usmnt

congratulations to jones, lichaj, and brek shea on their callups

Oct. 9, 2010 U.S. Men vs. Poland 7 p.m. CT Soldier Field
Chicago, Ill. Fox Soccer Channel & Galavision
Oct. 12, 2010 U.S. Men vs. Colombia 8 p.m. ET PPL Park
Chester, Pa. ESPN2 & Galavision

Goin' to the Poland game w/ about 50 or so S8 folx including a bunch of Polish fans, should be fun.

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/news/newsid=1310662.html?cid=rssfeed&att=

Germany coach Joachim Low is concerned that next week's UEFA EURO 2012 qualifier against Turkey in Berlin could be an away game for his side given the amount of Turks living in the German capital.

hi dere welcome to our world

That should be a terrific match - those are two fabulous attacking sides.

lol thought u were talking abt us and poland for a sec and was like Whut

http://www.blending-mashine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/tumblr_krkj2njh001qzpwi0o1_500.jpg

a 4-2-3-1 is intriguing, tho I don't know if they can play like that yet

would be good to try and get more midfielders out there, our 1 strong suit

Ives had a 4-3-2-1 xmas tree posted with Jones, Bradley, and Edu as the 3... just call that one "the bone-cruncher"

btw Bradley on the late run to goal is one of my favorite sights to see w/ these guys

hi dere welcome to our world

yeah

also cosign on the potential of that game

just learned Lichaj's from Chicago and his parents are Polish immigrants

wish he would grow his hair back out
http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/unc/sports/m-soccer/auto_headshot/573906.jpeg

report on Charlie Davies' comeback and some o_O scar pics

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5655430/soccer-us-forward-charlie-davies-talks-recovery-espn-magazine

lineup
4-5-1 w/ edu at centerback huh

Howard;
Cherundolo, Onyewu, Edu, Bocanegra;
Jones, Bradley, Holden, Dempsey, Feilhaber;
Altidore.

i'll be curious to see how high dempsey plays. and gooch is really ready for this, is he? wanna see lichaj at some point

Does anyone else think the US goal was offside? I'm heavily medicated with Nyquil and my eyes are burning but F thought it was.

from that camera angle it sure seemed so.

gooch is driving me crazy, booting it out of the back

bedoya for feilhaber, is that all we've got as far as possible forward-looking changes?

^wrote at halftime but could have said it later tbh

huh. jones looked good, physical, except for his fuckup. same with holden, great except for his fuckup. so many chances, both jozy's and the set pieces. thank god for tim howard

fun times, good seats, lots and lots of poles

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs368.ash2/64641_444156571895_509986895_5400916_6674090_n.jpg

they looked like a team with a bunch of guys who don't quite know how to play together yet, and I still am not sure if 4-5-1 is something they can pull off. jones/holden were fun to watch tho.

http://worldsoccerreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/JJwhiteboard.png

What do you guys do with those things?

nod sagely

i'm still trying to learn how to watch the game. i want to understand a midfielder's most common passing locations. i want to see passing lanes before they develop. this was jones' first game with us. does the visual representation match what i saw on tv? what doesn't the chart tell me (in this case, about his physicality) ? if i look at enough of these what patterns will i see? i have so much trouble comparing two players against two different teams, could this help?

where, how, and who did he link up with? (have to reach to remember the who) what was his average pass length?

i'm american, i love stats and charts, this chart may not tell me much but can we be so sure that the tenth or hundreth chart won't reveal something? we never know where tactical breakthroughs are going to come, who will see the game differently. i will stick to national type and hope it's us lol

^ could totally get behind this level of analysis for spurs, tbh. the analysis of what players do that works during a game. i bet mourinho is up to his neck in this shit.

I assume you meant Allardyce

easy mistake to make, that

I'm not knocking the concept either btw - if there's going to be some revolutionary development in the game (there only appears to ever have been two so far as I can tell) then I'm pretty persuaded that it'll come from some kind of synthesis of this and set-plays. I'm sure not going to be able to spot it though.

i think it's fair to speculate that improvement on a systemic level can come from the analysis of repeated actions

/banaka

what were those two revolutionary developments ismael ?

442, sam allardyce

I've written about them before, but basically:

(i) the Scottish passing game taking over from kick-and-rush around the 1880s; and
(ii) the whole pressing/offside trap/possession system of Ajax in the 1960s.

