LucaAltieri

Brad Evans would be a good addition. Really versatile. Can play anywhere across the defence and midfield. Like a better James Perch. Klinsmann loves him too so he must be meeting the international appearance requirements for a work permit.

This will never, ever happen. Most MLS people (that is, supporters groups like the Timbers Army, Emerald City Supporters, The Caldron...etc) you talk to about this would accuse you of euro-snobbery or something daft like that. The main issues for me regarding MLS is the lack of a single table, unbalanced schedule and the development of players, however there are unique challenges with the MLS, iirc most other leagues in big countries (think Brazil or Russia) have teams mainly in one part of the country or are fairly close together, since the MLS works on a licensing/franchise system the teams are purposely (it seems) spread out and therefore travel is an absolute nightmare for players. Diego Forlan was reported as saying that the reason why he chose to go the the J.league over the MLS was because of travel, and because it's not a top, top competition most of the flights he'd be taking in either league would be on commercial flights and he'd spend way more time in airports and hotels in the MLS than he would if he were to play in Japan, so he chose the league with less travel. For Americans, the thought has never crossed their mind because they are used to it. But think about how extremely lucky players are in England because you are in your own bed most nights because travel in England is so easy (there is not a single car journey in England/Wales where you would realistically starve to death if you were to forego eating on your drive...for example if you were driving down the A1 to London from Newcastle.) and there are chartered flights if you do have to go play somewhere in Eastern Europe or even in Germany. I love the MLS and in the 8 years I've been in the US I've seen the league grow and expand but beyond the unbalanced schedule and the like, I absolutely hate player development in this country. To see player development in so many sports so intrinsically linked with education and schooling is a foreign concept to me and just feels...wrong? Granted, the MLS is doing something about it with academies and the like but until over half of the players in the MLS are academy trained it won't be job done. I'm incredibly excited to see where the MLS is going to go but it will never ever be like it is in Europe or South America, the train for that to happen left about 1940, but it'll be very interesting to see where Americans take and adapt the beautiful game for their tastes and for their way of doing things. Sure there are cringe worthy things occasionally (those hilarious "tifos" that the timbers army put out like the video game one...or well, any tifo that absolutely has nothing to do with football but some forced in pop culture reference) but on the whole, the MLS is a decent product that will get better once the standard of player improves, I disagree with the sentiment of Dan Garber though and his desire for the MLS to be the top competition in the world (absolutely ludicrous) but I think if the MLS can become like, a Liga MX level type product, he should be extremely proud of himself. I think you're being a little negative. Some valid concerns, obviously, but things like player development are improving to a European standard and over the next 10 years you're going to see the difference in quality in the average American player. I get to meet and talk to a lot of local coaches. They're easily as good as, or better than, the grass roots coaches you find in the UK. The single biggest obstacle is getting kids to play outside of their scheduled practices. Something that's becoming just as much of a problem in the UK too. MLS will probably never be the biggest league in the world but they're going to be up there, if for no other reasons than soccer is pretty fashionable right now and the United States still has a lot of money to throw at professional sport.

Mike Ashley bought one team, discovered it was more expensive than he thought, then went out and bought (part of) a second one. Not sure when that says about him.

I love watching these weekly roundup videos and just admiring the dramatic music and enthusiasm of the commentators despite the stadiums being completely empty.

Could happen.

Before hiring a new manager we need a Director of Football who knows his/her shit. The manager isn't in charge of recruitment, Carr does the scouting and board members decide on the financial viability. Pardew has done ok with those rules imposed on him but it's obviously awkward. He wants certain kinds of players and isn't getting them. Having a DoF who knows what they're doing means we can do as other clubs are doing and decide on a club philosophy then hire the players, manager, and coaching staff that fit that style. Replacing Pardew would be a half measure only. Not all managers are prepared to work in that system, though. Bielsa gets tugged off a lot but he wouldn't fit into that system. He likes to micro-manage.

I usually just use a rolled up pair of socks.

