Just catching up, very very good performance.

Hard to think of anyone who wasn't good. Fabian Johnson was excellent, the three in midfield were strong and good going forward, and all the attacking players played well. I'd like to see Boyd be a little more clinical obviously but I thought his movement was pretty good and he's so young that I still have high hopes for him.

I think the formation fits us pretty well, particularly because Bradley can come forward and score goals arriving late in the box.

It's got enough steel and workrate to hold up in tough road CONCACAF qualifiers imo, even at the Azteca and Saprissa. Then in home games against the likes of El Salvador and Honduras, when we need to get all three points, you can drop either Edu or Jones for Torres and field another attacking player like so:

------------Jozy-------------
---Dempsey-----Landon---
---Bradley------Torres----
----------Jones/Edu---------

And if/when Holden gets back to something approaching peak form (or hopefully even better than he was), he can have the other CM role, so the "3" of the 4-3-2-1 (if we keep it of course, and who knows?) in Brazil 2014 can be Holden and Bradley in front of a pure destroyer.

I've always been a fan of a 4-3-2-1 and I think it fits our pool of talent (lots of good CMs, few to no natural wide players, a target striker or two, but not a whole lot of striking quality) well.

One of the keys to a 4-3-2-1 of course is fullbacks who can provide width. Chandler on the right and Fabian Johnson on the left? Sounds good to me.

I hope some coach in Europe decides to turn Brek Shea into a CB (It's not that crazy, he's done it before quite capably. Needs to fill out a little bit obviously but he could be very good imo). It would be much better for us, as the CB picture looks pretty bleak going into Brazil and Brek doesn't fit easily into the christmas tree.

I'm not trying to read too much into one friendly and say that we have our formation or anything like that, and i know that plenty will happen and new players will emerge between now and Brazil but still, things are looking up.

In Jurgen we trust.

Who set up the Jermaine Jones goal? Someone made a greatsliding pass to the right flank while losing his footing, and that guy found JJ for the goal. Who were those two guys/

Gomez to Donovan for the assist.

Yeah but they are still pretty damn low.

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0...ill-half-full/

And like you said MLS started for the growth of the game but it's controlled by about 20 owners now. And since some have had to pay big money to MLS just for the right to own a team they aren't going to start letting clubs outspend them and get in for free with promotion/relegation. And they certainly aren't going to risk the enormous financial loss that will occur from being sent down to the minors.

Promotion and relegation is not a winning game for club owners around the world. Clubs who want to compete at the top levels do so by going into serious debt. MLS owners will never subject themselves to that.

While I believe that promotion and relegation would be fun to add, it seems like a losing business proposition. I wonder how much that plays into the fact that every single NFL team is on Forbes list of 50 most valuable sports franchises while soccer, with a million leagues, has 8.

Salaries are low compared to the rest of the world, yes. But the amount of guys making 100k+ a year has grown by leaps and bounds. There is also the new contract with NBC sports that is nothing but a major net positive for the MLS and the US football scene in general.

Promotion/relegation doesn't have to be a financial death knell at all and it's up to the owners to accomplish that. Again, there is the example of it working beautifully in Japan, what is sooooo different here? Not much in all honesty

Kdawg if it's not a financial burden why do American non regulation sports dominate financially?

I won't pretend I know that's the reason, but I can't think of another reason.

Relegation should be a bit of a financial hit, but it doesn't have to be inequity that it is in England. The single entity structure would help ease that burden a ton.

As far as American sports not having it, it's what they've always done. We don't know I'd there is a "better way" for the nfl to do business. But, soccer is a different animal and shouldn't be directly compared to MLB or the nfl. It seems a bit of a strawman to compare them

Each part of the world handles their team sports competitions differently. In Australian sports, their playoffs in Aussie Rules, Rugby League, and Soccer are done by the MacIntyre System, which is this weird system where the best teams get a bye of sorts, but their bye is that they can LOSE a playoff game, where the lesser-ranked teams have to win out.

It's very bizarre to American and probably European eyes, but that's how they have been doing it for decades. Of all the reasons that American sports franchises are the richest, I seriously doubt "because we hit on the perfect sporting system competition" is any part of the reason whatsoever.

No one is claiming that our system is perfect, just that it's geared more towards business. If it's not that, then it basically has to be that Americans are the best sports fans in the world.

