Soccer Thread 2015-16

[BishopMVP]

I'd take Brendan Rodgers. Managers only have so long a shelf life and things fell apart at Liverpool but he's still a good manager.

Couldn't agree more on Klinsmann being a technical director, but not the manager at this point. Don't think he'd accept a banning from the sideline though - he seems to be a very proud person. Also agree that the idea the US was just overachieving in 2010 or especially 2002 based on hustle and grit to be a ludicrous fallacy pushed by (for lack of a better term) the EuroSnobs.

If you want to add another, more frequent tale, look at Juan Agudelo. A lot of potential, was developing nicely in MLS, then either chased the money or got bad advice and had a lost year at Stoke. Came back to MLS and looks good again. For whatever reason, had 15 caps as a 19 y/o but can't get called in for more than one game a year now under Klinsmann even while everyone bemoans our strikers poor form.

[Grover]

Rodgers has also had a history of coming in after a very good manager has left the previous club in good shape. Liverpool notwithstanding.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Grover

Rodgers has also had a history of coming in after a very good manager has left the previous club in good shape. Liverpool notwithstanding.

Eh?

Rogers didn't directly come after Roberto Martinez at Swansea. Paulo Sousa wasn't all that good. And at Liverpool, he had a much better track record than Kenny Dalglish did.

What are you basing this view upon? His time in Reading?

[Grover]

Sousa wasn't great, no, but Martinez had laid the foundation that Rodgers worked with.

Let's be honest. Rodgers can't build a defense. He can't coach it either. He's extremely arrogant in egotistical in his views and his motivational speaker shtick is just... horrible.

He's a mid-table manager at best.

[Grover]

To continue, because I've been thinking about this...

I think has the potential to be an outstanding manager, but he really needs to learn to stem the bravado. It seems like any time he would come out and be completely bullish about Liverpool's chances in a big match, they would fall flat on their face. I mean, the guy considers himself his greatest inspiration.

I'd genuinely like to see him try and save Sunderland. I highly doubt that would happen, but it would be interesting to see.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Also in talking about a massive move to make in a WC Cycle, when do you think Bob Bradley was fired? I'm positive that if a European national team faltered badly in Euro2016, the national team manager would be canned regardless of it being only 2 years from the 2018 WC.

I'm fully expecting all eight of the coaches to not get their team out of the group phase to get fired, bar maybe the coaches of Albania, (if they make it), Northern Ireland and Iceland. With this 24-team format, there will be a couple of big matchups in the second round, leading to another wave of job openings. Ditto for the quarterfinals. At the end of things, I won't be shocked if 12 of the 24 Euro2016 qualified teams will start the WC qualification with a new coach.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Grover

Sousa wasn't great, no, but Martinez had laid the foundation that Rodgers worked with.

Let's be honest. Rodgers can't build a defense. He can't coach it either. He's extremely arrogant in egotistical in his views and his motivational speaker shtick is just... horrible.

He's a mid-table manager at best.

So his #2 finish with Liverpool was just... what, Daglish's. So if Klopp finishes in the Top 4 next year, you'd give it to Rodgers, right?

[Grover]

I hope Klopp rejects Liverpool. I don't think he will, but I'm already tired of the English press talking as if he's already taken the job

[miami_fan]

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini get provisional FIFA bans - ESPN FC

This ends Platini's shot at the presidency, no?

[Grover]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini get provisional FIFA bans - ESPN FC

This ends Platini's shot at the presidency, no?

This is like Pablo Escobar building his own prison and then hiring his own guards to keep him there.

[Grover]

Sky is reporting that Klopp has signed a 3 year deal with Liverpool.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

So his #2 finish with Liverpool was just... what, Daglish's. So if Klopp finishes in the Top 4 next year, you'd give it to Rodgers, right?

The #2 finish was Luis Suarez. Period.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

The #2 finish was Luis Suarez. Period.

And interestingly enough Suarez with Dalglish didn't lead to a #2 finish . Rodgers linked up Suarez with Sturridge and created an amazing strike force pairing. Arguably Rodgers would still have had a job if Suarez didn't bite the player in the WC.

[flere-imsaho]

Nah, Suarez was going to move to a bigger club anyway.

[ISiddiqui]

Even one more year of Suarez (and there appeared to be no indication of Suarez actually leaving when he did), though, may have led to back to back top 4 finishes, giving Rodgers more of a rope.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini get provisional FIFA bans - ESPN FC

This ends Platini's shot at the presidency, no?

It's only 90 days.

Until the voting process actually changes I frankly don't think it changes the chances for either. I think Blatter could run again and win, honestly.