Zakaria Bakkali - Similar player to HBA but, imo, better decision making and better attitude. Intelligent.

Interview with the Southampton academy staff, for those interested in that sort of thing: http://www.thecoachingmanual.com/soccer/podcasts/southampton-academy-8005

No such luck.

Quote from his autobiography: https://twitter.com/darrenraff/status/463643599268507649 Anyone surprised to know that Souness' coaching style was influenced by complete dinosaurs?

Don't look hard enough. Ronaldo played by Elton John. Elton John everyone. Elton John, the actor. Some people aren't even taking this seriously.

Ronaldo played by Steve Buscemi?

Needs a podcast, tbh.

I'm not too worried about individual players. There's enough money and enough young talent that the league is only going to keep getting better. I wish teams would stop signing aging European legends, mind.

Interesting article. I think there will be a significant cap increase for next season. Everyone seems in favor of it. Pretty sure I've even seen interviews with Garber where he's open to it. They certainly can't go on paying the kids almost nothing. Many players earn more in USL Pro than they do in MLS, which isn't right.

I was certain they were gone. They had no goals in the team for the longest time. Wickham suddenly turning into Ferenc Puskás was unexpected.

Some crackers, some just blatantly making up the numbers.

Also, NASL is living on borrowed time. Despite being the official second tier according to USSF they refuse to affiliate with MLS and don't consider themselves to be minor league. As a result, USL Pro are making affiliations with MLS teams and MLS teams are fielding their reserves in USL Pro competitions. NASL will eventually be squeezed out. You'll also notice that a lot of the recent MLS expansion talk is around USL sides (Orlando) and NASL sides get overlooked (Cosmos). NASL is screwed due to their own pigheadedness.

I've been getting more and more into USL Pro recently. It's great having so much content available online for all the teams. The non-MLS-affiliated teams are pretty good in their own right and the MLS reserve teams are a good opportunity for player development - something that has been missing from the game. It's good enough to watch but also obscure enough so that the players, coaches, clubs etc are all really accessible via social media. They're growing really quickly, too. St. Louis team announced just today. Sounders likely to enter a team next season.

I agree with most of your first point but the bolded is where I disagree. Against a prime Barcelona or a rampant L'pool it makes sense. But the majority of the time, for the last decade - he's had brilliant tip top players to work with. I wouldn't describe Atletico as some attacking super force either. Your second point is not relevant. I'm not talking about results i'm talking about approach. He gets good results but not good enough considering the approach for me as a fan. 3rd: One important factor you missed out is that Atletico came out in the second half to score a second goal - that attacking approach ended making the second half easy. It wasn't just defending and closing down space. They also did Chelsea twice from training ground team attacks which was impressive. Thiago to Juan Fran, back post finish. Tbf to Chelsea - Atletico are simply a better team. Better drilled. Tactically more adept, they simply play their game better. Individually the Chelsea players probably have more talent - that's it. Mourinho's a great manager. I've never said they've had a terrible season. But it will be a disappointment. For the last decade Chelsea have had the talent to win the league and get to the CL final or pick up some silverware. This is the first time, in some time they've done none. And they've spent £100m for the privilege. I had them down as PL winners at the start of the season. Fair enough. I'd disagree with the bit in bold, personally. They have good attacking options. Mourinho obviously thinks so too since he's trying to buy one of them. A cautious approach was probably justified, imo, but once they went behind they never really looked like getting back into it.

1. He doen't play Barcelona every week - Arsenal, Man United, Atletico Madrid this season for e.g. - none are Barcelona, all 3 games were 0-0. 2. Who picked the team last night? He didn't need to play Terry nor Hazard, nor did he need to bring an off the pace Eto'o on early doors second half. Nobody disagrees he's a great manager & motivator but he's not the all encompassing hero many think he is. If he'd won last night it'd have been a 'tactical masterclass' not seen many people banding that about Simeone who despite what you say didn't really change Atleti's game up that much, just dropped a bit deeper than the norm. You're right he'll probably pick up a couple of pots next season after a couple more major additions, a wiser manager would've done that last summer when Stevie Wonder could see Chelsea needed a striker but it didn't fit his narrative of being the underdog. Not really arguing with any of them. His team selection I point out as a criticism. I'm not arguing he's infallible. And I praised Simeone's approach to the game. He out-Mourinho-ed Mourinho on this occasion, credit where it's due. The 'tactical masterclass' narrative comes from several places. It comes up so frequently because of his record and reputation he has built up over time. Now it's often the go-to lazy platitude in some sections of the media. But over the last 10 years he has earned that reputation.

