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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Thu January 10, 2013 8:10 pm 
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Any love for the famous Glasgow Celtic on board?
c'mon you bhoys in green !! :wave:


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Sun January 13, 2013 10:43 pm 
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RVP with two back heel attempts on goal that were just ridiculous today. Both ended up being saved but his touches in the box have just been absolute class this season.

As for Celtic, you must have really enjoyed that win against Barca in the Champions League. The Scottish Premiere League however, is a joke, so its hard for me to pay too close attention to them.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Sat January 19, 2013 9:30 pm 
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verb_to_trust wrote:
RVP with two back heel attempts on goal that were just ridiculous today. Both ended up being saved but his touches in the box have just been absolute class this season.

As for Celtic, you must have really enjoyed that win against Barca in the Champions League. The Scottish Premiere League however, is a joke, so its hard for me to pay too close attention to them.


You've been sucked into the SKY/ESPN english premiership hype it seems.....you can only play who's in front of you. and Celtic are a match for any side..and nothing better than watching them beating so called giants! :thumbsup:
next up Juve!


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Sun January 20, 2013 12:02 am 
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I will be pulling for them. It was very satisfying to see them down Barca.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Sun January 20, 2013 6:44 pm 
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Typical Clint Dempsey game today. Bad for most of the game, then trolls Manchester United with a stoppage time equalizer garbage man goal.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Sun January 20, 2013 10:54 pm 
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go citay!

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 1:19 am 
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verb_to_trust wrote:
Typical Clint Dempsey game today. Bad for most of the game, then trolls Manchester United with a stoppage time equalizer garbage man goal.


They don't ask how, just how many.


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 1:49 am 
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I know this is a homer post and he probably should have had at least a brace today but:

Image

Beast

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 2:15 am 
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Spurs seriously need a new striker. They had a ton of the ball in the second half and just barely got the result they deserved. Defoe just isn't good enough at holding the ball up and Adebayor can't seem to score at the moment.

I'm surprised they didn't make a bid for Remy. I'm sure he'd rather be at Spurs than QPR.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 2:21 am 
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What do you guys think of the Lampard to LA Galaxy rumours?

Seems to me that he's still going pretty strong, plus he's got a ton of experience. I really don't understand why Chelsea want to get rid of him.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 2:35 am 
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tommymctom wrote:
Spurs seriously need a new striker. They had a ton of the ball in the second half and just barely got the result they deserved. Defoe just isn't good enough at holding the ball up and Adebayor can't seem to score at the moment.

I'm surprised they didn't make a bid for Remy. I'm sure he'd rather be at Spurs than QPR.


Yeah, the wing play from Lennon was superb today and it was wasted with Defoe being useless and Clint working hard but wasting chances and failing to link up effectively.

I'd be surprised if they don't buy a striker but we'll see.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 2:42 am 
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Lampard scores all his goals on PK's, I feel like he is overrated. Still, I think he still could play at least another season for Chelsea or another English club playing the same role he has now. He doesn't have to succumb to MLS retirement quite yet. Part of me just doesn't want to see anymore over the hill DP's coming to America. I would much prefer teams field young teams here in the States.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Mon January 21, 2013 9:28 am 
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verb_to_trust wrote:
Lampard scores all his goals on PK's, I feel like he is overrated.


He scores a lot of penalty’s and deflected kicks. But 1. At least when he steps up for a penalty, you can be pretty confident he’s going to score. Something Utd desperately lack for the moment 2. he still scores more than enough other goals as well, and has been doing for a shitload of seasons. I can’t understand Chelsea just throwing that away. How many times has he bailed them out this season? And even just for his influence on the younger players. You look at how highly young players like Cleverley, Kagawa, Welbeck, Hernandez, … speak about just being able to train with the likes of Giggs & Scholes. They’re role models, loyal, they’re club icons and great examples. And you want your younger players to take example of those kind of players. I’m pretty sure Fergie would never just show them the door. And Chelsea should do the same with Lampard. But then of course… it’s Chelsea… When talking about this, I always think about this quote. From the so called biggest ego in world football about the smallest ego in world football.

