USA 0-0 Colombia: Mom, Dad, I Don't Know How I Feel About (January) Camp

Me tonight, only 20 years ago and with a lot more hair.

I was a little torn about the line-up the U.S. trotted out in tonight’s positively somnolent 0-0 draw against Colombia. January camp is, or has become, all about calling in players from the fringe and giving them a moment – I get that - but I would have rather seen interim coach Anthony Hudson name and stick with a starting XI over both games. Instead, he played the camp like a bad hand in draw poker and swapped out 10 players between Wednesday’s loss and tonight; unless I’m miscounting, only Walker Zimmerman started both games (and he lasted longest in this one).

Now, had you presented me with both line-ups and asked me which would do better, I’m pretty sure I would have picked tonight’s line-up, regardless of opponent. If nothing else, it featured the more experienced/accomplished players, particularly with the national team set-up – e.g., Paul Arriola, Aaron Long, Jesus Ferreira, Kellyn Acosta, Sean Johnson – and yet they delivered less in every category I could name outside the spine of the defense.

To state the obvious, Serbia and Colombia are different teams that played different styles. Perhaps knowing they could get something lethal going given the right circumstances, Serbia gave the U.S. more of the ball while Colombia played its defense high enough to force errors and broke from there; call it a second cousin to a press, twice removed. I don’t know what Wednesday’s line-up would have looked like against Colombia, in other words, and mostly hope that that multiverse got treated to a more entertaining game because, my god, was tonight’s game like watching old people fuck in front of drying paint....you have my apologies for the mental image...

The Mothership’s stats page doesn’t post xG for U.S. games, but the Yanks’ five total shots suggests something in the 0.5 range. The only two shots on goal involved Matthew Hoppe – he set up Paxten Aaronson for one (and he could have done better) and fired from the channel for the other – but those didn’t amount to anything besides easy-ish saves for “A. Montero,” Colombia’s ‘keeper. The only other decent U.S. chance I can recall from my times of full, attentive consciousness was the chance Ferreira opened up with a smart first touch. The way he lost that ball to a swarm of Colombian defenders sums up the game in a singular moment. The Colombians broadly overwhelmed the Americans tonight, but without ever coming close to beating them - i.e., boredom, by any other name.

USA 1-2 Serbia: Their Coach Seating Is Better Than Our Coach Seating

No. How are you really?

How do you talk about something that didn’t matter?

With just a handful of well-known exceptions – e.g., Walker Zimmermann and Aaron Long – just about every player who started for the U.S. Men’s national team tonight are only in the picture if you’re looking at the edges or deep into the background. And, given the comparative youth of the current starting set, providing a novel approach and/or skill-set strikes me as the only way any of tonight’s bubble boys can bounce into the first team. That’s where you start...

The place I want to go from there is a back-to-front TED talk about what worked and what didn’t tonight – and, no less significantly, when. But first the recap.

I don’t know much about the Serbian national team that beat America’s freshest B-Team 2-1, but I have a pretty good idea about how it won the game. Taking advantage of the rift that opened on a lonely free kick in the first half helped (think this is a full highlight package; go nuts to the extent it is), sure, but the game turned at the beginning of the first half. That’s when Serbia started pressing the American back-line and deep-lying midfielders. That pressure didn’t force mistakes, so much as exploit and punish them. A Serbian player ran down every long touch – which had ample company, unlike Serbia’s free kick – and they read every telegraphed past like they were jamming the channel. The winning goal came well before the pressure evaporated – and it followed from chasing a loose touch and a soft, telegraphed pass – and that left it up to the U.S. to claw their way back to level terms.

As in the first half, it took the U.S. a while, maybe even too long, to tilt the field toward the Serbian goal. The Portland Timbers’ Eryk Williamson kicked off the hottest rally of the 2nd half with a flying tackle and a great leading feed to an overlapping DeJuan Jones, a move that forced a save from...hold on, yeah, the lineups are up. Guess it was “D. Rosic” who made that save. I count that as one of the U.S.’s brighter team moves of the evening – it was a lot of soloist stuff prior, with the best of it coming from the San Jose Earthquakes’ Cade Cowell – and, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see those 20 shots, but I doubt I felt all that inspired by a quarter of ‘em, maybe a third...

An MLS History Project, 2000: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Least Watchable of Times

Bro. Don't. It doesn't end well.

First, and full disclosure, you can skip this post and just watch a young Rob Stone tell you the story of the 2000 MLS season. That’s about an hour of your life (and why'd they stop making those?!), so this’ll be shorter. Probably. I do go on…starting now…

If I gave the impression that I can place some, or even all MLS Cups in time, this is inaccurate. The 2000 MLS Cup Final, on the other hand, sticks in my memory like a rock in a shoe. It was the first final in league history that I dreaded and prayed to all the gods I can name (it’s a lot) to keep it from coming to pass. It did, obviously, and the 2000 Kansas City Wizards team that won it was that rock in my shoe. It took their more recent face-lift and a general improvement in their approach to the game to make me stop hating them. So, that was what? 15 years?

