Photo: Courtesy of Philadelphia Union
Gonna be snowbound this weekend? Check out the latest Footy on the Telly for listings of this weekend’s games on TV, online, and on satellite radio.
Philadelphia Union
The Union announced on Thursday key preseason dates, beginning with players reporting to the team today for medicals, with training scheduled to begin underneath the dome at UPenn’s Dunning-Cohen Champions Field on Sunday morning (although this weekend’s storm might understandably see the first day of training pushed to Monday).
The schedule of preseason games in the announcement is not yet complete and currently lists only two, Against Jacksonville Armada on Feb. 6, and against Chicago Fire on Feb. 11. Not included is a game against DC United on Feb. 17 mentioned in a recent report from the Washington Post, the game against an unnamed opponent on Feb. 20 announced as part of the Union’s annual Fan Weekend, and a game against NYRB on Feb. 26 announced by the Red Bulls, nor whatever additional games that will be taking place around the annual Fan Weekend, Feb. 19-21. Long story short, stay tuned for more preseason match dates.
The schedule includes the training session at YSC Sports that will be open to fans on Wednesday, Jan. 27. You can RSVP here and have a chance to win an autographed jersey.
At the Union website, the Nederostek family talks about the fun they’ve had attending the Union’s Fan Weekend. For more information on the annual event, click here.
At MLSsoccer.com, a fine profile piece from Dave Zeitlin on Union sporting director Earnie Stewart, who says, “I never go in looking at it like we’re the underdog. I want to get the best out of players. I want to get the best out of my staff and the team we have and win games. It could be that you have less money. It could be that you have less this or less that. But if you keep looking at that and worrying about that, you’re never going to go anywhere.”
Also at MLSsoccer.com, a video highlighting Stewart’s MLS career.
Former Union men Antoine Hoppenot and Jimmy McLaughlin have signed with new USL side FC Cincinnati, where they will join former teammate Austin Berry and Corben Bone. The Bethlehem-Cincinnati games suddenly have become a whole lot more interesting!
At the Vancouver Whitecaps website, a video documentary on former Union man Jordan Harvey and his life with Kimberly Caldwell and their new baby girl.
Bethlehem Steel
You can enter your guess here for who Bethlehem Steel will host in its home opener for a chance to win four tickets to the game.
Stat Hunting has a nice interactive map of the USL’s conference alignment.
Local
Harrisburg City Islanders have announced a new investor, Susquehanna Capital Corp., which is based in Wyalusing, Pa. Team majority owner Eric Pettis said in a statement,”We have been working diligently with the United Soccer League and we look forward to announcing the exciting plans for the City Islanders 2016 Season. Increasing the investment of the franchise in order to continue to be relevant in this league is the direction the organization is headed.”
Scratching the Pitch reports former City Islander and Union man Yann Ekra’s recently contract with Charlotte Independence includes an escape clause should he be offered a chance to sign with an MLS team before playing for the Independence. The report says Ekra will begin training today with Colorado Rapids, Charlotte’s MLS partner.
New NASL-side Miami FC have signed former Villanova forward Aaron Dennis, who played his first professional games last year with Arizona United of the USL.
At SI, a profile on Christian Pulisic, the Hershey native and PA Classics product now with Borussia Dortmund.
MLS
Player moves:
- Official: Seattle Sounders have signed Jordan Morris to a Homegrown Player contract.
- Official: Columbus have signed Danish midfielder Emil Larsen.
- Salt Lake have signed Nigerian midfielder Sunday “Sunny” Stephen Obayan.
- Salt Lake and forward Sebastian Jaime have mutually agreed to part ways after two seasons. The forward has signed with Universidad Catolica in Chile.
In a post at the Sounders website, Morris praises Jurgen Klinsmann for his support, while team owner Adrian Hanauer says “Jurgen doesn’t know any better than any of us what is best for the development of a player.”
Meanwhile, Klinsmann tells Goal.com “it’s sad” that people believe he does not support MLS.
