[demonrail666]

As the US's talent stock has risen there's an argument that Arena's and Bradley's periods in charge came in the wrong order, that Bradley would've been ideal to set some solid foundations that Arena could've then built on, rather than Arena oversdtretching the modest talent on offer to him and Bradley unnecessarily restraining the undeniable talent of someone like Clint Dempsey. So I tend to think Bradley was necessary for the ongoing evolution of US football rather than a particularly enjoyable contributer to it.

Personally, I'd like to see a player already within the US Team (maybe Donovon or Bocanegra) being groomed to eventually replace Klinsmann; I do think that while Klinsmann is another necessary step forward, US football will benefit longterm from having more of a home grown structure. That might also require the MLS to stop paying ludicrous salaries to aging European and SA players and to stop relying on the university system for player recruitment. If the rest of the world adopted the US's recruitment strategy there'd be no Messi, or Xavi or Ronaldo or almost any player currently leading the pack. America may well be sitting on the next Iniesta but, because he's probably playing in some park in a dodgy part of East LA, we'll almost certainly never know who he is.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

As the US's talent stock has risen there's an argument that Arena's and Bradley's periods in charge came in the wrong order, that Bradley would've been ideal to set some solid foundations that Arena could've then built on, rather than Arena oversdtretching the modest talent on offer to him and Bradley unnecessarily restraining the undeniable talent of someone like Clint Dempsey. So I tend to think Bradley was necessary for the ongoing evolution of US football rather than a particularly enjoyable contributer to it.

Personally, I'd like to see a player already within the US Team (maybe Donovon or Bocanegra) being groomed to eventually replace Klinsmann; I do think that while Klinsmann is another necessary step forward, US football will benefit longterm from having more of a home grown structure. That might also require the MLS to stop paying ludicrous salaries to aging European and SA players and to stop relying on the university system for player recruitment. If the rest of the world adopted the US's recruitment strategy there'd be no Messi, or Xavi or Ronaldo or almost any player currently leading the pack. America may well be sitting on the next Iniesta but, because he's probably playing in some park in a dodgy part of East LA, we'll almost certainly never know who he is.

what you're saying is correct, fucking correct. football is a middle-class sport here in 'merica-- "pay to play", capitalism at its worst. i mean they have these fucking "soccer moms"-- moms? seriously, growing up in the land of magical realism you'd play football to get away from your mom, school, homework, etc.--at least until dinner time. but no, here you have housewives in their minivans driving their kids around from school to training to games, paying for fees, uniforms, gas... and the coaches are people who learned from a book and never played. it's fucking unnatural and wrong. nobody fucking plays in the street the way people do in the rest of the world. and there's the problem. there's a class barrier. on the other hand, you go into any city and people will be shooting hoops all over, there are street games and that's where you grow talent--which is why there are so many great basketball players here.

just the other day watching copa américa the commentators (or whatever you call them) were talking about this new stadium in Argentina, I think it was the Mario Kempes in Córdoba, or maybe it's another one, but they were telling that it's in the middle of a huge park, and you have to walk like almost 2 miles to get to the stadium proper, and all the way down there were people playing football in the park outside the stadium. that's that's the kind of situation we don't get here. it's bizarro land, the poor can't play football because it's too expensive! !!! think tennis, or polo, for fucks sakes.

eh, enough rants. if i were to guess about future coaches maybe it will be bradley II-- he's got the coaching genes and he plays in germany so he's getting the experience his old man lacks. and he's good too! no superstar but pretty fucking decent. so maybe there. or some of the other internationals-- there are tons who are too good to play in the shitty MLS and its ridiculous draft system. but it's the federation officials who need to eat a bag of dicks--maybe we can import some officials. ha ha, here i go again. ok. rant over. interview w/ klinsmann here: http://www.ussoccer.com/

