Futbol Talk

[GGGG]

I'm really excited for Copa America 2016

Has this been approved by FIFA yet?  If not, the clubs aren't required to release players to their national teams.  Since this is basically an exhibition (because a Confederations Cup spot is not at stake), and directly conflicts with Euro 2016, I am not sure it becomes an official event - which may mean the top players skip it.

[jesmu84]

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/world-cup-pass-move-the-boys-of-summer/

http://www.espnfc.com/blog/men-in-blazers/95/post/1928653/bennett-despite-exitus-has-bright-futu

http://www.espnfc.us/team/united-states/660/blog/post/1928591/future-of-us-outshines-the-present

BTW, forgot to mention that Tim Howard had one of the best performances by a GK or, really, any position, ever yesterday. Just incredible.

[Henry Sugar]

Has this been approved by FIFA yet?  If not, the clubs aren't required to release players to their national teams.  Since this is basically an exhibition (because a Confederations Cup spot is not at stake), and directly conflicts with Euro 2016, I am not sure it becomes an official event - which may mean the top players skip it.

No, it's not official yet. And I agree with everything you say if it's not official/approved, which would mean my enthusiasm... diminishes

[brandx]

BTW, forgot to mention that Tim Howard had one of the best performances by a GK or, really, any position, ever yesterday. Just incredible.

As a non-soccer fan trying to be interested, that was the only positive I saw in the tournament for the US. We were completely and utterly dominated in both of the last two games, and without the play of Howard, we would all be bemoaning the sad state of American soccer. Could easily have been a 4-0 or 5-0 game yesterday.

[mu03eng]

Do not disagree with this at all.  My point is the next step is a really big one.  In the meantime, you keep building brick by brick, get better athletes committed to the game, etc.  That next step is big, it is also really difficult.

What is the next step to you?  And by what metric are we measuring the meeting of this next step?

The US faced a very tough group, even if you don't want to call them such, had to travel the most of anyone in the field, played in some very challenging conditions and advanced to the Round of 16 for the 2nd cup in a row (only 8 other teams have done that).  They nearly stole the game to advance to the Quarters.

Yes there is work to do and improvements to be made but there is talent and capability there and into the future.  Look at the backline, what was once a question mark is now very solid barring a catastrophic injury or two.  Midfield should be pretty solid and the forwards should get better with time.  There is a very strong core that needs depth to build behind it.

Could the US step back, sure...but they could just as likely step forward in the next 4 years.  I don't follow what objective criteria you are following that allows you to say as a "realist" that they have a long way to go.

[jesmu84]

I think Chicos has the same opinion as Bill Barnwell of Grantland:

"After the loss Tuesday, pundits seemed to agree on the next step for the United States. We know the Americans can compete with the best teams in the world. The next level is to compete with them without having to rely on overly defensive tactics and goalkeeping heroics. That requires more creative, skillful players in attack."

[jesmu84]

I keep coming up with more thoughts:

-Not surprised Wondo missed. I was mad that he even made the roster. That was a classic poacher's goal that he has to put away. As his reputation precedes him, he missed. Crap. As was spoken about earlier, should the media/fans be absolutely going nuts on the guy who made it to Brazil for the sole reason of scoring and he couldn't convert? Is that an indictment on where we are as a soccer culture in the US?

-That set piece that almost tied it up was beautiful. Clint was a missed touch away from being a hero again.

-I'm buying a Yedlin jersey. Maybe a Green jersey.

[GGGG]

I keep coming up with more thoughts:

-Not surprised Wondo missed. I was mad that he even made the roster. That was a classic poacher's goal that he has to put away. As his reputation precedes him, he missed. Crap. As was spoken about earlier, should the media/fans be absolutely going nuts on the guy who made it to Brazil for the sole reason of scoring and he couldn't convert? Is that an indictment on where we are as a soccer culture in the US?

Does Donovan make that goal?

[jesmu84]

Does Donovan make that goal?

I don't know. I don't know if any of the cut 7 do. But that wasn't really my point.

another good article: https://medium.com/the-cauldron/the-last-time-we-die-bravely-4e4e2efd5997

Lots of intriguing thoughts about the future: https://twitter.com/John_Infante

[ChicosBailBonds]

Our group was the group of death. Don't care who said it or when. All 4 teams would have made other groups tougher.