Dallas are reportedly on the verge of signing 20-year-old Ecuador international midfielder Carlos Gruezo from Stuttgart.
DC will be without Bill Hamid for 4-6 months after the goalkeeper underwent surgery to repair a torn lateral meniscus of the right knee.
Former Portland Timbers head coach John Spencer has joined Colorado as an assistant coach.
Chicago Fire and USL-side Saint Louis FC have extended their affiliation for the 2016 season.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports design delays mean the the downtown stadium that will be shared by Atlanta United and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons “won’t be completed in time for a long-planned March 2017 opening.” The report says, “The new target date for completion of Mercedes-Benz Stadium is June 1, 2017.”
At Washington Business Journal, more on DC United’s new stadium following the release of more renderings earlier this week.
NASL commissioner Bill Peterson tells Empire of Soccer the league could be announcing anywhere from 1 to 4 West Coast expansion teams in the next 4 to 8 weeks. EOS says the teams could be in San Francisco, Orange County, San Diego, or Las Vegas.
NWSL
The Huffington Post on how the NWSL may just be the women’s professional league that finds lasting success.
US
The world champion USWNT faces Ireland in its first game of 2016 on Saturday at 5:30 pm (FS1).
The US U-17 BNT, coached by former Union head coach John Hackworth, will face Turkey in the Aegean Cup final on Saturday. The team defeated Belgium 2-0 on Thursday to advance to the final.
The US has drawn Mexico, Jamaica, and Costa Rica in Group B of the CONCACAF U-17 Women’s Championship. The tournament will take place March 3-13 in Grenada ahead of the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan, Sept. 30-October 21.
Shaun Tsakiris has been named the new head coach of the US U-16 BNT.
At the Guardian, Beau Dure on whether coaches can safely — and legally – teach how to head the ball given the ban on headers for pre-teen players.
Elsewhere
From Reuters: “A U.S. judge has approved the release pending trial of Alfredo Hawit, a former vice president of world soccer’s governing body FIFA and one of more than 40 people and entities charged in an anti-corruption sweep in the sport, his lawyer said on Thursday.” Hawit will be subject to house arrest and electronic monitoring after posting a “$1 million personal recognizance bond secured by $50,000 cash and real estate.”
The Guardian reports, “Bahraini pro-democracy campaigners have written to FIFA’s top sponsors to raise concerns over the candidacy of y’s attempt to become president of world football’s embattled governing body.”
The AP reports, “Gianni Infantino has declared €500,000 ($542,000) in financial backing from UEFA for his FIFA presidential campaign.”
At Philly.com, Jonathan Tannenwald talks to FIFA executive committee member Moya Dodd about a variety of topics.
You will recall the recent report at Vice Sports on match-fixing in the semi professional Canadian Soccer League. SC Waterloo, mentioned in the report, responds to allegations it was involved in fixing a game.
For those itching to see what this team has to offer, you are 15 days away from the first view.
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It will be an incomplete picture (to say the least), but I offer this glimmer of hope to even the most cynical of fans: we are starting this year without drama. There is no M’Bohli saga to worry about. There is no group of fans building a casket. The uprising has been subdued, even if temporarily.
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With that in mind, I offer hope. It is based on the promise of stability in the management positions, and in peace of mind in the players. That is a good place for any organization to start.
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Let’s go get ’em, boys. We got your backs.
+1
Preseason isn’t a chance to see what we have as much as it is to get bodies in motion, try out players in positions they haven’t played before, try out new tactics. Opposing teams doing same so not really learning how opponent will look 2 months from now. Low intensity.
First 4-5 season games will still be first glimpse of what team shape(vision philosophy plan as El P says). Then they adjust, and by 9th or 10th game you’ll be able to judge if there is potential for 5th seed playoff run and changes are on right path.
Rest of the season is either stick with Curtain and continue to tinker(and adjusting for injuries), or fire coach in June/July and start anew.
Playoffs are not be all end all, although like hockey, you have to really really suck to not make MLS playoffs(ahem) and Union should at least appear to be serious contender for 5th place most of the season, not spending season barely above sea level.
