Yup looked real good offensively, but hard to say how realistic this is. CONCACAF Qualifying, especially in our first round, is not going to be that open.

of course. but i was really encouraged by the off the ball movement and the willingness of everyone to attempt to play those thru balls. it's like Bob Bradley was trying to make us into the 93 Knicks and JK wants us to be the 86 Celtics. I just really like watching teams play with that mindset.

Vote Jürgen Klinsmann 2012!

lolscotland aside, I just don't care who we're playing. We scored five goals. We have struggled to score even one goal against teams that should be worse than Scotland. Can't wait till Wednesday, just hoping Clint and possibly Jozy are ready.

Honestly I thought Boyd looked pretty ****. Maybe I'm just to used too watching t50 itw strikers on the reg and need to lower my expectations.

Yup yup.

Not sure what's more effective in a torrential rain in costa rica.

Did anyone else love the new kits? Think it would look even better with non-white socks, but I am impressed.

Personally I think they are an eyesore

they looked like freakin Waldo out there

they suck

GKA confirmed blind

Only here for the lol Scotland.

if the usa government had a "JFK go to the moon" promise to win the world cup could we do it?
we would subsidize usa professional soccer players, ie: would pay the national team members $50MM/year, pay espn lots of money to televise it on prime time, etc would we have a chance in a generation to win it?

it seems that we value other sports more and that's why our national team (with a pool of 150 million men) is never world-class. thoughts?

Yeah we could but it would take more than a generation and 50MM/year is a bit over the top. More TV coverage would be key as it brings more money and then somehow get a little more money in their pockets and it could be done. We have a large enough population and good athletes, its just that very few play football seriously and we don't have quality youth coaching and competition for the most part.

we didn't defend very well at all last cycle against the lower half of the hex as it was. i'm more paranoid about not qualifying for the WC than any US fan but i think i'm ready to get behind the idea that focusing on creating chances is ultimately going to reduce variance in these qualifiers.

now, we'll likely get stomped by 3 goals in the WC at some point against a good team. but at least it's something to get excited about for the qualifiers.

A multi-tier system is key for improving, obviously the U.S is huge but you could have a lower tier under each conference at the moment. Having another 10-20 teams driving to get into the top league makes everyone play better.

as mw said, it would probably take more than a generation to pull it off. We'd have to change the entire infrastructure of US Soccer(which i'd have no problem with tbh) and drastically improve coaching at all levels (this is the 1st thing that needs to be done in general. I wish the USSF would make a directive about it)


Once the MLS gets to 20 teams, I wish they'd stop expanding that part and work towards getting MLS2 started. I know some people have said that Americans won't accept it, but the people following the MLS and soccer fans are more than familiar with it. It would need to be implemented sooner rather than later, but I don't think it would be that much of a stretch for teh MLS to just buy up some of the lower leagues, re-structure it, and make it viable.

It would be a longer term view and would have to be 8-10 years down the road. I think it can be doable and japan was able to add an official 2nd tier very successfully after having just a top division for a while.

Well that was humiliating. We had zero hunger (and quality) and it seemed like the players were treating this like a holiday with a random kick-about in the middle.

But jesus christ you guys looked awesome! Was very very impressed, I mean I know even San Marino would have beat us last night but that doesn't take anything away from your performance imo. All the US football fans should be excited about the future, you guys are going places. Good luck for WC qualification although I'm sure you won't need it.

do you think that kang and kodos are going to descend down from space and take over the world too?

We have a USL Premier Development League team 15 minutes from me, and I have never gone.

Technically this is the fourth tier, but it means nothing to me. Give them the opportunity to be promoted like Cheltenham and Crewe Alexandra in the game today, and I would go to many games and buy their scarf.

LOL at your assessment.

One of my favorite terms. It implies even less formality than "pickup soccer."

Never ever ever going to happen.

MLS is just starting to get past the "holy crap we won't survive" phase. Now it's in the "how the heck do we make a profit" phase. And the only way they managed to make it this far is by shrinking player salaries lower than teacher's salaries in many cases. Making teams spend more money on salaries by creating more competition when most teams aren't profitable to begin with would be suicide.

long term view. Don't think that it won't ever happen as the MLS has always been about the growth of the game.

The league knew it was going to survive at least 5 years ago. The salaries have actually expanded much more recently

How do you plan to get current MLS owners to agree to a relegation system? I guess we should discuss all this in the MLS thread if we really want to go into it though. And this type of movement is definitely wayyyy down the road.

the league below would have to be called MLS2 and part of the entire MLS set up