**Official USMNT Soccer Thread**

Horvath man. Lost the starting job in Belgium last week because he's been suspect as **** on aerial balls and crosses for 1st place Club Brugge.
 
Just got my tickets for USA vs Bosina at Stubhub in January.
Keep the young guns rolling!
I really hope Pulisic is called up for this game!
 
Just got my tickets for USA vs Bosina at Stubhub in January.
Keep the young guns rolling!
I really hope Pulisic is called up for this game!
Usually not a FIFA date . I will be there also though my friend got 5 tix not sure which section though . But it’s always fun to be there for January camp
 
I am used to going every January game, but this coming year I will pass.These scumbags like Gulatti are not getting any of my hard earn money anymore. No games, no items, no jerseys, nothing. Till they fire or get rid of him.
 
I'm throwing my hat in with Kyle Martino for US footy prez. :smokin

I always appreciated this thoughtful commentary. It was always intelligent, from from the bombast, & whenever he had criticisms, he had answers for them which a lot of analysts don't offer.

Props to home for quitting his NBC Sports gig so he can start building his consensus for the job. He's already got endorsements from Becks & Thierry Henry.

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His platform -
■ Transparency. Chief among his goals are commissioning an outside audit to study “the ethics of how U.S. Soccer is being run” and to make the position of federation president a full-time, paid post. Martino said one of his initial motivations in publicly declaring that he would not run recently was to highlight the fact that the position is currently unpaid, because that “creates a barrier for entry to qualified candidates.”

■ Equality. A prime area of concern for Martino, he said, is youth players who are being priced out of the game by the financial barriers they encounter, but also players at all levels who feel “unsafe” in locker rooms and what he calls “the mistreatment of our female athletes.”

“Our women are World Cup winners,” Martino said. “Why are they playing on artificial surfaces? Why are they sleeping in beds with bed bugs? Why aren’t they paid the same as the men? And if you look at the U.S. soccer structure, why don’t women have positions of influence? There are no good answers to these questions.”

■ Progress. Martino wants to enact new standards to measure it and to create centers throughout the country to foster it by teaching a curriculum “aggregated from some of the business soccer academies around the world” — for free — to the top youth players in the sport after casting “a wider net” find more prospects that the current system is missing. He also wants to assemble an advisory board of former players, top coaches and representatives from a variety of levels to make recommendations to the president on major decisions, such as hiring the head coach or technical director for the men’s national team.

He's also a strong advocate for brining home Tom Byer to infuse his knowledge to American youth footy like he's done in Japan & now doing in China.

Some of his young pupils include the likes of Aya Miyama, Kagawaw, Keisuke Honda, & Tadanari Lee to name a few. They all credit him for helping them become the players they are today.

Interestingly, the US federation hired him to begin a pilot program starting with preschool age kids.
 
Martino was on the Real Sports Soccer Sensei segment talking about Tom Byer and his approach to soccer development. If he's for Byer's approach, then I'm for him. Too much power is put into club culture's hands and a lot of them are more concerned about their resumes, and approval of USSF, than actual youth development.

I'm also for pro/rel as it's really the way for accountability throughout the sport. MLS is starting to piss me off, especially with them showing their true colors with allowing the Colombus Crew to potentially be relocated, despite the support of that community and actual success on the pitch.
 
Kathy Carter threw her hat into the ring but she's the establishment's choice meaning garber & sunil wanted her to run. Here are my problems with her candidacy best summed up by comments I found on another site.

Sunil was right when he said that the USSF presidency is not entirely about the USMNT. It isn't. The real corruption in USSF revolves around 2 things that stem from the same problem: USSF is working for MLS and not for the greater good of the game in the US (one does not equal the other).

In my opinion, the two long term issues that the USSF president can directly control are lack of TV exposure of soccer/football in the US, and USSF engaging in anti-competitive behavior to protect MLS from competition.

During the height of MLB's popularity thru the early 90s, it was very easy to find a game on [free, broadcast] TV, especially for your local team. Likewise, American football is on TV nonstop Saturday to Monday - you almost can't avoid it, which is the point. As a result, those sports became a national, cultural touch point and have cultivated huge fan bases and participation.

USSF needs to make it MUCH easier for US fans to be able to find soccer on free, accessible television or streaming if they want a place in the national concsiousness, and translate the massive amount of youth participation in soccer into a lifelong passion. I'd much rather be watching a good soccer match with my kids over the weekend - but, again, you literally can't avoid football on every channel.

USSF (and SUM?) instead made the choice to chase $'s, go with broadcast deals that only put select games on channels most fans don't have access to (FS1 and BeIN). They need to renegotiate the deal - Fox will be very willing right now - and make sure that USMNT games, friendlies and tournaments, are on Fox broadcast channels and not cable packages, even if it costs USSF money in the short term.

That is probably why Carter's candidacy should be immediately rejected - USSF needs to abolish SUM, not partner more closely with it. As for the anti-competitive behavior that USSF engages in to protect MLS, you need only read the lawsuit that NASL is bringing against USSF.

There should be a way for strong, second tier teams like Sacramento to play-in to the top tier league - not this ridiculous bribe-in...err, buy in... that costs hundreds of millions to join the "elite" (ha!) company of the MLS. To do so, USSF needs to let USL, NASL, etc. continue to grow and be supported uniquivocally, without a thought for protecting MLS's monopoly.

And if the USL and/or NASL leagues reach the standard for a top tier league, then grant them that status and let them compete head to head with MLS. The best league/model should win on its own merits, or maybe like the aforementioned NFL, the two leagues eventually merge into a super league.

We can only hope... And, yes, the USSF president also hires the technical director for US Soccer, which is HUGELY important, and then that technical director should hire their own manger/coach - not USSF. But in terms of the 20-year view of growing soccer in the US, the two issues above need to be addressed.
 
I took a glance at her Twitter this morning and saw all I needed to see.

She sounds like a robot programmed to say things her controller thinks people want to hear about the sport in this country.

I'm cool off the next MLS/SUM stooge.
 
has the idea of an outsider candidate been brought up??

like give me a Jurgen or a Juan Carlos Osario to consider being president of the USSF
 
The NASL are only mad at SUM because their own bs Traffic Sports got caught up in corruption and other ****. Trust that if they were the ones running things there would be no talk of promotion/relegation.
 
Damn bro, I sometimes do work for SUM. You're against me too?! j/k j/k I hope it's not her either.
I have no issue with the surface level stuff and events that SUM contributes to. There's no argument they have had an impact on the sport in this country and quite possibly deserve a place in the big picture of the development and growth heading into the future.

But to put them in the drivers seat? Bad move.
 
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