Career-threatening vs life threatening have different meanings for different people. With athletes, career threatening surgery can sometimes be considered minor surgery by the rest of the world. An actor, musician, a web designer such as myself; All can have surgery on a knee and not be worried about it affecting my career. Were getting into subjective reality here. That can also apply to how important we think the Algarve Cup is. Would Holiday miss the WWC if J'Rue was having the same surgery? There were some details about Holiday's surgery I was unsure about that has prevented me from commenting on this before. The biggest one for me you guys can maybe answer, when exactly did the surgery happen in comparison to the AC? I don't have a significant other, but I like to think if I did, I would be there for her, no matter how minor, if she was going to have surgery. When the surgery was complete and I knew everything was okay, I would head back to work and keep in touch. That doesn't strike me as that hard to do with todays technology. So I guess my opinion of this whole situation is, when the surgery was complete, Holiday should have rejoined the team in Algarve. There wasn't a child (as far as we know) that Lauren had to watch out for, there wasn't pressing concerns that would have been distracting for her, it was simply recovery time for J'Rue. Facetime, Skype, text each other, but get on with your life.
Do you honestly think TS got fired because LH missed the AC? Seriously? I would offer that some might feel that Lauren has two jobs. Her first job is being a wife, her second job she plays some pretty good footy. Wife is a lifetime deal footy is just a few years thing. What her hubby would or would not do is really between him and her, and is not particualrly germiane. Regardless of others opinions about her being the demeaned "little wifey," condemned to a role of subservience, it is her right to choose is it not? By all accounts the woman is relatively happy and is obviously very committed to her husband. It seems to me as if she has priorities just like she wants them. I have no problems with her priorities, and think she should be commended for having the courage to go against the grain. I can accept all the newly defined roles and values people ascribe to, but what is about those with such a bent that makes them be so inflexible and judgemental when somebody chooses values and roles that are not what they think they should be. I believe anybody who thinks Lauren made the wrong choice does not understand that the Holliday marriage has nothing to do with them and really needs to have a word with themselves. The choices are you accept her choice or suspend/ kick her off the team if you are the coach. My boss does not get to tell me no when I call off for whatever reason, if i chose to give one. They can fire me or not fire me, same in thic case. Asking is just a courtesy thing, it is not really a request.
Well speaking from my experience, my SO is tough as nails if she gets the right support in the right times and places, and fragile as a butterfly if she doesn't. I happen to be the world's leading expert on those times and places, not some nurse or maid or shrink. I only took three days, but I'd have taken a month if that's what it needed. Holiday should have taken all the time she thought necessary, and not worried about what people on Big Soccer think; and the Fed should have backed her. Oh, wait-- that appears to be exactly what happened, same as everywhere else in the semi-civilized world. Now if the Fed should happen to feel that she should take her career as seriously as more seriously than his and their marriage, well, they can start by paying her as much as his employer pays him... Failing that, no matter how Randist she might be, it is going to be kinda an uphill climb, isn't it?
So you're saying all these international friendlies in May and early June this year will be B squads and not teams in preparation for Brazil putting out their top squads in an effort to fine tune game fitness, player cohesion, and tactics? Really?
I think what Newsouth is saying is that you're not taking magic into account when trying to build team chemistry.
It's one thing to be coy about penalty kicks or the odd free kick trick play, but if newsouth believes that the top teams at the World Cup don't know exactly what the main tactics and personnel of their opponents are going to be, I'm amazed. At that point it's all about better execution. In the Olympics we knew that 99% of Canada's offense was going to from Christine Sinclair. We know who was going to get her the ball, and we know what kind of runs Sinclair makes. Lot of good it did us.
