MLS Weakly, 03 27 2021: The Weakliest of Weaklies...

Hangry for games/results.

This week, the Weakly will truly live up to its name. Yessir…

The Major League Soccer preseason continues, but the league’s brain trust has made it…bafflingly hard to keep track of who’s doing what. While I’m confident that some kind of rich asshole logic informs decisions like, say, failing to update the preseason schedules/scores page - particularly when it comes to preseason games against teams from other leagues - or the regionally-restricted streaming that blacked-out FC Cincinnati’s preseason game (and win!) against (and over!) Chicago Fire FC, the upshot is the same: I’m stuck getting second-hand intel on the Portland Timbers’ and Cincinnati’s respective preseasons from the Happy Friends who live in my phone.

Fortunately, the news has been good for FC Cincy and…goodish for the Timbers. The former just wrapped up a 2-1 win over Chicago as I’m typing, while Portland dropped a hint they’ll continue last season’s formula of scoring more (or as many) goals than (the considerable number) they allow with a 3-3 draw against Sporting Kansas City earlier this week. I’d like to have more to say about both games - my Kingdom for even one puckish insight - but I can’t have much to say about what I don’t see…though the Happy Friends in My Phone, Ohio Chapter, seemed pretty happy with what they saw against Chicago. Luciano Acosta scored one and new-kid Calvin Harris added one more by following up a “dummy,” and there’s some enthusing about the depth (ht: @GeoffTebbetts) that feels encouraging.

I suppose I’m not totally paralyzed. For instance, you can glean things here and there - e.g., that Chicago had edged both New York City FC and the Philadelphia Union before tripping over li’l ol’ Cincinnati - and add other results - e.g., that NYCFC beat both Orlando City SC and Columbus Crew SC after dropping that scrimmage to Chicago, or that Philadelphia has lost to everyone they’ve played thus far - but nothing replaces direct observation and I’m…just annoyed with the powers that be and wish they’d stop choking off access to this stuff. Moreover, I refuse to check three different sites trying to figure out how, say, the Seattle Sounders fared against Tacoma Defiance on March 25th, or how Atlanta United FC played against Chattanooga FC the day before (or did that one get postponed due to COVID?).

[UPDATE: The Mothership finally stirred itself to update some scores (maybe they want a monopoly on product?), including games for Minnesota United FC, Real Salt Lake, FC Dallas and Red Bull New York. The results went...mostly as expected, with the two standouts being Minnesota kicking the holy shit out of the Charleston Battery (srsly, 9-0) and the Red Bulls losing 0-2 to Miami FC.]

Therefore and pursuant thereto, it is with great regret that I just give up and post notes on the random, speculative horseshit that The Mothership posts during every offseason - e.g., “each MLS team’s breakout player candidate” and “the Top 10 newcomers.” After that, I’ll look at the schedules for Portland and Cincinnati and try to wring some more bullshit out of that. If I survive the humiliation and psychic pain of those processes, I might close out with notes on the progress of the U.S. Men’s Olympic Team in their attempts to qualify for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics…

…or I might just give up and link to a couple points of interest. Moving on….to nowhere. Thanks, stingy assholes…

In Which I Try to Restart That Thing with the U.S. Men's National Team...

The mood I'm battling.

Seeing as we may not get a 2020 Major League Soccer regular season, now seems like a good time to return to an old hook-up, aka, the U.S. Men’s National Team…

…yeah, yeah, I’d be stunned stupid if MLS let CBA negotiations scuttle a landmark season (25th anniversary’s a biggie), but these are stupid times, so buckle up, I guess?

Back to the task at hand, though, the U.S. Men start qualifying for 2022 Bizarro World Cup this year, so there’s no time like the present for all concerned to gear up, players and fans. And, honestly, I’d like to get on board, but…well, that’s gotten harder since those faraway years when, because I didn’t really have an MLS team to cheer for, the U.S. Men’s National Team was my team. Back then, half the reason I followed MLS was to learn about the player pool. 25 years later, I’m a lot, lot dumber about what the U.S. has for options and, in a particularly comic twist, following the U.S. Men reminds me of how I used to keep one eye on MLS while I tracked the Portland Timbers’ fate in the USL; that’s to say, the only time I see Christian Pulisic play comes during the rare occasions I see him play for the U.S. Men. Based on that visual diet – i.e., watching a frustrated Pulisic kick at the sub seats (and did I dream this?) after departing at the tail of another anemic performance – is it any wonder I find Pulisic something less than great shakes?

Also, don’t get me started on when and where they air the goddamn games. It’s like they want to fail.

