Project 2010 was a big marketing project USSF started in 1998. It was our plan to be good enough to win the world cup by 2010. It is been mocked for a while now but even more laughable after last night.
There must be plenty of people who are fans of their clubs and who don't give a fig about the national team.
No, I know what it is. I just didn't get the relevance. BTW, you're very, very wrong about what P2010 was. I'll give you the supershort version. First of all, it was thought the US would host in 2010. Keep that in mind. Second of all, the idea was to think about the first year it would even be feasible to win a World Cup, and then reverse engineer a plan that could be implemented in the wake of the 1998 Cup. As far as the plan being laughable...if 1. Jermaine Jones had been healthy and 2. Either Charlie Davies had been healthy OR Giuseppe Rossi had chosen the US and 3. Either Subotic had stuck with the US OR Gooch had been healthy As things played out we would have been in the semifinals, with at least a puncher's chance to win the whole thing. That team was very solid except for Jozy's partner and Ricardo Clark. (The latter was in part a self inflicted wound IMO because I preferred Edu.) A midfield of Landon, Dempsey, and Bradley as they were playing in that Cup plus Jones would have been the equal of any midfield there except the two finalists'.
Instead of doing something smart, my fear is that US Soccer decides to resurrect contrivances like the old US Cup to provide more "tournament" competition.
Compared to what? If Brazil plays a tune-up against the US, it’s not going to get World Cup numbers, but it is going to get pretty good numbers for a friendly.. but, again, we aren’t talking about comparing to WC numbers since those numbers have no bearing on the USSF/MLS package.. We should be comparing the friendlies that would have been on the USSF/MLS package compared to the friendlies that are now available since the US has been knocked out...
Well i am comparing it to WC numbers because that is the alternative to what we will get now. I get what you are saying and agree that there may be a few better friendlies during the built up to the world cup now.
Right, but there's not at all enough of those. We need the fans who've been caught up in American soccer's building momentum. Of all the sad and scared faces I saw last night, nobody looked worse hit than Carlos Bocanegra of ATL Utd.
If we're talking about the USSF/MLS package, you can't compare the ratings to WC because those were sold separately by FIFA. Fox certainly can't be happy that the US isn't going to be in the WC, as it will miss out on the ratings from the US games, but it should still get similar ratings for the games that wouldn't have featured the US.
That will certainly be interesting to track. I feel like there will be a loss in "tune in for patriotism" viewers but it might be too hard to quantify.
I would imagine US fans who got into the team's window of success in 2014 watched more of the World Cup in general as the hype train built. I think as every other country gets excited for the draw and the Cup itself, this will only get worse. Nobody wants to revisit the stinking corpse for the next 9 months. There will be people so disgusted by what has happened that they won't watch at all--because we're going to be bombarded by everything from mockery to endless self-analysis to offers of help from unemployed big-name coaches, the works. It'll be awful. When it comes to viewership for the Cup itself and all those ancillary friendlies and programs leading up to it, I don't think "devastating" is too strong a word for what we will see in the ratings.
I'd like to disagree, but I can't. I think a lot of people in this thread are overlooking the malaise (if not the outright depression) that's going to grip American soccer for quite some time because of this. It won't be uniform, but my hunch is that it will be measurable. Do I want to watch this MLS game tonight? Nope. The games this weekend? Nope. The USL? The NASL? The MLS playoffs? MLS Cup? Right now, it's nope to all of this. Will I tune in to these things? Yes. But I've been tuning in for more than 25 years. Those guys who haven't been tuning in that long? I doubt it's as habitual for them as it is for me. And maybe they won't have the stomach for this. It's hard to be a US soccer fan. People of my vintage know that. It's work. Frustrating, gut-wrenching work to stay committed to this damn team. I can accept this humiliation. I've been around a long time. I've experienced horrible US soccer moments before. None this bad, but bad. It's not the first time this team has let me down in spectacular fashion. I knew this could happen. Part of me has been expecting it. I was kind of prepared for his. I'll go on. The newcomers? I'm not so sure about them.
It comes down to whether the elite few at USSF want to make the difficult changes and investments. Hopefully they feel pumping money into the right places is imperative to them not missing out on the WC revenue next time.
I see you ignored the second part of my post. You just like to argue I guess. Let me guess you will argue and tell me you don't.
Prove your point by falling into a logic trap, or leave the thread. Really gave him a lot of options there.