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***Official Soccer Discussion Thread*** (3 Viewers)

Always was a big JMM fan

My Sophomore year of college at BU was the inaugural Revs season and my roomate got an internship with them. Got a VW bug shrink wrapped with the team colors/logo that he'd have to drive around to team events. But he had full access to it, which was awesome.

One afternoon I went with him to Foxboro, and he showed me around. In the team offices was a foosball table. He and I played JMM and Alexi Lalas in foosball.

One was really nice and gracious and one was a punk. Guess who was whom?

 
Always was a big JMM fanMy Sophomore year of college at BU was the inaugural Revs season and my roomate got an internship with them. Got a VW bug shrink wrapped with the team colors/logo that he'd have to drive around to team events. But he had full access to it, which was awesome. One afternoon I went with him to Foxboro, and he showed me around. In the team offices was a foosball table. He and I played JMM and Alexi Lalas in foosball. One was really nice and gracious and one was a punk. Guess who was whom?
Very cool!I was also a big JMM fan as he was the best player on those poor Revs teams. He joined the team mid season if memory serves back in 1996 I think. Sad to hear that Lalas acted like a jerk. If memory serves, I think JMM came from serious money. I think his dad was in oil in Tulsa and was one of the owners of the Tulsa Roughnecks in the old NASL of which JMM was a ball boy.
 
Pretty strong lineup for LA tonight. Hopefully Keane can find a way to work with Villareal instead of yelling at him like he normally does. Landon is on bench and seems a likely sub in second half.

Gonzo, Juninho and Magee are all going to need big games.

.......................Cudicini;

DeLaGarza, Gonzalez, Leonardo, Dunivant

.......Franklin, Sarvas, Juninho, Magee

................Keane, Villarreal

 
Pretty strong lineup for LA tonight. Hopefully Keane can find a way to work with Villareal instead of yelling at him like he normally does. Landon is on bench and seems a likely sub in second half. Gonzo, Juninho and Magee are all going to need big games. .......................Cudicini; DeLaGarza, Gonzalez, Leonardo, Dunivant.......Franklin, Sarvas, Juninho, Magee................Keane, Villarreal
I don't watch MLS but that seems to be a petty quality side. I would have to think they are a non-relegation EPL team with that lineup.
 
Pretty strong lineup for LA tonight. Hopefully Keane can find a way to work with Villareal instead of yelling at him like he normally does. Landon is on bench and seems a likely sub in second half. Gonzo, Juninho and Magee are all going to need big games. .......................Cudicini; DeLaGarza, Gonzalez, Leonardo, Dunivant.......Franklin, Sarvas, Juninho, Magee................Keane, Villarreal
I don't watch MLS but that seems to be a petty quality side. I would have to think they are a non-relegation EPL team with that lineup.
I have a hard time comparing when they rarely play anything but meaningless friendlies across leagues. LA will get obviously stronger once Landon is reintegrated and they add the Lampard/Arsharvin type player this summer.
 
Are you ####### kidding me
They deserved that ending. When you play a team that loaded you have to bury your chances. They could have been up 3-0.
Kept telling my kid that if they sit back and let them 'ave the ball, they're going to lose.

Boom, done in

That last goal, the keeper has to get that...#### slowing up and letting the guy get control...get your ### in there and get the ball.

 
I think the Spurs will finish top 4 if Bale stays healthy...
The fight for 4th could be alot less interesting without a healthy Gareth Bale. If Spurs can be successful without him, AVB will be a hero. If they fail, the whispers that his success is mostly due to Bale's extraordinary season will only grow louder.
 
I think the Spurs will finish top 4 if Bale stays healthy...
The fight for 4th could be alot less interesting without a healthy Gareth Bale. If Spurs can be successful without him, AVB will be a hero. If they fail, the whispers that his success is mostly due to Bale's extraordinary season will only grow louder.
The good news for Spurs is that the injury might keep Bale around. I think RM was going to pilfer him this summer.

 
NewlyRetired said:
Just finished this. Lots of interesting pieces*If Klinsmann could do things over he would have taken a group of MLS players to Honduras early to acclimate and have had the vast majority of the lineup be MLS players. He admits to making the mistake thinking the Euro based players could overcome jet lag and the heat on such short noticed. He emphasized what we have all been mentioning that Concacaf presents some very tricky problems in qualifying that he is still learning about.