UnionGoal
As I read the news that our young guys have signed with Cincinnati, and thinking about MacMath and Pfeffer with Colorado, and all of our players from the past 7 years going to other places, I can’t help but come to one simple conclusion: This organization has been really bad at talent evaluation.
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Sorry for the “wet blanket” approach. But I make that statement with the thought that this is a new day under Earnie.
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you know, until he screws up. Then we’ll go all Philly Tough on him! :p
Maybe we are just bad at player development. Although I guess before we had no way to develop young players. We probably have just been bad at both though…
I would say that we’ve been bad at both, but we’ve had Academy players move overseas. So I have this funny feeling we have developed some potential superstars (Zac Steffan comes to mind) who have larger dreams than playing for the Union.
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Maybe with more success at the big club, some of these kids will now be tempted to stay home. With a little luck, we’ll be able to keep our Jordan Morris-types, too.
There’s a reason the Red Bulls never won a trophy until 2013, and by the way they had something in common with the Union: one Nick Sakiewicz. That organization, up until 3 or 4 years ago, was wrought with mismanagement, as well as a severe lack of growth and development. They had an opportunity to capture the New York market, and build a dominant academy, but they failed miserably and now NYCFC and even the Cosmos are cornering that market. Under Petke they got better, and it’s continued under Marsch, but think about the New York/New Jersey area, and all the great players that have come from there, and they couldn’t win a trophy for 17 seasons?
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I feel bad for fans of the NLL. Hopefully he doesn’t completely destroy the league. That’s nothing personal, although I don’t like him for the way he mishandled our team, but I just haven’t seen anything that resembles good, practical business sense in a majority of his moves. But he’s their problem now. Viva Earnie!!!
I tend to agree. My sense is that the Union have been so invested in the development/no big signings model (because their weak ownership gave them no choice), that they took flyers on developmental players who were not so special. McLaughlin, Pfeffer and Hernandez were all stretches. Hoppenot was a four year Ivy League guy who probably over-achieved with the Union and now is at his proper level.
The other issue is that (at least at first) they were doing it for too small numbers. The international development model is you round up a much larger number of teenagers and assume that most won’t pan out.
You also need to look at how much the quality of the league has improved in the last 5 years. That’s also a big factor. More money being spent in general by all teams. The majority of lineups are much much more talented than even 3 years ago.
I agree and hope this is a trend that continues..my concern – where is the ceiling then- in a market that is not open…
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…is there a ceiling? What pushes development forward…
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What plans are in place to reward franchises/USDA and local clubs that are developing quality players and punish franchises/USDA that continually cannot get their act together or WORSE choose not to get their act together…
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…what happens if clubs like the Union of recent past continue to be mediocre to bad and the Zack Steffan’s use the club at the youth ages of 8-13 but jump ship as they approach adolescence and late adolescence because there appears to be no viable path to “The Show” or development appears to continually stall out…
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How does the quality of the US player grow– this keeps me up at night…cause as it stands now…if my kid were an outlier- a special type talent…I’m absolutely looking overseas…. cause I don’t trust our system to get it right.
The current system is awful because MLS is single-entity. Essentially a small group of owners dictate the top professional tier of USSF.
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But I don’t think Pro/Rel is a viable answer either. Not yet at least. In the short term, teams that fail to achieve certain criteria [attendance, growing talent, attracting overseas talent, etc] have their ownership bought out at a pre-determined premium and the club is replaced with new ownership ala Chivas. Best short term solution.
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For me, the best way to move the league forward is at the youth levels: u12s and lower. Need better coaches to teach not just the physical aspect, but also the mental aspect. Turning thought into action and reaction. Understanding roles, formations, tactics etc.
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If I’m a talented player, I see no problem with leaving as a young teen for overseas development. In fact, academies should be encouraging their best players to challenge themselves. USSF needs to change the policy on fees paid to development clubs on future transfers. Once corrected, clubs will emphasize youth development with the idea that top players earn you cash and mid-tier players compete for time in MLS and USL.
