Soccer
- Thread starter Bulk VanderHuge
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@BradStevens @Mark Milton @JamieDimonsBalls @kraft cheese+macaroni
now this is a really interesting take
now this is a really interesting take
Alexi Lalas blames U.S. soccer struggles on diversity
Meh...Lalas is among the most egregious, IMO, of giving hot takes that he doesn't truly believe in, just to be controversial. I don't know. I listen to him...and maybe he does believe this, but I think the story at the end does a nice job of showing it's a pretty dumb hypothesis.
he definitely wants "clicks" etc. i think he makes an interesting point tho. it's what i said before about a brand. what are we. if we're going to be vanilla then we need perfection. it's hard when you're not homogeneous. i've played on numerous teams with both south americans and english players. it's a weird fit. they want to do different things. you see it in the construction of these mls teams
Which nation has the most players playing in the best leagues? Are they one of the favorites in a WC battle?
That guy that came over from SLSG last summer to run our NL team was/is the Commissioner of the ECNL. Gets over here, gets divorced, announces mid-season he's going back to Gallagher...basically checks out. This is from February!!
We're the ghetto ECNL/GA club in Indy...hell, our HQ's are on Pendleton Pike!!
My daughter lost her Tango in a homeless encampment along the railroad tracks.
Lotta Hispanic kids on the boy's teams.
But isn't that true of national teams all over the world? At least in terms of where they play club football? Different styles/ideas coming together and executing the vision of the coach? Lots of South Americans play in Europe, where the style is much different than home. Then they go home and play juego bonito.
But the players all largely prefer one style. You know how Spain will play. You know how Brazil. Germany. The U.S. who knows.
Impact?We're the ghetto ECNL/GA club in Indy...hell, our HQ's are on Pendleton Pike!!
My daughter lost her Tango in a homeless encampment along the railroad tracks.
Lotta Hispanic kids on the boy's teams.
I think they're out in Plainfield...and I think they're purely ISL.
Lalas is notorious for being stupid.
There are different styles of play. For the 14 years my kids played in youth soccer up through academy, everyone followed Barca. But the parents ruined that because they didn’t want development— they wanted wins. Oh and by the way, at least 80% of American soccer coaches know nothing but playing Stoke City long ball. You know who should coach the US team? Sam Alladyce. Perfect fit.
We pinned for years and years — including lalas, about playing beautifully. Lalas said that the US wasn’t reaching the best players because of cost.
The reality is, unlike other countries, we sacrifice development for wins. It shows. Look at the touch of 90% of other teams— they are better than the US. Finely groomed fields, turf. Play on some rough grass and dirt. Play pick up more often. All this stuff matters.
Btw, the best development I saw in my oldest was from Timmy Ernst. Bro worked the players like crazy in practice. At game time, Tim acted like he had taken about 8 Xanax. Never said a word- let the kids play through everything. He dropped the all the league games because the league wasn’t that good and for an entire year we played scrimmages against the Chicago fire, crew, scott Gallagher (with Josh Sargent), and a few others. Thats it.
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This is an interesting debate. I used to have a similar one when I was on my local Little League board.
What's the purpose of the club/league? Is it to develop the best players to be the absolute best? Is it to provide a good experience for all levels of players? Sometimes those goals are at odds with each other.
Is a local suburban soccer club supposed to care more about creating great World Cup team more than anything else? More pros? Or enough wins to make the season enjoyable and to compete against other clubs for players and $$?
Well, I don’t think the extremes you pointed out are applicable. I think at young age groups, maybe 11 and 12 and under should be developmental based. With rare exception is the best player at age 10 the best player at age 15.
I also think that if your son or daughter is playing at a B team, the coach should focus on nothing but development even at the high school level.
If you can breed development into your club and work on the fundamentals, there isn’t anything bad that could happen. I see so many parents ruin sports for their kids, it’s just insane. Let them have fun and enjoy the game. Once they do, the rest of it takes care of itself. I’m very much along the lines of a Pete Carroll head coach. Work hard and enjoy the game.
I did coach high school football for a couple years. It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. Parents absolutely ruined it. Show me a parent was constantly chirping in their kids ear, and I’ll show you a kid who will be quitting within two years
Show me a coach who makes players run laps, and I’ll show you a coach who is all out of ideas.
