Blatter: MLS "still struggling."

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by X@V!3R, Dec 30, 2012.

  1. PhillyMLS

    PhillyMLS Member+

    Oct 24, 2000
    SE PA
    In 2008 New England, as mentioned earlier, got knocked out by Joe Public (T&T) and Chivas USA got knocked out by Tauro (Panama). In 2009 NYRB got knocked out by West Connection (T&T), DC needed penalties to get by Firpo (El Salvador), while Houston lost to Metapan (El Salvador) in a group stage game. MLS teams have learned how to cope with CCL games much better in the past few years (partially because of experience, more hostile domestic games, better scheduling, financial help, and better players). Today teams can send a backup team on the road and still earn at least a point (LA vs Metapan for example).
     
  2. Sandon Mibut

    Sandon Mibut Member+

    Feb 13, 2001
    So is Garber going to respond to this or stay quiet like a little bee-yotch too timid to stand up to the neighborhood bully?

    I mean, when Bruce Arena was still US coach and he criticized MLS, Garber was always quick to respond, either publicly or by going behind the scenes to Soccer House to get them to muzzle Arena.

    So hopefully Garber is as willing to respond to Blatter as he was to Arena.
     
  3. Zoidberg

    Zoidberg Member+

    Jun 23, 2006

    Hmm. Which part struck a nerve and why?

    That is what interests me. Arab? Sepp ally? U think Sepp doesn't pander or is corrupt? Sepp isn't ignorant?

    Please explain...I see fun, ,fun, fun here!
     
  4. INKRO

    INKRO Member+

    Jul 28, 2011
    There's really not much of a point to be honest, Blatter has done all the work necessary beforehand to descredit himself in the face of pretty much every knowledgeable soccer fan in the world.

    Would be worth it to save some face though.
     
  5. El Naranja

    El Naranja Member+

    Sep 5, 2006
    Alief
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Arena had no say over MLS. Sadly, ol' Seppy Blatts can make life difficult if he really wanted to.
     
  6. Fanatical Monk

    Fanatical Monk Member+

    Jun 14, 2011
    Fantasyland
    This was my initial thought too. On the other hand, as a US soccer fan, I do want to know eventually if Gulati actually sports a pair between his legs.

    True.
     
  7. SgtSchultz

    SgtSchultz Member

    Jul 11, 2001
    Parts Unknown
    I really think everybody is reading Sepp wrong here. Deep down Sepp knows FIFA screwed up by awarding the next 2 World Cups to petro-states. He never figured the US would become one of the petro-states as well. Due to fracking, there is a go to be a geopolitical shift in the US's favor and FIFA is laying the groundwork to extricate itself from a bad financial decision. What Sepp is really saying, "I need to help soccer in the US and therefore I am suggesting a re-vote of the 2022 World Cup." The real question is why did Sepp do this on Al Jazeera.
     
    Barbieri and Allez RSL repped this.
  8. CShine

    CShine Member

    Dec 13, 2009
    Huntsville, AL
    Club:
    Rocket City United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There's one area where Blatter's comments are definitely accurate, youth development. The fact that it's taken all this time to even begin setting up a system for it is deplorable. Blatter's all around scumminess makes it no less true. It is ridiculus that a league with so many years under its belt is still dependent on the NCAA for the great bulk of its domestic talent. MLS has beautiful stadiums and nice fanbases but where it REALLY counts the league is definitely "still struggling."
     
    Jamooky repped this.
  9. Grumpy in LA

    Grumpy in LA Bringing It Since 1807™

    Sep 10, 2007
    Chicago
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The league will eventually get better players and therefore better financial returns through the club academies. But those things cost money to run and, especially, to start. For a long time, the league wasn't making that money. It could have done a better job, yes, but let's not forget that as flawed as the NCAA and pay-for-play system was and is, from MLS' point of view it had the significant advantage of being totally free.
     
  10. VegasNYC

    VegasNYC Member

    Apr 22, 2011
    Australia
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    The problem with Blatter's comments is they don't deal with the reality of what its like to be in a country where soccer isnt the number one sport or the only sport.

