• The KillerFrogs

2023-2024 European Football Thread

Eight

Member
Just give Sargent every start moving forward and see what happens. Or Weah. Anyone but what we have now. And I’ll admit Jozy played OK the other night, but he ain’t the answer.

i agree on altidore 100%.

he did some good things last night, he did some creative things last night, but go find me a striker who has shown the ability to get better as he gets over 30 because for all the good things he did the single worst thing he did last night was the one thing you have to have him do at a high level.
 

Purp

Active Member
Just give Sargent every start moving forward and see what happens. Or Weah. Anyone but what we have now. And I’ll admit Jozy played OK the other night, but he ain’t the answer.
Sign me up for all the Sargent and Weah you can give me. I'm even interested in another Julian Green experiment. Hell, I'd really love to see Pulisic up top in a recessed striker position similar to where Landon Donovan used to line up in the 4-4-1-1. Anything to get guys near the goal who can actually finish and get valuable minutes for the young talent in the program who won't reach their potential without reps and confidence from those reps.

I agree Jozy is not the answer, but what he did last night is meaningful if it can be produced each game. He's clearly not an elite finisher or he'd have had at least 1 last night, but his holding play was excellent. He's starting to remind me a bit of Brian McBride late in his career, but McBride always had another speedy forward running off of him closely. I'm not sure Jozy is best used as a lone striker. Truthfully, I think the lone striker concept is dumb altogether unless you have one of the 3-4 elite scorers in the world. Otherwise you've basically got a holding forward who you may or may not be able to get the ball to. A guy who lacks the ability to create his own shot at will against 2 and sometimes 3 defenders should never be a lone striker.

This seems like another Berhalter beef now. I really want to be optimistic about him and the team, but the more I think about what I've seen from the group under him the more I question we'll ever do anything noteworthy under him.
 

CryptoMiner

Active Member
I respect what she accomplishes on the pitch, but I have little respect for her off the pitch. She may get me to support her cause with a different attitude and approach to delivering her message. She loses me every time she steps on her soapbox, though.

And I'm also not sure why we keep having to hear from her. I don't think she's the best or most important player in the team, yet all we have to hear about is what Rapinoe thinks about this or that. I really couldn't care less anymore. I'd rather hear Carli Lloyd, Ertz, Heath, Morgan, O'Hara, or Saurbrunn.

My point here is that I think the only reason there's controversy around her is because the media wants there to be. There are a lot of other players who carry sway in that room, but we seldom hear from the rest of them since they aren't as controversial. I feel like we've been played for 2 months just to generate some interest in this tournament when the same amount of interest would have existed without the nonsense.


 

Purp

Active Member

That's elucidating. Thanks. Not sure how it's pertinent to my comment about having no respect for Rapinoe off the pitch, but it's relevant to some of the controversy around the women's team. I still have a couple issues with this.

1) Comparing team pay for a World Cup performance and player pay for making the WC team is specious. The men's World Cup is the single biggest sporting event in the world every 4 years and I won't be shocked if it's got over 4 times more eye balls on it and even greater disparity than that in revenue generated. Should the women's team get paid a portion of the revenue earned from the men's World Cup? If the argument is an equal percentage share of revenue each team generates I'd 100% support that. But that's not the argument.

2) The men risk far more than the women every time they play for the national team; particularly in friendlies/exhibitions. The best male players earn millions per year and, as a result, stand to lose the opportunity to earn more millions were they to be seriously injured for the national team. For that reason alone I think a wide disparity in pay is justified on a purely market-based pricing of the labor the federation is trying to buy. I don't know if that gap is justified or should be narrower (I suspect it should be narrower because I suspect the women generate more than 8% of the revenue the men do), but I disagree that the numbers should be equal. If a woman was playing for the men's team and was getting paid differently than the other men on the team I'd be wholly in her corner on equal pay for equal play, but this is not the same. It's not truly equal play no matter how many times Meagan Rapinoe tries to convince us it is.

