Why February?Bielsa officially let go today. Hope he's still available in February.
Why February?Bielsa officially let go today. Hope he's still available in February.
Because that's the earliest a USMNT manager would be named. After the election.Why February?
3? He was amazing at Marseilles until they sold all his players. Also International may be a better fit. Most of his issues tend to be massive fights over transfers and budgetI’m not sure I understand the fascination with Bielsa. Years ago you could argue he worked magic but his last three stops have been disasters. I don’t see him dealing well with all the challenges of managing the USMNT - a player pool that’s spread out, weak leadership to name two.
Do you think it's one of those things that was floated by Blanc's crew?FWIW, I don't believe this rumor. Maybe there was some preliminary feeler put out to Blanc's representation, but I doubt there's more to it than that.
I'd like to see a manager with some tactical acumen and success working with world class players. I suppose it's possible that he's past his prime, but the man is a genius.I’m not sure I understand the fascination with Bielsa. Years ago you could argue he worked magic but his last three stops have been disasters. I don’t see him dealing well with all the challenges of managing the USMNT - a player pool that’s spread out, weak leadership to name two.
Seems possible. Blanc also doesn't directly reference the US in his quoted comments - just something about being approached for an international job. It could just be the typical Euro sports media bullshit of taking unsupported leaps and/or making stuff up.Do you think it's one of those things that was floated by Blanc's crew?
Not too surprising.
So looks like Garber and Gulati are campaigning for Carter while pretending not to be.
Also Rapaglia comes off as an absolute dinosaur calls her "a girl" and says "I found out she's not just a housewife"Not too surprising.
I wonder how many state association presidents like Sal Rapaglia are out there. Good grief. That's our USSF presidential electorate?
EDIT: The Eastern New York state association is now embarrassing themselves on Twitter for basically criticizing Grant Wahl for being a journalist.
It's really noticeable how unaccustomed many quiet corners of the world of US soccer are to any sort of public criticism.
Ask a few questions, ya know, like "what's my cut?". He wants a pizza the action.“We’ve been supporters of Sunil since the inception,” Rapaglia said in a 30-minute interview on Thursday. “We’re talking about many years now, into the ‘80s. At that time he was a young man. Then with president [of U.S. Soccer], we supported him 100%. He did a great job. He took a $2 million business and now there’s $150 million. Good job. All right?
“Then he made up his mind [not to run in 2018], which I disagreed with 100%. But everyone makes his own decision. And then he says, you know, we heard about this girl from Don Garber. You know, marketing, whatever. And she approached us and said, ‘Let’s talk.’ New Jersey got the same call. And the New Jersey and [Eastern] New York delegations, we had a meeting with her. And we ask a few questions, and we are supporting her.”
Rapaglia said he was impressed that Carter had not just worked on the business side, but has also played soccer in college and in one of the leagues in his association. “She played soccer,” he explained. “She’s not just a housewife.”
I live a few blocks away, and have for a decade. I've been there once - when they had to offer a deep discount on Groupon to get some business. The restaurant is in a basement, and the food is worthy of such a setting.The restaurant, Scaletta, owned by the former New York Cosmos player Fred Grgurev, is located on the Upper West Side near the American Museum of Natural History. It serves northern Italian fare and hosts a lot of soccer-related events due to the owner’s relationships and history in the game.
Yeah, but is Dovetail owned by a former Cosmos player? (No way of knowing for sure, but I'd guess Scaletta's owner and Rapaglia go way back.)Literally less than a block away is a michelin star restaurant, Dovetail, where they could have had both more privacy and far better food. You kinda wonder what operation these half-wits think they're running. Chuck Blazer never would have been caught dead in such a hole, I'll say that.
As frustrating as it is, I can’t help but think it may have been even more frustrating to watch Arena trot Bradley out there anyway in Russia while better options watched from the bench.The progress that we have seen in the central midfield over the last six months is amazing. It makes missing the WC that much more frustrating because the cavalry is basically arriving right now. I think that in the malaise of the post-WCQ hangover, US soccer fans in general haven't been fully cognizant of how fast and how aggressively our central midfield is going to turn over. Like with the early period of Pulisic's rise, I actually think US soccer fans are underhyping the situation a bit.
Weston McKennie has made 16 appearances (10 starts) for the second placed team in the Bundesliga at CM. While he has benefited from Goretzka's injury woes this year, the manager and the club very obviously trust him and his potential a great deal. He needs to be more consistent, but he has every tool you want in a box-to-box midfielder.