The same system used to label it the group of death when the pairings came out was updated with new rankings, showing it is no longer the group of death.

Kind of ironic. 

[Henry Sugar]

I keep coming up with more thoughts:

-Not surprised Wondo missed. I was mad that he even made the roster. That was a classic poacher's goal that he has to put away. As his reputation precedes him, he missed. Crap. As was spoken about earlier, should the media/fans be absolutely going nuts on the guy who made it to Brazil for the sole reason of scoring and he couldn't convert? Is that an indictment on where we are as a soccer culture in the US?

I think that your link on the future vs the present highlights that a little bit. However, I also think that a lot of the perspective is that Belgium totally deserved to win.

39 shots by Belgium!

http://thebiglead.com/2014/07/02/gif-heres-a-look-at-all-the-shots-belgium-took-against-the-u-s/

related: This article tells a tale of three parts.

Part one: 0-60 min (Slight advantage for Belgium, with xG 0.7 - 1.2)
Part two: 60-105 (Belgium dominates, xG 0.6 - 2.8)
Part three: 105-120 (US rallies but it's not enough, xG 1.5 - 0.4)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2014/07/02/what-went-wrong-for-the-u-s-against-belgium/

[ttheisen]

My two great sport passions are Marquette Basketball and the USMNT.  The parallels of supporting these two teams is interesting:

- Rosters turnover every year, but in general, there is an approximately 4 year cycle

- My expectation is to perform and compete for league championship, do well in tournaments and compete in the biggest competition
++ MUBB - compete for, occasionally win the Big East conference.  Compete for, occasionally win the Big East Tournament.  Look good and make the sweet sixteen in the NCAA tournament
++ USMNT - compete for, and generally qualify for the World Cup.  Compete for, and generally win, the Gold Cup.  Battle in the group stage, and make the knock out (also sweet 16) of the World Cup

- In both cases, the dream of winning the big tournament (NCAA and WC) seems very far away

- In both cases, the reason it seems very far away is talent

Because of all of the above, I have chosen to focus on the achievable / accessible areas of fan-dom for each team.  I absolutely love going to the Big East tournament, and USMNT WC Qualifiers, for example.   Falling short of winning March Madness and the World Cup is never really a concern of mine.  Someday, perhaps, that will be a realistic goal; but it's not now.  Right now, I enjoy the journey of each team, and getting to know the constantly changing cast of players.

[jesmu84]

I think that your link on the future vs the present highlights that a little bit. However, I also think that a lot of the perspective is that Belgium totally deserved to win.

39 shots by Belgium!

http://thebiglead.com/2014/07/02/gif-heres-a-look-at-all-the-shots-belgium-took-against-the-u-s/

related: This article tells a tale of three parts.

Part one: 0-60 min (Slight advantage for Belgium, with xG 0.7 - 1.2)
Part two: 60-105 (Belgium dominates, xG 0.6 - 2.8)
Part three: 105-120 (US rallies but it's not enough, xG 1.5 - 0.4)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2014/07/02/what-went-wrong-for-the-u-s-against-belgium/

No disagreement here. But, just like Ghana, even though they should have won, we had the chance and needed to convert. We didn't. Oh well I guess

[mu03eng]

I think that your link on the future vs the present highlights that a little bit. However, I also think that a lot of the perspective is that Belgium totally deserved to win.

39 shots by Belgium!

http://thebiglead.com/2014/07/02/gif-heres-a-look-at-all-the-shots-belgium-took-against-the-u-s/

related: This article tells a tale of three parts.

Part one: 0-60 min (Slight advantage for Belgium, with xG 0.7 - 1.2)
Part two: 60-105 (Belgium dominates, xG 0.6 - 2.8)
Part three: 105-120 (US rallies but it's not enough, xG 1.5 - 0.4)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2014/07/02/what-went-wrong-for-the-u-s-against-belgium/

That's the beauty of soccer, there is no such thing as a team deserving to win.  You can look at all the stats but the score in just about every sport but soccer and get the winning team right 95% of the time...not the same with soccer.

FYI 67.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

[Henry Sugar]

For all the talk of the US not having enough talent, the U20 WC and the Olympics, in particular, should be interesting to follow.

