no yes yes yes. i slept little last night. i saw thiago alcántara at the u21 uefa. i know it's him. im drinking coffee now after much bacon trying to awake.


i'll probably manage by 2pm (it's 1:20 here at the moment...)

that was right before a dortmund game. she got a big bouquet of flowers at the end.

I can't believe the cameraman didn't yell "heads up!!"

is fake but funny

THAT IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!






YOU SIR NAILED IT. The US team has never had a problem competing with any team in the world, it is CONSISTENCY and developing new talent which we lack. We are always on the cusp of advancing or winning big, and yet fall back a step. I think with Klinsmann we've addressed those final hurdles, as he has implemented a better "farm system" to bring in and rotate between new, young talent.

As to Mexico, (or even Spain) and their u-17 or u-21 teams, I don't buy into the model that a talented young team naturally translates into future talent. Those young players look great the same way college basketball phenoms look great, because they are playing their A game against a variety of mediocre and developing talent. Put those same players against the top rosters in the world? Its a 50-50 crap shoot that they can't make the leap. As to Mexico, trust me, their inching towards decline because the CONCACAF is getting better, they don't have that usual fodder to build up their confidence. As to Spain, we will wait and see if their young guys can step up in the Big Time

http://youtu.be/NF-z0HoxL04

I wanna see something this fun when i next go see a Houston Dynamo match.

There's no guarantee but, unlike in college-centric sports, the better u21s in football can expect to have an established place in a top club side where they've probably already had some CL football. But you're right, there's obviously still no guarantee.

the problem with the usa is that (as far as i know anyway) there is not established system for recruiting and cultivating young talent. i don't mean 18 year olds, i mean 6 year olds like neymar who was "discovered" playing on the beach. 6! messi was taken from argentina to barcelona when he was 12.

the other problem is "soccer moms". basically american "soccer" is a middle class sport that requires "moms" in minivans carting children around from one place to another and incompetent coaches instructing kids to kick and run, kick and run.

whereas in the rest of the world football is a street game before anything else. natural selection operates at full throttle. football is played before school starts, at school during recess, in the street where kids say "car" when a car is coming through, in parks and parking lots and at the beach. it's a thing people do all day and everywhere, much like baseball used to be in the usa or maybe basketball in cities. there are no "soccer moms" because you play football to get away from your mom, your house, your teachers, and then you keep playing when you're old to get away from work or family or worries.

and then of course if you're good as a kid you might be 6 or 8 or 12 when you go play for a team that develops your talent with a view to professional work, and not with this bullshit college system of middle-class amateurs who are just trying to get free tuition so they can become lawyers or PE teachers.

FUCK COLLEGE.

soccer is the most played amateur league sport in the US, both for kids, in secondary schools, and with adults. However, it is not the most professionalized sport like basketball and american football. there are several native born Americans playing in Europe the way there are plenty of great Europeans in the NBA. However, me and a friend were JUST now talking about this during the US game today. US has always had the talent to compete with any team in the world. The problem has been that under Bob Bradley US never had that killer edge. They played too safe. They didn't play to their fullest potential. For example, USA was down 0-1 and two years ago I would have told myself, "Ok, our hope is to draw. We just need one goal." Under Klinsmann after the past six months, I literally told myself," I know we can win this." What was the final score? 4-1 USA wins. That being said, this is a new US team. Our coach has developed our talent. We never lacked talent. Our farm system is fine. Our domestic talent is world-class, we just never took ourselves serious enough to capitalize on it. We were like pre-2010 Lebron James, everybody liked us anyway, win or lose, so we didn't push ourselves to our potential. Klinsmann has brought our killer instinct out. He is reminding us of how the rest of the world snickers about our team. Fuck that. I hope ALL of Europe and South America have been watching USA games since January and been getting nervous, and should be telling themselves, "Shit, the fucking American finally figured it out."

It'll be interesting to see how they do in the WC. They're definitely playing in a more attractive, attacking style than they did under Bradley, but this is against very ordinary opposition, and I can see stronger teams getting at their defence without too much trouble at all. And would you seriously consider even your best players (Dempsey, Bradley, Howard, Jones, Altidore) as 'world class' (which I tend to think of as a player among the very best in the world in their position and who would stand out as exceptional in any team they play for)? I know I wouldn't. Messi's world class, along with the likes of CRonaldo, Lahm, Pirlo, Cavani, Falcao, etc. Even someone like Dempsey is obviously miles behind any of those and, if anything, seems to be going backwards as a player, at least compared with where he was a couple of seasons ago (and I say that as a big Dempsey fan).

To me, when it comes to something like the WC, the US still looks like a quarter finals team at best. Obviously they could get lucky and progress further but so could any team. In terms of overall quality, though, I'd still say the quarter finals are about where the US is at internationally - and that's assuming they don't end up in a particularly difficult group.

thiago went to bayern for MORE playing time? hmmm. he can't get into the barcelona midfield, what makes him think the bayern one is any easier? kroos, goetze, mueller (kinda sometimes), swtgr, gustavo, martinez.... WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING!??! xavi has a year more in his gas tank to be a full time starter, cesc is not an automatic... he couldn't stick it out one more year? a move to man u made much more sense

I agree, I am very excited and yet anxious at the same time for the US in the upcoming World Cup. It is our final chance to make it big or flop out as usual. Personally, seeing what has developed over the past year, I think we can make it over our hurdle and advance at least to the Semis for what will be the first time since 1930!

that, right there. that's the problem. that's why we can't fly.


pep!

apparently he has some kind of scheme ("concept", he called it) in mind. and he really really really wanted thiago-- the only player he wanted to acquire, he claimed.

i can't wait to see what kind of what he comes up with. i wanna see those chalkboards!

Talk all the shit you want, that is just empty hubris. In American sports, we have a different football, which has no other name than football, meanwhile soccer is perfectly appropriate description. I'd rather not type out American football every time just appease your ego. Sometimes I use futbol but for you? never ;)

my point is that it's an artificial name for an artificial school practice plagued by helicopter parents.

show me the street games and i'll show you the world cup.

I think Thiago might be sidelined very early on but I think Pep's ultimately planning to establish something pretty quickly around him, Martinez and Gotze as his core midfield unit, to the extent that I have to wonder what his plans are for someone like Schweinsteiger, never mind the players more generally accepted as being at risk, like Robben and Ribery. The Thiago signing is a real sign for me of Pep's core tactical plans. He's about as 'Barcelona' as it gets in terms of style and overall attitude, so for him to be Pep's first big 'priority' transfer probably doesn't bode well for those Bayern fan fearing any kind of Barca-fication of their team.

EDIT: Lots of talk now about Man U offering Barca £26m for Cesc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...r-united-offer

"D'ya want a red one?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP5J9qD73rQ

US under Bob Bradley in the 2011 Gold Cup

2-1 with 4 goals in the group stage, 2 in the quarters, 1 in the semis, and 2 in the Final for a total of 9 (Jamaica's in the group).


Under Klinsmann in 2013 and with a predominantly B-team roster?

11 goals in the group and 3-0. We play the same intense defense but now a smarter, more Euro style offense. Its great to watch, and in the past 3 months that its really clicked we're scoring goals like crazy. You'd think it was American Football looking at the scores!

suchfriends- that's the difference between some dude who played in college and a guy who won the world cup (even he might not be the greatest coach on the planet). experience counts.

--

anyway looks like thiago alcántara (like gotze) went to bayern because of pep:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...h-8711476.html

It also helps when your agent (in the case of Thiago) is Pep's brother.