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

eh, enough rants. if i were to guess about future coaches maybe it will be bradley II-- he's got the coaching genes and he plays in germany so he's getting the experience his old man lacks. and he's good too! no superstar but pretty fucking decent. so maybe there. or some of the other internationals-- there are tons who are too good to play in the shitty MLS and its ridiculous draft system. but it's the federation officials who need to eat a bag of dicks--maybe we can import some officials. ha ha, here i go again. ok. rant over. interview w/ klinsmann here: http://www.ussoccer.com/

Re Bradley II, that makes perfect sense. As I said, I think Klinsmann is good for the US game but it has to be a temporary measure. The worst thing that could happen wouild be that he brings a level of success and that consequently the US FA (or whatever it's called) start to apply the logic so rife in the MLS that it will only survive by importing established foreign names. It didn't work in the 70s with the NY Cosmos just as it isn't working now with LA Galaxy. For that to change, though, I suppose the MLS (besides rethinking its recruiting policy) will need a much greater foothold within its national media which currently - from what I can gather - gives more coverage to college football (gridiron) than it does the MLS. It'd be naive of anyone to think that football/soccer in the US could ever be as integral to its national culture as it is in countries like England or Brazil or Italy or Spain but for a country the size of the US and as sports obssessed as it obviously is, it could certainly do more to promote the game domestically than it appears to have done so far. Unless it's just the case that the average American sports fan simply isn't particularly interested in football (of the round ball variety).

[!@#$%!]

yes demoño but in life it's all temporary. i don't see why the coach has to be american-born. this is a country of immigrants for one thing and countries with tradition will hire foreigners. in the recent copa américa there were 4 teams with argentinian coaches: paraguay, chile, bolivia and nerf guest costa rica were managed by argentinians-- besides argentina. peru had a uruguayan (he didn't celebrate the goals against uruguay). paraguay placed 2nd, peru 3rd.

now yes, they are all in the same region, speak the same language, share things in common, so there is not a culture shock. but as long as you can make yourself understood, and can win games, i don't care where people come from-- there are of course those who have been saying the coach has to be american, and objected to klinsmann, but i don't agree with that. i say buy, beg, borrow and steal from everywhere until it works-- let the immigrants keep building the country as always. i don't know what's up with the LA galaxy though because i don't follow the MLS... it's fucking boring!

anyway, i gotta go fry some bell peppers, see you soon!

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

yes demoño but in life it's all temporary. i don't see why the coach has to be american-born. this is a country of immigrants for one thing and countries with tradition will hire foreigners. in the recent copa américa there were 4 teams with argentinian coaches: paraguay, chile, bolivia and nerf guest costa rica were managed by argentinians-- besides argentina. peru had a uruguayan (he didn't celebrate the goals against uruguay). paraguay placed 2nd, peru 3rd.

now yes, they are all in the same region, speak the same language, share things in common, so there is not a culture shock. but as long as you can make yourself understood, and can win games, i don't care where people come from-- there are of course those who have been saying the coach has to be american, and objected to klinsmann, but i don't agree with that. i say buy, beg, borrow and steal from everywhere until it works-- let the immigrants keep building the country as always. i don't know what's up with the LA galaxy though because i don't follow the MLS... it's fucking boring!

anyway, i gotta go fry some bell peppers, see you soon!

You're obviously right. England employ an Italian coach, after all. But England doesn't struggle to maintain a footballing identity amongst its people in the way that the US does. I imagine most Americans still think football is something other countries do very well and any ongoing relience on foreign talent will only reinforce that. America's sports culture (from what I understand) is about winning or nothing. I'm sure it would take the US Team to win the world cup before its media finally woke up but even if it did, without a national hero to pin that victory on, I wonder how interested people would be. Those are all hypotheticals but I do think America's strange relationship with broadly international team sports throw bup some quite unique differences between say England's attitude towards foreign coaches and the US's. And while I think talk of the US winning the WC is obviously somewhat premature, it should be noted that no team has ever won it with a foreign coach. So yeah, I still think Klinsmann is the right move right now but I'd worry if he set a precedent for the future.