[ISiddiqui]

Doesn't everyone already know that Platini is as crooked as Blatter? It's just that Platini doesn't have the power that Blatter has, so his crookedness has been on a smaller scale.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Even one more year of Suarez (and there appeared to be no indication of Suarez actually leaving when he did), though, may have led to back to back top 4 finishes, giving Rodgers more of a rope.

He made a big stink about it the year previously, though. This, combined with Barca facing a transfer embargo, seems, to me, to have made it always likely to have happened that summer. All the Chellini bite did, IMO, was move it to earlier in the transfer window and maybe drop the price a bit.

Not that I disagree with your premise, though. More of a rope, sure, but as the Guardian article I linked indicates, Liverpool still have the problem that they can't keep/replace talents like Suarez consistently, due to a number of factors. Unless they change that, they're going to remain behind the 4 clubs who definitely can.

But equally, that'll make seeing what Klopp can do that more interesting.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Doesn't everyone already know that Platini is as crooked as Blatter? It's just that Platini doesn't have the power that Blatter has, so his crookedness has been on a smaller scale.

Hey, we agree on something

Replacing Blatter with Platini would be more of the same.

I'm firmly behind Prince Ali for the position.

[ISiddiqui]

The FA showed their true colors, however, and backed Platini. Grumble...

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by Grover

I'm firmly behind Prince Ali for the position.

I couldn't agree more - fabulous, strong as ten regular men, faced the galloping hordes, fought a hundred bad guys with swords and sent the goons to those lords. He's got my vote.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I couldn't agree more - fabulous, strong as ten regular men, faced the galloping hordes, fought a hundred bad guys with swords and sent the goons to those lords. He's got my vote.

Bravo.

[Grover]

Really, really good stuff, bhlloy.

[whomario]

Lewandowski scores after 2 minutes, how long before the next ?

The irish CB Keogh managed to injure himself in warm ups to the point of needing a head bandage. Is it still a stereotype if it is true ?

[bhlloy]

Pretty incredible scenes in that group, Poland with a last minute equalizer to send Scotland out and set up a winner takes all game with Ireland next week.

Northern Ireland through with arguably 4 of their best 5 players injured. Shows how far Greece have fallen in 10 years, I believe they were the top side in that group

[BishopMVP]

Watching Real Madrid play the Celtics in basketball, I wonder if there are Spanish people who complain that national team guys like Sergio Llull and Sergio Rodriguez "don't challenge themselves enough" by going to the NBA, or if they're comfortable with the idea that getting consistent playing time is more important for player development than going to the best league.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Northern Ireland through with arguably 4 of their best 5 players injured. Shows how far Greece have fallen in 10 years, I believe they were the top side in that group

Yup, Greece were the top seeds after being in the last 16 in WC2014 and making the last 8 in Euro2012. Today they 'clinched' a last place finish in their group...
Greece's loss also means that for being the best third placed ranked team, 13 points against the 1st,2nd,4th and 5th ranked team will be the minimum requirement. If Romania manages to win at the Faroe Islands, 15 points will be the minimum for best third place team.

[cthomer5000]

RE: FIFA

I hope Sepp gets nailed to the wall.

RE: Europe

Greece has been riding that seeding and incredibly fortunate draws for a very long time - thank god that is all going to come crashing down.

RE: USA stuff

Klinsmann is a complete fraud, whether that is exposed this weekend or not. Any muppet could get Americans fired up for a game against Mexico. We still may not even qualify for the World Cup if he remains in charge.

RE: MLS

Red Bulls are doing amazingly well after the shocking firing of Mike Petke in pre-season...he was BY FAR their most successful coach ever and a hall-of-game caliber player. I was f'ing outraged at the time but at this point even I can't complain.

MLS season has been highly entertaining this year.

[Grover]

Klopp on the Liverpool transfer committee.

“It was not a problem for 10 seconds,” Klopp said. “We talked about it. For me it is enough that I have the first and the last words. We only want to discuss about very good players. I’m not an idiot, I don’t know more than the rest of the world. I need the people who get the perfect information.”

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

RE: MLS

Red Bulls are doing amazingly well after the shocking firing of Mike Petke in pre-season...he was BY FAR their most successful coach ever and a hall-of-game caliber player. I was f'ing outraged at the time but at this point even I can't complain.

MLS season has been highly entertaining this year.

Seriously. I'm shocked by how well RBNY are playing. And it isn't even replacing Petke IMO - it's more replacing Henry.

Also some good races at the bottom of the playoff line for both Conferences. I think Montreal has the advantage over Orlando in the East (thanks to Drogba, wow!) and in the West, well it's a very narrow difference between San Jose and Portland.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

RE: Europe

Greece has been riding that seeding and incredibly fortunate draws for a very long time - thank god that is all going to come crashing down.

