinsmann and would be open to a Mexico callup.

 

George John also claims to have yet to hear from Juergen.

 

This guy sucks at managing the pool. Mark my words; in 2 years when our defense is a sieve again we're going to regret wasting the past half year.

For France & Slovenia:

 

G: Tim Howard, Bill Hamid

DEF: D: Carlos Bocanegra, Timmy Chandler, Steve Cherundolo, Clarence Goodson, Alfredo Morales, Michael Orozco Fiscal, Oguchi Onyewu

MID: Kyle Beckerman, Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Maurice Edu, Fabian Johnson, Jermaine Jones, Robbie Rogers, Brek Shea, Danny Williams

FW: Jozy Altidore, Edson Buddle, Landon Donvoan, DaMarcus Beasley

 

 

He can't plead MLS playoffs as a reason to leave John out and it'd be questionable with Gonzalez because he called in Landon.

[USSoccer]

Jesus red roaring Christ. Do we have enough D mids on there?

 

Orozco and Rogers again? Really?

 

F this guy. He's like a German Tony Robbins and I've had it. We're going to suck this cycle because of this asshat.

 

EDIT:

 

Alfredo Morales has 51 career Bundesliga minutes, and 2 whole games in 2Bund! 51 minutes! That's barely more 1st team play than I have. He's never even seen him play. And he's called into our national team camp in 2011. Unreal.

 

This is horseshit of the highest order.

[wolf stansson]

Well apparently after all of the poaching, we've touched a German nerve. They called up Fabian Huerzeler to the u-19 camp. Probably why he's not on our Olympic roster.

[wolf stansson]

Don't know if I agree with that. They're cheap, but they're scouts find solid values. Szczesny, Vermaelen, Ox-Chamberlain and Gervinho are great buys.

 

Vermaelen was with Ajax and a member of the national team (so not execatly a great find), and he cost them 12 milion euros (so not exactly cheap)

He's arguably their best player. He was a good value. I never said he was a diamond in the rough. Neither was Gervinho.

 

 

 

Ream has looked lost a couple times tonight, but they're probably there for Brek Shea anyway.

Guess who's training with Arsenal next month? Hint: not Tim Ream.

[shnsajax]

Since we didn't get to get a Dempsey Arsenal jersey, this wouldn't be a bad 2nd choice.