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/7/1/5862612/us-soccer-2015-gold-cup-womens-world-cup

Lots of intriguing thoughts about the future: https://twitter.com/John_Infante

I very much enjoyed this.

[Henry Sugar]

That's the beauty of soccer, there is no such thing as a team deserving to win.  You can look at all the stats but the score in just about every sport but soccer and get the winning team right 95% of the time...not the same with soccer.

FYI 67.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

There's just higher variance between what should happen and what does happen in soccer, but there's still a good correlation between a team that should win and a team that does win.

[ChicosBailBonds]

What is the next step to you?  And by what metric are we measuring the meeting of this next step?

The US faced a very tough group, even if you don't want to call them such, had to travel the most of anyone in the field, played in some very challenging conditions and advanced to the Round of 16 for the 2nd cup in a row (only 8 other teams have done that).  They nearly stole the game to advance to the Quarters.

Yes there is work to do and improvements to be made but there is talent and capability there and into the future.  Look at the backline, what was once a question mark is now very solid barring a catastrophic injury or two.  Midfield should be pretty solid and the forwards should get better with time.  There is a very strong core that needs depth to build behind it.

Could the US step back, sure...but they could just as likely step forward in the next 4 years.  I don't follow what objective criteria you are following that allows you to say as a "realist" that they have a long way to go.

First, I didn't call it a non-tough group or easy or anything of the kind.  Merely, it wasn't necessarily the group of death that it was positioned as up front.  Tough group, we did well.

If we would have won yesterday, it would absolutely been a steal, but sometimes the best team doesn't always win in sports and certainly Belgium would have felt that way yesterday.


Next step for me is having the ability to go on the field knowing in advance that we are close to equal at every position for the starters.  Depth is always going to be an issue, and I suspect having us lineup man for man 1 through 23 isn't going to happen in my lifetime.  The problem as I see it today is we typically only have 3 to 5 guys as our starters that could make any of the high quality teams.  Very few of our guys could start on other high quality teams.  Doesn't mean our guys aren't good, just a half step below.  Think about it as AAA baseball, where there are some damn good players and many of them come up to the bigs and do some great things, but day in and day out they are just a slight grade lower.  That's certainly better than some of the teams we've had which were probably closer to A ball.

I look at positions like goalie, where we have done well over the years and this gets back to athleticism and traditional American sports.  I see it with my own son, who was a shortstop growing, solid volleyball player, WR in football, and is a goalie on his high school team as a freshman.  Being a goalie requires good hand, eye coordination, along with other athletic traits and kids who play other sports do well with.  One of the first things one of the Olympic Development coaches told me when watching him was "I'll bet he was a good baseball player, right?"  The answer was yes, because he had the footwork and positioning from that sport to help him with soccer.  It's the other positions that don't translate quite as well, in my opinion, that we have to get better at, and part of that is having better athletes. 

I'll give you one further personal anecdote.  When I was younger, I played for a California select team that toured Denmark and West Germany in soccer.  We were quite good, we thought.  We did well in the competition overseas, much to the surprise of our hosts.  The next year, the West Germans came to California to play us.  It was a bloodbath.  We were so outclassed it was incredible, despite playing toe to toe with them the year prior and winning most of our games.  When they decided to take it seriously, it was annihilation.  I was fortunate enough to play with and against guys that ended up on the US national team later in life.  Today, those guys probably couldn't make the US National team, and that is progress alone, but until we can get 5 to 7 guys on the field that would start for those other teams, and say another 5 to 8 guys on the field that would at least make those other teams, we have a long way to go.

[ChicosBailBonds]

That's the beauty of soccer, there is no such thing as a team deserving to win.  You can look at all the stats but the score in just about every sport but soccer and get the winning team right 95% of the time...not the same with soccer.

FYI 67.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Many futbol purists would disagree with that statement.  In fact, I would argue it's the one sport more than any in which many people feel exactly that way.  A team can dominate, but one random breakaway or fluke own goal can mean a bad result.  It can happen in hockey to some extent and even baseball to a lesser extent, but with soccer it is often expressed in Europe and South America around terms of what team deserved to win.

