Tag: Soccer

Understanding Failures

If you hadn’t heard about the U.S.’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, it was definitely shocking news to say the least. Qualifying from CONCACAF with a team that US Soccer has should be pretty simple, right? Well, they proved us wrong, which leads to this topic: What went wrong? And could this be a potential trend?

Blame it on the managerial staff?

It’s easy to blame it on the likes of Bruce Arena, who to be honest, did a lot better than people probably expected given he was put in charge midway into the qualifying campaign. The game against Trinidad was atrocious though: The tactics, the lineup, the misplays, the lack of urgency. They were all amiss. But that’s only just one game. People will go back to saying “Jurgen was a better manager,” but his tactics and use of players were poor as well. I think we need to look at the bigger picture.

Looking closer at the USMNT squad…

People will target MLS as a reason and that using players out of your domestic league is bad, following it up by showing Iceland as an example with zero from their Icelandic league. But Spain and Germany, the last two World Cup winners, had plenty of players from their domestic leagues on their rosters:

It’s not necessarily the leagues themselves as the quality of the leagues that are of concern.

When you look at the USMNT squad’s numbers, it’s rather terrifying. While yes, they did have a lot of players from the MLS (17 of them to be exact), 13 of them were 30 years or old, which is staggering for a team that wants to be among the top tier teams and leagues in the world. For reference, a lot of soccer analysts consider 23 or 24 or under to be a “young player.” In the case of the US, there were a total of five that were considered young players on the roster: DeAndre Yedlin, Bobby Wood, Paul Arriola, Kellyn Acosta, and Christian Pulisic. Compare this to France’s roster, where there were six who were 30 or over and 12 that were 24 or under.

Why youth?

If you haven’t known by now, I’m a huge fan of French football. From Ligue 1 to Les Bleus, it’s something I love talking about. A lot of it has to do with the development of the youth there. I’ve briefly mentioned about it before with OL and seen it with other teams like Nice, Monaco, Le Havre, for example. Every year, a website called “French Football Weekly” does something called “Le 50,” which covers the top 50 young players to watch. A lot of them being French players. And not necessarily on the big clubs like OL, PSG, and Monaco. But there’s been this constant pipeline of talent that comes through year after year after year.

It’s not so much the aging players, as the thought of the youth that’s incoming for the US. The fact that only five were of enough quality to be able to make it onto the squad to take on Panama and Trinidad and Tobago is what is of concern. The prospect that there aren’t young players good enough to replace an aging Tim Howard or Clint Dempsey says something. What does it mean for the future of US soccer?

Youth is an integral part of any professional or national soccer team. The game has gotten stronger, faster, and smarter. Just like it’s harder to teach an old dog new tricks, it’s more challenging to adapt an older player to an evolving game. That’s why there’s been so much more emphasis on youth. While we primarily hear about Messi vs. Ronaldo, who are in their 30s now, it’s the young players like Isco, Marco Ascensio, Kylian Mbappe, and the like that are making an impact. The game is evolving. You need players that can adapt quickly, else you fall behind. Youth helps combat this. But this is where the US national team has struggled.

What’s constricting us from finding young talent and are they valid arguments?

The “pay-to-play” model is definitely a concern. It’s been spreading like wildfire across social media. To play soccer in the United States is a struggle because of costs. To be on a club team and get recognized for your talents requires a lot of money. There isn’t a real solution to curb costs and as a result, sometimes, such talent won’t be found. But that means that talent is out there. It just has to be found and recognized outside of the club level.

Then you hear the arguments of “Build more academies!” Well, there have been and there’s been some success. However, they’re also expensive and outside of maybe MLS teams, it’s hard to just build them. They cost a lot of money and requires investors. And a lot of the time, such investments don’t see much fruit until later, which some people don’t have such patience for. And there are some academies that are also of the “pay-to-play” model, which goes back to an ongoing problem.

A potential fix

So what do you do to fix this problem? Paul Tenorio brought up better coaching education. What does better coaching do? Brings up better talent, for certain. By having more coaching available, it makes it so that you can develop more talent and increase your talent pool. But more than just that. They also can identify that talent as well, which is crucial. The more eyes that are around to find these players that aren’t playing at club levels, the better. And I think that’s an issue. We’re so blinded by only looking at the club level, that we don’t find some of other high caliber talent because of uncontrollable consequences like low income, location, or such nor give such talent the ability to showcase their skills to teams and national level scouts. And that’s a shame.

