U.S. Soccer Thread

mickeyrat said:

cutz said:

Cliffy6745 said:

No one is scoring 10+ goals.  Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but tough to see.

You're probably right, but you can't assume. Cliffy6745 said:

The US women's soccer team is not going to be in a tie break situation in group stage.

Again you're probably correct, but  you can't assume.

and its also not solely about group play.  tiebreakers are in place for the whole fucking thing.

many here dont seem to want to acknowledge that.

I don't understand why you keep saying this. I am not acknowledging it because it is not true.

Once Group stage is over, if the game is a tie it goes to extra time, if extra time expires it goes to penalties, if penalties are tied, they go to sudden death penalties.  Then whoever wins goes on and the loser goes home.  There are no tiebreakers after the first 3 games.

The issue of piling on goals is a separate one from acting like embarrassing clowns after the goals.  

Indifference71 said:

jeffbr said:

Well, I'm with Mickey on being unapologetic about their play yesterday. And for a few reasons. Goal differential, while probably irrelevant to the US Women in group play since they should never be in a situation where that is what puts them through, is still an important consideration just in case they catch whatever the USMNT has. Also, as Mickey said, there were a few first time WC scorers. That must be thrilling! There were also individual records attained (A. Morgan). Also, they were setting USWNT and WC records at some point during the game and were celebrating those when they happened. Also, as others have said, it is extremely disrespectful to treat your opponents as a bunch of amateurs, which is what it would have been had they backed off. Their opponents qualified for the WC, and expected to be playing against the best teams in the world. Also, the women needed to play their game. They needed to implement their game plan and hone what they are doing, because each stage is progressively more difficult. Had they altered their play for this game, it wouldn't have helped them in terms of momentum or work on the plan for the rest of the tournament. Lastly, they were all fucking happy to be winning their first WC game of the tournament. They had said they wanted to start the WC with a command performance, and they did. I, for one, am very happy for them. Proud of them and proud they're representing this country. My feelings toward the USMNT is 180 the opposite - they are an embarrassment to the sport (and the country) and I can only hope for an automatic qualification in 2026, because I don't believe we'll be in Qatar. If we are, I'm not sure which players we'll bring because only about 5% of the current men's team players seem to know the game.  So I'm enjoying and relishing the win, and have confidence in their abilities as individual players and as a team to go head to head with any women's national team. 

Let's go!

Agree with everything you you said here about the women's team here.

MNT are a complete disaster right now but I still think they'll make it to Qatar.  In spite of this coach who appears to be an MLS/US Soccer puppet, there is still a lot of young talent with guys like Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Sargent, Weah, etc. and what do they all have in common?  None of them play in the trash MLS. 

Yeah, I'm certainly hopeful for Qatar, but based on past qualifications, and based on what we're currently seeing, it seems more and more like a long shot. I remember when Mexico was our only real competition in CONCACAF and Costa Rica would occasionally rally and create trouble in the standings or projections. But now teams like T&T can derail our chances. And as we showed recently we can't get past Venezuela or Jamaica. We have the ability to shit the bed against any opponent from any region in the world. Much of the blame is on USSoccer and the delay in naming Berhalter. That put him 1 year behind in terms of watching and evaluating younger players. But Berhalter gets a big chunk of the blame for building these rosters of MLS players, playing players out of their positions, and trying to implement a brand new system. It would have been great with that extra year, but when you're right up against a tournament (I'm trying to consider the Gold Cup a big tournament, lol) it isn't the time for experiments or a new system. I guess we'll see. I hope we do well this month. I'm not holding my breath. And I do agree that Berhalter is too MLS-focused. Look, I support my local club because I love the game and that's the highest level soccer available to me on a regular basis. But I harbor no illusions about MLS' competitiveness. The league isn't anywhere close, and won't ever be, as a single-entity league with a very restrictive salary cap (allowing no roster depth), and most clubs can't even afford to (or just don't care about) properly develop homegrown players. A few clubs are doing this and then their players head off to Europe, which is fine with me. Any player who wants to maximize their potential has to leave the US to do so. It also then follows that any US national team must rely on the bulk of their roster playing for clubs in Europe. The greater the number of MLS players on the roster, the lower the chances of success. Not sure why that isn't a given. Not sure why Berhalter fixates on MLS as the path to success.

Cliffy6745 said:

Yes, I get that I am probably more grumpy about the goals than most, but is ridiculous to score 5 goals in the last 10 minutes of that game.

They should have knocked the ball around for 10 minutes and gone on their way, if one or two went in whatever.

Sure as hell, don't celebrate them.

I

All of the experts they have on Fox had no problem wit the  amount of goals they scored. Some did wit the celebrations.

Think it would've been more embarrassing if the USA would just passed the ball around and have Thailand chase them around in circles.

I get it.  Say they draw with Chile, both beat Sweden, and Chile plays Thailand in the final game.  They can pile on goals until they are up 16-0.  It seems ludicrous, but in the first match, in a format that rewards goal differential, I could understand continuing to score.  jeffbr said:

MayDay10 said:

The issue of piling on goals is a separate one from acting like embarrassing clowns after the goals.  

Embarrassing clowns is the definition of the men's team right now. The women are dominant and proud. I know in this era of participation trophies and fuzzy feelies, dominance is looked down upon and for some reason demonized, but this team is made up of winners, and they don't need to apologize for that.