    Changing the schedule is not going to change the way things operate, besides Japan play the same schedule as MLS but dont seem to get picked on.

    Sometimes i think FIFA thought that after USA 94, the US would abandoned the other sports and focus on soccer, that they would have professional soccer teams in every town in the US that are the toast of the town with a great youth league set up and that aspire to one day play in a top division.

    If FIFA thought that things would take hold instantaneously, then that's why they are disappointed. The rules are fundamentally different for the USA and needed to be taken into account.

    Even in the USA, id be sure it might never happen just because of the money and sentiment that exists in the existing sporting landscape and a sports system that gets little in the way of govt funding and needs private money to finance it.

    However nobody can deny that soccer over the past 18 years has grown substantially in the US and will continue to grow in the future as well.

    So maybe MLS is struggling against the big 4 sports in the US, but considering the existing landscape its dealing with, its doing reasonably well and will continue to do so in the future.
     
    LordRobin and RedRover repped this.
  11. El Naranja

    El Naranja Member+

    Sep 5, 2006
    Alief
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well considering that MLS needed to get those stadiums before investing elsewhere, and spent the better part of those "18 years" getting said stadia built, I'd say MLS hasn't been "deplorable" at all. There was never any point in really sinking any real amount of money into youth development when the NCAA has been doing it just fine for years, at no cost to MLS, when we had no stadiums, no infrastructure, to help develop those talents.

    Teams are just now getting Academies built, training facilities and so on. This stuff takes time. MLS is progressing at a nice pace and now that they have the means to train players on something other than concrete parking lots of highschool stadiums, they can drop some dough on the kids.
     
  12. looknohands

    looknohands Member+

    Apr 23, 2009
    Louisville, KY
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    By this logic, then, the NFL and NBA are still struggling.
     
    X@V!3R and Xenimus repped this.
  13. soccerusa517

    soccerusa517 Member+

    Jun 23, 2009
    Ohio
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    People are way too insecure and refuse to accept the facts, the league is what it is at the moment. It's getting better but more could be done to increase popularity. When ideas are brought up they're shot down from usually the same 5-8 posters who talk like they're on MLS HQ payroll. Some in here are quick to dismiss Sepp because well, he's crooked piece of shit, which is true but responding in such a manner almost justifies his statements, like it struck a nerve.

    I want the league to get better all US fans do, but sometimes that "everything is fine the way it is" phrase isn't true, and based on the youth development failures by the USSF there IS more that could be done. One only needs to look as far as the U-17s, U-20s and U-23s lack of success the last 3 yrs. As if staying course with the same formula for the next 10-20 yrs will make MLS top league, yea right.

    It must continue to improve and not stagnate. I want there to be a rule, an age limit on signings. Enough is enough with the 35+ year old players. A majority off them don't care about anything except the more quiet off the field life and money.

    Very happy that the USL Pro thing finally came along, it was way overdue. It's disgusting to me when younger American players get little to no playing time because washed up 35yr DP is playing ahead of them. Coaching must improve at the lower levels etc, all this stuff that is constantly talked about. To get close to Liga MX the average American player must get better, the league won't reach it by bringing in over the hill players.

    If Mr. Blatter is concerned as much as he says he is then why did Qatar get the World Cup? Because while Gualti sucked enough, there weren't enough zeros on that check.
     
  14. CShine

    CShine Member

    Dec 13, 2009
    Huntsville, AL
    Club:
    Rocket City United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    These are just different ways of saying that Sepp is right. Sure, it costs a ton. Sure, there were other priorities. But the academies are not built and by any measure that's "still struggling." People get dazzled by all the expensive stadiums and forget that talent development is the core of the FIFA model. I'm not saying it should've been easy. I'm saying it shouldn't have taken nearly two decades TO BEGIN.

    MLS is still struggling.
     
