Thurman Merman

Part of the reason that even an extra half hour for practice would be helpful is that we try to end each practice with some sort of scrimmage or game to kind of just let them play/utilize the skills. Fitting a warm up plus skills practice plus strategy plus scrimmage into one hour is basically impossible. And I would love if the kids developed skills by just playing on their own with their friends but most of the time they have other things they would rather be doing (hanging with friends, video games, pool, etc). I've actually been surprised that my son and some of the neighbor kids have been regularly going to the park and playing pick up baseball. To them it's just fun, but they are going to be better players because of it.

I've coached my daughters rec league the last three years (ages 9-11). And yes, while the league has been hollowed out by people leaving for travel (we can really only field 5 teams), there's definitely still some talent there. And I find the reduced pressure really helps to not only work on general concepts to make them better players, but also to let them just have fun. One of the nicest things in our league is that since its non-competitive, it basically allows you to pick your own teams. While this could back fire with significant talent disparities that make games essentially pointless, we got lucky and most teams are pretty evenly matched. But the best part of this is that we've basically had the same team for three years in a row. This allows them to develop a chemistry with each other, and allows us to build on concepts year over year. Which is important, because to me, after doing this for the last several years, the biggest impediment to these kids getting better is time. We get one hour long practice a week, and one game, and seasons are basically 8 weeks in the summer, and 8 weeks in the fall. It's just not enough time to teach these kids all we want. If we even had one extra hour long practice a week, or hell, even making that one practice 1.5 hours, it would make a big difference. Yeah, travel teams probably have more talent, but they are better because they play a lot more.

Early Barry bonds is probably the best comp.

I think it's stupid to use VAR to give reds. The only involvement VAR should have with cards is to overturn them, not give them. A red should be clear and obvious in the moment, and if it's not given then, shouldn't be given at all.

That was baller

I was thinking if they don't come back and win this it will burn to the ground. If England keep sitting back like this there's almost no way mexico don't score.

Problem now is all our defensive subs suck, so who do you sub in and for?

Yes

Absolute garbage

Whatever, it's win win. We either get to enjoy our team moving on, or we can shrug our shoulders and say that the us deserved to lose because of *gestures everywhere*

Ecuador looks terrible

Am I crazy or was this mexico game supposed to be on at 8 central?

Last I checked mexico and canada are both north America

Man, y'all are sleeping on burden. I think he easily surpasses rome this year.

The closest compatible value would be to give up someone like loveland or burden, and there's no way the bears would have done that to get Garrett.

I'm going to take a half day on Friday to catch the USA Australia game at a bar. Any good soccer bar recommendations for the western suburbs?

I only want boozer if you can hear him audibly scream "and 1" over the tv broadcast

I like keaton too, but I think boozer has a much higher floor, and a ceiling that is only a bit lower than keaton.

I want caleb wilson, but I will absolutely settle for cam boozer.

I don't know why, maybe I've been reading too much David Roth bluesky lately, but... How do you solve a problem like alcantra?

The TE for sure, wr seems like a johnson/special teams co pick.

Kick returner?

Do you just grab mccoy here?

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not defending it, just trying to rationalize it.

Why would you think kmet would be traded? We used 3 tight ends enough last year that it can work, he will mostly be a blocker. Basically a smythe replacement for now.