As of today, I’m biting back all that anger and just…trying to get excited about the U.S. Men again and, hopefully, seeing them qualify for FIFA’s latest monstrosity (aka, Qatar 2022, coming that Christmas, apparently). Saturday’s friendly against Costa Rica will be the next step in that process (ESPNews, guys? Really?). The first step will be…honestly, just figuring out what they hell is going on – e.g., how are the CONCACAF teams qualifying for 2022 (or even Gold Cup 2021), and what the silly fuck was the CONCACAF Nations League?

Columbus Crew SC 3-2 Portland Timbers: Slow Reflexes and Broken Ladders; MLS Week 4 (Hangover)

David? Darling?

True story, I failed the oft-tricky Eastern Time v. Pacific Time test this past weekend, so I missed catching the Portland Timbers v. Columbus Crew SC live. Whatever. It was a short, stupid weekend regardless, so the whole thing felt half-assed, and I’m going all over the record on this point:

MLS Week 4 is not over until at least the majority of Major League Soccer’s teams have played their 4th game of season. So, no, this was not MLS Week 4, this was farce dry-humping a charade, and I refuse to have any part of it.

Except now, when I talk about it. At some length.

By the time this post goes up, I’ll probably be, oh, an hour, maybe an hour and a half, after finally sitting through the full 90 minutes (plus stoppage) of the Timbers weird, but not crushing, 3-2 loss to Columbus. I’ll spend the balance of this post going over what I saw in that game, but I’m going to start with this weekend’s – let’s call it what it is – smattering of MLS Results during what this shite…I mean, site (hmm) has decided to officially call MLS Week 3 MLS Hangover .

The whole thing (and the backstory as to how I cocked up catching the Timbers game) kicked off with the U.S. Men’s 6-0 win over Honduras in a World Cup qualifier that brought the U.S. soccer community ten fistfuls of Rolaids worth of relief. I tweeted a couple thoughts that aren’t novel enough to repeat here, but my personal bottom line is that, if Arena…wait, hold on. Shit. OK, I have another embarrassing announcement to make: my head is so far up the ass of someone who is very, very far away from the CONCACAF qualifying schedule that I didn’t really fully realize how loosely people were apply “must-win” to the Honduras match.

U.S. Loses to Guatemala: The End of an Era in a Sane World

Yeah, yeah, she's dead. We can do worse.

I'll keep this short. In spite of past promises, of course.

When Jurgen Klinsmann first coached the U.S. Men's National Team, American fans were told there would be a transition period. This would be the time when Klinsmann would implement a new system that would make the U.S. Men better, more sophisticated, better prepared to "take it to the Big Boys of international soccer," your Spains, your Germanys, your Brazils, your Argentinas...uh, honestly, I don't really know what comes after those teams.

The U.S. looked confused in those early days, unsure of how to implement Klinsmann's "proactive system," how to dismantle any opponent calmly and with composure. Still, we were all assured that it would come, that Dear Jurgen would show us the way.

Anyone who watched the U.S. lose to Guatemala tonight – and, no, I don't give a lazy, disinterested fuck if that game happened in Guatemala, because I'm told that the U.S. hasn't lost to Guatemala since Reagan (partially) occupied the Oval Office (look Nancy Reagan was our fucking president back then, just like Woodrow Wilson's wife seriously might have been the first female president) – should completely appreciate one damningly unavoidable point: after six-plus years under Klinsmann, the U.S. men still have no goddamn idea what they're doing when they take the field. They concede the first goal more often than not, so they're always playing from behind, etc. The U.S. spent the first half against Guatemala lumping long balls to forwards running into space? That's progress?

Worse, even had a couple decent U.S. shots gone in, what would that have really meant in the long term? Where are the green shoots? Where is any tangible sign of improvement with the U.S. National Team? And if anyone points to wins over Germany and the Netherlands last year, or whenever the hell that was...my answer is this: the cold, stark reality is that the U.S. lost tonight to Guatemala, one of the most stagnant teams in CONCACAF, a side that trotted out at least three frankly ancient barrel-chested players. And I'm not knocking barrel-chested guys, heading there myself, but I'm not a professional soccer player aiming for a World Cup, now am I? As much as CONCACAF has improved, it remains a fucking minnow region on the global scene. That is 100% NOT fucking improving on any scale that isn't devised, defined and calibrated by Jurgen Klinsmann and U.S. Soccer.

By any plausible appearance – yes, I'm hedging mightily here - U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati made a mistake hiring Klinsmann. And, like the fuckwits who run the global economy (say, what's Gulati do for a living again?), rather than admitting he made a mistake, Gulati doubled down before a 2014 showing at the World Cup tournament that saw the U.S. do no better than it has in the modern era – e.g. the time since 1990, then the U.S. pretty much started automatically qualifying for the World Cup. So, per Gulati, all of you should totally take out subprime loans today. And do it on the beach, or maybe on a flood plain because nothing will ever change, housing prices will always go up, and what's climate change?