The fact remains he spent 50 million to take the club from 8th to 7th. It took an extra season before his coaching and recruitment started to pay off. The starting point only works against Rodgers in this line of argument. Getting from 8th to 7th is a lot easier than getting from 3rd to a trophy. Different standards are being applied to the two managers. Torres was shit towards the end of his time at Liverpool. He was shit at Chelsea under other managers. He has been shit for Spain. He's done. Eto'o is 32 and was brought to Chelsea after two seasons in Russia. We're not talking about the same player as Eto'o in 2009. I like Ba, personally. But he's not going to win you a title on his own. All teams slip up against opposition they should be beating. Liverpool have lost to Hull, Southampton, & Man United. They dropped points against the Mackems, Swansea, Newcastle... it happens whatever approach you happen to take. Again, different standards being applied to the two managers. The only reason Mourinho gets shit for it is because we've come to expect more from him.

Both great examples. And if you look at his record, statistically, he performs way above what you might expect. His home record (everywhere) is amazing. His record against top clubs is impressive. Through the normal ebb and flow of football, with luck, refereeing decisions, individual brilliance, individual errors, and all the other variables that are hard to control he shouldn't have anywhere near the record he does against other top teams. They're teams capable of winning games and he does a great job of getting results. On the surface you might say he "should" be getting results against top teams, but so consistently? He's great at what he does and I don't find it boring.

First: There's an art to what Jose does too. You're just not into it. Going up against the best attacking teams in the world and nullifying them isn't easy. If you're playing against Barca who have, at the time, probably the best player in the world, you're not going to beat them by out-attacking them. You need to nullify their strong points and exploit their weaknesses. You can't just set out your team, play to your strengths, and ignore what the other team offers. You'll get beat. Mourinho takes that approach to the majority of games that he plays and for good reason. Second: Even the best teams in the world will slip up. No team goes a season winning every game that they "should" win. Part of the beauty of football is that on the day everyone has their chance. The approach Mourinho, and Pep, and Ancelotti, and Rafa, etc all take is to minimize how much of that is down to luck. Pep does it through trying to control possession. Mourinho does it through trying to eliminate attacking space. Different approaches but essentially working on the same problem: leaving as little as possible to chance. More often than not, it works. But it's never going to work 100% of the time. It doesn't matter how expensive the players on the pitch happen to be. Atletico played a good game. They nullified Chelsea much more effectively than Chelsea did them. The amount of balls Atletico cut out or blocked in the final 3rd was impressive. They scouted Chelsea well and defended the right areas beautifully. Conversely, I think Chelsea's team selection was off. Three players coming back from injury played major roles in the loss. Hazard couldn't do much against the tight defence and was responsible for at least one of the goals. Terry should have done better for the 3rd. Eto'o gave away a penalty. All the while, Chelsea's in form striker was on the bench. Had Ba come on instead of Eto'o then maybe he doesn't give away a penalty. Had Terry's header gone in instead of hitting the post then perhaps right now Mourinho is getting praise for grinding out another result. Chelsea "should" have won on paper. But games aren't played on paper. Mourinho has made a career out of getting results he shouldn't have had. Against Atletico it happened against him. That's football. Any suggestion that it somehow makes Mourinho a failure this season doesn't make sense to me. He's still a great manager, is still in the title race at this late stage (although he may argue otherwise), and made a Champions League semi, which no other English team managed to do this year. Not a terrible first season.