We're basically still exploring the world invented by (ii). There's a terrific book (Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson) looking at the development of tactics through the ages, not sure if it'll've reached your shores Jibe. There are lots of interesting innovations discussed in it, but those two seem to be the big ones. The others usually mostly happen every few years when one guy stands in a slightly different position, and everyone else gets confused

And that's my 10,000th post. It's been a pleasure, I'd like to thank my agent, etc.

congrats, it was worthy imo

ok thx. that book looks quite interesting, will try and get ahold of it as soon as my finances allow me to.

football finances thread

It's a great read, enlightened me to many things + helped me relate my hockey tactical knowledge to similarities on the pitch.

apparently Spector is starting tonight, should be a lot of other changes too

also lol @ < 10k tickets sold for this match, wtf

apparently Spector is starting tonight

GAAHHHHHHHH

we are mediocre huh. lucky for us colombia is so far too

i love edu's composure on the ball. he doesn't make me start drumming my fingers nervously in possession.
it seems like holden out wide takes away a lot of what's best about him: getting involved, cutting into passing lanes. you'd think the idea would be he'd send in crosses from out wide, but i don't think he's had a cross yet.

EJ for jozy? lichaj for spector (hey, he was only burned twice! not bad). any other changes?

lichaj looked good
ummm, other positives?

(we need to put it down on record that our first shot on goal was in the 55th minute)

I was at the Fire/KC game so I missed this. Doesn't sound like much of note. From the descriptions I've read/heard it sounded like a 4-3-3? Last time I saw that Costa Rica kicked their ass.

yeah i guess it was a 4-3-3, in the first half. jozy was so marooned and alone i'm tempted to call it 4-3-2-1. but i'm bad with formations. brek shea looked okay, not totally outclassed at this level with his first cap, so that's something. EJ came in at HT and edu went out (i think, i missed some) so the formation changed but i'm not sure how. the second half was better, dempsey with some spark, but yeah, you didn't miss much.

the pronunciation of Lichaj's name sounds exactly the same a "lihai" （厉害） which is a common slang word in Chinese that means "awesome."

same for (Luis) Figo in Italian (actually 'fico', but close enough) - any other examples?

country, either, heh

Honestly there's a pretty big part of me that is okay with not having a big nationalistic event in the current climate.

Bringing back Bruce Arena felt like a step backwards imo

Yeah but the problems are much deeper than him.

Big Sam for usmnt coach

I've been busy, has anyone been fired or resigned yet?

Nobody out yet, but it has to be coming. This was pretty spot on from Wahl: https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/11/us-soccer-sunil-gulati-president-usmnt-world-cup-qualifying-failure

The idea of Julie Foudy at the top of the organization is very interesting. Our women know how to win.

ok this is great

This tweet is very funny to a specific set of soccer fans. pic.twitter.com/F75m2NCidy

— Shawn Francis (@TheOffsideRules) October 12, 2017

This was pretty spot on from Wahl

Sure, but at this point it's not a whole lot crazier than anything else people are suggesting.

Arena out, Gulati sticking around.

“It’s not the proper day to talk about my personal future with the federation,” Gulati said.

really?

The next elections are in February, the position is unpaid, and he allegedly makes a shitton of money off his travel business (which, surprise, does most of USSF's bookings) and his position with the Revs.

The one good thing I've noticed is more and more of the top journalists covering the federation (Wahl, Goff, the Howler guys, etc) getting much more critical with their coverage of his roles.

Setting aside the fifth-most lucrative sport in the country stuff, would Americans find the European academy system of development palatable? Taking 8-year olds out of school for academy schooling and booting them if they don't improve enough, etc..

In youth baseball there's a movement to make it less of a year round sport - are soccer parents going to be okay with turning it INTO a 10-month sport?

Serious soccer parents are already off the deep end imo, adding months to the season doesn’t seem like a tipping point for that crowd, at least not to me.

those academies are kinda morally questionable, idk if 'maybe we just need to be throwing young kids into a machine so 1% come out good at soccer' is a great solution.

AFAIK there are already Euro style academies here, the problem is they've only existed for a few years and they're competing with pay-to-play clubs and coaches who have been around a lot longer, and hence pull more weight. The goal for a lot of people is getting a college scholarship, not becoming a pro.

I agree about the academies but I'm also not invested in the USMNT being particularly competitive - I'm happy enough supporting some other country I have a vague rooting interest in when the World Cup rolls around.

Big Sam for usmnt coach

― Well bissogled trotters (Michael B), Wednesday, October 11, 2017 8:01 AM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sam Allardyce has put himself forward to be the next U.S. national team manager.@MarkOgden_ https://t.co/LcoXStpUur pic.twitter.com/dsrctE20o8

— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) October 17, 2017

There's a module ready to be delivered.

this is getting silly

Sam Allardyce is your betting favorite to succeed Bruce Arena as USA coach with Cabbage Man Capello on offer at a tasty 25/1, per BetVictor. pic.twitter.com/1A1lgZTx3T

— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) October 19, 2017

Tab Ramos or Peter Vermes have to be the favorites from that list

they should go with an outsider, like bob dylan.