Cristiano Ronaldo: When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Scholes. After I finished it, Scholes took a ball and pointed towards a tree which was about 50m from where we were standing. He said I’m going to hit it in one shot. He kicked it and hit the tree. He asked me to do the same, I kicked about 10 times, but couldn’t hit it with that accuracy. He smiled and left.


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Wed January 23, 2013 7:05 pm 
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I didn't see the point of starting a USMNT thread, so I'll just post this here. It was in today's WSJ.

Quote:
Mediocrity Will Not Be Tolerated
Jurgen Klinsmann Is Demanding Much More From U.S. Soccer; Even You, Clint Dempsey

Jurgen Klinsmann has spent the past 18 months trying to pinpoint the shortcomings of U.S. soccer.

Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German star who now coaches the U.S. men's national soccer team, has spent the past 18 months taking his sword to the game's sacred cows in the U.S., determined to point out the shortcomings of a culture that he sees as having largely accepted mediocrity.

For players still patting themselves on the back for making the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals, Klinsmann had this to say during a rare in-depth interview last week: "Just because you won a game in the World Cup in the knockout stage, you haven't won anything."

In Klinsmann's eyes, nearly all of his players are below the level he demands. Even Clint Dempsey, who scored 23 goals for English Premier League Club Fulham last year, will have to work harder to truly impress his national coach, a former international star who won a World Cup for Germany in 1990.

"[Dempsey] hasn't made s---. You play for Fulham? Yeah, so? Show me you can play for a Champions League team, and then you start on a Champions League team," Klinsmann says. "There is always another level. If you one day reach the highest level then you've got to confirm it, every year."

Then there's Landon Donovan. Long considered this country's greatest player, he is currently an afterthought. Donovan is on another lengthy vacation following the Major League Soccer season, a concept Klinsmann seems to find baffling.

Klinsmann recently told Donovan he didn't want him at the U.S. team's January camp or at the match against Honduras in a couple of weeks. "It will be defined over the next year what his role with the national team is. But the ultimate call is mine on whether he fits into my plans or doesn't fit into my plans."

And it isn't just the team's stars who are hearing a new message. "Some players are walking around waiting for something to happen, but Jurgen's message is that it's up to you which type of professional you want to be," says Kyle Beckerman, a midfielder who has made 23 appearances with the national team.

Soccer remains the last great puzzle in American sports. It's the only widely played sport that the U.S. hasn't come close to conquering. Forget about producing a team that can compete at the highest international level—something the U.S. has managed in nonendemic sports like hockey, archery and rowing—this vast, wealthy, sports-obsessed nation has never even produced a genuine superstar.

No one knows why exactly. To Klinsmann, who has an American wife and has lived here for 15 years, it's because the culture has never demanded it. American players begin to feel as though they have made it when they get a college scholarship, or an MLS contract, at 18 or 19. While the rest of the world plays 11 months a year, Americans grow up seeing professional athletes play a seven-month season and taking the rest of the year off.

"We don't have the environment telling them nicely, 'OK you had a good week, but next week has to be better, and the next week again,'" he says. "Here it's: 'Oh, take a week off.' No, don't take a week off. If you take a week off as a programmer at Apple, you missed the train, you lost the job. You can't afford it."

Dempsey is apparently listening. He joined Tottenham, a more prestigious English side, this season and scored his fifth goal Sunday. "Jurgen is trying to raise the bar for U.S. Soccer, but Clint has met the challenge at every level," said Lyle Yorks, Dempsey's agent.

Richard Motzkin, Donovan's agent, said he, too, is taking Klinsmann at his word and knows he will have to earn back a spot on the national team after he rejoins his club, the Los Angeles Galaxy, at some still to-be-determined time later this year.

For all involved, Klinsmann has been something of a rude awakening in a country where quasi-anonymous national players can drink in night clubs until 3 a.m. without any repercussions. Play in Italy or Germany, Klinsmann says, "You drink more than two glasses of wine, you get the looks from people."