The Wizards won MLS Cup that season by beating a far more interesting Chicago Fire 1-0 on an 11th minute goal by Danish import, Miklos Molnar. To look back through brighter lenses, that awful ending casts a shadow over a season that sparkled with all kinds of massive debuts. The 2000 season saw the great incoming and upcoming of some of the most important players in MLS history, but it was the latter group (e.g., the upcomers) that teams would rely on and build around for the entire decade to come. As you’ll see when I get to them, these aren’t all household names; better still, at least one actual legend made a lot of noise when he joined the league, only to leave it with a bitchy little Teutonic whimper. I’ll get to all that, but, first, I’ve got to talk about MLS’s updated mechanics.

A lot of league’s most infamous gimmicks – no ties, the 35-yard shootout that prevented them, the ridiculous scoring system that followed from, keeping time on a scoreboard clock that counted down to 0:00 with no input from the referee, and so on; just all the comical misjudging of what American soccer fans wanted, not to mention the idea that that stupid shit would lure fans of America’s Big 4-5 to soccer (deep breath) – those all died with First Kick 2000. Don’t take that to mean the fever had totally broken:

USA 1-0 Costa Rica: Regular as Tuesday

Third image for "regular Tuesday." I like it.

Start with a premise: the U.S. Men’s National Team started (some of their) most promising young players, but not their (alleged) best, and go from there. Those kids lined up against a Costa Rican national team that was certainly experienced, but, full disclosure, I have no idea as to whether or not that’s Costa Rica’s finest.

Next question: how’d it go?

Eh. 1-0 to the U.S., and about as exciting as that sounds.

I’d say the U.S. was the clearly better team, or at least the one that played like it believed it could win – something else from playing to win – but Costa Rica had a great chance at the game’s first goal and they had at least two buck-naked breakouts (which means the U.S. had only one or two defenders close enough to matter) before that miss. Those breaks aside, the Americans started strong, and their movement and passing had the Costa Ricans chasing; Costa Rica adjusted by condensing its defensive lines, and the game turned into your everyday, ordinary CONCACAF slog.

To sum up, a young, untested American team played an experienced team from its qualifying region, one that has consistently ranked number 3 in the region behind the U.S. and Mexico, and they looked the better team, but still barely beat them. That's as regular as Tuesday, when you think about it.

Welcome to my blank slate for the U.S. Men’s National Team. I’ve made the decision to say, fuck the past, let’s just look at what’s in front of us. At this point, the U.S. is good enough to barely beat Costa Rica – and at home.

MLS Off-Season Weekly (12/4/19): No News Is...[For Both Teams] & (Night) Moves Around MLS

My idea of a good time. Just add bourbon.

Another week, another MLS Off-Season Weekly. As always, I’ll start this (hopefully) short little spin around MLS with the two teams I follow…in the order in which new developments have occurred. Which makes the starting point fairly obvious.

No News Is…The Soggy Status Quo
Spare me your forced analysis of the Portland Timbers defensive depth, The Mothership (and damn you!). Fans and pundits can’t know how Dario Zuparic will do, or whether Bill Tuiloma and Julio Cascante will improve, until all of them either do or don’t. Beyond adding the new guy, the state of the Timbers defense is unchanged till further notice.

That said, I got a little grist on Jorge Moreira out of that post. First, he has only six months left on his loan, but the organization is looking to extend, and for several seasons (please, please, PLEASE! More Ira is fun as ejector seats and boomerangs!). It sounds like the deal is done to add a “young right back”(Pablo Bonilla still?), but that’s it for excitement around these parts. Oh, and I will miss the “safety first” feel Zarek Valentin provided when the Timbers wanted a little less swashbuckling up the right side, but that bird’s flown to Houston (and Jordan Morris exposed that Plan B somethingawful the last time it was tried).

In substance, there is only waiting to learn what’s up with Diego Valeri. And whether the team will get another DP. (Again, please, please, please!).

No News Is…Cause for Full-Blown Panic
Another website asked me to write-up a snapshot of where FC Cincinnati stands at this point in the off-season, something I just forwarded for review. I’ll let that post speak for itself when it goes up – and I don’t want to preview too much of it here – but I will say, it’s hard to appreciate just how fucking messy Cincy’s roster really is until you delve into the mechanics.

The Short Version: FC Cincinnati has more needs than options, or at least that’s how I see it. As much as I think next season will be better than last, I expect neither greatness nor enjoyment for Cincy in 2020.

MLS Off-Season Weekly: How MLS Cup Made Me Fear the Future, The U.S. Men, the Goodwill Bins Lottery

A depiction of how I relate to players. (Also, worlds collide.)