[the ikara cult]

I remember reading an article when i was 13 or something saying that if the USA took football as seriously as it does American football and basketball theyd win the World Cup every time. Im not sure i concur with that, but the US has a perfect system in place with the way they use universities for their other sports.

Frankly the way football is run now people are losing faith in the honesty of the organisations by the minute

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by the ikara cult

the US has a perfect system in place with the way they use universities for their other sports.

If British football teams adopted the American method, the prem would be filled with players who looked like Jarvis Cocker.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

You're obviously right. England employ an Italian coach, after all. But England doesn't struggle to maintain a footballing identity amongst its people in the way that the US does. I imagine most Americans still think football is something other countries do very well and any ongoing relience on foreign talent will only reinforce that. America's sports culture (from what I understand) is about winning or nothing. I'm sure it would take the US Team to win the world cup before its media finally woke up but even if it did, without a national hero to pin that victory on, I wonder how interested people would be. Those are all hypotheticals but I do think America's strange relationship with broadly international team sports throw bup some quite unique differences between say England's attitude towards foreign coaches and the US's. And while I think talk of the US winning the WC is obviously somewhat premature, it should be noted that no team has ever won it with a foreign coach. So yeah, I still think Klinsmann is the right move right now but I'd worry if he set a precedent for the future.

oh man, yes, i see where you're coming from, yes. when some olympic games were going on many years ago, there was an irish swimming champion, and i had an irish professor who mentioned he was annoyed that all the american commentators discussed was how the irish swimmer trained in the USA. and yes, americans bing extreme individualists always need a "hero" rather than a good team (the almighty quarterback).

last year we had our "hero" in brandon donovan, people were talking about him all over the place, but the thing is that such celebrity is never long lasting. he had his 15 minutes.

what is lacking here is a popular culture of the sport, and for it to be adopted in the streets as a regular pastime. right now many americans (you've seen some of that here) consider football "sissy", mostly because i think at this point it's associated with moms in minivans and coed teams instead of concussions, leg fractures, broken ribs, oliver kahn, etc. it's not seeing as the combat it is, but rather some sort of organized playground activity with parents swarming all over you.

then again, many american schools don't even have recess anymore, kids just go from class to class preparing for tests. when i was in school we'd had 10 minute breaks between classes, and those would be spent furiously kicking a bal--and each other. i don't know where i'm going with this but gringo children have little physical activity these days. do they play in the street or is it just video games and fuckin "play dates"? you know what the cfuck a "play date" is? fucking ridiculous...

Originally Posted by the ikara cult

I remember reading an article when i was 13 or something saying that if the USA took football as seriously as it does American football and basketball theyd win the World Cup every time. Im not sure i concur with that, but the US has a perfect system in place with the way they use universities for their other sports.

Frankly the way football is run now people are losing faith in the honesty of the organisations by the minute

the university system works well for sports like basketball and american football because college teams are semi-pro, they draw huge audiences and a lot of money and if you get a sports scholarship you're already famous pro teams try to reruit you before you graduate, etc. but who watches college "soccer" ?(i hate that name-- socks?) nobody i know. it's not good enough to be an exciting spectacle. so i think the way to go would be to a) make professional teams more attractive by providing a quality spectacle, and b) developing young players at the team level instead of farming them off to college and then going into a stupid lottery to get them.

regardless, this is going to happen over generations, and it's growing at a grassroots level, in whatever warped way americans do it, and that's where real change is going to come from. usa wold cup champion 2110? -- maybe.

[floatingslowly]

hey, page 54 first time reader here. I'm just discovering that this thread is about SOCCER.

[chicka]

check out this goal by Fabain scored against Barc the other night:

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/baqfV

Soccer has two major problems on why it won't become as big as it should in America:

Scoring is too hard for many Americans they need to be celebrating every other minute or they get bored. Look at Basketball they added the 3 point line, Baseball (AL version) they added the DH, and Football they made the passing game easier by protecting QBs, allowing OL to hold on every play and calling pass interference whenever they can. These days you see more holding called on running plays than passing.