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Cogent. Well thought out.
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A teacher at YSC asked me what I thought of the youth kiddies running around last session and we had a good talk and I mentioned many of my thoughts and the trainer mentioned many of their thoughts and explained how surprised they were when parents would say…
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….”there isn’t enough technical stuff happening during the training,” and I just looked at said person and laughed because this is where the thinking is still at… here’s $125 – $185… please teach my kid how to dribble and turn and navigate cones… OMG– we have a serious intelligence issue at the youth level where the rudiments of SSG need to be 100% subconscious by 10 years of age and people want more cones and dribbling… All youth have to do is watch a 10 year old team at any academy in europe to see this… the dribbling ohh the dribbling…. it’s so funny… actually it is tragic and sad that 25 years after the great boom in US Soccer we are still at this point in the mud… anyway – I digress….
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…the trainer ended our discussion, in essence by saying what separates US Soccer from the the World Standard is that 90% or the game is mental and 10% of the game is technical yet we spend 90% of our time teaching technical skills and 10% of our time teaching how to solve the problems that occur in a cindy 75 minute session 2x a week cause — Lord knows kids aren’t on the street figuring it out themselves.
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This is the VERY definition of insanity and the very definition of why we do not yet have a professional mindset in america…. it is still a game for dad coaches and travel soft pretzels and trophies at the end of each season… yet I’m the one who is a radicle.
I’m not sure if I completely followed your comments there, but I read an interesting article on the brotherly game blog (http://www.brotherlygame.com/2016/1/18/10783054/bayern-munich-on-a-quest-for-an-american-player-philadelphia-union-academy-pep-guardiola) where a key figure at Bayern Munich basically said the focus of development should be all technical up until age 11 or 12.
So I may be getting into semantics here and I may be misunderstanding what you’re saying, but technical skills are what the US player pool is severely lacking and should be a focus in training at very young ages. I also agree with your point that the only way this is truly going to be addressed is if kids are playing in the streets and learning for themselves outside of a formal training environment. Just wanted to provide this as food for thought.
Not even sure where to start…
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For the most part – and in this is in general, not just soccer/football related – we teach kids how to solve something BUT not the why. So when it comes to a sport, we focus so much on the technical and physical aspects that we neglect the mental until its too late. The best players in the world are not just great athletes, but they’re – for the most part – excellent problem solvers. At a young age, they were taught and more importantly recognized the implications of space, angles, movement, teamwork, roles, tactics. All of these things that you don’t get when you’re teaching kids how to dribble or pass or shoot.
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People in general will figure that out just by having a ball on their foot, some time to spare, and a buddy or a wall to pass to. We need coaches to teach the higher ordinate level topics. A problem that also permeates into other parts of American culture – but that’s an entirely different discussion
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If you want to change the mentality at an earlier age and grow the sport in the US, parents need to walk away from the practice field and training facilities. Your kid will be ok for a few hours a week without you. And we need coaches who will teach thinking and not just emphasize the technical aspects. That learning will come on its own through sheer time.
DK I understand and what I am attempting to say is the technical components are resolved and improved upon within the SSG… if a kid or team is struggling then you remediate the skill but always to the point of how the skill helps find a solution within the game. In the health care field this would be called return demonstration.
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Oh as coach I notice…. you or multiple players struggling with the left footed pass to space this particular game requires?.. okay… here’s a quick exercise…now back to the game requiring the left footed pass into space as a solution.
@ DK: I read through that article as well – the emphasis was on passing, touch etc. Yes you have to focus on that at a young age. But in the US, most kids aren’t outside just kicking a ball around all the time for the hell of it. You pick a lot of that up by just playing and having a coach discouraging bad habits. The real teaching comes in with the “thinking.” I have the ball where do I move in relation to my teammate and my opponents etc. You can learn that in time through playing, but proper instruction along with the why will hammer it home.
I don’t think my point came across in what I was trying to say. I’m saying, I don’t want coaches lecturing 10 year olds on the role that a left winger needs to play in a 4-3-3 formation rather than a 4-2-3-1 formation. That’s a discussion for kids who are further along in development.