3) Quality of team play is also totally irrelevant. The Lakers have been absolute dog boat for several years or more, yet they continue to generate more revenue every year than any other team in the league. Should the best franchise in the WNBA get a share of the Lakers' earnings because they play better quality basketball? If the women are generating a disproportionate amount of revenue than they're earning in compensation that needs to be fixed. But that's not what's being argued.

4) All that said, I think it's ridiculous to pay $0 for a loss. Win or lose, especially in a friendly when managers are known to tinker and experiment making the team more susceptible to a loss, the players should be paid for their time both in training and on the pitch.
 

Eight

Member
friend directed me to this article from worldsoccertalk that focuses on the issues inside the us soccer federation, how ernie stewart went about the hiring process, and then laying a fairly strong case for why berhalter was the wrong hire for the job

http://worldsoccertalk.com/2018/12/...cession-mistakes-gregg-berhalter-appointment/

additionally, i know one of the hardest, but most beneficial things i ever learned in sales was the value of setting definitive goals and making sure that when i went back and reviewed where time and resources were being "spent" that they were either moving me in the direction of accomplishing my goals or truthfully had that potential.

the second half was the most painful because that meant being honest with myself and making decisions about some business relationships that in all honesty were more social than productive.

someone needs to be asking ernie stewart and the heads of us soccer what are the ultimate goals for the men's national team. those goals however must be real, tangible, independent of the growth of the mls and can't be some [ deposit from a bull that looks like Art Briles ] such as being the best us men's team possible and the ultimate goal can't be scheissing qualifying for the next world cup.

in regards to the tough decisions. i do not believe that starting 11 is good enough to get the us out of a world cup group. worst part is you have a number of guys who i am not sure you can expect much more from than what we saw in this tournament.

pulisic, mckennie (who disappeared badly last night), cannon, and boyd all flashed creativity and greater potential, but who else?

as far as berhalter he is a guy who depends upon a system and not encouraging creativity or developing talent. i understand structure is attractive when someone lays out their vision, but his track record is sticking to the system, but it hasn't generated results.

how many teams did the us face in this tournament who had better talent in their starting 11? will that be the case in a world cup group because in my mind the ultimate goal has to be a us men's team that is truly competitve in the knock out round.

that shouldn't be farfetched. pro soccer has been played in the us in some shape or form for over 50 years and in all honesty when you consider the time, money, and resources that have been poured into the men's team since 2002 and the men's win over mexico i really want someone to explain how the hell we got the 11 on the field we saw last night
 

Purp

Active Member
That's elucidating. Thanks. Not sure how it's pertinent to my comment about having no respect for Rapinoe off the pitch, but it's relevant to some of the controversy around the women's team. I still have a couple issues with this.

1) Comparing team pay for a World Cup performance and player pay for making the WC team is specious. The men's World Cup is the single biggest sporting event in the world every 4 years and I won't be shocked if it's got over 4 times more eye balls on it and even greater disparity than that in revenue generated. Should the women's team get paid a portion of the revenue earned from the men's World Cup? If the argument is an equal percentage share of revenue each team generates I'd 100% support that. But that's not the argument.

2) The men risk far more than the women every time they play for the national team; particularly in friendlies/exhibitions. The best male players earn millions per year and, as a result, stand to lose the opportunity to earn more millions were they to be seriously injured for the national team. For that reason alone I think a wide disparity in pay is justified on a purely market-based pricing of the labor the federation is trying to buy. I don't know if that gap is justified or should be narrower (I suspect it should be narrower because I suspect the women generate more than 8% of the revenue the men do), but I disagree that the numbers should be equal. If a woman was playing for the men's team and was getting paid differently than the other men on the team I'd be wholly in her corner on equal pay for equal play, but this is not the same. It's not truly equal play no matter how many times Meagan Rapinoe tries to convince us it is.

3) Quality of team play is also totally irrelevant. The Lakers have been absolute dog boat for several years or more, yet they continue to generate more revenue every year than any other team in the league. Should the best franchise in the WNBA get a share of the Lakers' earnings because they play better quality basketball? If the women are generating a disproportionate amount of revenue than they're earning in compensation that needs to be fixed. But that's not what's being argued.