After a…was MLS Cup just last weekend, or is time running like those weird traffic patterns where it tightens and loosens for no obvious reason? For a visual, think what happens on I-5 around Nisqually sometimes – that’s as opposed to Tacoma, because the cause there is plain as day – but, to take today’s points chronologically, I’ll start with brief notes on MLS Cup…

I’m Worried About the Future, Barbara
Whilst live-tweeting MLS Cup, my partisan fever boiled over after the Seattle Sounders bounced an own-goal off Toronto’s Justin Morrow. “THEY DESERVE NOTHING,” I tweeted, or something to that effect, not least because TFC had looked better to that point, especially with the moments of tricky dribbling that forced shifts in Seattle’s defensive shape in midfield; Alejandro Pozuelo and Nicolas Benezet, in particular (plus a shout for Marky Delgado), kept Seattle within one mistake of giving up a goal for the first 60 minutes.

I hereby revise that tweet to say Kelvin Leerdamn did not deserve his goal (and that MLS’s website should fix it). The Sounders took over the game from that goal forward. Toronto never forced a telling mistake in Seattle’s defense, Stefan Frei stuffed the half-chances that came his way, and, as Seattle pushed its line of confrontation further up the field, Toronto’s attacks started to fail further from Seattle’s goal. The game ended when Seattle scored a deserved, and rather pretty, second goal. They'd score again, Toronto would salvage a little pride, but the 3-1 final score fairly reflected what happened out there.

Here, I have to raise my hand as one of the many self-appointed pundits who wrote Seattle off when Chad Marshall took his concussions and went home. The fact that they never put together an impressive run during the regular season obscured the strength of the Sounders’ homely-but-effective system, but, when you want to win a succession of one-off games, having a solid spine and an organized defense gets you over halfway there – and Seattle has enough talent to push that percentage past halfway.

United States 2-0 Costa Rica: Ruler Theory

All shapes, sizes and qualities. All too big for some.

The United States Men’s National came out the other end of a scrapping slog against Costa Rica with a 2-0 win earlier today. It certainly wasn’t handed to the U.S. – Costa Rica kicked ‘em a couple times to remind the U.S. they were there to play (nothing malicious, just present) – and they struggled for long stretches of the game to play through a well-organized and well-coordinated defense. The break-through goals came late, though, and that’s the story of this edgy friendly.

One thing, though: I will never get used to Gregg “Both Gs” Berhalter’s fixation on dicking around with the ball in the back. I think I’m starting to get the risk/reward calculus involved – more below – but you saw the ball get tangled in Zac Steffen’s leg that one time in the second half, and I could feel the breath of that Costa Rican attacker on the back of my neck. Anyway…

The win felt good, especially in the sense that it underlined last weekend’s result against Panama, and in more ways than one, but I won’t project much out of it. From what I understand (I was only half-listening, honestly), the U.S. will have all eligible, healthy players available for the two friendlies coming up at the end of March – against Ecuador and against Chile – and those games will hand us all a big enough ruler to accurately measure the machine “Both Gs” Berhalter is building, and the ground underfoot will feel a little firmer after that. All the same, I plan on withholding judgment on the design and elegance of the car we’re driving till after this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Back to the Panama thing, the Americans started just as slowly in this game as they did against Panama, only with the twist of facing Costa Rica, a better team. The Central Americans’ counter was very much on at that point, and they caught the U.S. midfield too far forward a couple times. Their pressure was effective, but also efficient: they built it around positioning, as opposed to scrambling, and they had a player in the pocket of any American when the ball arrived at his feet, plus another player or two nearby foreclosing on available outlets. Yanqui players struggled with this, none more than the Chicago’s Fire’s youngster, Djordje Mihailovic. After impressing around the edges last week against Panama (with his movement, for me), Mihailovic reacted slowly here, and like his head was in different places there, but he coughed up the ball over and over again, and mostly via theft.

USA 3-0 Panama: Perfectly Adequate, Utterly Undramatic

There are many fruit-based comparisons available, but this one is mine.

I'll start with this: if you've missed Major League Soccer during the offseason, the U.S. Men's 3-0 win over Panama should have scratched that itch. Even going beyond (MLS-exclusive) personnel, that match came as close to, say, Columbus Crew SC pushing around, say, the Colorado Rapids as you're likely to see outside the real thing (yeah, yeah, the latest edition ended differently, the three points wound up in the same column). Better still, it all held up, all the way down to the U.S. fucking around with fire inside its own defensive third; pure Gregg Berhalter that, the high-risk, high(?)-reward of playing out of the back...god knows what a more accomplished national team than Panama will do with that high-wire act.

Credit where it's due, though: even if Panama put a couple chances on the American goal (I'd call Abdiel Arroyo's near-self-assisted goal they're best look), the U.S. never looked worse than strained - pretty much exactly what one would expect from a U.S. C-team playing Panama's B/C team. For what it's worth, I'd argue Panama ceded possession more than the U.S. maintained it, but the beginnings of something good lurk in that detail. Whether or not the Central Americans played to practice defending deep (who's to say?), their relative comfort on the ball when they had it stands as the only real warning sign I picked up from Berhalter's first outing as U.S. Men's coach. It's hard to lose sleep over that because, if a game between the U.S. and Panama's A-Teams is an apples-to-apples comparison, this was tangerine-to-tangerine, and nobody really starts its tangerines in the games that matter. Still, it was good to see the tangerines have their day. The question is, how many will one day become apples? (And...thus ends the fruit analogy.)