I am in complete agreement coaches need to teach core concepts like angles, space, movement, and other core concepts that are key for any player. What I don’t think is valuable at a very young level is the tactical discussion I used as my example above.
I think it’s beneficial and a plus for them to watch matches and be taught at a high level tactical concepts, but I just don’t think it’s useful at an very young age to spend much time on that. I’m talking kids up to about 12. After that, tactics become very important.
I think we’re all saying the same thing. At the end of the day, it comes back to
the reason we lag behind other nations on this front is kids are not playing in the streets in their free time when they’re 7, 8, 9 years old. The US produces the best basketball players because our youth is playing constantly and developing the core technical skills of dribbling, passing, shooting, etc. We still need to focus on the technical discussions in formal training. Once the youth have those technical skills (by balling in the streets), they can begin to truly focus on the tactical side of things. The players don’t need to cognitively think about, “I need to accept this pass with the inside part of my foot, pick up my head, assess my 2-3 best options and make a decision.” It’s all instinctive, which opens the brain to understand the tactical part of the game. This is the next/final frontier of US player development.
DK you are off point I think a bit…no body is talking about lecturing ten year olds regarding advanced tactical thinking.
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the tactics of 2v1 2v2 3v1 3v2 3v3 reveal themselves to the kids through repetition… and minor teaching points along the way…
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I am a firm believer that coaches coach yes… but he game is the teacher at young ages.. and this is the point of my personal original comments above …
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then there is this… if you are a parent willing to spend $125-$180 a session to have someone teach your child how to dribble and do pull backs… why not come up with ridiculous games yourself if you have a modicum of understanding how soccer works … i think is is sad and an indictment on our game in this country that we are paying untold amount of money to teach kids things that are essentially free to the rest of the world…
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which brings me full circle to my disappointment with the travel soccer structure. more SSG and free play… less driving to Hoboken and Wyomissing and tourney after tourney where your kid is invested for 3 games and 8 hours for less than 100 touches… but again I digress which I am wont to do.
Like I said, I wasn’t at the training you referenced and I wasn’t sure that I fully comprehended what you were talking about in your initial comment. Looks like I was off base and you can disregard my comments. Always good to have a discussion though and seems like we think similarly even though that wasn’t fully coming across in my comments.
@DK: It’s not about high-level tactical analysis. It’s about core mental concepts that are developed through playing in SSG. It’s not about standing up their lecturing. But pointing out at a young age when you are in X situation, looks for options ABC. So on and so forth. As adults, its easier for us to pick these options out because our brain has been wired for decades to problem solve and recognize patterns. Children on the other hand do not readily grasp these core concepts.
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And I think we can all agree that travel soccer is holding development back. Spending more time driving and “training” for limited exposure to the game. The best kids always have the ball at their feet year round. Its the same with any sport. Baseball, basketball, tennis, wrestling, swimming. Whatever. The kid is learning by doing at a young age. The coach is their to guide the development and craft a different mindset. A different way of viewing the pitch, field, mat, course, whatever it is.
In the next few years I think that will change. Tv will be the reason as kids watch the game and start to see many different styles and start to copy and build on them. It’s the one thing that wasn’t really available to us just fifteen years ago.
This is where I get angry at the type of quotes from the Seattle owner above, “Jurgen doesn’t know any better than any of us what is best for the development of a player.” Yeah, I’m pretty sure he does Adrian. The arrogance that drips from some of these MLS guys is infuriating. One could say Jurgen is arrogant too, but at least he has earned the right to be arrogant considering his pedigree (whether he has been a good US coach is a different question). For some reason, these guys think the US national team should be used to push MLS (and their profits) further when it’s actually the other way around. When JK doesn’t kiss their feet they throw a hissy fit and undermine him at every opportunity.
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Of course I love watching MLS but I’m perfectly happy in having a National team coach who might look at the arrogant businesspeople-first Hanauers, Garbers, and Sakiewiczs and says, “these are not the people who should be charting the course for a successful US soccer organization.”
