There used to be dozens of these in a World Cup year, this is the first I've seen this year. Shaughnessy is 60 years old. http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2...et-kick-out/uTIF1VQ8QHOpfDyWI0W4KK/story.html I know it doesnt get too many people worked up, but I heard another dinosaur sportswriter talk about soccer 'didnt have enough' scoring, that is one thing I love about it, its almost always either tied or a '1 run game' as they say. The drama is off the charts almost all the time.
Bob Ryan had a far more intelligent take. http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2...ould-better/oOxl5eKl3wKi4JJzfCFWcM/story.html
"somehow win the World Cup for the first time. It would be almost as big as the USA beating the USSR for hockey gold in Lake Placid in 1980." Actually i'm pretty sure it would be WAY bigger.
It's to be expected, but it's amazing how unprofessional these type of shenanigans are and how journalists can get away with pigeonholing certain sports. There have to be literally millions of people who don't care for professional golf, or tennis, and even the "national pastime" takes a beating in normal conversation, but imagine how unprofessional a douchebag sports journalist would look if every time Wimbledon or the the masters, or even more unthinkably, the World Series came around and they were using their sports column to talk about how they don't like the event happening right now, so come back when it's over.
I think my favorite part was when he "Chooses to Ignore the World Cup" by writing an entire column about it that was probably posted all over the Boston Globe website and their sports section. Doesn't exactly sound like ignoring to me
The US match was a match - kaboom - for the World Series and the NBA TV ratings. 2013 MLB WS averaged ~ 15M on Fox (in prime time, I might add); 2012 was the lowest ever at under 13M). And, of course, baseball skews way older. (though soccer skews more Latin) The NBA Finals - unless it's the Lakers vs. the Celtics - are also watched by around 15M people.
Did he? When he asks "Why the US has not won a World Cup?" and does not mention that the very few teams that have done so, have about a ~100 year head start on the US's professional game and development maturity, I am not sure he does.
It wasn't a column addressed to soccer fans, since Bob is not a soccer beat writer and, as much as it might pain soccer/futebol/ Fußball/calcio/футбол fans, an average US sports follower really doesn't give a flying f-bomb about the game. But, if you go over to the Globe soccer section, the tone is entirely different. http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/06/21/onsoccer/yH9LzyMOFQRZhRkvZO8S9O/story.html PS. And, by the way, his "why?" question is far more appropriate than you think. That "100 year head start" is nothing but a hogwash excuse for incompetence. I mean it's not as if Hugo Meisl and Vittorio Pozzo were still managing and Dixie Dean and Matthias Sindelar were scoring goals for their respecting squads.
Exactly. The US-Ghana match had over 15M viewers (ESPN and Univision). The NBA final game five did have 17M viewers, but that was on a Sunday night vs Monday afternoon for the World Cup. I always laugh when people post on yahoo soccer stories, saying "no one watches soccer here".
dont worry ive heard people spin these numbers. There was another guy on a seperate forum that espn has fudged the numbers .
Where do they come up with this idea that soccer fans are forcing anyone to watch it? Or scoffing at people who "don't get it"? The only time I will bash someone who doesnt' like/watch soccer is when they attack the sport, like this columnist did. I always wonder if they don't like soccer, why bother letting people know? I can't stand NASCAR, but I've never posted on a yahoo column saying how boring it is to watch 800 left turns. If you love NASCAR, good for you. Its good you enjoy something. People need to find joy in their lives.
They said that its all espn fault for hyping it up like "its matters" because ESPN has alot money invested into it. Soccer hatred is not a blast from the past.
Bob Ryan asks the right questions. But he has the wrong answers. You could take a young Lebron James..wait scratch that...you could take a young Cristiano Ronaldo, and put him through the most common arc a potential pro soccer player will take in this country (pay to play youth club then college then pro) and he will come out of that nowhere near to what the real Cristiano Ronaldo is. He will be Clint Dempsey. A great player. But not a superstar. It's not that we don't have enough great athletes going through the system. We have the wrong system.