I'll get to that, but I want to flag one deeply and personally satisfying shift from the Jurgen Klinsmann era to tonight. In his post-game comments, Berhalter made a very clear point in directing a question about what coaching his first game for the U.S. Men meant to him (from a notably close-talking Sebastian Salazar) to praise for the players. If he follows this up by taking full responsibility for the first crushing loss, Berhalter will get a solid year of slack from me. Now, back to the tangerine thing...

A fairly constant stream of chatter plays under friendlies like this, one that acknowledges that the "real starters" wait in the wings to take over when the real games come to town. Anyone who wants to change that equation has to stand out - and several players did that for the U.S. Men tonight, including the San Jose Earthquake's Nick Lima's balls-out tackle and next-level cross to pick out Walker Zimmerman for the U.S.'s second goal; or just everything Zimmerman did with his head all day long (that he might be better with his head than he is with his feet speaks volumes about how goddamn good he is with his head); there was also Jonathan Lewis' nifty change of pace against [Panamanian fullback] (sorry!) to set up the U.S.'s third goal; which went to Christian Ramirez who, in his few minutes on the field, managed to play a cleaner, striker role than Gyasi Zardes managed all night and, golly, did anyone else feel the weight of Taylor Twellman going after Zardes' game? Jinkies....

Timbers Tie Seattle, and a Theoretical Update on the U.S. Men

Mom/Caleb makes me walk away.

I know I said I wasn’t going to comment on any Portland Timbers preseason games until the two before the season. I also know that I’ve run out of ways to say, “MLS Team X picked up Player Y. I don’t know anything about Player Y, so this move feels Z.” (And that's been the staple of a lot of the Late Tackle posts). I still want to talk about soccer, so, in two parts, I’ll write what I’ve got about yesterday’s 1-1 draw between the Timbers and the Seattle Sounders; after that, I’ll close a couple notes on the state of the U. S. Men’s National Team. Or at least what it feels like after a short sample…

Speaking of short samples, and I say this with love, I never know how much heart and brainpower I should invest when the Timbers play the mix of trialists, draftees, T2 guys and players from the Siberia end of the bench. Even if I like what I see, what are the actual odds that I’ll see that player again? Like petting a puppy at a pet store, I tell you…

Meanwhile, on Seattle’s side of the ledger, they sent out one of the rare MLS line-ups that I greet with a rare, but literal and thorough, “who the fuck is that?” Anonymity notwithstanding, one of those guys forced a penalty kick and forced the tie. And, yeah, I know Harry Shipp, and best o’ luck to the poor bastard. He’s on the tough end of a chunky depth chart. (And, guys? That picture? The one on the team’s roster page? He looks like a still from an ISIS snuff video. Maybe do a re-shoot, yeah?)

To wrap up Seattle, that seems like a good place to start. So, they got that Swedish cat, Gustav Svensson, and he seems to lurk around the same part of the field where people got used to seeing Cristian Roldan last season, so what’s that mean when Osvaldo Alonso comes back? As much as I preach squad rotation, players can get restless watching and, before you know it, a guy like Roldan accidentally winds up in the bin marked “surplus to requirements,” and then what, y’know? Depth is good and all, and I support it; it can have consequences. That’s all.

The Late Tackle 01 23 2017: Portland Rounds Out Its Roster, Camp Cupcake Sprinkles and Snark for CCL Thing

The best Christmas ever.

Along with a lotta teams (e.g. Real Salt Lake, who grabbed a couple players*, and the Colorado Rapids), the Portland Timbers appear to be at what I’ll call “the plating stage” of their offseason – i.e., the team is nailing down what they can get, leaving nothing but sending it outta the kitchen.

(* I just want to note that Chad Barrett, the most MLS player in MLS, is one of these players. More on this later, if from another angle.)

Signing Chance Myers (plz. see poll a couple tweets down on my twitter feed), and re-signing Amobi Okugo and recalling back Dairon Asprilla feel less like sexy acquisitions (Sebastian Blanco/Dude-With-Similar-Talents/Profile, where are you?) than, say, getting a vacuum for Christmas: it’s important to have and all, you know you need it, but…well, it’s fucking vacuum.

With Myers being the only completely new (if familiar) player, that seems the most exciting. I figure the worst Portland gets out of that is Myers at starter, or an improved Alvas Powell. Okugo should provide respectable cover in some key positions, at least, but I’m still hope that he shows well enough to scare the people ahead of him in the rotation (even as I don’t see that happening, goes against history, etc.). With Asprilla, I guess it’s just hoping that he cleans up his game a little, figures out how to play better with others (is that a decent recap on Dairon? hmm…).