  15. El Naranja

    El Naranja Member+

    Sep 5, 2006
    Alief
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And I would say it absolutely should have taken that long to begin. It certainly couldn't have been done any faster. If ol' Sepp is that worried about it, he can write MLS and USSF a check to help bolster things. Until then, we've gone as fast, indeed faster than most would think, as possible.
     
    profiled, looknohands and X@V!3R repped this.
  16. CShine

    CShine Member

    Dec 13, 2009
    Huntsville, AL
    Club:
    Rocket City United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    They don't need to sign kids out of middle school. You're making an apples-and-oranges comparison. Your post is actually an example of the problem MLS has. They borrowed the NFL model for player development and have spent a decade and a half proving that it does not work for soccer. This is reason #1 why the league is still struggling.
     
  17. Inca Roads

    Inca Roads Member+

    Nov 22, 2012
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Meh. I think MLS is finally struggling. Too many years of status quo soccer and all that... finally it's starting to catch on league-wide that academies and SSS and working closely with fans brings so much momentum and quality to the league in the long run. We're finally starting to put significant effort into these things.
     
  18. El Naranja

    El Naranja Member+

    Sep 5, 2006
    Alief
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How has it proven not to work? We've a national team over the last decade full of players out of NCAA and a league with bona fide stars who got their start in college. How doesn't it work?

    Could it better? Sure, but you go try telling NCAA they need to do anything and see what happens. They move like the continents: barely noticeable at all except for sudden, massive jumps here and there.
     
  19. Grumpy in LA

    Grumpy in LA Bringing It Since 1807™

    Sep 10, 2007
    Chicago
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You give Blatter way more credit than he deserves imagining that the academies ever even occurred to him.

    He just thinks American soccer is "struggling" because the system here doesn't look exactly like high-level European soccer. Which it never will do because the league is being built under different conditions at a different time.

    "Struggling" was the league's nearly fatal contraction 10 years ago. Gradually raising the level of play and installing the physical infrastructure and securing the sponsorship and TV deals that allow clubs to generate revenue that will in turn allow them to install a better developmental infrastructure, that's all part of a virtuous cycle. It's not struggling by any rational standard.

    But reason has never stopped Blatter, probably because he wouldn't recognize if it bit him on his pampered ass. Now, if it offered him a big enough bribe, he'd probably recognize it as his long-lost son and award it the 2022 World Cup.
     
    Allez RSL repped this.
  20. CShine

    CShine Member

    Dec 13, 2009
    Huntsville, AL
    Club:
    Rocket City United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It shortchanges American talent. It deprives them of the chance to reach their full potential by making it a "pay to play" game. Your comments are exactly right as long as you look only at the corporate balance sheet and ignore the developmental needs of the kids.
     
  21. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The federal laws listing age as a protected class in employment might have an issue with your idea...
     
    looknohands and ji_shuheng repped this.
  22. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It's about half true. The MLS teams competing in the CCL in 2008 and 2009 weren't quite as reserve-laden as in the 2012 edition, but still tended to rest about half of their starters in any given game. And they lost whenever they played away in Central America. In the last two seasons, we've seen entire teams of reserves pick up impressive away wins.
     
  23. Grumpy in LA

    Grumpy in LA Bringing It Since 1807™

    Sep 10, 2007
    Chicago
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not if they only discriminate against those aged 35-39, though, right?
     
    superdave and Jasonma repped this.
  24. CShine

    CShine Member

    Dec 13, 2009
    Huntsville, AL
    Club:
    Rocket City United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is not a serious response. The high school and college system was never intended to measure up to international standards. If it worked, Klinsmann would not be in the process of pushing it to the margins.
     
  25. Grumpy in LA

    Grumpy in LA Bringing It Since 1807™

    Sep 10, 2007
    Chicago
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Of course it does. But until Blatter wants to give the USSF some money so that it can expand the DA (even more, which is another nice development), then that's the way it is. The money to develop players doesn't materialize because it would be nice to have. It materializes in large part because somebody's going to make money off those players. The fact that it would be productive to invest more money is irrelevant if there is no money to invest. If I'd had a couple million bucks liquid during the housing crash, I could've quadrupled it. But I had about $3.52 and some sugar packets. So I just bought a cup of coffee.

    There wasn't money for MLS to create serious youth development programs 10 years ago. Now there is. That's progress, not struggling.
     
    Allez RSL and UcIceD2011 repped this.

Share This Page