Not enough breaks in Soccer so TV can sell commercial time, the guy watching at home can't get up and get a beer or go take a dump without missing any action. They can't have 55 thousand replays to make someone look like a superstar so they can sell his dam jersey.

If only Soccer could get rid of the divers, it would be the most perfect game on the planet. Scoring should be hard and at a premium. The flow of game should be constant. You should need more than 1 player handling the ball to score. It rocks my world that scoring is so hard yet the net is so huge.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by chicka

check out this goal by Fabain scored against Barc the other night:

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/baqfV

Soccer has two major problems on why it won't become as big as it should in America:

Scoring is too hard for many Americans they need to be celebrating every other minute or they get bored. Look at Basketball they added the 3 point line, Baseball (AL version) they added the DH, and Football they made the passing game easier by protecting QBs, allowing OL to hold on every play and calling pass interference whenever they can. These days you see more holding called on running plays than passing.

Not enough breaks in Soccer so TV can sell commercial time, the guy watching at home can't get up and get a beer or go take a dump without missing any action. They can't have 55 thousand replays to make someone look like a superstar so they can sell his dam jersey.

If only Soccer could get rid of the divers, it would be the most perfect game on the planet. Scoring should be hard and at a premium. The flow of game should be constant. You should need more than 1 player handling the ball to score. It rocks my world that scoring is so hard yet the net is so huge.

wow, amazing video, thanks. re: popularity, i think it's a more basic problem though: the MLS doesn't have goals like this. this was chivas from guadalajara not chivas USA. if 'merica got to see this kind of shit every weekend, people would be glued to the tv in spite of the differences in scoring and format. a low-scoring game is only boring when the playing sucks and the goals aren't worth the wait.

the beer: everyone around the world drinks it watching sports, lack of commercials is not an obstacle. and in fútbol you get 15 minutes in between to make a sandwich. the commercial interruptions are one big reason i don't watch the nfl-- fucking annoying. drags on forever. the other reason is that every play gets recalled by 1,000 cameras watching so you never know what's going on until the almighty replay confirms it. it's like watching evidence being disputed in trial-- if my eyes can't more or less trust what's going on, there's no point in watching.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by chicka

Not enough breaks in Soccer so TV can sell commercial time, the guy watching at home can't get up and get a beer or go take a dump without missing any action. They can't have 55 thousand replays to make someone look like a superstar so they can sell his dam jersey.

I read that and immediately thought of this. Where would an action replay even begin? And who was the star?

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

fucking bradley learned to coach fútbol from a book.

which i'm guessing was missing the chapter on this!

[demonrail666]

America, your footballing future is secure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36pYZl2jTNI&NR=1

[jon boy]

leeds v southampton tomorrow, i reckons we are gonna thrash them. but remember its a marathon not a sprint.

[chicka]

Thanks Demon for the 25 pass video. I could hear American fans screaming their heads off every time a diagonal or backwards pass was made - "Go forward you dummies how to expect to score going backwards?". After this weekend it's on. What I hope to see the most? King Kenny deliver another championship to Anfield!

[demonrail666]

I'd like Arsenal, Liverpool or Man City to win the title, all for v different reasons, but I can't see it happening.

West Ham v Cardiff live on the BBC on Sunday. Predicting a WH win with absolutely no confidence whatsoever.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by jon boy

leeds v southampton tomorrow, i reckons we are gonna thrash them. but remember its a marathon not a sprint.

A depressing start for both of us, then.

[_slavo_]

Congrats to the glorious comeback of Man Utd in the second half.

Stunning match.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by jon boy

leeds v southampton tomorrow, i reckons we are gonna thrash them. but remember its a marathon not a sprint.

How do you see tomorrow's game against West Ham going?

[the ikara cult]

I leave Vorm and Ryan Taylor on the bench, and they get 25 points between them. My fantasy team is cursed this season.