How are north American fans "the best." you're gonna need to explain that one I think

I'm not claiming they're the best. If American sports leagues aren't setup very well for business, but American sports franchises are worth a ton of money, then the American sports fan has to be ****ing awesome.

But you said that American fans have to be the best in the world. How are they? (let's not factor in at all the giant population advantage and corporate money that goes into the main American sports leagues)

the system is sickening. there are 3 mens amater leages in boston which have players good enough to turn pro. instead of trning this into a pyramaid system they are seperated, play a total of 5 months of the year and teams generally have 0-1 practice a week. these players are more skillful than some you see in the MLS but are bit disciplined and dont have the physcial conditions to do it - i think that is becase they are not in a true feeder system and have no motivation.

Again, I did not say American fans have to be best in the world. I said if the American sports system isnt setup very well for business, then Americans have to be the best sports fans in the world. It's an if-then statement, and I don't think the if is true.

The reason the franchises are so rich is because Americans ****ing love football, and there are 300 million of us for one domestic league.

If England had the population of the US, you'd see similar numbers iyam.

No, you'd see larger numbers imo. Euros love soccer more than we love the NFL. The reason NFL teams are on the list is because we are the largest economy in the world, which is mostly fueled by a large and affluent population. It is not because we have more passionate sports fans.

now that I'm on my computer and not my phone I want to dig more into this and get back on topic.

That article is actually a major positive irt the MLS. The crowds that the MLS is able to draw shows off the strength of the sport and the league in general. It will take years before the average MLS salary gets into the mid-six figures, but this NBC contract is such a major benefit to the league. It shows where things are going and with better contracts will mean better salaries.

But, that's not really an argument against promotion/relegation. I get back to the crowds drawn point. It shows that if the MLS name is behind it, and with some refurbishing, new teams can draw well. The whole point of it would be to call the 2nd tier MLS2. With that the second division can be brought into the wider fold and have the perception as something better than the NASL or USL Pro. This would be something that would take time to do as proper stadiums would need to happen.

My point being is that there is the population to do this properly. There is the demand and because of the single-entity structure of the league, that makes things easier for this to happen. Bigger TV contracts are happening as well, so, it isn't unreasonable to set about a 10-12 year plan to successfully add in a 2nd division. I also think a real 2nd division would be better for football in North America overall as well.

But there's plenty of other countries with major football leagues. Every freaking country in Europe has a major soccer league. Add England, Italy, Spain and Germany and you get 250 million. Add in second tier, but still major leagues in Portugal and France, and you get 325 million. Population simply don't explain the difference.

What does explain the difference is population per team. The US sports leagues, because they were developed on a specific business model instead of organically, have about 100m people per team per sport. Europe, otoh, typically have about 40 major teams per country. The major sports leagues in the US are an oligopoly which makes the owners a ton of ****ing money. The major sports leagues in Europe are much more open to upstarts because of the relegation and promotion system.

I just don't see the MLS owners giving up their slice of the pie. In order for it to happen, relegation and promotion is going to have to create a ton more pie, or the pie will have to be shared in a much different way than other countries.

This doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to see the MLS go to a relegation/promotion pyramid system because I think it would be great for the sport. I just don't see it happening in the near to distant future.

ike, the quote "300 million people per one domestic league" is a statement that involves a population per team (or league in this case). I'm not sure wtf you're telling me I'm wrong for when you're first 2 paragraphs basically reiterate my statement.

Sometimes people misread ****.

ikes, the pie is already sliced differently than other leagues around the world

Interested to see what Jurgen does tonight, both lineups and tactics.

You can't press Brazil really, I mean, pick your spots of course and go when it's on, but you can't press high up the whole match.

The lineup against Scotland wasn't exactly built for counterattacking though, outside of Landon.

It'll be interesting to see where he goes tonight. I don't think Jozy or Dempsey will be available from the start which is a shame. I don't even know what I want to see really, but it should be a fun one.

Dempsey's twitter says he's playing tonight.

Reyna, Meola and DiCicco were admitted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame. I loved DiCicco's GK camps. And, somewhat embarrassingly, I looked up to Meola as a kid.

That's a nice specimen of mullet -- really aggressive low fade, almost a rat-tail hybrid if you will.