The thing I’m most geeked-up about when it comes to the Timbers was last night’s still-dawning realization that Portland’s left could be something next season – e.g., by way of the whole Vytas Andriuskevicius/Darlington Nagbe pairing. If that pairing comes good, Timbers fans simply must come up with a “Brangelina”-style nickname for the pairing. “Darling Vytas” is all I got right now…taking fresh suggestions…

The Armchair Analyst sorta sketched out how this functions by way of talking about how the Los Angeles Galaxy paired Robbie Rogers with Landon Donovan in his 3 questions write-up about the U.S. Men’s National Team’s January camp. It’s a buncha shit about formations – talking about the Y midfield stuff - but it works all right if you translate formation on mechanics.

Looking elsewhere….

The Late Tackle 01 18 2017: On Deploying Porter's Boys, Hot Teams and a Hot Prospect

You'll get there, tiger!

In case anyone hasn’t spotted it yet, I want to draw attention to a little something to the left of MLSSoccer.com’s home page. See it? Portland v. NY Red Bulls, January 27, 2017, Preseason. That’s just over a week away. Next Friday, in fact. Bastards better at least stream that one, because jonesin’.

Of which, with an eye to cutting down on bar costs (he told his wife), I picked up the cord-cutters version of cable, Sling TV. I’ll let interested parties know how I feel about it.

Back to that first preseason game, I’m just now thinking about the kind of team I want to see Caleb Porter field for that preseason opener, and I find myself torn. As much as I want new/younger players and the T2 call-ups (e.g., Rennico Clarke…and there’s no “e” at the end, right?) to get real tryouts during the preseason – especially in defense, and especially if Portland hasn’t added new personnel by then – but I think I’d rather see Porter at least start what he envisions as his starting eleven for this first game, to just sort establish an average for the season (as in bowling) and to figure out how to beat it later. I’ll be providing input all season long…even if it goes unheeded…pearls of wisdom, spurn’d and unclaim’d.

That’s the “first time” for the 2017 season, but the U.S. Men’s National Team’s friendlies against Serbia and Jamaica follow shortly thereafter, too, and I’m actually interested in the friendlies this year, feel like they’ll be building toward something less irritating than under Jurgen Klinsmann, etc. Then fer-reals real preseason starts with the month of February. We’re sliding into home, people, the regular season that, at times, seems like it’ll never end, even as it feels like it started years ago.

Eminently-mockable as MLS’s regular season is, it’s precisely the length of the thing that makes it feel like “normal.” By that I mean I feel a little antsy, even weird, during the off-season.

On to other things of note…

The Late (Late) Tackle 12 16 2016: Portland Timbers Trade Crap, FC Dallas Keeping Busy, and January Camp

I’ll be waiting, my lov…OH MY GOD, WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY FOOT!?

I’m half following a couple Portland Timbers-related things on twitter, something about Jeff Attinella (which sounds like it’s got a little traction), plus something about centerbacks at or around 30 years of age.

I like Attinella. Have seen him stand on his head in a couple games. Competition is good, so it’s good to see someone come in to push Jake Gleeson, especially when you feel good about both competitors. And they are vying for your love…

…I’m in the lounge, gentlemen, on the fainting couch. Don’t make me wait too long…

Starting elsewhere in Timbers world, however (wait, no, you just started with…never mind).

A Future Without Taylors

Because I don’t think there’s a dissenting opinion on this, I’ll just note Steven Taylor’s departure from the Portland Timbers. Here’s to wishing him the best, and a future in a league where attacking players are slower in body and thought…

…to hit this from another angle, though (and, please, tell me I haven’t already), as much as this Taylor particularly worried me, I am a little anxious about the magnitude of the turnover in the Timbers’ defense, and the roster as a whole, at time of writing. I know there’s always an argument for just ripping off the damn band aid, and lord knows the Timbers need to get younger (and faster) back there. Still…The Kick Off ran a piece from a site that covers the Philadelphia Union. The article talks about how the Union needs to manage a transition in their defensive set-up (for they did struggle), and while the particular dynamics aren’t anything like identical to Portland’s, I like the guy’s thought process.

The U.S. Men and the Beginning of the Journey: World Cup Qualifying

Good times.

As the United States Men’s National Team embarks upon what everyone hopes, and all assume, with be its eighth consecutive successful World Cup qualification tournament, I’m feeling a little philosophical. Here, “philosophical” means anxious in that unique way one feels after 7 or 8 years of marriage – i.e. safe in the knowledge that things are fine, and probably will remain fine - but, again, just “fine,” as opposed to “great,” “orgasmically intense,” “soul-suckingly shitty,” or any other usefully definitive emotional state – so, what’s there to do but smile and suck it up till one or both of you is dead.

So, cheerful, in other words.

