General Soccer Discussion

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#154      

blmillini

Bloomington, IL
Eric Wynalda and Landon Donovan give their thoughts on last night's loss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOksFCLRo_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yZQWv-7N_I

Wynalda does bring up a great point about the women's sooccer program and how they are able to contend due to how they are organized, especially on the collegiate level.

They are able to contend because some of the best female athletes choose to play soccer. The best male athletes choose to play football, baseball and basketball.
 
#155      

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign
Phoenix, AZ
They are able to contend because some of the best female athletes choose to play soccer. The best male athletes choose to play football, baseball and basketball.
This. And until that changes the US will pretty much always be an also-ran in soccer.
 
#156      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
#157      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
I honestly think Klinsmann would've figured it out. He's a smart coach. He liked to expirement at times, but he would've figured it out.

Arena had a very telling quote after the game tonight. I'm not going to look it up word for word but something along the lines of "If we did qualify for the World Cup, we would've needed to make a lot of changes." He basically admitted he knew this squad wasn't the strongest, but he was afraid to change anything. Which to me is just mind blowing and inexcusable. He was scared. Arena is a joke and the USSF is a joke.

Anyway, back to Klinsmann...he was the perfect coach for the US. Somebody who thinks outside the box and wants to do something creative. US soccer is at this weird stage where they are almost good, but not quite. And they've been at this stage for about 15 years now. They need something different (like Klinsmann) to get them over the hump. Unfortunately, the USSF never accepted him because he spoke the truth about MLS and they got butthurt.

But anyway, I just feel bad for the players. They can't play this game forever, and 4 years is a long long time for an athlete. They deserve better leadership.

Klinsmann failed. He deserved being canned.

Arena was obviously a stop gap. He failed too.

But the biggest failure is the players. Time to clean house. Post 30 players need to be put to pasture.
 
#158      

Peoria Illini

Peoria, IL
Klinsmann failed. He deserved being canned.

Arena was obviously a stop gap. He failed too.

But the biggest failure is the players. Time to clean house. Post 30 players need to be put to pasture.

Klinsmann had lost the locker room, he was done.

Post 27 year old players should be put out to pasture. There were only 5 of the 23 players on the last roster list that will be under 30 for Qatar. Might as well start in March (I don't see us playing any friendlies in the November window) with youth and go from there. I'm sure there will be a line of World Cup qualifying nations that would like to play a friendly or two with the US prior to Russia.
 
#159      
The collegiate level is NOT how we are going to step up.

It can be if the USSF and NCAA are willing to work together. There are 3 big problems with college soccer.

-The only play for 4 months, Aug-Nov. Most of the world is playing pretty much year round. Make the season Aug-Apr/May

-College rules are much different than general FIFA rules. Make them the same

-Coaching is sub/par. The USSF should provide training/support to improve coaching.

Change those things and more talent could be produced. But the NCAA will only do that if there is a cash incentive, and that might not be possible. IDK.
 
#160      
Klinsmann failed. He deserved being canned.

Arena was obviously a stop gap. He failed too.

But the biggest failure is the players. Time to clean house. Post 30 players need to be put to pasture.

Klinsmann failed and he had to be canned, but he didn't deserve it. He came in and was critical about US Soccer and MLS. The USSF and MLS hated him, and were just waiting for him to slip up so they could get rid of him.

But the fact is he was doing well for the first few years. He beat multiple European teams and got out of the group of death. In 2014 he had the US playing better than ever and we were arguably top 10 in the world. But the toxic relationship with the USSF was never going to last, and that fault falls solely on the federation's shoulders.
 
#163      

Peoria Illini

Peoria, IL
The U-17s won 5 to 0 over Paraquay this morning over in the U17 World Cup in India. Move on to the quarterfinals where they play the winner of tomorrow's England/Japan game. QF game is on Oct 21st. Games are usually on FS1 or FS2.
 
#164      

Team20Illini

Halfway between Chicago and Rockford
Fait accompli. The hard part is, who's going to replace him? Big decision, obviously.

I also wonder how quickly they will make a decision. Different long term solutions may be available after Russia 2018, if they want to find a short term solution for the interim.
 
#165      

KBLEE

Montgomery, IL
Tottenham goes to Santiago Bernabeu and gets a 1-1 draw with Real Madrid. The result puts Spurs at the top of the Group of Death based on today's away goal.
 
#166      
I also wonder how quickly they will make a decision. Different long term solutions may be available after Russia 2018, if they want to find a short term solution for the interim.

This is what I'm hoping for. No need to make a quick decision. We do play Portugal on Nov 14th and it will be extremely interesting to see what the roster will look like. US soccer fandom on social media might explode if we guys like Zusi, Bedoya, Rimando, etc

I'm fine with bringing in guys like Howard, Bradley, and Dempsey but they need to be told that they won't be playing and are being called up to provide leadership and professionalism in the camp.
 
#167      

SalukiIllini

Evansville, IN
Klinsmann failed. He deserved being canned.

Arena was obviously a stop gap. He failed too.

But the biggest failure is the players. Time to clean house. Post 30 players need to be put to pasture.

He only really dropped 3expected points. I don’t think he failed. He likely would have made the World Cup. He sure as hell wouldn’t have sat Geoff Cameron during the most important game of the year and watch Gonzales boot it into our net.
 
#168      

wettsten

Chicago
big sam allardyce and laurent blanc have both expressed interest in the USMNT job.
 
#170      

SalukiIllini

Evansville, IN
I don’t trust Gulati to make the right decision.

Allardyce developer Yedlin so he wouldn’t be awful. (Don’t want him tho)

The president of the federation isn’t a paid position. Until that happens our candidates for that will be weak.
 
#171      

Team20Illini

Halfway between Chicago and Rockford
So much has to change....

Just doing some digging and I realized there's only 120-130 scouts reporting to 10 technical advisors. Way too few given the size of our youth soccer system in this country.

Need a president focused on making the changes that could potentially identify those talented youth players in order to get them into an academy or the correct program to build their abilities.
 
#172      

wettsten

Chicago
I don’t trust Gulati to make the right decision.

Allardyce developer Yedlin so he wouldn’t be awful. (Don’t want him tho)

The president of the federation isn’t a paid position. Until that happens our candidates for that will be weak.

apparently landon donovan has expressed interest in gulati's job.
 
#173      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
I'd love David Wagner to take the manager job. Sadly, I think there's no chance. Guy has an American dad and had a cup of coffee with the USMNT. And, yeah, he's a fantastic manager.
 
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#175      

KBLEE

Montgomery, IL
Real Madrid had never lost to an English team in the Champions League group stage...until today. Tottenham, as one of the announcers put it, "made the reigning champions look ordinary" in their 3-1 win at Wembley. Spurs advance to the knockout stage.
 
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