Photo: Earl Gardner
Philadelphia Union
Unfortunately, Jason Kelce’s exceptional speech at the Eagle’s Super Bowl victory parade has brought a certain unfortunate film by Howler back to the surface.
The Union drew Chicago in a preseason meeting.
With no new signings filling the No. 10 spot, the Union may need to go back to the same attempted solutions we’ve seen.
Local
Union Academy products are signing with colleges, including Kevin Escobar to Delaware and Jeremy Rafanello to Penn State.
MLS
The #SaveTheCrew movement has made its way into a gameday program across the pond.
Now that they’ve had the full two-year development cycle to get it right, Adidas is giving Minnesota a much nicer primary uniform.
US Soccer
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
However at least the Men’s and Women’s teams will be getting GMs as a result of Corderio’s election.
USL’s Las Vegas Lights FC sold out their first home game ever.
Landon Donovan makes his Club Leon debut.
World
Liga MX is still considering ending promotion/relegation, but some are predicting terrible results if they do.
Once again, Alexis Sanchez has been less than stellar for Manchester United.
Florian Kainz with an amazing goal for Bremen.
Really depressing how little votes the other candidates received. Are those of us outside really that far off in our thinking?
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Oh, and that #10 article is also depressing.
I wonder if the “resistance” vote might have been better served with one candidate. If it were a three-way race between Cordeiro, Carter and Martino, for example. Not saying the result would have been different, but Martino’s more measured reform approach might have gotten a better a hearing. I thought he struck a good balance of calling for change while promising to listen and to make decisions based on empirical evidence and research. Oh well.
ESPN FC reported on Friday (I think, maybe Thursday) that there was a last ditch effort for 6 candidates to lump their lot in with each other, but they were having squabbles between themselves and nothing was assured. Looks like they never did get it together. Maybe if they had started sooner they could have come to an agreement.
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I’m just glad it wasn’t Kathy Carter. Not entirely excited by Codeiro either, but we’ll see.
I was thinking along the same lines, but Carter was overwhelmingly second. And that was across all balloting groups. It really just feels like the outside public are totally disconnected.
Don’t look at their totals, look at who voted for who. The professional leagues voted for Carter (and no wonder as USL and NWSL are largely made up of MLS owners). She got a few votes here and there beyond that.
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Corderio nearly got less votes than Wynalda (and easily less than Wynalda and Martino combined) EXCEPT the Athletes Council voted in block for Corderio so they could play king makers. Corderio promised more athlete inclusion in USSF with official positions being added.
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So basically he won because he promised the Athletes Council more power. Stu Holden’s comments on Fox Sports seem to indicate this.
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If the athlete’s council had backed Martino instead (they were reportedly deciding between Martino, Corderio, and Carter), he starts with 28% of the vote leaving Corderio with only 16% and suddenly the election gets very, very interesting.
The part of a possible disconnect that struck me the most was the squabble between Hope Solo and Stu Holden. When Hope lashed out at the Athletes Council for basically selling out, Holden took extreme offense.
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Considering I hold Holden in higher regard than Solo, I think there was so much more involved in this that we don’t and won’t know about. But the general public was WAY off on how this was going to turn out. People may have expected the establishment to win, but the whitewashing was a bit unexpected.
US Soccer went about this all wrong. They should have considered getting Trump to step down as POTUS and become POUSSF. After all, the objective of US Soccer is to make America great.
Only in the sense that the soccer world of twitter thinks it’s vision of a FIFA calendar and pro/rel is something that the average state youth league admin gives a shit about. And that’s who voted. Cordeiro visited a ton of them. Wynalda tweeted a lot.
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One knew who the real audience is.
Exactly, Winalda in office is like electing Trump because you don’t have a job. It’s out of left field so you think it will help- but nah.
We’ve done well over thirty years, building. We need to build more.
I think that Martino and Wynalda visited with a lot of different associations. Cordeiro had a built-in advantage that he had met all of those voters when he campaigned for the VP position just a few years ago so he was a known entity to them. Plus, they knew that if he lost, they would still have to deal with him in his VP role and if you are a state admin you don’t want to risk alienating him if you didn’t support him.
Kainz’s goal was very well taken.
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If anyone wants to see a fantastic team goal, take a look at Napoli’s fourth yesterday. Beautiful.
Kainz’s strike symbolizes Werders annual drive to avoid relegation that usually starts around this time each year.
Minnesota’s kit looks like pajamas.
Yeah…a little bit.
They look a lot worse than that. What numbskull thought it would be a good idea to outfit the team in the same color scheme, in the same vertical stripes, as Auschwitz prisoners.
This got dark.
Yeah, and to top it off, they placed a target in the middle of the chest? At least ours just has Bimbo.
Why is the film from Howler unfortunate? It’s F-ing great.
In Union alum news – Danny Cruz joins RSL coaching staff:
https://www.rslsoapbox.com/2018/2/9/16996558/danny-cruz-assistant-coach-real-monarchs-slc
And here I thought I was finally not going to hear his name anymore. Sad day. It is sad to hear about the passing of the guy he replaced.
Ok, so we’re not getting a #10… but can we at least get another letter from Jay Sugarman?
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Excited to hear the new spin on failure and incompetence.
HAHA, nice.
Starting to think Ernie Stewart is incapable of running a MLS team. Fafa was a bargain basement signing. Ilsinho escaped a war and Medunjanin is his one and only good signing. I think Curtin and Albright had more success signing players before he got here.
Unbelievable that in 2 years we have not been able to replace Barnetta!
Hard to argue with that.
Hey man. No one can complain about his signings this year. I mean all of them will surely work out. 100% hit rate (1/1). All players added fill a position of need. Can’t expect him to fill so many glaring holes and still keep our payroll lower than last year. I mean he filled 50% (1/2) of our needs in 1 offseason. What a freaking joke. I could have done a better job.
Year 3 of 5.
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think we need to be patient just a bit longer. He has a shovel, a spoon, arrowroot and is being asked to bake brownies.
True. And while I’ve personally been in the “wait and see” crowd since his arrival.
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But it would be a bad move IMO to do so much re-branding (kits, badge) and make a big move for Accam if still in the building phase. Can only cry wolf so many times.
Honest query: what do you realistically expect to see in year 5? I know want you want to see, but do you really see any signs that it is actually happening? I don’t. Shouldn’t there be at least some progress by now?
More than happy to be patient except:
– They should have been playing the kids earlier. Unless these same kids they are playing now really aren’t that good. Is there a Tyler Adams or Kellen Acosta in this group? Or are we still waiting on that U14 stud from FC DelMontBucksco that Earnie touted in one of those town halls?
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The rest of the league has moved to a different model. TFC, Atlanta, NYCFC, LAFC, and eventually Miami have/will raised the bar. Can’t claim I’ve seen any of them play, but my guess is all these young South American players are better than the Academy kids the Union seem to be focused on.
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This is the FO’s own doing. The owner and the GM both gave interviews over the winter – shockingly right around peak ST renewal time – that the club knew what it needed to address and would spend money. Anyone who follows the club knew we weren’t spending like the clubs above, but to not sign a #10 just breaks any trust that remained between the club and the fan base.
Year 3 of 5 and how many good players has be brought it? 3? He’s cleared a ton of room this year and brought in 1 player. I mean come on. Any idiot could have had a better offseason. There is a 10 in NE staring them in the face and they are doing nothing. Year 3 of 5 and we are again counting on Ilsinho to fill our most important spot.
Has anyone heard anything about Sébastien LeToux?