As everyone knows, U.S. Soccer is not in a happy place right now. While every past U.S. coach ended his tenure under some uncomfortable scrutiny, U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s tenure possesses all the Sturm und Drang of a Wagnerian opera, stuff of the intensity not seen since Steve Sampson’s weird experimentation and early exit from the 1998 World Cup. Arguments have raged for at least a year now over whether Klinsmann is guiding the U.S. Men’s program or ripping out the rails from beneath it; they’ve hit such a pitch since the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the meek display against Mexico in the (stupid) Confederations Cup play-in that some pundits have speculated (hopefully) that a failure by Klinsmann’s team to take at least four points from these first two qualifiers could finally force U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati to look past the (apparent, but clearly real) blood-brother arrangement he has with Klinsmann and fire the man.

I have no opinion on that particular point beyond acknowledging a certain emotional numbness. It’s not unlike marriage sex in Year 8 (missionary OK, Judy? No, you don’t have to move. Sure, you can leave the TV on). That’s to say, I don’t think anything changes and I don’t expect it to get better, really. Look, just kick the fucking ball, already. Just play the game, yeah?

It’s precisely times like this, in the Marianas-esque depths of ennui, that one is inevitably drawn to the past. As one thinks about all those past campaigns, both the long marches of getting troops and the supply “tail” to the front (qualifying) and the decisive, pitched battles (the actual World Cup tourneys), one’s memory drifts here and there with no clear object, or even intention. Memory does its own thing, here, and one sees what one sees and dwells on whatever comes up.

On Klinsmann: Feeling Cooler Heads With a Phrenologist’s Fine Hand

I sense...resistance to a certain line of thinking...

A couple good and wise posts went up earlier today. One sought to place Jurgen Klinsmann's tenure in a...let's go with a more grounded context, while the other clocked the tenor of broad, hysterically seething national outrage directed at Dear Jurgen and declared it...let's go with excessive.

For those new to this space, I have, in the past, joined the aforementioned chorus of "broad, hysterically seething national outrage"; it's possible that, in the past, I have blamed Klinsmann for everything from the most recent U.S. Men's National Team loss, through a minimum of two forms of cancer (yep, prostate; that's on him), and up to a general sense that, dang it, things just ain't what they used to be. Apple pie has tasted like straight-up shit for years, I tell you.

With that in mind, I just want to say: they're right. I tweeted both posts because both Will Parchman (first link above) and Wes Burdine (second link) offered strong arguments as to why we should all just calm the hell down. And, as both authors pointed out, that is not the same thing as not wanting Klinsmann gone. And I still want Klinsmann gone (and, frankly, I don't get the argument that Klinsmann swallowing a demotion to the role of technical director alone is a blow his ego couldn't sustain, because ego slightly bigger than Montana; pretty sure he can take it; yes, yes, but would he? Do you honestly think I care?).

Call those posts a welcome corrective, then, not unlike a friend calmly telling you to walk away from that dude who said something about your mom (really, dad? To mom? Jesus). With this post, I intend to walk through their points with two main thoughts in mind: 1) to attempt to explain just why Klinsmann pisses everyone off so very, very much (which is to Burdine's point); and 2) to take a stab at assessing where the U.S. Men are right now (which is, somewhat, to Parchman's) with the World Cup qualification cycle just about one month into the future.

MLS Week 23 Review: GOTW, SOTW, ROTW, Plus A Lot of Comparisons

A moment most MLS fans have had to contemplate.

Well, the good news is, I finally wrestled one these weekly reviews to under three pages. Huzzah! And...that's the preamble: let's get to Major League Soccer's Week 23.

Week 23 could be called the Week of the Inflated Result, with several teams (see: Columbus Crew SC v. Colorado Rapids; or, Sporting Kansas City v. Toronto FC; or Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders FC). posting scorelines that looked bigger on paper than they did on the field. It could also be called the Week of the Outside of the Boot Goal (examples  #1 and #2). More than anything else, though, Week 23 brought with it some sign of separation among clubs, with the clearest example coming with what the Vancouver Whitecaps did to a Real Salt Lake side that tried to sneak a B-team onto the pitch (see: methodical pounding), which worked about as well as trying to put out a fire with a paper towel.

My personal highlights of the week included a mom in Colorado doing the “earmuffs” with her kid in the hope of saving him from what I assume was the "you suck, asshole" chant. It's that or Felipe's trouser blowout against New York City FC. Video for both moments was, by definition, hard to find. Actually, the video department is totally slouching this past weekend. Maybe they’re losing interest…so, watch those mini-games, yeah?

All in all, I believe that very little happens week to week in MLS. I wish I could frame all this better than, “so, a bunch of stuff happened, and here’s some of it.” I don’t, though, so what comes below are just a collection of notes that came to me as I watched all the mini-games during MLS Week 23... and the following three games in full (and, yes, the Conifers & Citrus Interest Rankings have been updated!):

Portland Timbers v. Chicago Fire (full, grumpy write-up here)
Colorado Rapids v. Columbus Crew SC (brief, barely worth reading write-up)
Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders FC (write-up)

Uh, last thing: I'm replacing the ol’ beer-'n’-shots motif with a straight-up Top 10 thoughts for the week. Actually, I’m just moving “the shot” (e.g. the big, heavy-hitting idea) to a separate post…look, it’s a work in progress, all of it. At any rate, join me on a tour of MLS Week 23, starting with The Honors!

