USWNT tonight at Audi?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Soccer fans are so weird and nasty. I thought it was just the parent.

Many women’s soccer fans are very nice people. But somehow DCUM attracts a small fraction of weird nasty ones…

No women soccer fans in the US are not many. There are many fans of USWNT and see it as something larger vs women soccer. Most USWNT fans are not soccer fans. They are not watching soccer unless it is the USWNT in the World Cup or to a lesser extent Olympics. They get upset if the soccer fans talk about the team as all other soccer is talked about.

Well do we new soccer fans are less worthy and should keep our mouth shut? USWNT is one of the trailblazers of the advancement of women’s sports in many ways. Their impact isn’t limited to women’s soccer. I guess some old fans tend to dismiss that fact… Be nice.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Feel bad for those who went to watch this garbage in this heat. We opted out last minute and I’m glad we did, that was embarrassing.

I was waiting for someone to comment on the game. Garbage is being kind.

USWNT like all girls/women soccer in the US does not believe in precision or technical play. Here is what Hayes said.

United States women's national team boss Emma Hayes said she wanted better decision-making and execution in front of a goal against Costa Rica in the Americans' final match before departing for the 2024 Olympics.

Instead, she got a scoreless draw in which the USWNT took 26 shots and held 80% of the possession against a Ticas squad that played in an ultra-low block -- a 4-2-3-1 "Christmas tree," Hayes noted after the match -- that clogged channels and demanded a precision from the Americans that never came.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/40578534/uswnt-head-paris-olympics-question-marks-attack

Lacking precision is right! Morgan was always too slow to fire, but the best striker we had for the past decade.

Trinity is a winger that has potential, but IMO she is on the team because of upside, not because of where she is today technically or mentally. And her soccer IQ and her service to teammates in for scoring opportunities is awful.

Sophia Smith is not a 9, she’s not a winger either. She isn’t technical enough to be a 10, so she is really sort of non-positioned forward. Her development is a mess.

Swanson is the closest we have to a 9, but she doesn’t want to be a 9, she wants to be a 10. But she too isn’t technically skilled enough to be a 10.

We have a lot of young talent that can ball, but you can’t build teams around them as a striker (Jaden Shaw for example).

US soccer decided - when looking at the development quadrants (Psychological - Social - Technical - Physical) to go all in on Physical, because it’s the only one that can be most controlled from the top down. Look at what Carli Lloyd (as annoying as she is) said about how they’d force the NT athletes to do their regimens, and she would have to sneak away to do the work she knew she needed for her body and style.

The idea that the world is catching up is stupid, it isn’t. We’re just filtering, rewarding, and building teams poorly at the national team level. And our poor decisions are catching up to us, not the rest of the world.

We need better passing, higher soccer IQ up top, and a world class striker.

You had a nice litte post going on here until you said this.

The world has caught up and if you think otherwise you are the dummy I'm afraid. US should still dominate with its head start for now, and will remain a contender in the global womens soccer moving forward but they are no longer the world's footy queens is a fact. The solution, youth academies like that have been in place now for a decade in the western european superpowers. Infracture is in place with UEFA male clubs so it just about adding women's team expenditure to the ambitious clubs that know fans will show up for a talented women's team, see Barca. We don't have the infrastructure after u17 in this country to truly compete globally moving forward unless you still believe college is the answer for developing elite global soccer talent.

PP here.

Great take on what I said. I don’t disagree with you at all.

The distinction I make is between “caught up” and “catching up.” I don’t think the world has caught up, but they are certainly catching up.

And we may not agree that it’s a distinction with a difference, but I think you’re spot on with the “why” of that delta closing.

The Europeans have definitely surpassed the US. The people who have never seen the Europeans club teams play are the only ones who talk about “catching up” with the US. Look at the ranks of best women players. No US players in the top ten and only 2 in the top 25? Check out the Women's Ballon d'Or.

As for our youth programs. They really stop at u15-u16. By that time in Europe the girls have moved to a professional path. The competition is at a much higher level with mixed age groups and the best coaches. At that point you are only talking about the top 3-5% of the players. The cuts and washout rates are pretty brutal. Imagine cutting down the current u14 ECNL roster to 3-5% by u16.