In 2016, Iceland made it to Euro 2016, despite their small population of around 330,000. They were the smallest country to ever make it, though people credited them having some fortune (such as the expansion of the tournament). The Guardian did coverage of it last year when the tournament started, but credited it a lot to their coaching . They proved their system and plan wasn’t a fluke when they automatically qualified for the 2018 World Cup from their group, which included Croatia and Turkey. But what did it start with? Improving their coaching staff by getting them their UEFA B licenses and making them more readily available for the youth. It’s worked.

Will things ever change?

Possibly. There were some good things to come from the Trinidad & Tobago game. Despite there being only five players that were 24 or under, they all managed to find some way into the game, impact or not. They did get the trust of Arena to try to get a result. The U-20 team did make it to the U-20 World Cup last year, getting to the quarterfinals before losing to eventual finalists Venezuela. The U-17 national team begins their U-17 World Cup campaign tomorrow in India against Colombia.

Youth can be a crapshoot sometimes, that’s for sure. Julian Green  hasn’t really made much of an impact since 2014. Freddy Adu, who was suppose to be the next big star for the USMNT, hasn’t even come close to that. It’s hard. But you can beat that by (1) getting better coaching staff to teach them better technique or (2) creating that huge talent pool in the first place rather than just limiting to just a few players. That comes with development. That comes with better coaching. Considering that the United States has a population of over 330 million people, you have a lot of diverse backgrounds and experiences in terms of soccer at the youth level. You need to be able to utilize that, by finding and nurturing those players.

It’s a wake-up call for US Soccer and the USSF. They’ll need to make adjustments to accommodate for not only some of the failures in this World Cup qualifying, but for the future and development of soccer in the United States as a whole.

Random Thoughts – Post-World Cup Round of 16

… The Brazil/Chile game was really surprising to me. Good chances, good opportunities for both teams, but they weren’t able to capitalize. It was tough to have to see one of the two teams get knocked out via penalty kicks. Julio Cesar still showed he’s among the best in the world in terms of goalkeepers, making two huge saves.

… Neymar playing injured has got to be a concern for Brazil going forward. He’s definitely been their star for the tournament. Even if he’s able to play, him not at 100% will be challenging against the likes of Colombia. Continue reading Random Thoughts – Post-World Cup Round of 16

Managing Coed Soccer

Coed soccer has been a popular sport in the greater Seattle area. I jumped onto the scene seven years ago as a manager of a team consisting of our IMA intramural soccer team at the UW.  It’s undergone a lot of changes, with people coming and going. At one point, it had to go under a complete rework and I had to start all over (had one person returning, but I put in the effort to make it happen). I started to apply the solutions to the mistakes that I made or problems that I dealt with and it’s resulted in probably the most successful team I’ve managed in my seven years as a manager.

As more and more teams are being created, there have been a lot of issues in terms of team composition, retaining players, and dealing with problems that pretty much every coed soccer team has been struggling with: keeping women. I figure I’d start sharing some of my insight to the problems I had to deal with and mistakes that I’ve made and how I went about creating a new team from scratch to having such a successful team today. Continue reading Managing Coed Soccer

Iniesta

A few years ago, I made a comment about a soccer player. It was about a player from Barcelona that I felt was one of the best players in soccer. A little midfielder. I’m sure everyone was assuming I was talking about Xavi. But it was the other midfielder that hasn’t been in the limelight until recently: Andres Iniesta. Continue reading Iniesta

Zakuani

If you hadn’t heard of the story of Steve Zakuani, it’s definitely one to read up on. For those that didn’t know, while playing a MLS game against the Colorado Rapids, Zakuani took a horrific tackle from Brian Mullan. As a result, Zakuani suffered a broken tibia and fibula. However, after several surgeries, rehabilitation, and some reserve games, he finally made his return to the field. The Sounders wrote an article that you can read about here.