After winning Euro2004, they received a higher seed from the Euro2008 qualification campaign and onwards (the WC2006 draw was done before the Euro2004 final tournament). From there on, their results were good enough to maintain the high seeding spot. Reaching the final tournament in 2008, '10, '12 and '14, in those last two actually doing well enough to deserve that #1 seed. Admittedly, their draws have been relatively easy, in part a result of that top seed and in part getting lucky in dodging strong opponents, but they did get the most out of those draws.

[Grover]

I have a lot of hatred for Sam Allardyce, both rational and irrational, but it's a shrewd hiring by a Sunderland ownership group that generally makes bad decisions. I'd put money down that he could drag them to security this year.

Even if they still go down, he'll bring them right back up and turn them into a turgid, dreadful to watch midtable side in two years.

[MIJB#19]

Euro2016 field is further shaping up. Switzerland and Spain joined the mix today, Portugal and N.Ireland joined yesterday.

That best third placed team is also shaping up to be very limited now. I think it has been basically been narrowed down to:
* Hungary with 15 points 7-4 goals,
* Croatia (if Norway wins in Italy) with 15 points and better than 14-5 goals,
* Ukraine (if they beat Spain) with 16 points and better than 11-3,
* Turkey (beating Czechia and Iceland) with 16 points and better than 7-8 goals.

Those last three all seem longshots, but reasonable ones. Less likely longshots include:
* Romania (not winning on Faroe Islands and Hungary with a better result at Greece) with 14 (draw) or 13 points (loss),
* Norway (not beating vs Malta, win or draw at Italy) with 16 or 14 points.

And besides those six, there are many other teams (Israel, Germany, Poland, Rep. Ireland, Russia, Norway, Wales, Belgium, Slovakia, Italy) in the running, most of them requiring the Romania scenario combined with several games falling their way.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

The #2 finish was Luis Suarez. Period.

That's harsh - there is no doubting Suarez is a world class player, but Rodgers built a system which suited him and gave him people who he could play well with up front, he also managed him as an individual incredibly well in some very trying situations .... as such I give Rodgers a heck of a lot of credit for that finish.

[flere-imsaho]

The year before he leaves, Suarez scores 31 EPL goals and provides 12 assists. In addition, he's a big part of why Sturridge scores 21 goals.

The next year Liverpool have roughly the same goals against (52 to 48, or vice versa), but score roughly 50 fewer goals.

I am absolutely not saying Rodgers is a terrible manager. Suarez scored 30 the season before when Liverpool finished 7th, so clearly some adjustment by Rodgers had an influence. I'm merely saying Liverpool don't finish 2nd that year if Suarez isn't having the monster year he did.

[ISiddiqui]

And Chelsea don't win the league last year if Eden Hazard didn't have the monster year he did last season. So?

[flere-imsaho]

Let's not make this into a bigger argument than it is.

Credit can be apportioned thusly:

1. Credit to the player for their performance
2. Credit to the manager for correctly (or not) utilizing them
3. Credit to whomever for acquiring / developing the player in the first place

There's a percentage to be applied to each of those elements in every case.

While it's certainly true that both Suarez & Hazard deserve a lot of credit for their teams' performances in those seasons, I'd argue Suarez deserves more credit for getting Liverpool to 2nd than Hazard for getting Chelsea to 1st.

Fact is, Chelsea won the league by 8 points, and it could have been more if they weren't pissing away matches late in the season because their lead was so huge. Could they still have won the league without Hazard? Probably, but it would have been much closer.

Liverpool pipped Chelsea to 2nd place by 2 points in 13/14.

Here's Liverpool's final placings & GF/GA totals from 11/12 (year before Rodgers) through to this season so far:

11/12 - 8th - 47/40
12/13 - 7th - 71/42
13/14 - 2nd - 101/50
14/15 - 6th - 52/48
15/16 - 10th - 13/10

They're just barely a positive GD team, which in the EPL puts them into the Europa league if they can manage where they win and lose well. The two-year blip coincides with Suarez turning into a monster. Was Suarez going to turn into a monster anyway, or did Rodgers bring it out and/or set up the team to make it happen?

The bottom-line is that without Suarez, they stay somewhere between 5th and 10th. How much of that is credit to Rodgers is a good question, but I personally don't think it's a very large percentage, unless we think he's a genius for figuring out how to use Suarez, Sturridge & Sterling in an attacking trident.

As I said before:

I don't think Rodgers is a bad manager. Mostly I think the situation sunk him. When you lose Carragher, Gerrard, Suarez and Sterling in quick succession, and you're not fully in charge of the transfer process and as a result it doesn't really produce, you're obviously going to struggle.

