2017-2018 GENERAL FOOTBALL (SOCCER) THREAD
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lakersken80
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:09 pm    Post subject:

BTW, Syria is still in the running....
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PRLakeShow
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:13 pm    Post subject:

Population:
USA - 320 mill
Trinidad and Tobago - 1.3 mill

That is crazy.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:39 pm    Post subject:

Could be worse. Could be England.

All that hype and anticipation during qualifiers only to lead to futility on the world's biggest stage. (Yeah, just trying to cheer y'all up)

Or just convince ourselves we're boycotting the fact it's held in Russia.
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cisternachyli
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:50 pm    Post subject:

Sad dude....how the (bleep) do we not make it?! Gotta pull for the bad hombres Mexico now .
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 7:04 pm    Post subject:

Taylor Twellman full meltdown.
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lakersken80
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 7:28 pm    Post subject:

PRLakeShow wrote:
Population:
USA - 320 mill
Trinidad and Tobago - 1.3 mill

That is crazy.


The problem is how many people actually play soccer, especially if you move up the ranks. If you play in college, you would have to turn professional in order to play on the national team.
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 7:35 pm    Post subject:

They didn't even compete tonight. Looked old and slow and worse of all, without passion to win. Sad to see Depmsey's and Howards and Bradley career end like this. And nobody of name to replace them. Pulisic will be in his own.
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Wilt
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 7:37 pm    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
PRLakeShow wrote:
Population:
USA - 320 mill
Trinidad and Tobago - 1.3 mill

That is crazy.


The problem is how many people actually play soccer, especially if you move up the ranks. If you play in college, you would have to turn professional in order to play on the national team.


None of that matters. We should have beaten freaking Trinidad and Tobago. If we hadn't had a long history of qualifying for the World Cup, performing well in a couple World Cups, and producing some good pros, then maybe this wouldn't be a huge embarrassment. No excuses.
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PRLakeShow
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:06 pm    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
PRLakeShow wrote:
Population:
USA - 320 mill
Trinidad and Tobago - 1.3 mill

That is crazy.


The problem is how many people actually play soccer, especially if you move up the ranks. If you play in college, you would have to turn professional in order to play on the national team.


US has almost 300 times the population, you can easily find 22 players that are better than the T&T team. No disrespect to them but they've never been good at all. This was embarrassing for the US.
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lakersken80
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:10 pm    Post subject:

I think population is a poor way to measure how much of a pool to draw to considering many populated countries like China, India or even the USA don't have that many people who are interested in soccer to begin with. Soccer is probably on the 2nd tier of sports that Americans care about and play in the higher levels. Passion is a huge part of soccer to begin with and why many smaller countries have a better soccer culture to draw their talent from.
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PRLakeShow
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:15 pm    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
I think population is a poor way to measure how much of a pool to draw to considering many populated countries like China, India or even the USA don't have that many people who are interested in soccer to begin with. Soccer is probably on the 2nd tier of sports that Americans care about and play in the higher levels. Passion is a huge part of soccer to begin with and why many smaller countries have a better soccer culture to draw their talent from.


Completely true which is why I don't wouldn't make the same comparison with teams France, England, etc. But this is Trinidad and Tobago for God's sake.
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Wilt
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:15 pm    Post subject:

Again, you're complicating things. We should have beaten Trinidad and Tobago.
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 9:02 pm    Post subject:

I won't be able to listen to soccer radio for at least a week. The negativity is going to be unbelievable.

I can't say that I'm shocked. We really weren't that good. The silver lining, albeit faint, is that we can now clean house and start bringing in some of the younger talent. Arena was not going to be the guy to do that. I am not a Michael Bradley basher, but it has concerned me for some time that he is the captain of the team. In a very real and tangible way, this team has taken on his personality. We need some fiery personalities, not a calm, composed guy who thinks that playing in MLS is good enough. (Okay, the last comment sounds like a cheap shot. MLS is not the problem here. We got roughed up in the hex by players who can't even get a job in MLS. But Landon Donovan did a real disservice to the national team by making it "okay" for players to stay in their comfort zone and avoid the challenge of Europe. If you want to be a soccer power, you can't have a team built around guys who don't want to push themselves.)

As for Twellman, I enjoyed listening to the rant, but I was also sort of shaking my head. I have heard all of the points he discussed (pay for play, etc.) discussed ad nauseum on Jason Davis' show on SiriusXM. I want to hear solutions, not finger pointing. The usual answer is "We need to put more money into this, and we need to put more money into that, and we need to put more money into some other thing." Where is this money supposed to come from? We've only managed to develop a stable domestic league in the past 10 years or so. It is solvent, but not wildly profitable, and the TV ratings are abysmal. The teams are developing academies and the like, but they don't have a blank check to do whatever they want. In the end, it is not their job to build a national team anyway.

