"But he played for Blah-blah FC's Reserves"

No offense, dude, but my point was that (1) he was seen at Dallas Cup and (2) at least one other team was interested, and you just admitted as much with the Rolls Royce/Benfica story.

I will invite you to explain to me how I was "so darned wrong", or whatever rhetorical flourish it was that you chose. I had the basics right, even if I didn't follow him all the way up to the deal.

I demand that you show gentlemanly respect for me in your choice of language and not abuse the English tongue and me by telling someone who said he was discovered at Dallas Cup that they are so wrong wrong wrong about him because he was discovered at Dallas Cup because a STORY ENSUES.

Of course, I didn't know the whole story, but I knew some and my instincts were half-right. I guessed there was someone else and was right.

The people who deserve the "wrong" slapping are the people who said there were only ever two suitors. The only reason they don't get slapped is that this is personal.

And I think when a player who's not really gotten appearances with the first team for two years and change is offered another year (of the same?), it's not mere politeness that sends them on to Dallas, it's that after two and a half year Man U still can't promise anything more than to sign and present him his paychecks. Another year of that? Thank you, no, I have a career to actually start.

You're finessing that aspect out of apparent affection for him, that he left for a more than abstract reason. P-effing-T.

 

You compared the three of them and you know exactly why you did it. Because he was injured and that's why you think he got left off.

Simply put, Pearce played back this year; Spector watched him and others play. To anyone who's ever played soccer the distinction between playing and watching is obvious, especially when the last time the coach played you was half a year or so before you smashed your shoulder. When they played double digit friendlies in 2006, I'm sure the last thing on BA's mind come spring decision time was how Spector played ... against .... Scotland? That was aeons ago.

Seeing as Spector was not Reyna and had a team to make, one would think he would have tried to get available for games. That he was only brought in for one, and sat for that, hints that his future was in 2010, not 2006. It's like Adu getting capped. It's a cup of coffee and a semi-date, not a marriage proposal.

And you are still unwilling to admit that it would be a miracle for a 20-something kid to get rostered without being capped anytime close to selection. Unlike those in the 11 and first off the bench, he can't claim to be pencilled in. He has to earn his way onto the roster. Mastro is the only one to ever pull something similar off and his immigration status made him a special case.

That's basic sense, not trolling.

 

I'd say you're pretty much right except both sides have their limits and stuff they try to finesse, it's not just me. Not sure if you're hinting at selectivity and subjectivity both ways.

Since discussing career moves is like playing soccer itself, there is no one obvious winning strategy. However, I'd have to question the objectivity of people who disagree with me on the basic questions like whether reserve play is at a very good level in England (Mourinho clearly denied as much, and Fergie seemed to say as much between the lines), and whether you absolutely have to chase the money and sign with the biggest team when you go pro (maybe, maybe not ... which is the definition of not absolute).

Beyond that, however, it's debatable, and, yeah, you're right, it's kind of devolved into a stalemate.

Those who advocate going to bigtime Europe tend to play down the grand career expectations normally associated with signing with huge clubs, thus broadly defining success, such that ending up back in Dallas is success, even if most people signing with an elite side would never consider such a result favorable (they'd wonder what football god they infuriated to end up here). People like Spector are their best examples but even his achievements are debatable. They also hold up people like Convey whose debt to DC and/or Reading reserves is fuzzy (who gets the credit? Do I credit a reserve team for the success of a longterm pro who had caps already? I dunno bout that.).

Now, if people didn't seem to be gunning for my head I might have been a little more willing to concede certain weaknesses of my position, that Spector could turn out well, etc. But I found it odd that people who'd not give an inch of ground on positions no more firm than mine (is Cooper really any different than Donovan in terms of washing out of Europe without much first team experience?) thought I was stupid and stubborn for sticking similarly to my guns. After all, the whole DeMerit history hints that luck in career choice may matter as much as anything, and Cooper's history hints that production may not matter one bit in the wrong environment. At which point, yeah, my argument doesn't hold a ton of water, but nor does anyone else's.

 

I don't doubt that a second. And he might make a trip back across the Pond eventually. Which would also show something Landon lacks.

It might not have seemed like it at all, but I like what I see of Cooper (although I'd put him behind Ching and others in the pecking order ... for now), I think his size and skill combo are an attribute set in scarce but needed quantity on the Nats, I just think that in objective career terms Man U to Dallas is backsliding. It's like having a cup of coffee with the Yankees and then ending up in Japan or AAA.

Now, I don't think, with the pay cut he's taken and the scaling back of his career at present, they are all that different in terms of career achievement ... at present. Both didn't pan out in Europe. That would actually be granting Cooper credit, considering what Landon did in SJ and with LA last year, and his NT history. Suffice to say certain of the basics aren't all that dissimilar, good in MLS, future with Nats, washed out in Europe.

I'll be interested to see if the new NT era is as fawning towards LD as the last. Not sure what Bradley's attitude on him is. LD certainly spent some of his cred in Germany, but he would have to be in the fight for a few different spots, even if he is not the pencilled-in #10.

And Bradley getting picked probably helps Cooper. The MLS people might not have fared as well, nor might the old guard, if the manager was foreign and particularly unfamiliar with the Nats and our home league.

 

This is to all who decided that the way to respond to conciliation was to toss more bricks my direction: You can read conciliation as dishonesty if you wish, but it's not the way it was intended. I was essentially saying that when people are lobbing bricks at your head you do not tend to want to pop your head up to discuss common ground. Bush doesn't admit Kerry is right on national TV, now, be serious. People don't admit everything.

Ironically, your present vicious response to my recent attempt at conciliation is exactly why I was stubborn, and stuck to my guns as a rhetorical matter. If I tried to be nice, I feared you'd still swing a bat at my head, as you just did.

That's not paranoid, that's understanding certain people's human nature. I'm not paranoid because you turned around and did exactly what I figured might happen. I offer a hand and you whack it with a mallet.

And I generally have not seen my opponents admit the weaknesses of their position whatsoever. So, calling me dishonest for merely sticking to my guns (I basically believe everything I said, even if I am not drawing signs up pointing out weaknesses in my argument that y'all and the debate in general have pointed up to me), is unfair because y'all have done the exact same thing. I'm not the biggest idiot, the worst poster ever, and I did have a point or two along the way. Acting like I'm the only one with intellectual concessions to make is dishonest and hypocritical. This was not a debate anyone proved 100% their side, and as I hinted with the DeMerit luck comment, the truth may be pretty darned random. In which case, asserting that Man U is the obvious choice is no different than saying reserves are an awful choice. Neither has the license on truth.

And, just to get this out, my argument works logically it just may not work factually. It follows logically that a reserve system which lacks quality and is choked off in advancement terms by transfers who compete with reservists and academicians, could make reserves a poor choice. There is no fault in the logic, if you are going to make that an issue. It follows just as much as logically asserting that people should pursue riches and go to the best team they can because you don't get a second chance and you should make money while you can. Logic is not a matter of facts, it is a matter of whether a chain of arguments hold together without contradicting themselves or otherwise failing as an abstracted matter.

The fault lies in whether the logic is factually true, whether it reflects reality. That I will concede is unproven and debatable. But not the logic.

If my opponents want to give room for me to concede things I might feel like conceding (which does not include my basic argument, we're talking specific arguments and specific people), they might try refraining from calling me an idiot and other such ad hominems, and they might grant me some of what I've proven, too. Things like what Mourinho said, the general failure of Americans to stick at Man U, etc.

And my AAA comment was explicitly specific to Cooper. Then again, Spector's awful West Ham side is teetering on the edge of AAA-hood, so don't get ahead of yourself.