Jordan Morris heeds advice from new Sounders sage soccer America TV Report: Leicester City game sets ratings record SA Dos Santos fulfilling his potential, but what happens when Keane returns... fourfourtwo Javier Hernandez, Gio Dos Santos may rekindle memories of 2011 ... espnfc Texans offer proof Dynamo's dismal start not fatal Houston Chronicle TCYSA links with MLS' Sounders to develop players, gain access to resources Winston-Salem Journal Sharp: Major League Soccer not a good fit for Detroit Detroit Free Press This ‘Game of Thrones’ soccer banner is mind-blowing NY Post
Is it notable commentary on soccer culture in the US that this much effort was put into a tifo referencing a TV show on premium cable?
So...let me get this straight. You shouldn't start a new team because it doesn't have any tradition. Your logic seems a bit circular there, sir.
Reminds me when some poster (may have been a small group of them) a few years back wanted San Jose to drop Earthquakes, that had been around in some form for 40 years, in favor of FC - because of tradition.
Last chance for Hernandez | Dallas Soccer News Acosta still adapting to USMNT role switching | MLSSoccer.com European clubs starting to chase Birnbaum | Black and Red United Morris close to breaking record | MLSSoccer.com MLS right choice for Dos Santos - 'Matador' ESPN FC The 4-4-2 era in MLS is coming to an end | Unusual Efforts
Interesting that Leicester just won the Premier League using a 4-4-2 formation. If you have the right mix of players, and everyone knows their responsibilities, it can still be very effective.
Yup. I'm guessing it means MLS is delivering influencers with some spending money at an age range where they're cementing brand loyalties for themselves and maybe their families.
The classic English 4-4-2 longball can even be exciting to watch, as Leicester proved as well. Caveats, and they're not small, being that applies when a) only one of the two teams is playing that way, and b) they are executing it well. The real problem of the old days came in because that's how more than half the teams played, and most of them were pretty so-so. . . a lot of their longballs were to the head (where as Leicester plays them mostly on the ground) and were pretty aimless.
This is really a "stadiums are bad for the community" article that he lazily wraps together in a poorly argued and poorly written attempt at denigrating MLS.
I always find conversations about the death of the 4-4-2 interesting. They typically miss the point that it has been the base formation for so long because it is so flexible. You can get width by keeping wingers wide and the defense compact, or pinch the outside mids inside and have the full backs attack. You can drop two box-to-box mids deep in the mid or play a diamond, and on and on. If there is one consistent feature of the 4-4-2 it is in pairing forwards together to work with each other. Even then, one can drop deeper into the middle when necessary. I think the 4-4-2 requires a lot of versatile players with great tactical recognition to work well. I think that 4-2-3-1 is designed to overcome that need by packing the middle in front of the back four and, and the 4-3-3 is meant to mask the lack of true two-way wide players. Is the 4-4-2 dead? I don't know. But its been dead before.
Yeah - the logic is pretty poor. I guess this is an argument that could have been used in EVERY city looking to start an MLS team at ANY time during MLS' history. And yet, for the most part, MLS is pretty successful in most cities now. Certainly, some embrace it better than others, but to me that comes down partly to city culture (Portland, Seattle) but moreso to ownership group (KC or, to look on the opposite side, Chicago).
Major League Soccer Stadium Proves a Good Financial Bet for Portland Willamette Week Some good news for a change regarding public funding of stadiums.
Reads like a letter to the editor that wouldn't fit in the paper, so they edited out all the rationale connecting the two claims and all the supporting evidence.
And it can be a hot knife through butter when a bunch of teams are doing an uninspired job of implementing a more sophisticated "continental" style of play. Pre-Heysel, British teams were alternately derided and admired and feared in European competition for playing their style. I understand and am pleased by the evolution toward possession and a more cerebral style, and I like to think that's going to bring teams more success in the long term. But the Leicesters and Liverpools will have their day, and often enough the best option is to zig when everybody else is zagging, and better than you can.
Hello Trevor Francis! Who's himself a reminder of the fallacious criticism that America is the elephant's graveyard of international soccer. We heard that criticism all the time about the NASL... because hot shot young guys like Trevor Francis, Bruce Grobelaar, Peter Beardsley and Hugo Sanchez weren't household names yet. There are lots more ways to blow holes in that critique, but I love looking at the list of talented young players the NASL was attracting, and I'm proud of the job MLS does with uncompetitive budgets.