I think the first goal in any sport is to make sure the kids have fun. You can still work them hard, you can still criticize, but if they ain’t having fun, they ain’t gonna play. Winning at age 10 is bullshit. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to win, but it doesn’t need to start at such early ages where parents ruined it for kids. The long, angry car rides home. Yelling at the kid at the dinner table after the game. 100% sport killers.
Apologies, but this was 100% voice to text. If I accidentally spelled out “Lars has a great ass“, it was an accident.
In 1994 when the US was hosting the World Cup oiur team had something I think all teams afterwards are missing. That team had heart. They scrapped and gave 110% effort. They certainly weren't the most talented team, but they made up for it in other areas. Certainly we've had some teams that have played hard and captured the interest of our nation, but that was the team that got the ball rolling in terms of interest in our country.
In 1988 I was lucky enought to have the opportunity to play in a soccer camp in Switzerland. This wasn't because I earned the right, my parents had the money to send me. When I got there it was obvious I wasn't near the talent level of pretty much every kid in my age group. But what I had was that American attitude. I scrapped and even though this short, slow, white Jewish boy couldn't compete with the best athletes back home, some how I was faster, quicker and played harder than most of the European players. In fact the coaches loved me, they seemed to expect that I would give more effort becasue I was American but also knew I had nowhere near the same skill level on the pitch.
I guess my whole point is our teams since 1994 have come a long way skill wise and have players that can finally compete at the highest club level, but they've lost that chip on their shoulder. This is just my opinion, you're welcome to argue against my POV.
In 1988 I was lucky enought to have the opportunity to play in a soccer camp in Switzerland. This wasn't because I earned the right, my parents had the money to send me. When I got there it was obvious I wasn't near the talent level of pretty much every kid in my age group. But what I had was that American attitude. I scrapped and even though this short, slow, white Jewish boy couldn't compete with the best athletes back home, some how I was faster, quicker and played harder than most of the European players. In fact the coaches loved me, they seemed to expect that I would give more effort becasue I was American but also knew I had nowhere near the same skill level on the pitch.
I guess my whole point is our teams since 1994 have come a long way skill wise and have players that can finally compete at the highest club level, but they've lost that chip on their shoulder. This is just my opinion, you're welcome to argue against my POV.
I think it's a fair point, but you're not going to win the world cup with a chip on your shoulder unless you have the skill to go with it. But you can win the world cup on just skill (and chemistry).
Oh I agree. I just think as our skill has gone up our effort has gone down. Back in the day we had to out-effort the other teams.
I wasn’t even good at math. Such a disappointment in my family. I majored in rectangular pizza from the cafeteria.
Not even good pizza! But, my 5'1", 320 lbs. frame earned a doctorate in high-quality food served by old, smelly ladies in hairnets.
Tater tots, sloppy joes, dried up hamburgers, sugary canned peaches. No wonder we all grew up fat and with cavaties.
Pizza. In a bag. Hotdog. In a bag. Milk carton. Frozen. People would order French fries and poured them and their ketchup (catsup that’s a real spelling) on the dirty tray. Pitcher’s mound in the middle of the soccer field. Center on the football team ate longjohns for breakfast every day. I would jam a pen in each one. The offensive line I cut the love handles out of all of their gym shirts and practice shirts. They retaliated by stealing the T tops off my 79 passed down Monte Carlo. Couldn’t drive in the rain. We got banned from the cafeteria and forced to eat in the bathroom. We turned it into a lounge and made it known anyone who used it as a bathroom would die. 9 months of senior year
High school was the best
Pencil popping. This was the single greatest “sport” for boys in middle school. Pull off the eraser, bend the cheap metal into an axe, learn how to properly use your weapon for breaking your competitors pencil. Is a normal #2 yellow pencil or a round colored pencil strongest? This was the dog fighting like activity within the school. Crowds of boys circling the opponents. The loser leaving their broken pencil on the floor. The halls of school littered with broken pencils everywhere.
You southern Indiana folk (anyone south of Peru) are so soft.
In the tougher, blue collar northern Indiana high school halls, there was no metal bending. It was wood on fvcking wood. And if you lost, you lost way more than a pencil. The winner got to crack you across the knuckles with his winning stick.
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