4) All that said, I think it's ridiculous to pay $0 for a loss. Win or lose, especially in a friendly when managers are known to tinker and experiment making the team more susceptible to a loss, the players should be paid for their time both in training and on the pitch.
Got curious after posting this and did some Googling. Found this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeoz...ween-men-and-women-is-justified/#32fd64fe6da4

Looks like the women have been earning a greater percentage of revenue from World Cups than the men (13% to 9%).

Similarly, men's programs in Russia shared less than 7% of the revenue generated by that event ($400MM from $6 billion) where the women's programs this cycle are sharing ~23% ($30MM of $131MM generated). It's also worth nothing that the 23% share is distributed among a 24 team field rather than the 32 team field in which the men participate.

So compensation technically is very disproportionate, though not in the direction we might think. I'd be curious to know how similar numbers are borne out within the U.S. federation.
 

Eight

Member
scheiss me......did anyone else realize that greg berhalter's brother jay is the coo of u.s. soccer and is thought to be the leading candidate to replace current ceo dan flynn when flynn eventually retires from his post?

read an interesting article in the nyt from back in june that a friend had in their office (sorry it was the old school hard copy paper so no link, but date is june 25, 2019)

makes perfect sense now how a guy who has a career winning percentage of under 40% as a manager gets named the national team manager
 

Chongo94

Active Member
scheiss me......did anyone else realize that greg berhalter's brother jay is the coo of u.s. soccer and is thought to be the leading candidate to replace current ceo dan flynn when flynn eventually retires from his post?

read an interesting article in the nyt from back in june that a friend had in their office (sorry it was the old school hard copy paper so no link, but date is june 25, 2019)

makes perfect sense now how a guy who has a career winning percentage of under 40% as a manager gets named the national team manager

Oh yes, knew all along. Another reason I was rather displeased with the whole process.
 

Purp

Active Member
Oh yes, knew all along. Another reason I was rather displeased with the whole process.
Had to unveil ignored posts to see what you were talking about. Holy boat! How did I miss that? I really hated the protracted search for a manager and it was made even worse b/c the the protracted process for creating a position for Earnie Stewart to fill so that the job search could begin. Add in this little nugget and it seems the USSF got worse and more corrupt after Gulati and not better. I didn't think that was possible, but darn if it doesn't appear true today.
 

Chongo94

Active Member
Had to unveil ignored posts to see what you were talking about. Holy boat! How did I miss that? I really hated the protracted search for a manager and it was made even worse b/c the the protracted process for creating a position for Earnie Stewart to fill so that the job search could begin. Add in this little nugget and it seems the USSF got worse and more corrupt after Gulati and not better. I didn't think that was possible, but darn if it doesn't appear true today.

Yeah. Sadly, why I feel we will never amount to much more than what we are given how badly and keystone cops-like the federation runs things.
 

Eight

Member
Oh yes, knew all along. Another reason I was rather displeased with the whole process.

i am not sure what real hope there is for us men's soccer.

the national organization is inept and corrupt, mls is a single entity that is more worried about making money than pushing the level of talent and you have multiple clubs who have had or still have common ownersihp, the national team is used as a marketing tool for the mls, and the youth system in this county is focused on generating money for the owners of the clubs instead of actually teaching the game.

i am trying to think of another sport in this country where so much money has been poured into for such a long period of time to how this poor a track record to show for it.
 

Chongo94

Active Member
So is it bad when the club captain is boycotting the pre-season tour in an attempt to force though a transfer? Asking for a friend...

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...rsenal-pre-season-tour-united-states-football

I’m probably in the minority, and I know the timing is bad, but I don’t blame the dude one bit for wanting to leave the inept no direction dumpster fire that the club has become.

Now supposedly Spurs have come in to hijack the Saliba bid. Haha. Arsenal are such a joke these days. Stupid horrible human being Kroenke.
 
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