What about Klinsmann's prior success as a coach, both with the German National Team and with Bayern Munich? As we all know, Bayern had the sense to chuck Jurgen after a fairly short period of time, mostly because he was more obsessed with the Fitness Gospel than with sorting out tactics and personnel. As for Germany, yes, the man undeniably mined the German nation for the new young talent that it desperately craved. Here's a funny thing: if you mine for talent in a gold mine (e.g. soccer-mad Germany) guess what you get? You get fucking gold. Yes, if you dig in a gold mine you get gold. This isn't complicated. In other words, what happened here is pretty straightforward: Klinsmann identified talent among a rich crop of German players, guys who get minutes on some of the best teams in the world, and he set them loose on the world stage. Surprise of surprises, he did well with that. Not well enough to win a World Cup – that came later, and there's a story there, for sure – but he laid a foundation that someone else built into a renewed, invigorated Mannschaft.

That same script doesn't hold up when you try to find gold in a silver mine, or, worse, a copper mine. I honestly don't know the talent level of the U.S. player pool. None of us do, because there is no test but the Klinsmann's years to tell U.S. fans where their national team is now. I only know it's nowhere near what one sees in Germany, or Spain, or Brazil, or Argentina, or even much of Africa, the rest of South America, Mexico, and select parts of Asia and Central America. What I do know is that blaming the player pool is a dodge. It's pushing one's own failures onto something that can't be controlled, which is a hell of a lot like saying your dog ate your homework. Failure is failure is failure. And, more to point, this failure came after some version of progress and success, so....

Klinsmann was hired on the explicit assurance that he would improve the U.S. National Team. Period. The U.S. has clearly not improved, and by any applicable measure, and, at this point, I don't give a fuck why it happened. After last summer's CONCACAF Gold Cup, the moronically contrived CONCACAF Cup, all I know is that the U.S. Men cannot do any worse than they have under Jurgen Klinsmann. The only counter-argument to all the above – literally – is for patience, that we all wait for Jurgen to unearth the next gem. The answer to that line of argument: name the first gem. Why the hell are Kyle Beckerman and Clint Dempsey still vital to this team after all the players Jurgen Klinsmann has brought in? Anyone blaming the player pool is adopting the opposite argument of what has made the rest of CONCACAF improve, so far as it has: by making the fucking most of what you've fucking got. That is Klinsmann's clear, and sole failure: he never even attempted to find out what IS best from the pool he has. And, objectively, time is running out.

Bottom line: the one thing we know is that we cannot fix the player pool in the short term. The one thing we can do: fire the fucking coach. Again, this was someone hired, and retained, on the premise of taking us to the next level. At this point, anyone who does not believe that the U.S. has actually regressed is like Sunil Gulati: they just don't want to admit that they were wrong.

Probably. Look, I know it's hard, but look at the evidence. It’s damning. And, yes, this is short for me.

Gold Cup: The U.S. Frustrates Panama, and Honduras/Haiti Bores Neutrals

That some serious, long-term casting for bully and toady.

Holy shit, that was fun! The U.S. v. Panama was a damn good game. The way the first half ended with that roiling boil that threatened to pour over every side of the pot? It rarely gets better than when an underdog pops the Alpha with a surprise shot to the chin. Good times, good times...

Know what wasn't good times? Honduras' tournament-ending loss to a, let's face it, solid Haitian side. Somewhere in the middle of a lengthy rant that shifted from a specific point – e.g. the prolonged, pointless whine that Honduran coach Jorge Luis Pinto directed at that match's fourth official – to a general one – e.g. the general, embarrassing bitchy petulance toward referees by Major League Soccer players and coaches – the commentating crew noted that the second half of Haiti v. Honduras boiled down to Haiti inviting Honduras to try to break them down. And, lord did they have time for that rant about whining players. That game contained more dead air than a coffin.

They never did it. Honduras, I mean. They barely accepted the invitation to attack, and came close all of once. So, beyond congratulating Haiti for going through, the less said about that game, the better.

Fortunately, the night's second act made up for a grimly poor first and on multiple levels. Panama came out firing on all cylinders, pinning the U.S. back into their own half for large portions of the, well, the half. The Central American side put a young, fairly untried defensive set through a tricky set of wringers before the whistle blew for halftime. As someone who watched the game with me pointed out (and please claim via tweet, if you read this), the Panamanians serve up a mean cross – and that's something they carried into the second half. Panama knocked, knocked, and knocked again, until they finally scored the goal they needed to lift them over Haiti in the Group A standings.

