And sadly that could impact the women more than the men going forward. USSF could end up looking even more sexist after this debacle.
Meanwhile, Norwegian federation decides to pay the exact same salary to men and women footballers... (Though I find odd that they put Ada Hegerberg in the article's picture, just when she decided to take a break from her NT ).
The US Women are #1 in the world. We can argue and debate and be vitriolic about the development of US women's soccer and the coaching and you name it. But the women are #1 and the men are way down on the list. So let's be sure that the men's disaster doesn't drive everything.
The bonus money (based on tournaments) still isn't, but that's lost in headlines. The money for all programs largely comes from the men's side.
There were signs that something like this would eventually happen to the men. For instance, missing out on the last 2 Olympics, performing poorly in youth competitions, over reliance on the same veteran players, poor tactics from coaches, etc. This caused a lost generation for the men where we had only a few players in the crucial 24-29 age during qualification. What is worrying to me is that the same trends that affected the men are starting to affect the women. The US women have performed very poorly at recent youth competitions, which affects our future player pipeline. We have coaches from Ellis down to youth level who are tactically inept. We rely on the same core of veteran players instead of trying new players. The men’s team finally succumbed to these structural defenciencies and it looks like the women are starting to succumb as well based upon our performances in the Olympics, SheBelieves, and ToN. With the men’s defeat, US soccer needs to do what Germany did in 2000. We need to look into the entire structure of US soccer from Gulati down to U5 recreational matches and make significant changes. My hope is that these changes are applied to both the men and women.
I don't believe that Sunil Gulati has announced he is running for a final (grandfathered) term as President. Flynn, the Boston lawyer has announced his candidacy. Gulati has been protecting Ellis and without him, Ellis is much more vulnerable. Will he gracefully announce that he is supporting the term limits he put forward and decline to run again? I think the players are out there on the girl's side. Unfortunately as I have posted elsewhere, they pick kids at 13 years old and stick with them regardless of their and other children's relative developmental slope. The youth NT coaches have been told their success is in elevating kids to the full team so that's what they are doing whether those kids are the right choices or not we are going to jam them into that slipper! There has been a big push to "technical" players. That means small and sometimes, yes, slow with better than average, but not too flashy ball skills. They have excluded some of the best "athletes" some of whom have respectable skills. But even more confusing to me is they specifically exclude most of the kids with real "flair" as not being "what they are looking for". It's almost as if they are afraid of their disrupting teams with their unexpected talents. They very well might show just how flat footed some of these kids can be. Yes sometimes a certain edginess comes with these abilities. That doesn't mean that these kids are bad "uncoachable" kids only that they are different in temperament than the usual teenage girls and might not fit into the "cliques". FYI there are hugely impactful cliques at these kids camps. These are the kids with the amazing ball skills, the ones you say wow she's fun to watch. They are slicing and dicing the midfields and creating danger everywhere, flicking balls over defenders, showing perfect technique in bringing balls out of the air and turning at the same time. and indeed they are effective in creating opportunities and scoring. The scouts send in glowing reports when they are very effective on the field, but at the top level the are nudged aside. They are often included in one or two camps even a few more, but they aren't offered the kind of support and pushed ahead as are others. They play for the "wrong" club and are going to the "wrong" colleges. Examples of players well known enough to publish who remain marginal: Ekic, Mckaskill, Berg, Hatch. They are demanding attention by their play in the NCAA but were all but ignored as children. The exception was Ekic who was included in early u17 events, but cast aside in favor of players who are or will be attending schools like UVA, UNC, UCLA, Stanford, and Penn State. The included players for clubs with coaches attending YNT camps as assistants, or were pushed forward by April Kater in Colorado. If Kater lived elsewhere we would see a dominance of players from that city pushed forward. It's a testament to the fact that so many players are of excellent quality in the USA that we can put together a decent team of these players. But the truly outstanding ones, the possibly transformative ones, may not make it unless there is a regime change. And I don't mean bring back April Heinrichs or elevate Kater- same old same old. I am sure he wouldn't be interested but Hugo Perez would be amazing. I'd take Herdman in a heartbeat but he may be about to beat us.
Agreed, although its not so much "taking money" from the women as it is just having less revenue will mean less money available for EVERYONE.
I know this is the women's forums but I was hoping when I woke up this morning I would see headlines that said " Sunil Gulati fires Bruce Arena and then resigns"
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you, but if someone else bites that hand, you may still receive the same consequences as if you were the one who took the bite in it" USSF took a bite last night, and the women were bitten by that gash as well. How deep that bite is, and how much blood there is from it remains to be seen.
Uh are we supposed to care that a bunch of tattoo’ed millionaires don’t go to the big boy tournament? The women meanwhile win World Cups and are currently ranked number one and they get paid so little and some go back to school for a higher paying career or if they are charismatic, go into television broadcasting. Honestly, I’m kinda glad they didn’t qualify. They don’t deserve all that money.
Yes, we should care, because ultimately the men drive US Soccer's revenues. A hit to US Soccer's primary product can't ever increase the pie for anybody else. If USWNT argues that they deserve a bigger % of a smaller pie, that's not really a win.
it's time to jazz things up & make El Piojo the men's coach. More people will come to see him coach then for the players. Now what a wonderful world that would be?
The real loser in this is Fox. They paid over $200 million for the rights to the 2018 World Cup. Domestic TV ratings will now be down by at least 30%. This cuts out a ton of the casual patriotic viewers who would only tune in if "Murica, Suckers, Yeah Bidtches" were playing. There were a whole bunch of people who don't watch or know anything about soccer that watched the 2014 World Cup until the Round of 16 loss against Belgium, and then they didn't care to tune in anymore.
Hopefully this means Fox will really HYPE up the 2019 Womens's World Cup once the USWNT qualify (if they qualify at this point, you never know with Jill).
This guy is awesome and exactly what we need: https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...ez-its-time-for-the-usa-to-embrace-creat.html
https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/12/0...resident-election-sunil-gulati-don-garber-sum This is an article about Kathy Carter, former SUM President, USSF Presidential candidate and friend of Jill Ellis since high school. This may be a reason why she keeps her job.
And they both played at William and Mary where April Heinrichs was an Asst. Coach I believe around that time and there are probably more connections, if you dig deeper. I've said before, the USWNT is surrounded by a group I call "The Good-Ole Girls Club". As long as this "Club" is in charge, not much will change.
For me, it's that they got 2022 on a discount that made me hate it all more than anything else about the company.* *of course potential bribes was news just recently.
the only one that can bring real change & make the US Soccer Federation "great again" http://www.espn.com/soccer/united-s...candidacy-for-us-soccer-president-on-facebook
Strike 1...close ties to Ellis Strike 2 ...close ties to SUM Strike 3 ...if u like the job Gulati has done then u want Gulati...if u don't then u don't want his hand picked successor.
Granted, Ellis has accomplishments. The consensus here is that they have come about in spite of her. Take away the yellow cards from the Columbia referee and Morgan Brian might not be in the starting lineup for the last three WWC games in 2015 (and the USWNT thus might not win). Of course, Brian has had a string of injuries that have limited her availability. Other talent seems not to have developed so well. That is something to lay on the coach's doorstep. And, the US tactics and ball skills are not keeping pace with the rest of the world. That is also a coach issue.