Just curious, what player(s) has Jurgen developed besides his son?
He’s not in the business of developing players. He’s here to overhaul a system and develop a nation. Similar to what he had done with the German national team in the mid-2000s. Look at their program now, less than a decade later.
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I’m not saying that JK is the savior, but MLS is a joke coming from where he’s been. Its child’s play.
I’m not really sure what your metric would be for crediting Jurgen for a player’s development over the many other coaches a player had in their career. Any individual player would probably cite a number of coaches who made them to be the player they are. Are you suggesting that after playing at the highest level, coaching (rather unsuccessfully I concede) at the club level, and heading 2 national teams that his son is the only one who derived any benefit? And that Jurgen has learned nothing about how one would best maximize one’s talent playing soccer, in all that time? But more to my point in the original post, are you saying a very successful Internet businessman (Hannauer) knows just as much as Klinsmann does about developing soccer players?
Fellas, I agree with a lot of what you all have written, but if I have to pick sides in the Jurgen Klinsmann debate, I’lm glad that my opinion of him is similar to Phillip Lahm’s and Toni Kroos’s. Just imagine if Klinsmann was American and how his actions & words would be viewed then.
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I started reading Das Reboot and while Klnsmann gets a lot of credit for Germany’s resurgence, the reality is much more nuanced. In 2003-4, the Bundesliga was made up of 49% foreign players. What helped change the composition of the players was that the money got tight and teams focused more on playing their kids because it was cheaper than buying foreign players. This gave the German national team a much bigger pool of players to choose from.
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Do we need improvement in this country in how we train and develop players? Absolutely. Is Klinsmann the man to help do it? I’m not so sure.
Mikex – What Hannauer said is irrelevant to my POV on Klinsmann. It’s a false argument. Just because I happen to agree with Hannauer doesn’t mean that I think that he’s an expert in this arena.
Understood Zizou. Your question was open-ended so I wasn’t sure what you meant by it. Jim and El P said what I was trying to say much clearer than I did.
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Hell yeah… He makes the media uncomfortable, he makes Don Garber uncomfortable, he makes Joe-MLS owner uncomfortable, he makes Mix Diskerud and Benny and Brek and Landon and Fabian uncomfortable… He must be a whack-a-doddle….
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I’ll argue for hours about his tactics and player ID but he has a job to do and it is to make our culture uncomfortable… see how long he lasts as coach and moves into a position that could maybe better suit his skill set.
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Dead on Mikex.
The more that JK points out how anti-competitive MLS is compared to leagues in Europe and S. America, the more the ownership pushes back. People need to realize, MLS owners need to realize, MLS beat writers need to realize, that his agenda does not necessarily need to fit nicely within the scope of increasing the exposure, level of play, and profits of a single-entity league. Its his job to design a system that can develop future players. Yeah he’s a coach but more importantly he’s the technical director of USSF. And yeah sometimes, I think “what the fuck is he doing” with his formations, tactics, and personnel choices. But these are meaningless games. He’s looking to bring in fresh blood. No more old heads returning to MLS to collect checks. He wants professionals who need the challenge of International play.
I’m unsure how many national team coaches around the world are developing players… aren’t they supposed to be developed by the time they get to senior team?
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National teams are about systems and tactics and application and honor and pride in your colors.
Totally agree with you, but he’s also the Technical Director of USSF so he’s in charge of the program to develop players in this country. What experience does Klinsmann have in this arena? None.
Earnie Stewart seems to me, is smart,driven, successful and a winner. He has my support as long as the above appears to be true. This is the first off-season in a while that I can honestly say I’m excited for the new season to begin.
I’m looking at this team as an Expansion Franchise. I am honestly writing off the entire Sak Era and looking at this as a fresh start. The organization was so corrupt and bereft of direction during its existence. We have legitimate reason now to feel the optimism that we should have experienced from the start.
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Let’s start over and see where it goes.
This has been my position as well… maybe it is why things are easier for me to rationalize both to myself and in debate.
