Photo by Paul Rudderow
Philadelphia Union
[NSFW- language] Least awful version of this song on YouTube. It also happens to be the least Union-focused.
University of Delaware assistant coach Jon Scheer has accepted a position as the Union Academy as Director of Talent Identification.
Meanwhile several Union Academy Youth Coaches are getting promotions, including Fred.
MLS
In an effort to show support for their team without lining the pockets of Anthony Precourt, #SaveTheCrew has created what they’re calling “The Community Kit”, a Columbus jersey not affiliated with The Crew.
Twitter has bought the (English) broadcast rights for twenty four of the games being showed on Univision.
Carlos Vela may play in MLS, but it appears Liga MX still holds his loyalty.
Atlanta United now has the three most-attended MLS regular season games.
David Villa: “I came here four seasons ago and the growth of the league since then it is bestial. In every way: better players, better coaches, better organization, better teams… The growth that we have in four years is equivalent to 10 years.” Spanish Language Link. Google Translate.
US Soccer
Well…that’s embarrassing.
People who aren’t American are starting to notice Christian Pulisic, including other young talent in Dortmund.
Tim Weah played for PSG in their 5-0 flogging of Metz, but people still need to be told who he (and his dad) are.
A speculative all-foreign-league roster for the friendly vs. Paraguay later this month.
Aron Johannsson sees a path back to the USMNT at Bremen.
World
There’s more to success than saying you’re successful.
Spend £60 million. Beat Watford.
Note to self: never tell Zidane anything even remotely embarrassing.
Even if you’ve already seen it, the cover of Mexican sports periodical Récord, it’s still fun to look at.
“There’s more to success than saying you’re***** successful.”
That story is amazing. It’s the new age of snake oil salesmen.
If anyone hasn’t seen some of the info on twitter about #savethecrew, it’s incredible. Really disconcerting pieces of information that gives Precourt and the league bad looks. The most recent was last night, showing limited number of tickets being available on the team website, so as to artificially keep the attendance down.
Link?
https://twitter.com/etmckinley/status/972964674219241472
He’s not really saying they’re sabotaging, but it’s interesting.
Thanks. Interesting indeed.
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I agree with the one commenter who wondered if this was consistent or not with how other teams release tickets.
It’s far too early to start thinking a trend is developing in this two-week old MLS season, but I think LAFC might run away with the league a lot more convincingly than many who assumed they’d have the usual expansion team difficulties. And I think it will come down to a coach in Bob Bradley. The football looks really good so far. Vela and Rossi are a very good attacking combo and the team can defend. They look ready to put a big dent in the league. Beating Seattle at home was a hell of an accomplishment. Will see how they fare against the other top teams in the East.
When Atlanta did it, it could be seen as just an expansion anomaly. With LAFC matching them (to date), there may be a roadmap out there now for how to build a team. A lot of similarities, both in team construction and early returns.
While LAFC is really playing well, there wasn’t much for the other teams to do in order to prepare for them as there wasn’t much to scout off of. Now that other managers get to see what they are doing, they can devise a tactical scheme to stop them.
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TBH, they are fun to watch.
Yeah. They look to be a good team, but I highly doubt they run away with it.
It’s almost like hiring a proven manager and dumping loads of cash into a squad can give you good results. MLS 3.0 (4.0?) starting to look like traditional American $ports.
Kind of works that way everywhere. My point above, however, is that I think Bradley really makes the difference. No disrespect meant to Tata, who is far more credentialed than Bradley. He and Bradley are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. Half the other teams in the league (conservative guestimate) are literally learning on the job. I still maintain a manager upgrade for the union would add 5-10 points a season.
I’ve been arguing for a while that the next true evolutionary step for the league is in the managerial ranks. When we start grabbing guys from anywhere around the globe with experience and quality, the entire league will be lifted.
“But managers don’t really DO anything. Its the Players that matter.”
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From scores of bloggers along these hallowed corridors for a couple years. Became so nauseating one had to stop even bringing it up…. cue wry smile and light shoulder shrug from this elephant.
To be fair, players matter a lot too. Unless you are some enormous talent at coaching, in which case you probably aren’t coming to MLS. I still think as long as you have a competent manager and good players your going to be fine. It’s not surprising the best manager in MLS also happen to have the best players. Coaching also has many aspects that are incredibly difficult to asses as fans.
Of course players matter, but I think the lesser the caliber of player you have the more important the manager. You’ve got to have managers that not only pick a system to play but can MANAGE the match. You know, I don’t like Jose Mourinho a whole lot, but that man can manage a match. Many of his players were wonderful against Liverpool, but he set his team up to score two goals and then shut it down against one of the best attacking teams in the world. He is a guy who knows what he’s doing and has literally seen it all. Allegri’s Juve against Spurs last week. People will piss and moan about conservative tactics, but I’ll take tactics over their absence to get results. I said this last season, Sam Alerdyce could have come to Philly and gotten last year’s team Union into the playoffs.
Interesting theory of managers and players. So Toronto wanted to fire their manager until they got much better players and went to two cups and won one. Did he get better or was it the players? The year before it was a career coach in Seattle who toiled in the organization for years and became the interim coach only to get the job full-time. Granted the manager is important but players aren’t an after thought. One of the great lines I heard was whoever coached Reggie White should just go around and tell everybody he was Reggie White’s coach.
I don’t remember Toronto contemplating sakcing Vanney. In his first full season, he took that club to 3rd place in the East. Manager impacts are tough to measure statistically. Ryan Nelsen managed a 15-26-17 record with Toronto for 1.13 ppg. But he had no Giovinco or Altidore and had to manage a Jermaine Dafoe who had little interest in being managed by Nelsen. Would Nelsen have managed 1.63 ppg like Vanney has? Hard to say. Likely not, but I doubt the difference would be half a point a game.
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And then there’s man management. Managers lose their teams (and their minds, sometimes). Antonio Conte to Sigi Schmid. It happens.
There are several great laughs this morning. Thank you for punching up this Monday.
I hope Fred is promoted to head coach of the Philadelphia Union! #goodFREDtalk