Deuce

It’s his first mistake for us, calm it down eh? I'm clam thanks. He's played about 97mins of football for us and loads of people on here go on like he's a footballing god. It was a schoolboy error. What, do you expect absolute perfection? You’re being a bit shellfish.

No, Joselu

Weather! I'm not saying he should be given it, but howay. Whitened teeth, a cotton shirt, linen shorts and flip flops, strutting along the Santa Monica pier - he'd fucking love it. it’d be horrific

why would he take the U.S. job when he’s a lackadaisical draw away from the England gig?

Arena resigns

My condolences.

I should put out feelers, see if there’s anyone else around here wallowing alone in misery.

Far more sound than the Orlando group; you know the group that was just the two of us

Should just let ‘em go nuts. $500K tickets, World Cup played in personal stadiums around the world, tuxedoed attendants pouring Cristal for oil sheikhs, Russian oligarchs, and hedge fund managers. Fuck ‘em.

I still like that one. goddammit man

Every MLS crowd will be doing whatever Iceland does without a doubt. ugh

He was fairly highly regarded as a manager too iirc. A lot of people were disappointed when they let him go. Clearly it worked out alright.

Well that too. Hopefully the fan base uses this opportunity to reflect on how fucking shit our chants tend to be.

Managed the national team from 2010-2013.

The NCAA college system doesn't work for football either - they need to get under 16's straight into professional clubs and not bother with an education. It’s improving and there have been notable successes (our current RB, for one), but this is true. Pulisic for example certainly wouldn’t have developed this well had he gone the high school -> college route.

Biggest disappointment is that we won’t get to take DaMarcus Beasley to what seems like his 8th World Cup

Short story: poor player/tactical selection, poor play, terrible field conditions, opponent who wanted it more Long story: culmination of half a decade or more of program mismanagement Terrible field conditions is no excuse at all to lose to that kind of side. Did you see the state of the pitch in the Bosnia v Belgium game and that wasn't deemed an excuse because Belgium dealt with it Woosh

Short story: poor player/tactical selection, poor play, terrible field conditions, opponent who wanted it more Long story: culmination of half a decade or more of program mismanagement

Nixon on Twitter making the case for Rafa as USMNT manager We don’t deserve such an angel.

Interesting article from last week: http://americansoccernow.com/articles/the-missing-years-u-s-soccer-s-development-gap

The cunt’s already starting with the crack papering:

Unless Gulati goes I’d don't expect anything substantial to change. Arena will go but they’ll make some wildly uninspiring pick to replace him. Kreis, Vermes, Porter, some politically safe pick but certainly no one who’s ever been tested on the world stage.

There’s not much evidence for that though. Of all the players who have returned from Europe, Bradley’s the only one who might realistically be playing in a top European league. Guzan and Altidore might be bouncing around the Eredivisie or Scotland. Howard was already finished, Dempsey came back before for the last World Cup and his form really hasn’t dropped for the U.S. since then, and Bedoya never really stuck even when he was in France. In fact, I’d argue that having more MLS-based players has elevated the play of the rest of the teams in the confederation relative to the U.S. and that’s what’s made a big difference this cycle. Well I think that supports my point. All the teams have MLS players. It's levelled the playing field. You need players to be playing and thriving in any European leagues to have an edge over your opponents. Pulisic looks streets ahead of anybody else because he's been kept away from MLS and the entire system. I'm sure it's only one issue but it's got to be relevant. MLS in its current guise might have a lot of positives but it is not a league that will push these players to the required level. Get them the fuck out of there. U.S. players should absolutely be pushing themselves to get to Europe, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think, with the exception of Bradley, the return of those who have come back is the root cause of our current predicament. Jordan Morris, for example, is one who’s been hyped to fuck since college and I’ve yet to ever be impressed by him. Had a chance to sign for Wolfsburg (iirc, don’t quote me on that), but turned it down to stay home and play for Seattle. Sure doesn’t seem like it’s paid off.

There’s not much evidence for that though. Of all the players who have returned from Europe, Bradley’s the only one who might realistically be playing in a top European league. Guzan and Altidore might be bouncing around the Eredivisie or Scotland. Howard was already finished, Dempsey came back before for the last World Cup and his form really hasn’t dropped for the U.S. since then, and Bedoya never really stuck even when he was in France. In fact, I’d argue that having more MLS-based players has elevated the play of the rest of the teams in the confederation relative to the U.S. and that’s what’s made a big difference this cycle. I'm pretty high right now, so I can't fully flesh out my opinion here, but Bradley was the biggest culprit. He's been awful for a few years now, and he's all we have in midfield except for some decent younger guys. I can understand why him and Altidore went back, or Gonzalez not leaving for Europe a few years ago, but when you're not testing yourself at the top level you're not going to progress. Fortunately the younger generation are taking risks in Europe right now and it's working out for them. The players bear a significant burden for where we are now, but more than anything we’ve been dying for competent leadership for years. Klinsmann playing almost as many unique starting XIs as matches managed over five years, constantly coming out with zany bullshit, publicly undermining players. Arena being the same manager he was when he last managed us despite the game clearly evolving since then. And even more problematic is that nothing has been demanded of them. We still have no footballing ethos, no direction. It’s a massive clusterfuck run by incompetent morons.