Jonathan Gonzalez made his debut this fall, then went on to start nearly every game for Monterrey, who won the Apertura by five points, lost in the playoff final to archrivals Tigres, and won Copa MX. In doing so, he displaced a 29 year old with ~30 caps for El Tri at DM. He's quick and he reads the game very well for his age. He could stand to get a little stronger.
Tyler Adams moved from NYRB's USL team to MLS this year and steadily improved all year. By the end of the year, he had become one of the club's more influential players. He's also very versatile; he's played RB, RWB, RM, DM, and CM. He's not as technical as the other two, but his workrate and the amount of ground he covers are off the charts. He is a defensive wrecking ball.
McKennie is 19. Gonzalez and Adams are 18.
Certain older players will need to be kept around to plug holes at positions where youngsters aren't ready and to provide some leadership....but Bradley's tenure might be coming to an abrupt end. He'll be 35 by the 2022 WC and the next generation is here, all at once, and ready to take over. A caretaker period at DM/CM looks like it will be wholly unnecessary.
(If you hate Jozy, well...I've got bad news. He's gonna be around for a while.)
Gonzalez has played with US youth teams for years and has said he wants to play for the US, but he's a breakout young star in Mexico and he's under a lot of pressure from fans and media down there to play for El Tri. And you don't even give him a phone call? That's rank incompetence.When the full national team played Portugal in a friendly last November, you had already been starting for Monterrey for more than three months, but you were not on the U.S. roster ...
I wasn’t called in, in November. Personally, nobody came and talked to me and let me know about that friendly. I just wasn’t called in.
Don't get his hopes up. He'll just be more disappointed when Kathy Carter wins, makes Tab Ramos manager and institutes an MLS only policy for national team players like the USWNT's old one for NWSLWould someone near Jed please go give him a hug?
It's a new year and a new era in US Soccer. Gulati is out, Klinsmann is out, the pipeline is as good as it's ever been. It's 2018 and all things are possible. Don't make me bust out Kevin Garnett.
At least Silva is paying him to hold that position. Mandating MLS move to a winter schedule doesn’t benefit anyone. Imagine matches in New England last weekend or next? I honestly think that position is worse. Pro/rel may bilk MLS owners out of hundreds of millions in franchise value, but may at least be fun to watch. Winter soccer would just be miserable for everyone, especially the players it is purported to help.Wynalda's "we need pro/rel" with no mechanism for reasonably creating it, and no plan is the worst position of any candidate.
So Wynalda is giving Wynalda a run for his money in the race for worst idea in the USSF campaign?At least Silva is paying him to hold that position. Mandating MLS move to a winter schedule doesn’t benefit anyone. Imagine matches in New England last weekend or next? I honestly think that position is worse. Pro/rel may bilk MLS owners out of hundreds of millions in franchise value, but may at least be fun to watch. Winter soccer would just be miserable for everyone, especially the players it is purported to help.
http://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states/story/3236812/eric-wynalda-set-to-stand-for-us-soccer-federation-presidency
“We [the US] have been late to the party numerous times and have gotten players,” said former USMNTer turned ESPN analyst Herculez Gomez, himself a dual-eligible, this week. “So it's fair game when it comes to this. The question is, what does Jona want to do? ... FMF [the Mexican federation] does a phenomenal job of recruiting Mexican-American talent in the United States. They see value in that player. … US Soccer, they see value in that player when OTHERS see value in him.
“You're 18, you're young, it's your first taste of top-flight football. And you're impressionable,” Gomez added. “You have the [Rayados] coach, Antonio Mohamed, who’s now vouching for FMF, trying to pressure you into playing for the Mexican national team. You have what you identify with, what you want, and you haven’t been committal either/or, because you don't want to burn a bridge. This is where it gets murky, this is where it gets difficult for a player of that age.”
Or because Mexico is going to the WC and the US is not...This is where USMNT can take a page from colleges. Recruiting is a 24-7-365 job, they should have abundant staff to scout, contact, and sell the program to dual nationals. They should also reach out to current and former dual-national players like Gomez because recruits follow other recruits. We would be lucky if Gonzalez is just waiting to see who the next coach will be, but he might go to Mexico simply because they have more of their program figured out.
This is the year for Agudelo!I'm impressed that Agudelo and Zardes have convinced yet another USMNT manager that they're still prospects.
It's bad.The Gonzalez thing is embarrassing. As is this:
Did we know this? We knew there was a 100m kitty...what could the6 possibly spend that on that makes more sense than scouts?