His return obviously was definitely a heart-warming event. It looked as though he could have been gone from the game for longer (I’ve seen two other tackles from Arsenal players that were pretty savage that put them out of the game for quite a while too, Eduardo and Aaron Ramsey). But he finally made his return. But what impressed me wasn’t just the return itself, but what happened afterwards. He met with Brian Mullen at the end of the game, shared a hug and exchanged shirts.

I don’t think this was by any means a PR stunt because exchanging shirts is typically a gesture only shown to people that have respect for one another. You usually see that with players of the same sort of caliber or class. It could be friends too. But obviously they aren’t of the same kind of caliber. You’d  think after such a tackle, they wouldn’t be considered friends or even be shown any kind of respect either… That’s why this is such a display of sportsmanship and forgiveness on the part of Zakauni. To forgive the person that could have put your career out of the picture was stunning and such an act should be applauded. This is rarely seen in sports these days.

It’s even more fascinating to me when I was reading random posts from Yahoo! Sports of people that are still saying “Mullen should be banned for life. The guy is a bastard. Get rid of him from the game.” Maybe it’s time for people to just find some closure in all this. Zakuani said he quickly forgave the guy after the accident, and remember, it was his career that was put in doubt. Why can’t everyone else do the same?

Steve Zakuani was truly a class act that day. His comeback was the story of the day, but his forgiveness really showed true character.

A Beginner’s Guide to Following Euro 2012

If you’ve been checking ESPN, CNNSI or other sports related websites, you might have been reading random headlines or sections devoted to Euro 2012. If you don’t know, Euro 2012 is a major soccer tournament. And if you haven’t already figured out by now, it’s a tournament in Europe.

Euro 2012 is one of the largest sporting events in the world. It’s smaller than, say, the World Cup or the Olympics of course. Like the World Cup and the Olympics, it happens only once every four years, coincidentally the same year as the Olympics. People from all over Europe come to watch their country try to win that trophy and claim the title of “Best in Europe”. But the tournament itself attraction to an audience that expands beyond Europe, but mainly because soccer is the most popular sport in the world.

If this is your first time ever hearing about this tournament or you’ve heard about it before, this might be a great year to actual watch it. And for those of us in the United States, we’re in for a real treat, as ESPN will be showing all the games for the tournament. So if you haven’t watched soccer before, this is definitely a great opportunity to watch it. Here’s a guide to how to take it all in. Continue reading A Beginner’s Guide to Following Euro 2012

Great Article Analyzing FC Barcelona’s Game

If you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge fan of FC Barcelona’s style of play. If you’ve seen them play before but never understood how they obtained the successes they have on the field, here’s a great article about how they’ve found that success through manager Pep Guardiola. (via Kottke)

Korea United FC

Here’s a great article from ESPN’s Soccernet with regards to a team from Switzerland, FC Basel, and two of the members of the team: One of them being a South Korean, and the other a North Korean. It’s quite an interesting story, as the politics from their countries do have an impact on their footballing careers. Yet, they still can go above that and work together.

Why Real Madrid will continue struggle against Barcelona

In the time that Jose Mourinho’s been at Real Madrid, he’s won only once versus Barcelona, that being the Copa del Rey final where they won 1-0 off a Cristiano Ronaldo header. That might not seem bad, except that they’ve eight times now. Three times in the Copa Del Rey, three times in La Liga, and the two legs of the Champions League last season. Now that’s a problem if you’re a Real Madrid supporter. But what is to explain for their struggles against Barca? Continue reading Why Real Madrid will continue struggle against Barcelona

Barcelona/Manchester United Passing Graph

Now here’s something interesting to look at. It’s a passing and touches graph for the Barcelona/Manchester United game on Saturday.

If you’re curious to what this is… The bigger the circle, the more times the individual touched the ball. The bigger the arrow, the more passes made from the origin of the arrow to the direction of the arrow. Note that the two people that touched the ball the most in the game are Iniesta and Xavi and the passing circle between Xavi, Iniesta and Messi.

As for the most passes made by Manchester United, it’s a close call between Van Der Sar and Rooney (long balls anyone?) and Rio Ferdinand and Vidic. Little passing made between the Man United midfielders, which shows the dominance of Barcelona pressing plus their midfield dominance.