[ChicosBailBonds]

My two great sport passions are Marquette Basketball and the USMNT.  The parallels of supporting these two teams is interesting:

- Rosters turnover every year, but in general, there is an approximately 4 year cycle

- My expectation is to perform and compete for league championship, do well in tournaments and compete in the biggest competition
++ MUBB - compete for, occasionally win the Big East conference.  Compete for, occasionally win the Big East Tournament.  Look good and make the sweet sixteen in the NCAA tournament
++ USMNT - compete for, and generally qualify for the World Cup.  Compete for, and generally win, the Gold Cup.  Battle in the group stage, and make the knock out (also sweet 16) of the World Cup

- In both cases, the dream of winning the big tournament (NCAA and WC) seems very far away

- In both cases, the reason it seems very far away is talent

Because of all of the above, I have chosen to focus on the achievable / accessible areas of fan-dom for each team.  I absolutely love going to the Big East tournament, and USMNT WC Qualifiers, for example.   Falling short of winning March Madness and the World Cup is never really a concern of mine.  Someday, perhaps, that will be a realistic goal; but it's not now.  Right now, I enjoy the journey of each team, and getting to know the constantly changing cast of players.

Definitely some similarities, but you are much closer on the MU side than the WC side. MU can and has had some of the top players in call of college basketball on their team, while the US rarely, if ever can say that in soccer.  For hoops, having 1, 2 or 3 guys can make all the difference in the world, where soccer it requires more talent in volume.

Soccer is also a more difficult game to breakthrough, where Cinderella exists with the crap shoot that is college basketball.  You don't see a Butler type run happening in the World Cup.  In the last 10 WC finals, spanning 40 years the finalists have been Italy, Germany, Brazil, France, Spain, Argentina and the Dutch.  That's it. Go back another few decades, and Uruguay, Hungary, the Czechs and England's one appearance, but the list is small.  The powers are the powers.

[ttheisen]

Definitely some similarities, but you are much closer on the MU side than the WC side. MU can and has had some of the top players in call of college basketball on their team, while the US rarely, if ever can say that in soccer.  For hoops, having 1, 2 or 3 guys can make all the difference in the world, where soccer it requires more talent in volume.

Soccer is also a more difficult game to breakthrough, where Cinderella exists with the crap shoot that is college basketball.  You don't see a Butler type run happening in the World Cup.  In the last 10 WC finals, spanning 40 years the finalists have been Italy, Germany, Brazil, France, Spain, Argentina and the Dutch.  That's it. Go back another few decades, and Uruguay, Hungary, the Czechs and England's one appearance, but the list is small.  The powers are the powers.

100% agree with all points.

Also, with hoops, you at least have the opportunity to recruit the highest level talent.  With International soccer it's not like you can just magically make players eligible for your country (not yet at least; looking at you FIFA).

[ChicosBailBonds]

"We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet," "For us, we have to play the game of our lives seven times to win the tournament."
-Klinsmann


That, is reality.  That is not someone being negative.  That is someone as a realist.  

It's not what is said here, it is who says the what.

[Henry Sugar]

That, is reality.  That is not someone being negative.  That is someone as a realist.  

It's not what is said here, it is who says the what.

Being called Eeyore really bugged you, huh?

[jesmu84]

"We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet," "For us, we have to play the game of our lives seven times to win the tournament."
-Klinsmann


That, is reality.  That is not someone being negative.  That is someone as a realist.  

It's not what is said here, it is who says the what.

Did anyone here actually say we could win the whole thing? or that anyone expected that?

[Golden Avalanche]

Did anyone here actually say we could win the whole thing? or that anyone expected that?

Of course not. But, as with everything, it has to be about positioning themselves against the majority whether logically or not.

Back to actual events, anyone harbor ill will for Gonzo's weak clearance effort on the first goal?
Anyone harbor ill will against Besler for being muscled by Lukaku on the first and caught napping on Lukaku's run for the second?
Anyone harbor ill will when the US needed ball control and some creativity we didn't see Mix?
Anyone harbor ill will we didn't see Mix for one minute in this Cup?
Anyone harbor ill will against Eric Wynalda and his ass-hattery?

[ChicosBailBonds]

Being called Eeyore really bugged you, huh?

Actually what bugs me is people's daily incorrect understanding of the difference between reality, pessimism and opportunism.  Look a lot of people called Klinsmann negative, a lot of people were wrong.  Like you in this case.