Here's what this means:"The main role of the Technical Advisor is club support. Our goal is to help clubs improve their everyday environments. In addition, they are an integral part of Talent Identification and they manage scouting networks in their respective markets." – @ussoccer
Gone through 2 so far, will post thoughts as I read the rest:The Athletes' Council has collected the results of an extensive questionnaire from all eight candidates. Responses can be found here:
https://ussfathletecouncil.com/
I haven't read them yet, but wanted to pass them on.
This interview with Brad Rothenberg is related to this point. It's blistering and worth a read. Rothenberg runs Alianza, an organization that has been instrumental in connecting young Hispanic players with Liga MX opportunities. (They aren't affiliated with Liga MX, it's just that many MLS clubs just don't pay much attention to them).
their own graphic is damning. Basically they only scout the DA, which is a tiny number of players, probably less than 5,000 kids across all age levels. They scouted only 40 games outside the DA...... FORTY!!! for example that means they couldn't even have scouted all the HS state championship games (yeah HS is late, but that makes it even worse).
To clarify for those who don't know how DA works, to join the academy, you need to join a DA approved club, the club. Not too bad right?
Oh wait, the club has to apply, and selections are made (yep not all clubs can join) based on a set of criteria which include.... US Soccer license levels (hard to get and expensive), financial resources (no poor people please), facilities (really for U-12?), staff to player ratio, history of past youth making the national teams or becoming pros, market, proximity to other clubs that have already joined (ie bought territory).
If you are selected (ie you are a rich pay to play club) you pay $2,500 bond then register at $50 per player and per coach.
So, basically the USSF is saying that they will only scout players who pay them for the priviledge of being scouted, and only if they pay their cronies who run these clubs hundreds of dollars per year for the opportunity.
It's amazing that they find any players at all.
So Martino is your favorite and Wynalda is in your bottom tier? Buckle up, Goff reports that they may be forming some sort of alliance.Overall thoughts:
Solo/Wynalda/Winograd don't feel like serious candidates based on their answers, maybe they didn't take it seriously, but seriously lacking overall. (yes I know Wynalda is actually a major player, but his answers were some of the least thoughtful and detailed).
Most impressed with Cordeiro/Martino though with more details the others could have impressed me too, all had significant strong areas.
If I had a vote, I'd vote Martino simply because I think he had the best platform of the outsiders and I wouldn't trust Cordeiro/Carter to insitute real reform farther than I could throw a Volkswagon.
With the U.S. Soccer Federation’s presidential election a month away, Eric Wynalda has approached Kyle Martino about forging an alliance to help ensure that one of the candidates is elected, multiple sources told the Insider.
In separate interviews Friday, both confirmed they have spoken to one another recently but both declined to offer details.
It’s unclear how exactly an alliance between those two candidates would work. USSF candidates do not have running mates. Cordeiro is the current vice president and is not up for reelection this year.
Presumably, one would step aside and urge his supporters to vote for the other while accepting a role in implementing shared ideas. For Martino, it would allow him to resume full-time work for NBC Sports while having a voice in the USSF’s new direction. Similarly, Wynalda would re-focus on his role as a Fox Sports commentator and coach while helping enact Martino’s plans.
I don't get quite as fired up about the USSF/SUM/MLS business as some do, but it's obvious that the USSF needs to get more transparent and communicate better on this issue and in many other areas. Carter has done zilch to ameliorate concerns about that, given the obvious questions that come with her professional history.What's the biggest problem facing U.S. Soccer?
Carter: I more so look at it that there is such great opportunity ahead of us. Like anything, when you have a misstep, in this case the men's failure to qualify for Russia, it allows us the opportunity to ask a lot of questions. Are we doing things not just well, but are we doing them good enough? What I would say about myself in terms of self diagnoses, I'm never satisfied.
Woof. Some questions/thoughts.What are your thoughts on promotion/relegation? Do you think it's viable given that MLS is against it?
In my Progress Plan, I layout a road map for an open professional soccer league called the 2030 Project; a 12-year strategy for creating an open-tiered professional structure:
1. Freeze MLS, USL, NASL and Adult League expansion starting in 2024.
2. Transition single entity contracts and home offices responsibilities to clubs by 2024 deadline.
3. Aim to be on European competition calendar with winter break in next five years.
4. Allow promotion and relegation between USL and NASL from 2024-2030.
5. Start bidding summer of 2026 for six-year escalating TV contract linked to accelerators for rights to the top division for 2030-2036 seasons.
6. Start bidding summer of '18 for six-year NASL and USL TV contract for 2024-2030 seasons.
7. Open system to adult leagues in 2038 to create six-tiered professional soccer league (any creation of clubs after 2024 deadline will be recognized as "non-league" without possibility of promotion into the professional soccer league.