Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

[Suntan Superman]

welp, gonna miss the olympics again

[Keirik]

Well I see our goalkeeping program is stellar . Bless this mess.

[Majingir]

I'm not much of a soccer fan, but how, when we have a league like MLS, are Canada and US mens teams so bad? I know MLS is far from a top tier league, but both those countries have 2 of the best womens teams despite nowhere near the same level of effort put into those programs.

And with the North American world cup coming up in 5 years, just seems like a poor job promoting or growing the game when they cant qualify.

[Suntan Superman]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

I'm not much of a soccer fan, but how, when we have a league like MLS, are Canada and US mens teams so bad? I know MLS is far from a top tier league, but both those countries have 2 of the best womens teams despite nowhere near the same level of effort put into those programs. And with the North American world cup coming up in 5 years, just seems like a poor job promoting or growing the game when they cant qualify.

For the US, it's purely structural. I had a rant typed up at some point, but it's really not worth me expending any energy on at this point. I've tried to care, but when it's so obvious the Fed doesn't, the energy is just a waste. Canada is fine, Canada is arguably still a country developing it's soccer culture and grassroots, and I think many, including myself think it has a bright future if it can continue to do the right things. The United States has decided that soccer is about money, and that's it, and that's really what we're seeing at this point.


For the olympic qualifying stuff, really it boils down to hiring Jason Kreis, which I didn't really agree with at the time, but was certainly willing to be proven wrong, but he really hasn't. He called a squad with no creativity(it showed) and then in the win-or-don't-go-to-the-olympics game he sent out a lineup that was predicated upon us not losing. It wasn't a team that was meant to seize the initiative, it wasn't meant to try and make Honduras beat us, the lineup was simply not supposed to lose to Honduras, all it took was a typical few mistakes from kids, and we're out. I don't know how much oversight Earnie Stewart has at this point, but if he okayed these call-ups, and hired Kreis, his seat should be as warm as Kreis'.


Okay I said I wasn't going to rant, so I'm gonna stop now, but the structure of how we build soccer players, how we train soccer players, and how we handle the upbringing of National Team Quality players is wrong and broken, and it will take addressing deep issues within the Fed to even come close to breaking free of those problems.

[Cod]

I'll just leave this here: http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=31158055

[Cod]

https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-s...coach-carrillo

[Cod]

Anyone purchased and/or read the new book What Happened to the USMNT: The Ugly Truth About the Beautiful Game by Steven Mandis. I'm on the fence about it because I wasn't a fan of Bruce Arena's recent book that took on the same topic.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...al-soccer-team

[Cod]

Thoughts on Thursday night's performance? I'm intrigued by the youth, but the team (like all of US Soccer) lacks any identity. Honduras was much better technically, but sometimes luck does play a part.