I dont care about a comparison with the men's team.  I realize they are in shambles

"Dominant and proud" would also include a little bit of professionalism and humility.  Scoring a 9th goal, running in circles, then sliding on the turf, air-kicking, laughing it up while your teammates mob you looks like you have never been there before.

They were playing a start-up women's program, who they were (likely) heavily favored to beat, if not throttle.  They were acting as if it were the miracle on ice.

Cliffy6745 said:

cutz said:

Cliffy6745 said:

Yes, I get that I am probably more grumpy about the goals than most, but is ridiculous to score 5 goals in the last 10 minutes of that game.

They should have knocked the ball around for 10 minutes and gone on their way, if one or two went in whatever.

Sure as hell, don't celebrate them.

I

All of the experts they have on Fox had no problem wit the  amount of goals they scored. Some did wit the celebrations.

Think it would've been more embarrassing if the USA would just passed the ball around and have Thailand chase them around in circles.

If they were up 2-1 they would have played keep away to close it out.  They should have here and stopped pressing.

And, that's my point of it would've been more embarrassing if they played keep-away with that big lead. Toying with the team is worse, i think. If you're gonna kick my ass, then kick my ass, but don't kick my ass and embarrass me too by playing keep-away. The way USA was dominating the ball playing the style they did in that game , the Thai's may have never touched the ball for extended minutes at a time. 

Has anyone read/heard any comments from Thailand?(I haven't yet)

jeffbr said:

MayDay10 said:

I get it.  Say they draw with Chile, both beat Sweden, and Chile plays Thailand in the final game.  They can pile on goals until they are up 16-0.  It seems ludicrous, but in the first match, in a format that rewards goal differential, I could understand continuing to score.  jeffbr said:

MayDay10 said:

The issue of piling on goals is a separate one from acting like embarrassing clowns after the goals.  

Embarrassing clowns is the definition of the men's team right now. The women are dominant and proud. I know in this era of participation trophies and fuzzy feelies, dominance is looked down upon and for some reason demonized, but this team is made up of winners, and they don't need to apologize for that.

I dont care about a comparison with the men's team.  I realize they are in shambles

"Dominant and proud" would also include a little bit of professionalism and humility.  Scoring a 9th goal, running in circles, then sliding on the turf, air-kicking, laughing it up while your teammates mob you looks like you have never been there before.

They were playing a start-up women's program, who they were (likely) heavily favored to beat, if not throttle.  They were acting as if it were the miracle on ice.

They can only play the team that they're given. This Thai team was a team that qualified for the World Cup. If they weren't ready for international competition, they probably shouldn't have entered the tournament. But they did and they qualified to be there. They just received a quick education about the level of play, and will now have a good measure of where they are relative to other teams. Professional athletes should play to their level always. If you play down to your opponents level you are not doing your best - that is never the secret to success. This isn't a competition where the objective is to have fun and be nice. It is the absolute highest level of competition each of these teams can play in. I didn't hear any of this belly aching by Thailand. And we certainly don't hear this level of angst when men celebrate goals, touchdowns, and home runs. A professional male superstar can front and act arrogant and is honored and applauded, but a woman celebrating is somehow a mean girl. This who thing smacks of some sort of gender bias. My local pro baseball team routinely gets spanked double-digits to zero. We lament that and hope for better things in the future. We're also used to it. I wouldn't expect their opponents to start intentionally striking out, or popping the ball up, or slow playing on defense. It is the nature of high level professional sports. Do your very best always. The mercy rule is great for recreational sports where we're worrying about fragile egos of young children who need protection from this cruel world, but again, we're currently talking about professional athletes playing at the highest level they can against the toughest competition in the world. That is no time to let your foot off the gas.

you seem to be combining points that I am not trying to make into a strange and misguided recipe that includes sexism?

I have no problem with the scoreboard.  In a point differential system, it is foolish to leave anything to chance.  You also do not want to get into lax and bad habits.

It is the general unprofessional and unsportsmanlike demeanor of the players embarrassing themselves and their country out there.  There was no need to celebrate like that.  On the 9th or 10th goal, running in circles, sliding, kicking the air before your laughing teammates pile on like it was the cup clinching goal in the upset of the century was extremely weak.  Show some class and professionalism.  


Here are two examples of teams scoring a lot of goals and acting the right way.  One is a womens team to prove I am not some sort of sexist monster

Faux outrage. And maybe Canadians are more polite. Even in those clips, after the rout was on there was still stick raising, arm raising, smiling, laughing, skating to the bench until some arbitrary number of goals had been scored. What number should that have been for the USWNT? Maybe if they'd scored their 14th, 15th and 16th goals they would have been more subdued. Who knows. Anyway, I celebrate the victory, and applaud the women for the amazing job they did in executing their game plan. I hope that continues through group stage and beyond. 

jeffbr said:

Faux outrage. And maybe Canadians are more polite. Even in those clips, after the rout was on there was still stick raising, arm raising, smiling, laughing, skating to the bench until some arbitrary number of goals had been scored. What number should that have been for the USWNT? Maybe if they'd scored their 14th, 15th and 16th goals they would have been more subdued. Who knows. Anyway, I celebrate the victory, and applaud the women for the amazing job they did in executing their game plan. I hope that continues through group stage and beyond. 

not only that the first video , they cut to the goalie everytime, so we dont know what celebration was going on.

MayDay10 said:

lots of false equivalencies and strawmen being erected.  Along with the sexist allegations, I guess this wont go anywhere.

It shouldn't go anywhere. It shouldn't be an issue to begin with.