Maybe something will come out of this. In the meantime, the big losers are Fox Sports, FIFA, and CONCACAF. Make no mistake about it -- the absence of the US in the World Cup will hurt a lot. We may not be a power on the pitch, but we are still an economic power.
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lakersken80
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 9:08 pm    Post subject:

This must mean the USA is in prime position to get the 2026 World Cup.....You are automatically qualified if you are a host.
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ChickenStu
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 9:34 pm    Post subject:

There is no justification for LOSING to T & T in the position we were in. We didn't even need to win...we just needed to tie. I don't care where the game was played. You cannot lose that game, in that spot, to a team much more inferior to you. It really is an embarrassment. CONCACAF is easily--EASILY--the weakest region in the world, and we should have a cakewalk to qualification every single time. We don't even have bad players. I'm just stunned we choked this.

One last thing I'll say is that Mexico never, ever, ever loses at home when it has the lead at halftime. Maybe a tie, but never a loss. Did anyone see that game? Did they lay down? I mean, it's no secret that Mexico hates the United States government at the moment. I didn't see the game, so I can't say for sure what happened, but Mexico just doesn't lose games at home like that.
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Steve007
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:05 am    Post subject:

Mexico was playing on the road in a stadium they almost always struggle in.
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ChickenStu
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:08 am    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
Mexico was playing on the road in a stadium they almost always struggle in.


Oh, I thought Mexico was at home. Disregard the last part of my last post, then!
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Steve007
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:13 am    Post subject:

vanexelent wrote:
They didn't even compete tonight. Looked old and slow and worse of all, without passion to win. Sad to see Depmsey's and Howards and Bradley career end like this. And nobody of name to replace them. Pulisic will be in his own.


We have a lot of time to find replacements now. I'm intrigued by Weston McKennie as a possible replacement for Bradley. Guy is only 19 but has already started playing in the Bundesliga.

I'm tired of Bradley and tired of seeing the same old goalkeepers. Howard looks old now.
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:04 am    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
I'm tired of Bradley and tired of seeing the same old goalkeepers. Howard looks old now.


Yes, it's time to give guys like Bill Hamid and Ethan Horvath a shot. Howard is the last guy on this team who I would blame for anything, but it has been silly that we have three old goalkeepers on the roster.
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governator
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:34 am    Post subject:

don't watch soccer but.... SUCKS. Was rooting for USNMT. 1st fail since '86
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 9:22 am    Post subject:

Their effort last night has to be put on Arenas too. They had absolutely no motivation. I remember that play where Howard had to come out to the corner of the box and contest a ball because not one single US defensive player hustled over to help defend. They just jogged around and watched. I've hated nearly every defensive player we've had over the last 5 years.
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Steve007
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:34 pm    Post subject:

They quit on Klinsman too and got him fired. Will be interesting to see who the next coach is, but I don't even care about the controversial goal that Panama scored because this team deserves to be eliminated. Panama and Honduras really struggled in this round and this team had to be really bad to finish behind them.
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:42 pm    Post subject:

I agree. The team played like garbage for much of the qualifiers. There were times they looked top notch on offense, but never put anything together on defense or in the middle.
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:12 pm    Post subject:

Preface: This was an unacceptable result. There is no excuse for the poor performance throughout the hex. Even if we had scored a late goal and moved on, this would have been the most dismal showing since 2006 and maybe even 1998.

Having said that, here’s a little perspective. 25 years ago, there was essentially no soccer in America outside of hordes of middle class children and the Latino community. There was no pro league of consequence. There was no soccer on TV. The guys on the national team were unknown to the public at large. There was considerable concern that the 1994 World Cup was going to be an embarrassment, and there were influential voices who wanted to move it to a real football country.

25 years later, this is really the first major setback. Oh, we’ve had lows before. But maybe we as a soccer community needed a good 2x4 between the eyes to remind us that it really isn’t easy. As Ian Darke said, no one has a divine right to go to the World Cup, You have to earn it.
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 7:02 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Preface: This was an unacceptable result. There is no excuse for the poor performance throughout the hex. Even if we had scored a late goal and moved on, this would have been the most dismal showing since 2006 and maybe even 1998.

Having said that, here’s a little perspective. 25 years ago, there was essentially no soccer in America outside of hordes of middle class children and the Latino community. There was no pro league of consequence. There was no soccer on TV. The guys on the national team were unknown to the public at large. There was considerable concern that the 1994 World Cup was going to be an embarrassment, and there were influential voices who wanted to move it to a real football country.

25 years later, this is really the first major setback. Oh, we’ve had lows before. But maybe we as a soccer community needed a good 2x4 between the eyes to remind us that it really isn’t easy. As Ian Darke said, no one has a divine right to go to the World Cup, You have to earn it.


I guess I'm more concerned that our players don't seem to be getting much better over time and we don't have any coaches that specialize in getting great results out of modest talent.
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