Iron Crotch

Much blue and gold in the crowd.

He may be the next president of corrupt Liberia it seems. BTW - my former University of Rochester classmate ran, but then dropped out at some point: https://www.voanews.com/a/liberia-former-foreign-minister-enters-presidential-race/3335198.html

Dominating 5-0 win for the USA over previously undefeated Paraguay. Hat trick by Tim Weah (PSG; son of former World Footballer of the Year George Weah), one from Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen), one from Andrew Carlton (Atlanta for now, he has the talent to be signed by a top club). As crappy as our men's national team is, this is arguably the most talented U17 side we've ever fielded. On to the Quarterfinals against England or Japan on Saturday.

U-17 World Cup knockout stages going on right now. USA is playing Paraguay. Strong USA team with many good attacking players (Weah, Sargent, Carlton, Akinola). You'll see several of these guys on the men's national team in 5-6 years.

I always liked Johnson better than Lehner. Lehner can make the spectacular save, but has a tendency to let in softies. Johnson is sort of the opposite. Won't make the crazy athletic saves, but he stops the shots he is supposed to stop.

"Jacob Larsson!" (per the Ducks announcer)

Hit the empty net, Jack!

28 shots thus far, but many of the 'softball' variety.

Alamo mode!

I think Larsson is a dime-a-dozen player in the NHL. Like many current Sabres, I think he is overrated by our fans. If he scores 15 goals and/or has a 35 point season then I might rethink my position on him. ;)

Placing guys on top European clubs is certainly the holy grail in USA soccer development. Pulisic is already there and is recognized in Europe as a world class player (nominated for the "Golden Boy" award this year). But, we have a number of young players in Europe or on the way who have a shot at playing time on top teams in the future: Weston McKennie & Haji Wright & Nick Taitague (all at Schalke), Tyler Adams (at NY Red Bulls, being scouted by English clubs), Josh Sargent (signed with Werder Bremen), Tim Weah (at PSG), Cameron Carter-Vickers (Tottenham on loan at Sheffield), Josh Perez (Fiorentina on loan at Livorno), Erik Palmer-Brown (at KC, just signed with Manchester City), Gedion Zelalem (Arsenal - currently hurt)... I'm sure I'm missing some. Alll of these guys are 20 and under.

Yeah, we hired a retread coach (Arena) who put all of his favorite players from a decade ago on the qualifying roster. He picked 18 of 26 MLS guys for the roster. He left a Premier League starter like Geoff Cameron on the bench in favor of his old LA player Omar Gonzales and his favorite MLS re-tread Matt Besler at center back. Matt Miazga (Chelsea - on loan and playing well at Vitesse) didn't even get a roster spot. You can't tell me that Lynden Gooch or Weston McKennie or Danny Williams or even Timmy freakin' Chandler aren't better options at wide midfield than MLS guys Darlington Nagbe and/or Paul Arriola. He picked three past their prime MLS goaltenders: Howard (38), Guzan (32 - probably should have played more), and Rimando (37). Anyway, onward and upward. Time for the youth movement to start. So much young talent overseas. Time to get them into the mix.

This is a pretty good article on the development gap in the early 1990's that left the current USMNT with an odd mix of either aging vets or still learning youngsters... http://americansoccernow.com/articles/the-missing-years-u-s-soccer-s-development-gap We have a ton of young players being developed overseas right now (ages 16-22 or so). So, I think we should have a much better team for the next Word Cup cycle.