U.S. Tops Honduras in the Main Course (After a Nice Appretizer)

We are the world! We are the Turkey!

"...I only laced it with PCP."

And that's why I love the bar where I watch soccer most often. Because that's quality eaves-dropping...

One other note before getting into the nitty-gritty. Like most of you, I read two (or more) things today that bunched my undies, e.g.: 1) the record-breaking number of people who watched the Women's World Cup Final; and 2) reports on the comparatively shitty pay that members of that same team made during the tournament leading up to said World Cup final. Yes, yes, women's sports don’t draw with anything like the same consistency as men's leagues do around the world, and, yes, that translates into what they get paid. Still, and even if just domestically, those same women drew a shit-ton of eyeballs for that final, so call this my (extraordinarily modest) call to see them reap some (meaningful) measure of the dollars spinning off that whirlwind. Because they earned it, goddammit. And if it's because the sponsors failed to show up, leverage that shit into the next contract because people, Americans, especially, totally watch the women's game. Make it right. I don’t care how it's done, but fucking pay these women what they absolutely earned.

And, with that, time for the two-course meal that was tonight's CONCACAF Group A kick off.

An (Unlikely) Exit from the (Alleged) Klinsmann Konundrum

The guy on the right just needs blonde hair.

My brain fried irreparably during ExtraTime Radio’s (ETR) latest podcast on What Jurgen Klinsmann Said (e.g. the comments about fitness). Those latest comments turned more pundits and regular people against the United States Men’s National Team’s (USMNT) Teutonic Taskmaster than ever before – or at least they did within my orbit. (Against this, a comment in du Nord’s latest podcast nailed the dynamic: it’s either charlatan or visionary and with little in between). Anyway, I lost my patience with Klinsmann during ETR. I dunno, chalk it up to the power of Borg (as in Simon Borg), but I want the man gone (uh, that’s Klinsmann, not Borg).

Speaking of, is there some booth where interested parties can line up for a turn to punch U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) President Sunil Gulati in his stupid squishy face? I never liked the expansion/extension of Klinsmann’s contract through 2018 and my opinion of it gets lower and angrier every day. Could it be Klinsmann talks like he shits purple rose petals because he feels untouchable? Even if the USSF offered that extension in the midst of brighter days (yes, I did forget all that), his accomplishments hardly warranted such a full and unquestioning surrender to his Bavarian wiles.

Making matters worse, or maybe just more stressful, I keep hearing (David Gass on ETR; Jason Davis on Backheel’s Soccer Morning) that Klinsmann’s not going anywhere, not with that contract and not when he has the full faith and regard on the USSF brass. Helplessness enjoys a very direct, special relationship with anxiety. Gulati will be especially tough to crack because how often do you see an executive actually admit to a mistake. Wait...sensing a theme here...

And, yes, the reality is that Klinsmann will likely survive just fine through 2018. Face it, it just doesn’t take that much in CONCACAF to get results. If the program stagnates, or if Jurgen actually damages it, well, put it this way: signs of rot are notoriously subtle (in fairness, so are signs of progress). That said, I really, really need to believe that there exists some form of failure so unavoidably, undeniably obvious that the USSF would have no choice but to call the Klinsmann Experiment dead. To borrow a scenario from ETR’s podcast, what if Klinsmann “lost” his players? (And don’t forget the rumors from the summer of 2013). Unlikely as the USMNT results/performances will keep on sucking, what if they did? I mean, there has to be point of no return? Even with a contract? Right? Ah, yes. There it is. The USSF canned Bob Bradley.

So, if it did come to that, I had a thought. Why not retain Klinsmann as technical director? It provides some form of escape hatch for all concerned, for starters. Maybe the USSF saves some money if it voids only half of Jurgen’s portfolio (I said could; I’m not claiming to know contract law). There’s one potential, deeper advantage in making this shift. While I’ve never rated Klinsmann as a coach, the man is one hell of a gadfly. So, why not let him continue as the stern, unappeasable father-figure for the U.S. program? Or as the foreigner who gleefully mocks our national laziness, naivete and obesity? (I use "gleefully" advisedly; listen to the audio and tell me the man isn’t cackling as he rips his players).

What the USSF does then is bring in a new head coach, someone who can serve as a buffer between Jurgen, the angry-father and his trembling (waddling?) players. American, not American, doesn't matter. Just find a smart tactics guy with a big teddy-bearish heart. Think good cop/bad cop. Or, hell, think God and Jesus. Whatever you call it, that's a dynamic with long, proud history.