That is some new age idealistic thinking right there. You didn't really address the issues I brought up, so I'll ask you some pretty straight forward questions and look for an answer this time. I can give you multiple choice answers if you like? 1) When was the surgery and when did the US leave for the AC? 2) Do you think surgery to repair a stress fracture is as dangerous and life changing as cancer surgery? Is it even fair to compare the two? 3) What qualifies you as an expert and lets you think you understand the situation with Holiday well enough that you can compare it to your own experience and consider the two equal? 4) Do you think if Holiday had asked to miss the camp and games against China, as well as the first few weeks of the NWSL, that the USSF would have been understanding? 5) What do you qualify as the semi-civilized world? Does Greece and their opinions on work days and vacation time fall into that category? 6) What do you think the "fully civilized" world opinion on taking time off for work to care for your SO is? 7) Do you think that because J Holiday earns a whole lot more money than I do, that I should take my job less serious or not as seriously as J Holiday until my contractors pay me an equal amount? 8) Do you understand what it truly means to believe in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and how ironically stupid the last statement of yours really is? I should end this by saying that I have no real opinion in this matter, and I'm just trying to find a middle ground between the extreme arguments you and others are making. I think it is completely reasonable to expect someone to miss a few days from work to be there when he goes under and when he wakes up. When he simply needs to rest to recover, I see no reason why Holiday had to be there with him. She can call him, face time him, text him. They have nurses for everything else.
No relevance to you, perhaps. I like how you can give others a hard time about how they pound an opinion home without facts and relevance, but then do the same yourself and dismiss others concerns as irrelevant. Craven indeed.
I would like to add a personal opinion here, so nobody thinks I am being bias or taking sides or doing anything other than simply trying to find a compromise between the two points of views. If it was me, I would not have gone to the Algarve either, or even half way through it. Lauren did the right thing staying home, for a multitude of reasons.
We are all of family. By birthright and blood and by the crest on our jersey. It's what defines us and makes us who we are. They're also not islands, they meet and where they do they make us stronger and make each one all the richer and more powerful. Love.
my two cents... Besides the WC, the Euro's (or equivalent) and the Olympics, the Algarve and the Cyprus Cup are important, because it's an rare opportunity to experiment with the different squads against top notch opponents, without actually loose anything (except prestige perhaps, and some measly points on the FIFA rankings, which in the US case, doesn't really mean jack). I guess on home-soil the USA are under a bit of pressure to score and play well, with a top-notch squad. It might be for ticket-sales or/and sponsors and a number of different reasons. But those games are mostly only "a padding of stats", unless you have one of those rare occasions where you actually meat a top-notch team. For seriously, you don't actually benefit anything, from those games at all. Who cares that said player reached hers 100th cap, or Morgan made her 50th goal, except mentioned players. The only benefit in those "padding of the stats games" as I see it, are the exposure of the NT. In Algarve you can bring the younglings, and test different tactics and lineups against good teams, and perhaps loose. Though those looses will not be for not, since you take something with you from those looses. What worked and what didn't. Those kind games you can't have in "the land of the free", since the people expect the "stars" to be there. Perhaps not all, and not at once, but it is still something the public wants to see. As some have pointed out in this forum, there are some supporters there are fans of individual players more than the actual team, and those might not attend if the likes of Morgan, Press, Wambach etc aren't there to play. IF, and I state "IF", Sermanni's looses at the Algarve Cup were the cause of his firing, then I don't understand why the Federation didn't act sooner. They knew that the team had to be rejuvenate, cause a couple of the "stars" are well over the "best before" date. They also had to know that Sermanni planned this, not only for the Algarve, but before they hired him. They certainly had a vision of how they intended the progress to proceed, and they hired Tom because he shared that vision, or that he could implement it. Should the US win the Algarve, perhaps. Should they be seen as favorites, most certainly, but sooner or later, you will loose. That's just inevitable. Perhaps some years ago, nobody had the foresight to predict that Wambach would beat Mia Hamm's