To recap:

USSF has lame-duck president with 8 possible replacements and no clear front-runner

A caretaker in charge of #usmnt for foreseeable future

No World Cup this summer

And now a promising young MF from junior national teams jumping to archrival Mexico

Good times

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) January 8, 2018

although nicely done eric lichaj, mentioned in the OP

Out of his mind! 🤯 @EricLichaj nets a beauty to bag his brace vs. Arsenal.https://t.co/nYWgudbL2x

— U.S. Soccer MNT (@ussoccer_mnt) January 7, 2018

A friend works for USSoccer's PR office and put a lot of work into making these videos which imo are very good and worth watching.

https://www.ussoccer.com/RISING

Eric Wynalda lost his home in the latest SoCal wildfires

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/aztecs/sd-sp-eric-wynalda-house-fire-westlake-village-20181109-story,amp.html

Just when you think USSF couldn't get any weirder: https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/12/06/us-soccer-foundation-federation-lawsuit-ussf

The U.S. Soccer Foundation, an independent charitable organization that has invested $125 million over the last 25 years to provide access to soccer, largely in minority and low-income communities, sued the U.S. Soccer Federation on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Ed Foster-Simeon, the president and CEO of the U.S. Soccer Foundation, told SI.com he was stunned in August when U.S. Soccer requested a meeting in which it said it was ending the relationship between the two organizations—the federation president has always sat on the foundation’s board—and demanded that the foundation abandon the name “U.S. Soccer Foundation” and its logos.

Also, new coach!

6-0!

Lol @ that Boyd miss

Lol

Lol

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal), Tuesday, October 15, 2019 9:59 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Like dear god CANADA?

Players don't respect/like the coach, plus most aren't as good as they think they are.

Berhalter era off to a swimming start.

gahh glad i didnt watch

https://www.thenation.com/article/us-soccer-latino-neglect/

Yup

https://theathletic.com/1448748/2019/12/17/

There’s a water fountain at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina, a Most Dependable Fountains model SD440 that lost its factory luster long ago. After two decades under the Carolina sun, the silvery sheen on this unassuming bubbler has dulled a bit, its age marked by patches of rust. You can push the button on its side, but don’t expect to be refreshed — the fountain now runs dry.

The SD440 may be forlorn, but it certainly isn’t forgotten. In the spring of 2002, at the very moment that a 20-year-old Landon Donovan leaned in to let its water ripple over his lips, the fountain took its part in perhaps the most memorable photograph ever taken in the history of U.S. men’s soccer. It’s a photograph — you know the one — that remains a running joke among U.S. soccer fans, part of a larger collection of photos that graced the New York Times Magazine in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup. The photos — highly-stylized fashion shots of Donovan, Pablo Mastroeni, Clint Mathis, Brian McBride, DaMarcus Beasley, Cobi Jones and Kasey Keller — remain notorious to this day. More often than not, they’re derided, reduced to an afterthought or a punchline, fodder for trash talk or parody. And yet they’re still referenced, kept alive in the public consciousness, blown up by fans and brought into stadiums around the country.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2002/05/23/magazine/26fash-slide3.jpg

Average age: 22 years 48 days, fourth-youngest starting lineup in USMNT history.

Average caps: 8.

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) November 12, 2020

pulisic and sargent not included I guess but I'm still actually excited for this

My friend who works for USSF is super stoked about this guy, sound like the prevailing opinion is he could be a midfield fixture for years to come.

pic.twitter.com/oOLFHMm2ra

— Yunus Dimoara Musah (@yunusmusah8) March 15, 2021

does he play Bradley's position? if so....BOOT.

Nah everything I've heard says he's an attacking/right-sided player.

ahh. well....still, happy to see some quality new talent in the lineup. I will vomit any time I see a Zardes/Altidore/Bradley lineup

I'm not national team-crazy by any means but eventually something like this could be the new standard:

          sargent
  reyna             pulisic
          musah
     mckennie   adams
dest   brooks   zimmerman  yedlin
          steffen

choosing a rb, rcb, and goalie of all positions was tough, though like I said I don't follow this stuff super closely

pretty big step up from the World Cup non-qualifying squad of a few years ago

I really hope Darryl Dike can crack the 18 eventually. he's raw now but he's really good at hold up play for someone his size.

yeah striker/cf is way up in the air too, I just put sargent in because he has been scoring a few lately

regardless I think they need to play people who ARE playing, there was too much of the opposite of that going on with altidore and bradley in particular

🤔

This is equal parts holy shit and don't count your chickens as an American soccer fan. pic.twitter.com/Ewj9r5WxBL

— Jason Davis (@davisjsn) March 15, 2021

not gonna lie I'm here for anyone taking Twellman down a peg or two

Taylor twellman national team career was laughable. Beasley should be that analyst or a Mia Hamm. Twellman need to be on extra time radio with Bobby warshaw. He a white boy with connects. Stop giving him a platform. https://t.co/P5n7MRF77a

— Jozy Altidore (@JozyAltidore) March 31, 2021