* He acknowledged that Dempsey is not the guy who leads naturally but he gave him the captaincy in the hopes that he would start leading by example even if he would never be the vocal leader

* He has a serious hard on for Beckerman. It feels like JK believes he is the near perfect teammate and that his contributions go beyond what we see on the field

* JK mentioned that it is going to take on the order of another 15 years before the system (the academies) start producing better talent (which is right around the time frame most of have guessed at).

* JK said one thing that needs to get much better is the evaluation of young players specifically the latin players. He mentioned that the Liga MX teams are taking large amounts of 13-15 year old kids from the US and plugging them into their club system and US Soccer does not even realize it until they see a kid rise through the ranks and find out he was born in the US.

 
How are the Mexican treams discovering these US born talent? It should be easy to track their methods and replicate that for the US academies.

 
How are the Mexican treams discovering these US born talent? It should be easy to track their methods and replicate that for the US academies.
I think they simply have scouts in the high hispanic areas. But these scouts likely have much better cultural ties to those areas than any MLS team scout does at this point and it is likely a lot easier for a mexican scout to convince mexican parents to send their kid south. That type of culture barrier will be broken, but again it is one of those things that will take a while. Players like Jose Villareal are going to be very important because he can help show the hispanic community that you can be successful coming through an MLS academy even if your are hispanic.Also, the Mexican clubs can blanket the specific areas in Cali, Texas etc. The MLS clubs in those areas only have so many spots open. There has been some discussion as to whether it would make sense to allow more MLS teams to have access to players in certain high talent states to open up opportunities.
 
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So only the Galaxy and Chivas can recruit in SoCal? Only Dynamo can recruit in Texas?
FC Dallas in Texas as well. I don't know the exact rules but there is some region protection for teams. It might also have something to do with the actual location of an academy (NE can't setup an academy in SoCal for instance).
 
So only the Galaxy and Chivas can recruit in SoCal? Only Dynamo can recruit in Texas?
FC Dallas in Texas as well.I don't know the exact rules but there is some region protection for teams. It might also have something to do with the actual location of an academy (NE can't setup an academy in SoCal for instance).
If the Browns had exclusivity to all of northern Ohio for the last ten years they wouldn't have been 'protected' -- there'd be a boatload of talented players in northern Ohio who never made it to the NFL because no one found them.

Let the teams good at finding players find them.

 
So only the Galaxy and Chivas can recruit in SoCal? Only Dynamo can recruit in Texas?
FC Dallas in Texas as well.I don't know the exact rules but there is some region protection for teams. It might also have something to do with the actual location of an academy (NE can't setup an academy in SoCal for instance).
If the Browns had exclusivity to all of northern Ohio for the last ten years they wouldn't have been 'protected' -- there'd be a boatload of talented players in northern Ohio who never made it to the NFL because no one found them.

Let the teams good at finding players find them.
I agree. I think it is to be expected that there will be some growing pains in the academy process, which is one of the reasons its going to take in that 15 year range to start really cranking out talent on a regular basis.

Academies are relatively new when talking about US pro team sports so MLS is kind of trying to break some new ground here. The vast size of the country also presents a problem for coverage.

 
Wow, this is a pretty big change and obviously makes the Gold Cup this summer much more important. I wonder how they will figure out where the single game playoff is played?

MIAMI (AP) -- The winners of the 2013 and 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cups will meet in a one-game playoff for a berth in the 2017 FIFA Confederation Cup.The winners of the 2003, 2007 and 2011 tournaments, the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean, had qualified for the FIFA event. That resulted in less attention paid to the 2005 and 2009 Gold Cups.New CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb said Friday the change "is an essential and perhaps long due adjustment.''Some Gold Cup teams have used weaker rosters in the year preceding a World Cup, giving their Europe-based players time off between World Cup qualifiers in June and the start of club seasons in late summer.
 
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City and the U.S. Soccer Federation have agreed to a memorandum of understanding to explore building a national training center in Kansas City, Kan.The proposed $50 million National Training and Coaching Development Center would consist of a state-of-the-art campus that could play host to U.S. national team training camps along with coaching education and referee development programming.The facility would be located in Wyandotte County, where Sporting KC recently built its home stadium. The club plans to issue a request for proposals to local landowners by Monday.A new training center would be in addition to the one in Carson, Calif., home of the LA Galaxy. The men's national team has held January camps there each year since 2004.
 
Holden went 60 minutes again today in a big 3-2 win for Wednesday which now puts them 3 points clear of relegation with a game in hand.

Would love to see him claw his way on to the Gold Cup roster this summer.