In the US competition at the ECNL level more like the top 50-40%. By u15-u16 the top players are listening to the new college coach or fighting to get noticed. These teams and training environment can become very disjointed with players doing their own thing. Plus the coaching is very hit or miss. So from u15-u17 development is not really there. Most of the ECNL players will have an option to play in college but college is not a high level of soccer. Like 80-90% of ECNL players will play in college. It is really just a continuation of ECNL.

European club play is not anything special. Watch the Women’s UEFA finals this past year and compare that to a solid NWSL match…I would say it’s hard to make an argument that Europe has surpassed the US based on the clubs.

Ballon Dor is not a universal award. It’s an FA award, and it’s only been around for 6 or 8 years for women. I’m not surprised Tobin Heath or Lindsey Horan aren’t in the running….

It sounds to me like you’re taking the men’s game and the fantastic infrastructure it brings to the women’s game an Europe and suggesting that takes today’s talent (who didn’t benefit from any of that infrastructure) and saying because of that they’re better. Europe is a big place with lots of different FAs and systems, some are better than others - and some are awful for women - so I’m not sure one can make a “Europe vs US” comparison in terms superiority. But for sure the results from the World Cup showed a lot of the world is getting better at building women’s soccer. The South Americans did well enough…and Japan executed the US style of play extremely well, nobody is saying “oh no! South America and Asia have caught up!”

I think your post really nails the idea that the US is missing a striker at the National Team level.

I think your post really nails the reality you are utterly clueless about the current state of global football and your stars and stripe tinted glasses are problematic for how N. Americans see the game. Tobin Heath Balon d'Or!??? Wow!

You're just wrong on so many levels here for starters club teams in Europe are far superior to any NWSL outfit. As a league NWSL is fantastic and I'd argue top 5 league along with English women's Super League,German, French and Spanish leagues. NWSL has better balance of great players spread across muliple teams but the quality of soccer is no where near the level of top UEFA teams as of today and likely moving forward unless development opportunities can expanded in lieu of professional youth academies. ECNL/GA/NCAA soccer will not cut it, is not cutting it already for dominance, see results of youth competitions outisde of CONCACAF ones.

Last thing, Ballon d'Or was conceived by French football journalists in the 50s, via a magazine publication not the FA . Originally, it was awarded only to players from Europe and was widely known as the European Footballer of the Year award. In 1995, the Ballon d'Or was expanded to include all players of any origin that have been active at European clubs. The award became a global prize in 2007 with all professional footballers from around the world being eligible; additionally, coaches and captains of national teams were also given the right to vote, before reverting to just journalists in 2016. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year, and was known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. That partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award, The Best FIFA Men's Player and Women's player. Mel Barcenas is our only hope right now to be an elite world class talent capable of winning this award unless things change. They probably won't because everyone is making too much money off our ignorance

You’re clearly not watching UEFA women’s football, there is not European superiority to be found. It’s gone from ugly to better, but objectively the NWSL has better quality soccer. Maybe not for long, that’s TBD, but right now it’s most assuredly better, but not great.

Also the Ballon D’or is different in eligibility for men and women. As PP mentioned, Pino won one based off WC performance. I don’t really understand what the point of using “this year’s best player according to the French” as a metric for comparing national or continental soccer quality. I think Spain is lifting pretty heavily for Europe in that argument.

OL is considered the Masia equivelent for European women’s development, and it isn’t pushing out French Putellas’es or Marta’s.

Obviously opinions differ. But there have been USWNT chicken littles since 2007. Before the claim was Brazil and Asia had caught up, now it’s Europe. I agree, some European countries have certainly closed the gap, Spain is #1 right now! But it’s absurd to suggest all of Europe has caught up or surpassed the US. And it’s equally as absurd to suggest the US is cooked for women’s soccer moving forward. Our whole USWNT identity was one on penalties in a nil-nil match at home in 99…a crosswind or a shank could have made a wild difference, the delta between the USWNT and the rest of the world was never that big to begin with - much less so to pretend that the wheels have fallen off.