Likewise, early exits from the World Cup don't cause a lot of people in the U.S. to get too hot and bothered. A mere trip to the knockout round has become a cause for celebration.

By contrast, Germany's early exit at the 2004 European Championship created a national debate within the government and the media about the direction of the country's development program. It allowed Klinsmann, who was named the national coach at the time, to alter Germany's style from defensive and organized to a more freewheeling, proactive approach that he felt reflected how the country wanted to be seen.

"We said the only way was we got to attack, we got to go forward," he says. "Maybe it's in our DNA. Maybe it was wrongfully in our DNA in two world wars. Who knows that? I don't know, I was not even born yet. But I just said we Germans, we can't take just defending."

Back then, Klinsmann's work drew an international spotlight. One morning last week, the man who once starred at Bayern Munich and Inter Milan trudged alone across an empty parking lot at the Home Depot Center near Los Angeles, lugging a backpack and a shoulder bag to lead practice for his team's second-tier players. The best ones, like the players on every other top national team, were busy with their club teams in the European leagues that play through the winter. Two hours later, he stalked the center of the penalty area, badgering his players during a crossing-and-shooting drill. "Hungry, hungry…Time it, time it…Nice, but no goal. Got to be better."

As the U.S. prepares to embark on the final phase of qualification for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Klinsmann is aiming beyond a decent showing and sees the U.S. as a country that needs to be dictating the action. But its national team has never played that way because, in his view, no one ever demanded it. As a result, the players weren't physically or mentally conditioned to press opponents with the relentlessness of the best teams in the world. Long a believer in the constant monitoring of players, Klinsmann has instilled a system of regularly testing the team's strength and fitness and proscribing specific training regimens so each player can mitigate his deficiencies.

Results have been mixed so far. The U.S. team matched its best-ever winning percentage in 2012, but struggled with consistency on the road during World Cup qualifying. "This team needs to measure itself with the best out there in order to get better," Klinsmann says before rushing off to another practice. "That's what we are trying to do."


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Wed January 23, 2013 7:22 pm 
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By and large the people who play soccer in the US do not play soccer as a means of thier survival the way they play Football or Basketball as a means of escaping humble beginnings. Soccer players are generally not the best athletes the US has to offer. Jurgen Klinsmann is fighting an uphill battle trying to find guys who have the drive to be great in the soccer community combined with the ability. There are a lot of moderately talented people that just aren't good enough on the world level. I think Dempsey is a guy he should be working with at this point though. Donovan doesn't care really, he did for several years, but he's mostly burned out and isn't going to put much more into it and he's getting old. Dempsey has always ben a guy that had that competitive fire that is rare in the US soccer community. It's a little too hippieish and not businesslike enough for Jurgen's liking, but I think everyone knew finding the right talent was going to be his biggest issue.


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Thu January 24, 2013 1:48 am 
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Dempsey is our best soccer player right now. He has a decent reputation in England, but by no means is he viewed as world class. When the U.S. produces a world class field player they will have arrived.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Thu January 24, 2013 2:41 pm 
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im really exited about the next world cup.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Thu January 24, 2013 10:48 pm 
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Whats the ultra scene like at games in the US?.
which football teams do you lads support?
...and can someone tell me (who follows MLS) did Beckham actually do anything except pose for LA Galaxy?


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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Thu January 24, 2013 10:50 pm 
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pjammer66 wrote:
Whats the ultra scene like at games in the US?.
which football teams do you lads support?
...and can someone tell me (who follows MLS) did Beckham actually do anything except pose for LA Galaxy?


I don't watch much MLS, but whenever I saw Beckham play he was fantastic. He basically did for LA what Pirlo does for Juventus/Italy.

Also, I support Spurs.

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 Post subject: Re: The Beautiful Game (The All Inclusive Soccer Thread)
PostPosted: Fri January 25, 2013 12:36 am 
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To me, Becks only had one good year (last year) with LA.

I go to Fire games in Chicago now and then but mainly being a soccer fan in the US sucks. Depending on where you are in our country the Latin American Concacaf teams (especially Mexico) outnumber US supporters at "home" games.

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