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Rotten from the inside out and now we have a fresh start.
Absolutely, an expansion franchise with some actual solid foundation in place.
Sadly I see it too often as a 9-1-1 dispatcher a structure fire is called into dispatch. We send the fire dept. Unless the fire wasn’t “going” yet, all that remains is a burnt shell and lots of water damage.
That’s where we are right now. The fire is out the building is down to the foundation. It may take a year or two but the new building will be a modern masterpiece.
+1 Patience.
Maybe we should uh call ourselves the Fabreeze Brothers, cause it’s feeling so fresh right now.
sunglasses, sunscreen, hat .. wait, wrong list.
gloves, shovel, salt … crap, wrong again.
stadium, training facility and office, outdoor training fields, indoor training fields, academy, senior players (mostly), junior players, director of football, coaches, (re-invested) owners – good to go.
forgot second/USL team – did I miss anything else?
+1. The Union’s problems are not going to be fixed in a year. Not when the rest of the league keeps elevating its talent level. I don’t see that our current roster is playoff-level, and I’m not expecting to make the playoffs this year. I just want to see rationality, and some improvement.
So how does the roster work for preseason with The U and BSFC? I’m assuming we won’t be able to sign 10+ players in the next week or so, but do they all travel together and play together during preseason to help plug some holes there? Or is it totally separate?
I thought they were going to be training together throughout the season. I would hope they’ll train together in the preseason to help the coaching staff make a determination on guys who are on the fence between the two.
that’s the logic of the two fields built in the middle of Lot B. It’s also the logic of bringing back the assistant coach who was colleagues with Jim Curtin under John Hackworth. The logic is reinforced by the comments made about Brian Carroll at the time of the major roster releases in December and at the time of his signing.
I suspect they are going to invite a ton of people into training camp and then bust out the Philadelphia Union sorting hat to put them into the Union or BSFC.
“Dutch” sorting hat. ;’)
+1
….. paging UNIONGOAL paging UNIONGOAL.
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I read your response to my comments in the Dan Walsh piece today and was unable to answer you on his thread so I begin anew here.
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I certainly appreciate your POV regarding my position of multiple ideas and see that you are troubled and uncomfortable and this is perfectly okay and acceptable… we all come at this from a different place.
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As far as I can tell and the threads of thought and wonder I follow from minds far more superior than mine when it comes to this game…I am MOSTLY a regurgitator… none of the ideas I espouse are original or new for that matter… I am a synthesizer of others’ thought that I am in near complete agreement with regarding the World Standard and therefor the Gold Standard for progression of the game in country. It is without my question we only think we want to be great here… It is without question that the VAST majority of people associated with this game have a mentality that is not aligned to the Professional Mindset… I am only about IM having fun type players, street players, the academy and the professional academy (which incidentally found and still finds success in sending players to college (amateur)…. hmmmmm) after training ”’professionally”.
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My entire job on this blog is to find witty and new ways to bend language to make you uncomfortable. If you are uncomfortable….excellent– my friend… you either read on or you choose to ignore my points of view. I am strongly opinionated but I feel I concede points readily when others argue from their perch, I recognize mine is not the only view and that is discernment… either engage me or leave me to the leaves rustling outside the bathroom window.
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Either way I move forward looking for the Beautiful Game as expressed in lands far from here.
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R.E.F.t.D.
BTW… I am uncertain your point regarding Gary Kleiben… yes he is a physics professor in a California University… what of it?
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Do you know anything else about him and where he is from and his brother or their paradigm and goals for the game? They are doing far more than you or me to push the envelope and levels of consciousness about the game we tragically call soccer in the states.
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I’m a stay at home dad- but you wouldn’t know I’m also a poet — unless you dug a little deeper.
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… and for the record… it is also Gary Kleiben, who I’ve mentioned as being a close follower of 3four3 numerous times over the years that said, “You either eat, shit and breath this stuff …or you’re a hack…”
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I concur. Football occupies, in some facet, nearly every fourth synapse of thought I generate…. and I’m still a hack.
Left me hanging.