[bhlloy]

Wales lost and I couldn't give a shit... It's been a long time. Getting drunk in an Irish pub in Seattle, happy days

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

After winning Euro2004, they received a higher seed from the Euro2008 qualification campaign and onwards (the WC2006 draw was done before the Euro2004 final tournament). From there on, their results were good enough to maintain the high seeding spot. Reaching the final tournament in 2008, '10, '12 and '14, in those last two actually doing well enough to deserve that #1 seed. Admittedly, their draws have been relatively easy, in part a result of that top seed and in part getting lucky in dodging strong opponents, but they did get the most out of those draws.

Exactly. They kept getting draws that were so beneficial it was nuts, so they were able to keep qualifying and keeping their coeffecient high, etc. Without that benefit they might get stuck back in the middle of the pack for a looong time.

[cthomer5000]

Far more anxious than excited for this USA-Mexico game tonight.

Klinsmann is a total fraud, so it's a matter of whether we can overcome him AND Mexico.

This is the least positive I've been before a USA-Mex game in very very long time.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Far more anxious than excited for this USA-Mexico game tonight.

Klinsmann is a total fraud, so it's a matter of whether we can overcome him AND Mexico.

This is the least positive I've been before a USA-Mex game in very very long time.

If we want to blame Klinsman, fine. I think our entire program is and has been a total fraud for a long time. I'm still confused as to how this team is supposed to do better than they have. Other people disagree with me here and in other parts of the web, but the US is simply overmatched everytime they go on the field. Where has this next crop of great players come?

The best this country can do on the world stage is the starting goalkeeper of Everton? Seriously? Our outfield players consist of one star (Bradley), one 32 year old who will be well past his prime by the next world cup and then what exactly?

We have one player on the top 125 teams in the world right now? Fine, fire Klinsman, I'm good with it. I think his war with Donovan was petulant and stupid and I don't think he'd be a great loss. But I also don't see any manager coming in and doing any better. If we don't get better at developing talent at the lower levels, we are screwed long term.

[Grover]

Sixes and sevens at the back. Deserve to be down with this abhorrent defending.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by TroyF

If we want to blame Klinsman, fine. I think our entire program is and has been a total fraud for a long time. I'm still confused as to how this team is supposed to do better than they have. Other people disagree with me here and in other parts of the web, but the US is simply overmatched everytime they go on the field. Where has this next crop of great players come?

The best this country can do on the world stage is the starting goalkeeper of Everton? Seriously? Our outfield players consist of one star (Bradley), one 32 year old who will be well past his prime by the next world cup and then what exactly?

We have one player on the top 125 teams in the world right now? Fine, fire Klinsman, I'm good with it. I think his war with Donovan was petulant and stupid and I don't think he'd be a great loss. But I also don't see any manager coming in and doing any better. If we don't get better at developing talent at the lower levels, we are screwed long term.

Do people even read the other side when we have this debate? We did better in 2009/2010 under Bradley and especially 2002 with Bruce Arena. No we weren't legit WC contenders but we played more open, had more possession, and absolutely were a deserving Quarterfinalist who went toe to toe with Germany and was one missed call away from going to extra time. Either some of those players like JOB/Clint Mathis when healthy, Claudio Reyna, Eddie Pope, Frankie Hejduk, Steve Cherundolo etc were better than people give them credit for or it's an even bigger indictment of Klinsmann that he actually has turned the US into the bunkering team we were always accused of being (and occasionally were, such as the beginning of Bradley's tenure when he insisted on his 2 DM setup.)

Do you think we have less talent than we did a dozen years ago? Do you think we're playing more effective, or even more attractive football than we were a dozen years ago? Klinsmann talks a great game where he throws the recent USMNT players under the bus and makes himself out to be the savior, but either the players were better a dozen years ago, or the coaching was better. (Or both.) Christ, for all his talk we're still running out 3 30+y/o D-mids even if we have to play them out of position, we're running out re-treads like Beckerman, DMB and Wondolowski, and for all his talk of players "challenging themselves by going to Europe" Geoff Cameron who actually starts in the EPL (and looks like our best defender) is only playing his 2nd game all year.

[Grover]

I really dislike Fox's coverage

[MrBug708]

Dempsey had a simple pass for a Bradley tap-in, but wanted to be a hero..

[BishopMVP]

This is one of the uglier, more stretched games I've seen in awhile. I thought we started controlling the game and looking pretty good the latter part of the 1st half but this whole 2nd half has been bad. We're bunkering and counterattacking despite not having one player known for being fast (maybe Zardes, but I've barely even seen him in frame during those counters. And now obviously Yedlin is in.) Jordan Morris actually would fit pretty well with this strategy, although honestly I'd take Josh Wolff at this point.

[kingfc22]

That goal was just a matter of time. Mexico has dominated this game since halftime.

[MrBug708]

We are terrible

[Grover]

Passing has been atrocious all night. Team looks tired and defeated

[bulletsponge]

somebody needs to be fired for this shitstorm