bukie

The AL is so weak that the 47-45 White Sox not only make the playoffs, but win the division and get the bye as the 2 seed.

In my experiences, I'd say the problems are about 50% the parents, and 50% the layers of capitalism set up to take money from people for what should be rather affordable services. It shouldn't be that hard to set up soccer games for kids with proper training and skill development. But parents get ultra competitive, wanting every advantage they can afford for their kids, whether it be paying extra for every little amenity, or threatening every authority figure within earshot so nobody will dare confront or challenge their child in any way. But the many layers of horsefeathers on top of what should be basic is insanity. What should be doable with just a ball, a set of cleats, a set of shinguards, and some basic clothes for maybe $50 total turns into insanity when you have to pay a club to join a team, pay coaches to train, pay a middle man for rights to play on a field they lease out, pay a middle man for an officiating finder, pay a software vendor for the official scorekeeping app, pay a tournament business for the right to play in their tournament, pay the park itself for the right to watch your kid, pay the parking lot operator for the right to park at the field, pay to travel 1000 miles to get to the field, pay the official tournament hotel for the right to stay near the field to play, and pay the catering company for refreshments when you can't bring in your own drinks or food.

Great article on the youth soccer landscape in the US and how it compares to Europe:

Even 10 years ago, rec baseball was more organized and had more participation, but most of even the base level kids who aren't really travel but just enjoy baseball get cannibalized by various travel programs. I've coached both rec and travel for 13 years now, and there is surprisingly little difference in terms of parent behavior at games and towards coaches and umpires, so in some senses going travel at least gets you parents that are invested somewhat, so they have something to lose if they get penalized. Soccer was an entirely different beast. For my older, I had to get a class C license to coach his rec league team (so, like, this was a serious rec league). I set the team's goal every season to try to get every player a goal, or at least a shot on goal. Parents were largely on board, up until the last season I coached, where one family demanded their child start and never play defense because they were a big contributor to the program, even though every time I tried to put the child in to play they didn't want to even go on the field. I had another coach threaten to fight during a game because their kid lost a 50-50 ball (that wasn't even called as a foul). That's when I decided I was done at that league. For the youngest, I joined another nearby rec league and coached because they were short. This was much less organized, and in the two years I coached there, I had kids not show up for any of the practices and half the games, kids sit down on the field while in the game and do nothing, and kids not come off the field when I subbed them off, and then not come back to the bench at all (they'd just go sit on the other end of the field by their parents). The kids that were interested in playing and could actually do things were bored out of their minds because they could just score at will whenever they liked. Nobody was learning anything, so the league was pointless. So, in my experience, rec is no less stressful than travel, except families aren't as invested so they can no-show at will and treat everyone badly with fewer consequences. I think most of what's needed to fix this is on parents and families, because there needs to be some kind of investment in the kids enjoyment and participation, but not to the level that you ruin the experience for everyone involved.

Yes, as a parent of a college kid who did 10 years of travel ball and an 8u kid now, you just can't develop effectively in a rec league anymore. Rec leagues are effectively sports tourism. Give something a try in your free time to get out and see if you like the sport, then if you want to get good at it you have to jump to a travel organization, at least at some level. Unfortunately, even with that truth, some travel programs are effectively money printing factories, where they have 5+ teams per age level, focusing on the development of the top team at the cost of everyone else, where if you're the parent of the kid on the bottom tier, you pay the same (or more, those top team kids get benefits sometimes too!) but just don't get the same level of attention and spotlight as the top tier kids. Then you get into the organizations that run the tournaments and leagues, and those get ridiculous as well. Leagues effectively run for the lower-end travel programs so you can get mid week games in between weekly tournaments. Tournaments run usually 4 days a week, where Saturday and Sunday you can play 2+ games per day, up to as many as 4 that I've been a part of. Just to get in the door at these tournaments a team is paying upwards of $700 a team, with some of the more prestigious tournaments going for over $1k a pop. That just gets the team in, though, as then to see your kid play that's another $10 a day, and maybe even an extra $10-$15 to park in the parking lot. That's just the games, though. Training is another beast all together. If you are fortunate to latch onto a travel program with their own facility for training, that's great, but that all costs extra on top of the tournament and team fees usually (or it's rolled in with the team fees, and team fees are $1k more for those programs). Depending on the team, then you get 1-2 days a week of training in the off season. Then you can augment that with private lessons for hitting, pitching, catching, or fielding for an extra $50 a session. All told, at a high end program with their own training facility, playing 10 tournaments a year, you're easily out at least $2k per year plus about $500 for private training if you're extra serious about it. The younger the player, the more they benefit from training compared to game environments, so it's a better focus (like at a 3:1 level for 8u up to about even for 17-18u). That's before equipment, too, where bats run up to $500 for even little kids at the high end, and gloves can run $100+ easy (and if you're a catcher, that's a good $500 purchase new as well, hoping it lasts a few seasons) And we were up in the northern US for all of this, so you could really only play games April-July, trying to fit 50+ games into the spring. Down in places like Texas, Arizona, Florida, or California, you could easily play year-round, 100+ games a year. Is it all worth it? It shouldn't have nearly that large of a barrier for entry for anyone, but so many people see dollar signs in it, everybody gets their cut, and parents are left footing the bill. You can't go into it thinking you'll get it back in scholarships, though, for college, that's maybe 1% of everyone that plays. Everyone else ends up spending a cool $25k over 10 years just to help your kid succeed and enjoy sports. What's the fix for it? I don't know, really, it'd have to be scorched earth and rebuilt from the ground up. Public programs for training and team building, community organization for games and tournaments, shared incentives for equipment and gear, objective evaluation and team placement, separate education from sports, more similar to a European sports academy than an American pay-to-play club (though the Euro academies have their own wild problems with how much they take advantage of players' effort and labor time).