 
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Wow, this is a pretty big change and obviously makes the Gold Cup this summer much more important. I wonder how they will figure out where the single game playoff is played?

MIAMI (AP) -- The winners of the 2013 and 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cups will meet in a one-game playoff for a berth in the 2017 FIFA Confederation Cup.The winners of the 2003, 2007 and 2011 tournaments, the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean, had qualified for the FIFA event. That resulted in less attention paid to the 2005 and 2009 Gold Cups.New CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb said Friday the change "is an essential and perhaps long due adjustment.''Some Gold Cup teams have used weaker rosters in the year preceding a World Cup, giving their Europe-based players time off between World Cup qualifiers in June and the start of club seasons in late summer.
Not sure I completely understand - but I assume the play-off would likely be in a neutral site like LA, Miami, or Houston.

 
Wow, this is a pretty big change and obviously makes the Gold Cup this summer much more important. I wonder how they will figure out where the single game playoff is played?

MIAMI (AP) -- The winners of the 2013 and 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cups will meet in a one-game playoff for a berth in the 2017 FIFA Confederation Cup.The winners of the 2003, 2007 and 2011 tournaments, the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean, had qualified for the FIFA event. That resulted in less attention paid to the 2005 and 2009 Gold Cups.New CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb said Friday the change "is an essential and perhaps long due adjustment.''Some Gold Cup teams have used weaker rosters in the year preceding a World Cup, giving their Europe-based players time off between World Cup qualifiers in June and the start of club seasons in late summer.
Not sure I completely understand - but I assume the play-off would likely be in a neutral site like LA, Miami, or Houston.
What don't you understand?Your choice of cities does make sense as it should give access to quite a mix of fan bases. What a monster game that would be if it was US vs Mexico.
 
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KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City and the U.S. Soccer Federation have agreed to a memorandum of understanding to explore building a national training center in Kansas City, Kan.The proposed $50 million National Training and Coaching Development Center would consist of a state-of-the-art campus that could play host to U.S. national team training camps along with coaching education and referee development programming.The facility would be located in Wyandotte County, where Sporting KC recently built its home stadium. The club plans to issue a request for proposals to local landowners by Monday.A new training center would be in addition to the one in Carson, Calif., home of the LA Galaxy. The men's national team has held January camps there each year since 2004.
Yes, yes, let's make sure that we build our national training center in the most boring, non-soccer hotbed, sea level location possible.

 
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City and the U.S. Soccer Federation have agreed to a memorandum of understanding to explore building a national training center in Kansas City, Kan.

The proposed $50 million National Training and Coaching Development Center would consist of a state-of-the-art campus that could play host to U.S. national team training camps along with coaching education and referee development programming.

The facility would be located in Wyandotte County, where Sporting KC recently built its home stadium. The club plans to issue a request for proposals to local landowners by Monday.

A new training center would be in addition to the one in Carson, Calif., home of the LA Galaxy. The men's national team has held January camps there each year since 2004.
Yes, yes, let's make sure that we build our national training center in the most boring, non-soccer hotbed, sea level location possible.
There are 2 ways to look at a soccer hot bed.

1) Local support of the sport

Sporting KC has arguably the best support in the entire country outside of the pacific northwest. They play to consistent standing room only crowds in the best stadium in the country. The crowd make up is fantastic there, young extremely loud and energetic. Their local TV ratings are growing significantly and are only behind Seattle's now.

all in all I would be more than happy if they opened a second training center in this type of soccer environment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR54N4ZwT4I

2) Abundance of local talent

I think you may be confusing a national training center with an academy (in which location to the young talent is vital). Maybe this is why you are concerned about it not being a soccer hot bed in terms of local young talent.

This place will be used for national team camps. It is not a development center for players. It will be used for developing refs and coaches though according to the article.

I did like your point about altitude as neither KC nor LA provide that in terms of prep for a high altitude game.

 
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Stoke getting closer and closer to relegation....:pleasepleaseplease:
With Hoffenheim already in the relegation zone, it would suck of Stoke did drop as well, from a US National team perspective. If those two teams drop that is 4 national team players who will be removed from top flight soccer (unless they transfer or are loaned).

 
Stoke getting closer and closer to relegation....:pleasepleaseplease:
With Hoffenheim already in the relegation zone, it would suck of Stoke did drop as well, from a US National team perspective. If those two teams drop that is 4 national team players who will be removed from top flight soccer (unless they transfer or are loaned).
How much good soccer can you really learn from playing with Orcs anyway?

 

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