Actually, he asked, why aren't we better? Which is a great question. For whatever reason, or maybe no real reason at all other than bad luck, our talent pool got real, real shallow with those born between 1984 and 1990 (or so) especially when it comes to attacking players. Who do we have of any quality who was born in the US, younger than Clint, and older than Jozy? It's probably a better fit for a different thread, but when MLS started getting aggressive about signing the Bobby Conveys and Santino Quarantas and Freddy Adus (and that's just from DC United) I would argue they thought just signing guys that young and having them practice with grown men (and occasionally play) would automatically lead to significant improvement. And that obviously didn't happen. That whole half-decade of players just got lost. Just thinking off the top of my head, the only player worth a crap in that age range who doesn't play in the back is Michael Bradley, and he left MLS at age 18. Charlie Davies' accident and injury leave a #9 sized hole, but he played a year or two in college then went to Europe. So did Bedoya. Now that I think about it, in that age range, the only MLS developed non-defender or GK is Graham Zusi. Anyway, that's my answer to Bob Ryan...the reason we aren't better is that while the American coach is pretty good at winning in MLS (almost all of the Ruud Gullits and Hans Backes have been big failures), the American coach has been proven to be poor at player development. MLS needs to figure out how Jason Kreis and Peter Vermes do it, and get the rest of the teams to do the same thing.
On the topic of ESPN...how frigging long is the College World Series? That sh*t is longer than the Stanley Cup playoffs. Glad not a single WC match has been preempted for anything though.
If they switched a WC match from ESPN to ESPN2 because of another game going into extra innings, it would ruin my DVR settings. That would royally suck.
Good point - I mischaracterized the question. I think the question is fair, and I do not disagree with your conclusion. It is all about the coaching. But I think the underlying root cause of why coaching is not better is because MLS is just getting started in serious player development. Here are the consistent ingredients you see in countries that have gotten good at developing players: - A strong soccer culture. - A strong domestic league that includes professional youth development. - Investing in training coaches - good examples include Germany, Spain, Holland, Belgium, France, etc. - Focused and consistent training led by really good coaches. MLS is just now getting a foothold on development, with the DA its first serious attempt to get there. It still has two big gaps to fill: 1. A big investment in coach training and certification. 2. A big investment that allows DA kids to train and play a full schedule. All of this requires a strong domestic league. MLS is getting there, but it takes time to get coaches trained, and in turn get young players excellent training, and ultimately start producing a lot of really good prospects. That is why I think Bob Ryan's article misses the big picture. Because MLS is a comparatively young league that still needs to invest heavily in youth development, the US is playing catch up to the nations it is competing against. I think it is pretty remarkable the US has done as well as it has absent a mature youth development structure.
You now how I know that Dan Shaughnessy sucks at his job? He's sixty years old. He is a sports writer. The biggest/most important/most exciting sporting event for his generation is the Miracle on Ice. Somehow, though, this sportswriter doesn't know that the US didn't beat the USSR for the gold. We beat the Soviets in the semis and Finland for the gold. Dan still writes: "It would be almost as big as the USA beating the USSR for hockey gold in Lake Placid in 1980."
I've personally always wondered why so many people care that these "establishment"-media guys don't like the sport. It's OK to not like soccer. Plenty of folks don't like baseball or basketball either. We don't need to win them over. We have our own fanbase and our own media that caters to us. If they don't want be a part of it, and want to stick to covering the Red Sox and Patriots............that's fine. Their loss. I don't know if Mr. Shaughnessy noticed or not, but the tv ratings for the World Cup in Boston are thru the roof. So clearly plenty of people do care. I walked to Dunkin' Donuts this morning (as people in Boston do), and on the way saw 6 guys and 1 gal wearing USMNT gear. The wave is coming. You can simply get out of the way if you like. Or you can get swept up by it and have a great time. Your choice.
Not really. We don't have an athlete problem. We have plenty athletes playing already. We have a structure/coaching problem, which isn't creating enough skilled players.