The LA Times coverage of soccer in general all too often ranges from condescension to indifference, Graham Jones and the WC not with standing. Bill Plaschke is typical of their writers, rarely venturing outside the safe and typical, however, this article makes some very astute and sober points. Granted, he probably does not know about BS, but unfortunately, this vital site--at this juncture, though one can pray--does not have the clout and influence necessary to bring influence to bear on the points that he makes: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0625-plaschke-20100625,0,5327726.column
The day BS wields power over US Soccer is the day we crash out of qualifying to Barbados. Pray that day never comes. BTW this article was already posted here a few hours ago.
Bill is getting a lot of love lately. Btw he bitched about soccer on Around the Horn today. Condemned diving, but made fun of the Magic Spray. How dare he!
He's clueless. If England are wicked happy about placing 2nd in the group I think the USA can be pretty damn proud of placing first.
As an LA resident let me fill you all in about Bill Plaschke. All he does is bitch. Be it about the lakers, the dodgers, the kings, soccer, the NFL, USC, whatever... his whole stick is to bitch bitch bitch bitch and bitch some more. Any idiot could do what he does which is poke holes at everything. He's a miserable prick.
Yes Plaschke is insufferable almost all the time...in this peice he puts way too much weight into the FIFA rankings as if being #14 means we are on the doorstep of world domination or something. I like the sentiment but I think its a little overly optimistic that we can just dominate because we want to.
Every city has a "bitch" writer. It's how papers sell their sports section. He makes some fair points in terms of having some expectations. I think where he goes a bit sideways is his failure to recognize there is so much parity in soccer. You get to the Final 16 of this tournament and ANYTHING can and literally does happen. No nation can ever "expect" to make it past the quarterfinals. Sure Brazil and Argentina and Italy can be upset when their teams fail to advance past that point. But they can't be surprised. Brazil went 24 years and 5 world cups without winning a title between 1970 and 1994. Given our group this go around we have met our goal. Heck, by winning the group we exceeded it. Everything we do from here forward is gravy.
" In any other national team sport, if one of our teams is good enough to reach the world's final eight in 2002, we would expect nothing less eight years later." Exactly. We should expect that of our team, that they expect that of themselves, and that on average they meet this expectation. That's what freakin' "expect" means. This whole issue has been the subject of endless discussion on BS the last few years [often more warfare than discussion]. Our talent is at a significantly higher level, with greater depth, than it was a decade ago. We have the players to aim high. Any you cannot hope to get high unless you aim for it. This was the primary point of those of us who were dismayed at the blase' acceptance of poor efforts, since 2006, as if we were a pathetic collection of 1990's and Bradley's role was to be Gansler II. To go into a WC ready to ululate at getting out of the group stage is selling us too far short. Sure, it may be that you ululate in any case, but it's just the bloody first stage, and we must demand more than be satisfied by a first stage. We should, in fact, be satisfied by nothing but striking for finals. As the writer correctly says, it's time to grow up. [a line from Dodgeball would have been more appropriate, but think of the kiddies]