Pulisic fractured his tibia and fibula during the Belgium game. Could be related to him not looking good and taking himself out of the game

Pulisic was bad (and/or injured), Dest was bad, the back line was too thin to handle a coordinated attack (as was plain from the Turkiye game where the backup defenders may as well have not even been on the field). Need to develop more and better defenders, and keep developing program depth so that there's less dependence on one player to succeed. This was also the US's worst effort of the tournament, start to finish, and that includes the Turkiye game where nobody played.

Really, the US was the better team in that game 4 years ago. Here, not at all.

Someone take Lalas mic away from him. Just stop talking already.

Is there any evidence that Trump actually contacted FIFA other than "Trump said so"?

I havent seen an actual source on that tweet.

The only other time this ever happened is when FIFA lifted 2 games of suspension against Cristiano Ronaldo so he wouldn't be suspended for the first two group stage games in this World Cup. Difference here is this change actually makes the team better.

I suppose I forgot that FIFA can just ignore rules when they feel like it.

Looked like their strategy was to counter and score quickly, but they just could never get possession in a dangerous place.

Here's how I'd rate the remaining 16 teams: Favorites: 1. France - Dominated in every game so far, hard to see how anyone will slow them down. 2. Spain - Bores teams to death, but improving every match. 3. Argentina - Dominated a weak group and beat a lively Cabo Verde team in knockouts. 4. England - Alternating very good and middling efforts, need to be on it to win the next one. Contenders: 5. Brazil - Only had brief moments of looking really good so far, but when they're on they're on. 6. Colombia - Quietly efficient, look better than most others. 7. Morocco - Had the better of Brazil and Netherlands in their matches, haven't been able to really put an opponent away, though. 8. Mexico - Haven't really been challenged yet with a weak group and a weak knockout opponent, but have steamrolled everyone. 9. USA - Have dominated play in all 4 matches against overmatched opponents, even in one game with their B team and one game down a man. 10. Norway - Fun team, Haaland can do it all, a little concerned about their ability to stop a good opponent, which they'll get a chance at next round. Should be better than they've been: 11. Portugal - Didn't look good at all until they subbed out Ronaldo, let's see if they bench him against Spain. 12. Belgium - The golden generation should probably already be out, but Senegal fell asleep for 10 minutes. Continue to look slow and only really looked like the better squad against New Zealand. Still here, but would be surprised if they're still here next week: 13. Switzerland - Somehow tied a terrible Qatar team, but won their group and beat a weak Algeria team. Fortunate to not be playing a favorite next round either, so they could sneak into the quarters. 14. Egypt - Couldn't put away Australia or Iran in situations where they'd have improved their standing if they did. Still playing, though. 15. Canada - Drew with Bosnia, couldn't hang with Switzerland, struggled to put away a weak South Africa team, and now get the best African team. I'd be really surprised if they win. 16. Paraguay - As long as they score first, they have a chance. If they don't score first, they'll probably lose 5-0.

Australia makes it all the way to pens, and then subs out their goalkeeper, Patrick Beach, who had been playing spectacularly. They then chose to have 2 central defenders that had never taken PKs before to take PKs. Result: both missed, and the new GK didn't get a touch on any of Egypt's 4 makes.

Australia level with Egypt after 60 minutes. Maybe that US's group wasn't so easy after all.

FIFA Peace Prize finally pays off.

Same question, new week.

So you're suggesting the Cubs take a flyer on Corbin Burnes for a late October start, then...

I'm taking a short break from glazing the offense to complaining about the All-Star game voting in the NL OF, as none of the best 3 NL OF were among the top 6 vote getters, so the fans were way off this year. PCA, Corbin Carroll and James Wood should be the starting OF.

While I appreciate all the pitching concerns, I feel like it's necessary to balance it out by glazing the offense (and defense) a bit... - The Cubs offensive fWAR is 2nd in baseball behind the Dodgers, and significantly above the 3rd place Pirates. - The offense leads the majors in walk rate and is 5th in ISO power (behind Yankees, Dodgers, Nats and White Sox) - They're up to 7th in the majors in HR, because they have the most in the majors since June 15th - Their defense is so good they've lapped the field in Fangraphs' analysis, such that as a result only 6 teams count as above average defensively such that it adds value to their analysis. - On an individual level, here are the season fWAR totals for each of the 6 finalists for NL OF All star voting: Andy Pages, LAD - 2.8 Juan Soto, NYM - 2.6 Michael Harris II, ATL - 2.1 Brandon Marsh, PHI - 2.0 Teoscar Hernandez, LAD - 1.0 Ronald Acuna, ATL - 0.9 PCA has accumulated 3.3 fWAR since June 1.

[citation needed]

No that's not a thing. The only change possible would be FIFA extending the suspension if they deemed it necessary but that definitely shouldn't happen.