Moose Stuff
Active Member
4-1 USA
Ass whipping. Only [ Finebaum ]ty part is Zardes scored twice. Ugh .
Ass whipping. Only [ Finebaum ]ty part is Zardes scored twice. Ugh .
2023-2024 European Football Thread
- Thread starter Portland Frog
- Start date
Purp
Active Member
Missed it bc of my own game. We lost in the most darned up penalties ever. Instead of 5 PKs for each side before sudden death we went straight to sudden death penalties. Our first shooter made a 45 yard FG.
Apparently my recording of the game was preempted by the 300th episode of Paw Patrol and some Hallmark Christmas movie. Ugh.
Be a Gladbach supporter. Great club that’s just beginning to get back to it’s glory.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
Good god I hate non EPL/soccer weekends. Inevitably end up suffering through College Game Day and the NFL.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
Welp, I’ve resorted to watching the U17 World Cup final on Telemundo.
Purp
Active Member
Is it not on FS1 or FS2? Been watching it there for a week or two.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
Probably. I’m oddly into the Spanish broadcast despite understanding less than 1% of what he says.
tcujsauce
Active Member
They are a fun club to watch over the last couple of seasons. The last match I attended at the Allianz Arena in Munich was a 0-3 beating at the hands of Gladbach last October.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
Brazil/Mexico U17 final was a hell of a game FWIW. I pushed it a little too far after that as Honduras/Trinidad was NOT.
Purp
Active Member
I saw Honduras and Trinidad on and opted against watching. Surprised me that either side advanced that deep, but I didn't have high expectations and figured Pats/Eagles would be more entertaining.
Heavy influence from the Americas in the U-17 WC this go round. The USSF better get it together quickly or qualifying for the big boy WC may become a long shot. Honduras, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, and Guatemala are all capable of scaring us now and most of them are getting much better pretty quickly.
Chongo94
Active Member
It’s almost ironic how MLS has helped much of the smaller CONCACAF nations improve, yet we continue to rely on our European players for the most part as our MLS stalwarts seem somewhat mediocre lately.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
I feel like Costa Rica is down actually. They looked very pedestrian yesterday.
Eight
Member
consider that the english premier league is considered one of if not the strongest professional league and when was the last time england was a legit threat to win a major competition?
i know for the houston club they depend upon the fairly cheap players from mexico, central, and south america instead of actually trying to locate and develop their own talent
just not as cost effective and in all honesty how many mls teams truly have an academy system that does in fact id, sign, and develop talent?
Purp
Active Member
I'm comparing to 15-20 years ago from now. When I was in college CONCACAF was totally dominated by the U.S. and Mexico (mostly Mexico, but Landon Donovan got in their heads in Korea and changed that a little). Nobody was remotely close to those two in the confederation. In the last WC cycle or two we've seen Costa Rica make a case for a solid #3 in CONCACAF and those countries I listed have seen some serious progress with their younger crops of players.
As Chongo said, I think MLS has helped them more than it's helped us. It's taken a couple of decades, but it appears they've making some serious progress while we've rested on our laurels (if you can call a bunch of Gold Cups achievements).
Chongo94
Active Member
Yeah the EPL is 65% foreigners but the MLS is 56% so while bad it’s not EPL bad yet.
Dallas has a great academy and some of their players are finally starting to trickle up. The Red Bulls supposedly have/had a great academy but their players seem to leave or wind up on different teams. Atlanta supposedly has a good system as well but we may be waiting to see what develops given they are still pretty new.
We’ll see what happens. I’m actually a little more bullish on the mls youth academies at this point as the teams are finally (within the last 4-6 years) making a concerted effort to develop them. Sadly, means we’ll have to wait to see if it helps. And given our recent laughable history, I’m pretty meh on whether it will in meaningful terms.
Eight
Member
kansas city supposedly has a solid academy system and fairly aggressive in signing prospects.
far, far too much of the talent development is still left to the travel clubs who are money making machines for those involved and they have very little accountability. wish there was a relegation system in mls to pressure clubs to try to be competitive instead of banking their tv money and not really investing back into their academies and such
Chongo94
Active Member
Agreed.
Chongo94
Active Member
Moose Stuff
Active Member
I have officially chosen a team to root for due solely to how awesomely awful that video was.