record. She did. I guess that just recently nobody would have believed that any team could score 5 goals against the US, let alone Denmark. The US have probably the biggest pool of talented players, and could probably field 2-3 complete lineups which could compete for gold in the WC. So saying that Lauren Holiday's absence might have impacted their games in the Algarve, I just don't buy. I think a player should have the opportunity to excuse themselves from a game if the need arise. This happens all the time, in all the national teams. This is of course something between her and the coach, but I still see it that it should be allowed for the right cause. Major or minor surgery, or any other reason, but of course "within reason", shouldn't matter. People are different, and for you and me it might be minor surgery, but for others it might not be. If she would have asked Tom that she can't come because she was getting a tattoo, than that's a complete different story, US players "might" be held to a different standard when it comes to call-ups, since they are actually employed by the NT. Most other countries have the club-teams as their employer, and the NT is just a bonus, and a honor, to represent their country. A Swedish journalist stated that the Swedish player, only got 140 SEK/Day ($21,4 /Day), during the 2011 WC in Germany. The article didn't say anything about if they got bonuses or such, but I don't think so. Perhaps it's more money during the call-ups now, but I doubt it's much higher than before. Taking into account that, and the fact that the US has more NT camps and games than any other nation, even if that nation has QF and the US don't, then you might argue that US WNT players should be held to a different standard, or more be demanded of them. This of course must be within reason. You can't force a Carli Lloyd to attend a friendly game against Costa Rica or even a game in the Algrave Cup, when at the same time something serious is taking place that she really should attend. I sometimes get pissed when I hear that player X can't come for the Swedish national teams (men, both senior and junior) call-up, because he's tired. I'm pissed because I know that said player are getting very little playing time in his team, or that the season has just begun. Little playing time isn't really all that attractive to coaches, but sometimes you don't have any other options, because of injuries. A pro shouldn't be tired or exhausted at the beginning or before the season even starts. That's just lack of training in my opinion.
Played youth soccer in Connecticut. Played high school soccer in Connecticut. Sat on the bench in college.
Should we declare TS to be the worst coach to ever coach the USWNT? After all, he was not even allowed to coach one World Cup Qualifier game...Apparently, according to US Soccer, TS was that incompetent...Worse than Greg Ryan? US Men's team coach, Bob Bradley, got fired after losing to Mexico in the Gold Cup final...OK, I get that. With Coach Tom, I wish US Soccer would offer more explanation...
But he never won one either. Heck, he never won a CONCACAF tournament (Qualifier) match. What I find interesting is that an inside birdie told me yesterday that the prospective head coach they have in mind now is who they've had in mind the entire time. At the beginning of 2013, it supposedly wasn't the right time for this coach to step in. Gulati and U.S. Soccer decided to hire a temporary interim head coach (under the table) who wanted the job real bad, until they could get their target choice. Now it seems this coach is ready to step in, within the next couple of months. So they fired Sermanni, and knew all along they would fire Sermanni before the 2015 WWC when they hired him. Simply put, they just needed a sucker (and Sermanni was never aware of this plan) to step in for the interim period, until their preferred choice was ready.
Seems kind of dumb to me, if they had hired a willing caretaker the experiments during 2013 and early 2014 could have been usefull instead of being mainly wasted (and for what they pay it shouldn't be hard to find a qualified coach ok with just being hired temporary). Mind you, I don't hold it for impossible since USSoccer is far from a shining example of how to avoid stupidity.
kate said on thursday night that sunil mentioned that he never would fire someone if he doesn't have a replacement in mind. that's normal. the replacement , i do believe tho, is someone they wanted all along. the strangeness of this firing kinda convinces me of that. (altho I have no inside birdies like wps has). I do know that when sunil fired bradley, he had klinsmann in mind. klinsi had been maneuvering for the job for a while.
That's a complete load of crap. They wanted Sermanni for the job back in 2007. Sundhage only got an offer because Sermanni turned them down back then. They wanted him for years.
He got fired!! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha... Whew!, glad we didn't get that snake-pit of a job! https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net...7_10152364006043701_6078940188357577591_o.jpg