Argentina at Colombia, November 15th (R)

Cosmos, my dude! Nothing is up really. Don't let my school teacher tone fool you into thinking that I don't respect where you're coming from. I really do. I've stated as much before and I meant it. I appreciate what you bring to this forum, for the most part. In fact, I've always thought of having some kind of end of year awards for these forums, with posters like yourself, SupaMario, Albiceleste2010, and many others in mind. You all bring valuable contributions in different ways. And while I may criticize and oppose some of your posts, I really do try to make it about your posts, NOT THE POSTER. Obviously, I've had varying levels of success at that. I am well aware of my nagging habit of correcting people whenever I think they're wrong. Just be glad you don't have to live with me every day like my wife does . Thank God I make up for this by being an otherwise exceedingly nice guy (and a bit narcissistic too apparently )

I will say this again though. When at the stadium, expressing how you feel about the team and how they're doing and so forth, passion is a great thing. I admire people being passionate about things they love, much like I am passionate about some things. When it comes to analyzing what's wrong with the team and putting proposals out there on potential solutions, unbridled passion becomes a liability. I'll respect your stance on not separating your passion from your thinking, but to me that presents a bit of a paradox. Passion in many ways stands in opposition to rational thought. Thereby, if I come to the conclusion that some of the things are irrational, I don't see that as being unfair. So when you are deliberating on this team and presenting certain things as facts (when they may not be), or ignoring actual facts altogether, I gotta tell you that it will bother me. And if I lash out a bit, it's never personal. I do think of you as a good guy. After all, who else would invite me to come down to watch a game with him sometimes and get me to feel to you're completely genuine about it?

I so would want to get behind USA soccer, but the level of ignorance and disdain that the general population shows towards the sport really disgusts me. It's one thing if you prefer other sports to futbol, but the way they try to paint it as unmanly and unamerican just gnaws at me. For that reason, MLS will always be doomed to mediocrity. That's why even though the Red Bulls constantly bother me about coming out to support, I will hold onto my money.

Did they really play Haiti recently? That one seemed to have slipped by me.

My bad...ties vs. Haiti in 04 and 09.

I can't handle the mls...it's a bit like watching a real game, but with the field under a good 2 inches of water.

And yes, plenty of ignorance, as well as arrogance. Only serious media coverage for riots, etc (because US fans are so well-behaved...although in all honesty, I believe the murder rate for NFL and NBA players is dropping). I actually think it's healthy for the US NT to struggle a bit, and develop respect for just how difficult it is to succeed in a truly global game.

All right, far enough off topic for me...should be very interesting to see what Sabella comes up with over the next several months.

And the offer still stands!

Sometimes I just need to let stuff out, logical or not. Then I end up thinking I better explain it and probably do a bad job at it. But the very last thing that I want to do is hurt or insult anyone.

To be honest the days (if they ever existed in the first place) of just expecting fans to turn up for games as some kind of moral duty are long gone. And that applies all over the world. Times are tough, people don't have an endless supply of money to splash round, especially if it is to see a bunch of multi millionaires kicking a ball round. There are a hell of a lot of qualifying games and obviously people are going to pick and choose the games they turn up for. No offence to Bolivia, but Argentina v Bolivia would not exactly be on the top of my list of must see games if I lived in Buenos Aires. The idea that the games should be played around the country is a good one, and one that should be looked at rather than just playing them all in one stadium, in one city, people in other parts of Argentina should have the opportunity to see the NT and it makes more sense to play games in smaller capacity grounds.

As for passion, yes that's great and all the rest of it, but what really counts is abaility, good organisation, good management and coaching, tactics and the team playing to a plan. Passion is, im my opinion, an over used word when it comes to football.