I remember Dave Kaval stated Beckham, when he was playing refused to play at Buck Shaw. I think he ended up playing 1 playoff game there but that was about it. In other new, I'm hoping the SF Bay Area (Levi's-Stanford or wherever) wont' be left out of WC 2022.... ; World Cup 2026 venue decisions to be announced on June 16 by Paul Kennedy @pkedit,
Correction: I'm hoping the SF Bay Area (Levi's-Stanford or wherever) wont' be left out of WC 2026.... I heard there were too many Rats and Cats there.
So, the question is...where will the final of WC2026 be played? There’s a consensus in the DFW Metroplex, that it’ll be at Jerry’s Big pimple in Arlington. The local radio soccer show (The Kick Around) wants it there.
Honestly, I personally don't think it's that great for soccer. It's maybe better than Stanford but if they do pick Levi's, they still may need to re-do it somewhat.
Gotta be honest, I don't want any World Cup matches in the Bay Area. I didn't want another World Cup in the US as FIFA needs to be dissolved and their profits given to relief of all the families of people who died building useless stadiums in Qatar.
Although I don’t really follow Serie A if pushed I would say Milan would be my team for two reasons (i) Paulo Maldini is one of my favourite all time players and (ii) They’re English
Maldini actually built this team and they won the Serie A for the first time since 2011. Ibra was on the last team and on this team too. He scored on a head shot today but it was called back. I think it's his final game with the club but not sure if he will retire or not.
Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Key ingredients combined to create Nashville's soccer palace: Geodis Park by Arlo Moore-Bloom
'Absolute madness': NWSL's poor refereeing and dangerous play criticized, but no quick fixes in sight https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-...us-play-criticizedbut-no-quick-fixes-in-sight I didn't know that NWSL is actually very physical and the refereeing is also bad. A good read if you have time.
So, if it’s an issue of hierarchy and pay, what does that say about the quality of officiating at the youth level?
I follow NWSL closely and a STH of the Dash. These comments are accurate. I can’t even list all the awful decisions. It makes the reffing at the beginning of MLS look like it was brilliant….
You can thank USSF for this. They are much more interested in siphoning revenues from the grassroots referees than in actually facilitating the development of referees and improvement of the pool.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022Phil Schoen on sportscasting during American soccer's rise, his radio roots, and working with Ray Hudson by Arlo Moore-Bloom .
Interesting piece in the Athletic re player salaries https://theathletic.com/3330884/2022/05/24/mls-players-transfers-struggles/ Spending in MLS has jumped significantly in recent years, particularly on acquisition costs. Twenty-seven of the 50 most expensive transfers in league history have been paid since the start of 2020, according to TransferMarkt. A good chunk of those moves have been made for youngsters, with 15 of those aforementioned 27 fees paid for players who were 23 or younger at the time they were signed. The shift toward spending more on younger players will likely only continue moving forward, with the league last year introducing the Young Money/U-22 initiative that allows teams a new, cap-friendly way to splash multi-million dollar transfer fees on youngsters. . . . That sounds nice on paper, but the execution has been lacking, especially with younger signings. Of the 25 players with the largest transfer fees aged 23 or younger at the time of their signing, 14 have a below average G+ rating in MLS. The group’s median career G+ score relative to the average player is -0.26. MLS teams have combined to spend $169 million in transfer fees on those 25 players, according to TransferMarkt. That’s an astonishing amount of money for relatively pedestrian overall production.
That's not new. The throwing-the-checkbook-at-them tactic is. Kinda reminds me of the dotcom era when any untested, untried startup could get mega-funding in the hope it would be the next new new thing, and 99% of the time the investors bet wrong.
These guys can't be all that unknown in quality though. I mean some are 22 - that's practically old by today's soccer standards . I think the failure is in understanding what kind of player will thrive in MLS. I don't know how, but in general MLS teams are still bad at it after all these years, some worse than others. We've got Marcos Lopez, who's been pretty good more or less from the get-go for us, but nothing special. Not as special as Jesse sometimes made him out to be. I would not call it a fail, but maybe more of a "base hit" than a home run.
The article states that the idea behind Young DPs is to develop the players over years. Then it criticizes the signings clubs have made in less than a few years because those players don't have a good "G+" number. Then it shows a chart that seems to indicate players who have had more years to develop have pretty decent "G+" numbers. Then it goes on to give examples of how some clubs are expected to do pretty well with their signings. So I feel like the article is a bit of a mess. They need to track enough players development over a sufficient period of time to come to any conclusions but it seems clear they haven't done that. They also never explained why "G+" is an appropriate metric. In fact they explain that it has holes and isn't perfect, particulary for 'high usage attackers' (which I assume expensive young DPs would be). "But for this purpose it's solid" the article says. Really? why is it solid? Has anyone done the work to show that it's solid to measure development of young DPs? Maybe it is or isn't but they should at least provide a link to the reason they believe it's solid since they did provide a link to the reason it is not solid.
I knew Roma would win a trophy as soon as Totti and DeRossi retired. It was an omen. This is Italy's first trophy in 12 years! Bravo José Mourinho!