MLS Week 22 Review: The Bonus Multiplier Player, Result of the Week and MORE!!

Yes, going crazy from the heat...

In order to make this latest weekly update of Major League Soccer (Week 22) at least somewhat about the week just passed, I have to tinker with the organization. Otherwise, it's mostly about random observations that, 1) came to me as I watched the games and mini-games, and 2) involve trends and comments on this player or that, i.e. basic concepts with no immediate bearing on time or place. With that in mind, the one beer* specifically relevant to Week 22 will come before the shot (again, see asterisk), and the five other, perhaps seasonal beers, perhaps not, will follow.

(* These posts are built around the concept of a shot – e.g. a long-ish, lightly-researched anchoring feature – and a six-pack of beers – e.g. shorter, brief, likely not researched, yet hopefully well-argued thoughts).

One other piece of housekeeping: the Conifers & Citrus Interest Rankings (see right sidebar) are current. (And, for the curious, I explained what those rankings are and why I see them as useful last week.)

All right, enough with the preamble. How about that Week 22? That record-breaking Week 22, which featured goals, goals, goals (X 36, or thereabouts). For something wild (in the David Lee Roth sense of the word), a couple of the games reinforced (see: Columbus Crew SC), or reinforced (see: Seattle Sounders FC) actual trends. All things I may or may not talk about. Haven't decided yet, honestly. All I know is that I've got my notes and intend to go where the spirit directs me.

1) The...Things of the Week!
Goal of the Week: Taylor Kemp's slicing, one-time bomb against Real Salt Lake. I just like Kemp.
Save of the Week: I never saw anything better than Luis Robles' save against Conor Casey.
Result of the Week: Though tempted to go with Columbus' just straight-up collapse against Orlando City SC (more later) or the way the Seattle Sounders' loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps took an existing trend in a bad direction, but, for me, DC United's flat-out nuts, meme-breaking win over Real Salt Lake yelled louder for attention than the rest. And that yelling came in a couple languages, too. Now, obviously, it put DC back on top in both the Eastern Conference and in the Supporters' Shield race, but that's just the beginning. East beat West, and that's something even if RSL hardly stands as the West's best. The fact they came back into the game highlights a telling trend for DC this season, one brought up during the game: DC United boasts a 4-3-1 record in games where they're trailing at the half; this comeback made that 5-3-1; even with 24 games played, that's pretty badass. The deeper (deepest?) point has been framed a little strangely in the few places I've come across it. DC has earned a well-won reputation as the dourest of grinders: literally, one exception aside, DC's 22 prior games were low-scoring, one-goal-margin affairs. A couple comments – possibly throw-aways, given that they came during podcast – hinted that the last two, high-scoring comeback wins represent some kind of break with that reality/approach. Is it true? Dunno. Moreover, a genuine shift could mean all kinds of things, just as much as it would if the past two games prove to be anomalies. All I know is, that’s why we watch.

Now, get the salt and chop up a lime. SHOT!

MLS Week 21: On DPs, Foreign Players, MLS's Backbone...and Jurgen Klinsmann

Speaking of fucking legends.

Thanks to the Gold Cup, the domestic soccer week – Week 21, for those keeping track – overflows with talking points. Add all the transfers (which, full disclosure, I am barely tracking) and the most polite thing you can call me is desperately, graspingly behind. Which argues for an image of a behind being grasped desperately.

There is, however, one addition of which I'm proud: e.g. the new sidebar that transfers this site's disclosure as to how many times I've watched each and every Major League Soccer (MLS) club in action over a full 90 during the 2015 season. I'll update that every week rather than embedding it in these weekly posts.

As for the contents of the post itself, it's what it was last week: a shot (one big idea) backed by a six pack - e.g. six talking points – that came to me while watching the following games over Week 21:

FC Dallas v. Portland Timbers (already written up; sorta)
Chicago Fire v. New England Revolution
New York City FC v. Orlando City SC

Oh yeah, went East Coast-heavy this weekend. Also, given how late this is going up (my never-met goal is always Monday night), here's to hoping that the thoughts that came to me are random enough to be novel against the larger soccer backdrop...because what's the same shit worth if it's just later?

The Shot: My Kingdom, My Kingdom for Fine-Ass American Forwards!
Somewhere in the middle of Simon Borg's vast, broad tantrum about the Gold Cup semifinals, he did what a healthy number of American pundits do – e.g. more or less absolve Jurgen Klinsmann for his complete, utter, and wage-defying adequacy. In Borg's defense, though, he smuggled a pretty sharp observation into the conversation - specifically, he argued that anyone coaching the Yanquis (aka, the U.S. Men's National Team) will struggle due to the thin collection of quality forwards at his (and maybe, some day, her) disposal. His argument rounds out decently enough when one considers how many goals the aging Clint Dempsey scored for the U.S. during the just-past, little-mourned Gold Cup tournament – and, no, we're not counting the Cuba game, which was a goddamn free-for-all in which it's possible that I could have scored. OK, no, not me.