Bradley, Dempsey, Altidore, Bedoya, Guzan, Howard, and others were all drawn back to the MLS from overseas due to greater financial opportunities in the MLS. Some of these guys got old (Howard, Guzan, Dempsey) but the others could have played against better competition for slightly lower salaries overseas but took the money and came back to the MLS. My argument is that the financial rise of MLS has in some ways hurt the national team. The level of competition just isn't there. It's like fielding a team of AHL guys to represent the USA at a major hockey tournament. On the flip side, the relatively new MLS youth academies should produce better talent than we've had in a while. Many of these young guys are on display at the U-17 world cup (USA is 2-0 in group play). The European labor laws differ greatly by country. It is easier now for an American to be signed by a Bundesliga team than it was about 5 years ago (although it differs greatly by league/country). We have U17s at places like PSG (Tim Weah), Ajax (Sergino Dest) and Werder Bremen (Josh Sargent). And, quite a few players at all levels of the Bundesliga these days (some dual citizens, some not). I just want us to tap into more overseas players rather than trotting out crappy MLS guys like Altidore and Besler match-after-match.

I probably watch more soccer these days than any sport (including hockey). And, my long-standing criticism of USA Soccer is this: I believe (as Klinsmann did) that to field the best possible national team, we want our players playing against the best possible competition in the top leagues in the world (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, Eredivisie). The MLS over the past few years has developed the ability to pay big salaries to attract and/or keep "star" national team players at home. Good for the players financially, but this IMHO has hurt our national team since the quality of competition in the MLS is inferior. Throughout qualifying we've consistently put a bunch of MLS guys on the field when to me we had players in better leagues available. Personally, I'd rather see guys like Weston McKennie, Danny Williams, Lynden Gooch, Emerson Hyndman, Matt Miazga, Fabian Johnson (declined to play the last two games), John Brooks (hurt), Geoff Cameron (on bench), Cameron Carter-Vickers, etc. than the unexciting MLS-heavy lineups we fielded. Anyway, I'm hopeful that the "old core" gets replaced in the next cycle by some young European-based players. And, we find a coach who gets the tactics right.

Good take. Our 10 new players amount to a whole lot of nothing. New doesn't always mean better. In some sense we just shifted bodies, but didn't find any difference makers. Also, Beaulieu has no business being second on the team in ice time. WTF?! The pairings of: (1) Beaulieu-Risto, (2) Scandella-Tennyson, (3) McCabe-Antipin are atrocious. How is McCabe not better than Beaulieu? BTW - both Samson and Okposo are a team-worst -6 with no points. Personally, I think Samson is terrible defensively and I'd much rather see him on Eichel's wing.

I've always thought and I still think Samson is grossly overrated by folks around here. He isn't very good defensively, doesn't win puck battles, and generally looks disinterested much of the time. He's got nice hands around the net, which makes him an asset on the power play. But, his overall game isn't close to the guy who got picked right behind him Draisaitl.

Having watched the Housley/Laviolette system that past several years in Nashville, this is pretty much my take. You can get by with average forwards as long as they're fast and give great effort on every shift. Thus far, our current group of forward haven't exactly been playing with reckless abandon. But, they also don't know the system well, so I assume they'll be able to play faster once they get more comfortable. That said, I don't see much talent in the new forwards (Pouliot, Griffith, Josefson). Lousy defensemen will get exposed in this system. We have a lot of new d-men but none of them look very good thus far (I like Scandella the best of the new guys). Beaulieu was terrible against NJ. Antipin hasn't been very good, but he is just learning the North American game so I give him a pass.

Trying to build the team with "high character" players (getting rid of talented, but "me first" types) seems to be making a difference. That's a heck of a road win against the defending NFC champs.

The locals down here are none too happy that LSU lost their homecoming game to Troy! My team (Virginia Tech) got blasted by Clemson. I didn't expect them to win, but thought they'd play a little better than they did.

Washington State has an offensive lineman who is 6'9 368. And, he can move in space far better than you'd think at that size.

We'll see if our new defensive scheme is the real deal or not this weekend. Limit turnovers, play really good defense, and hope Tyrod can connect on a few timely downfield throws. ...and even then, I'm not sure the Bills can win....

We look great. ...if you like watching teams that suck.

Balls

Reaves is as close to a goon as the NHL has left. Pretty terrible at hockey, but I guess the Pens brought him in to protect Crosby and Malkin.