Gold Cup Round Up: After Round One. Round One.

These are the results. And that's the ocean. Or one of the Great Lakes.

Now that I know I won't see all, or maybe even part of tomorrow night's, uh, second, first-round game between the United States and Haiti (or even the subsequent game that pits Honduras v. Panama), I've been trying to figure out what to with all that real estate I cleared in this space to cover the Gold Cup. A couple waves washed over me (some better than others, much like on a beach), I think I came up with something that can be useful, even absent direct observation of all the games under discussion.

Still, let the record show that I really do hope to catch a chunk or two of the U.S. v. Haiti game. It's just life that’s in the way. Again.

At any rate, the idea is that when I can't take in games, I'll at least do some research and put up a little framing for the tournament as it progresses. Call it being relevant, where I can't be authoritative, or even informative. (Then again, when the hell am I ever authoritative?) I plan on posting...something, no matter how loosey-goosey, after each round of games for all teams within this, uh, current, and ongoing, first round of the Gold Cup, e.g. the round-robin phase. Hence the awkward title, "After Round One, Round One," which, here, means the point in the first round of the Gold Cup when all the teams in all three groups has played, first, one game, then two games. When the latter happens, I'll subtitle the recap, "After Round One, Round Two." Get it?

Whatever happens with the mess above, tonight will take the form of so much spit-balling about the first round of results in the context of the first round of the Gold Cup. (Again, are we tracking? Sorry to use a legal term.) My only hope is that someone finds something useful down below.

Jurgen Klinsmann: My (Quarterfinal) Verdict

You (hic) wanna know...he'sh an asshhole.

Now that I have flogged every side of the debate over the ongoing tenure of U.S. Men's National Team (USMNT) head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, I feel ready to hang up the entire debate until after this summer's Gold Cup (some more, minimal sniping here). What appears below is intended as a sort of final statement on what has become a sort of wallowing in the froth generated by Klinsmann’s "fitness" comment.  After this post, I fully intend to follow the pledge outlined below:

I hereby promise to refrain from discussing Jurgen Klinsmann's fitness for either of his jobs, as the result of any future event, result, quote or circumstance, of whatever nature, THROUGH the final whistle of this summer's Gold Cup final, without reservation or reference to any clause, visible or invisible, contained in my head, or committed to any surface of any kind in writing, including but not limited to, personal notebooks or bar napkins.

So, where do I feel like things are with Dear Jurgen?

There is no more polarizing figure in U.S. soccer today than Klinsmann. Only Landon Donovan comes remotely close and, to put a figure on it, I think his favorable/unfavorable breaks around 80/20. Klinsmann’s, on the other hand, probably splits shockingly close to 50/50. I also think he was closer to 60/40 prior to the whole "fitness" kerfuffle.

For what it's worth, I think these are "naked" opinions – as in, you'll only get numbers like that if fans and observers feel compelled to provide an up-or-down opinion. It's like I think this way because that's how I think of Klinsmann.

My final verdict on the Man of Our Moment goes something like this: I believe in project of improving the culture of soccer in the United States and for improving the USMNT's tactical sophistication, flexibility and, if necessary, our players' collective and individual fitness. I also don't think Klinsmann’s the right guy for the job. Who is? No idea. I am, however, prepared to be very flexible in that regard. And, yes, I stand by the idea I posted last week about retaining Klinsmann as technical director and hiring some other qualified candidate to act as head coach. And, yeah, we could probably do worse for a coach, too. Look, can we all just agree it's complicated.

In brief, then, yes to what the U.S. Soccer Federation is attempting, no to Klinsmann as the guy to do it.

All right, that’s it. No more on this till after the Gold Cup. The completely thrilling and successful Gold Cup.

Harrison Shipp and the High Road to the Promised Land

Their rituals remain...strange to us.

Player interviews provide interested, even eager, fans with some of the dullest content they will ever read. Even if 99% of athletes possess a seemingly impossible talent for sucking life out of clichés, a reader gets lucky sometimes. It could be the interview features a player from the blessed 1% implied above. Or maybe a reporter frames a question just so. For example:

"Last time we spoke you talked about the broader perception that American players lack the ability to play in a creative midfield role. How much does your desire to change the perception of American creativity motivate you and how much added pressure do you feel when you’re in that position?"

 88 (Eight-by-Eight)'s interviewer, Robert Kehoe, put that question to the Chicago Fire's Harrison Shipp. Shipp only confessed to "loving" the pressure of carrying the "creative player" torch for America’s Young Turks, but he didn't elaborate. That seems a shame what with how that question gets at everything from player development to larger issues like soccer in these United States and even the Jurgen Klinsmann Project.