Is Bob Bradley the answer for US Soccer?
The United States performance thus far in the Confederations Cup has been disturbing. Obviously Italy and Brazil are no one’s idea of a favorable draw, but Bob Bradley’s team often appears listless and without ideas.
Since the 1994 World Cup, the United States Men’s National Team has attempted to build itself with a succession of US born coaches. Why?
In 1990 Hungarian born coach Bob Gansler led the United States to its first World Cup since 1950. Sure the team was demolished in Italia ‘90, but just qualifying earned the ‘90 team a special place in US Soccer history.
The pressure was on in 1994 as the United States hosted the World Cup amid international concerns over the historical weakness of the US National Team and the lack of a domestic outdoor league. US Soccer turned to Serbian Bora Milutinovic to mold the US team into a competitive unit. The US won an improbable victory over a heavily favored Colombian team in the Rose Bowl and advanced to the second round, losing to Brazil despite playing much of the game with a man advantage.
The reputation of the United States as a soccer power had grown so much by this time that Colombian Andres Escobar was murdered for his own goal that cost Colombia their tournament run. The message was clear: Lose to the terrible US and it will cost you your life.
Having qualified for consecutive World Cups and advancing past the first round in 1994 apparently completely satisfied the powers that be at the US Soccer Federation. The USSF effectively stated, “Thanks internationally experienced coaches, but we’ll take it from here.”
The Pac-10 Is Cutting The Hawaii Bowl, Adding Alamo Bowl?
Fans of not very good teams being curiously rewarded will be sad to know that the Pac-10 isn’t even negotiating a possible renewal of its contract with the Hawaii Bowl. Even more curious is the fact that both sides agreed to opt out of this year’s agreement. The Hawaii Bowl people liked the fact that the Pac-10 couldn’t come up with enough eligible teams last season… it enabled them to land a Notre Dame windfall.
(Side Note: Remember that time Notre Dame had to play in the Hawaii Bowl? LOL.)
As for the Pac, they point to the limited payouts and budget on the islands, but then there’s also this little nugget in the article as well
Nick Montana commits to UW
Constable Echelon
Image: educationmax.com
The LA Times is reporting that QB Nick Montana has committed to the University of Washington.
Nick, the son of NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana, is Scout.com’s #13 ranked QB for 2010.
This certainly takes a lot of the sting out of Skyline QB Jake Heaps’ commitment last week to BYU. Sark appears to be making good on his reputation as a California recruiter.
Nick Montana is a pupil of Steve Clarkson, a Cali QB guru who has worked with Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Leinart, Jimmy Clausen, Matt Barkley, and Terrelle Pryor among many many others. Jake Locker recently served as an instructor at one of his camps. Clarkson has received criticism for his role in the AAU-ization of college football recruiting, but results like that are tough to argue with.
Welcome aboard young Mr. Montana. I’m headed to a Mervyn’s to celebrate. Are those still around?
The Six Types of Soccer Douchebags
Ah, nostalgia. A couple nights ago, we almost got in a fight in the parking lot of the indoor soccer center. Why? Because we played against a douchebag.
The best word to describe this guy was a drip. With man-tits. Just a complete loser – unskilled, but ANGRY. He took it upon himself to repeatedly hack down our best player in the most ungraceful manner, who, of course, wasn’t going to take this lying down.
Stoner Ref (Guys? Can you like…guys?) wasn’t going to take any responsibility to punish these transgressions, so things got out of hand. Things really jumped up a notch – and quickly.
There may allegedly been a challenge to fight in the parking lot. The cops could have been called, hypothetically.
But the fault lies with the douchebag. If you’ve ever played in a men’s league, you’ve probably encountered these guys. While soccer players can all be douche-y in their own special ways, these are the six most common archetypes of the men’s league D-Bag.
The Football Player
Now noticeably overweight, this guy played football (or thought he did) in high school. Side note: Just because you are now fat in your late 20s does not make you a “football player.” No matter how much you would like to believe that. You’re just fat. Sorry.
Kentucky Basketball: What’s wrong with pride?
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This started as a comment on Fig Jam’s excellent post regarding the Kentucky coaching situation, but I decided it could use its own post.
My poor paraphrase of Fig Jam’s post (just read it, he says it better than me) is that Kentucky had no business firing Tubby Smith because he was a good to great coach, and now with Gillispie they are reaping the harvest of unrealistic expectations. That and “Who cares?” My first reaction reading his post was “This is exactly right.”
But a little voice nagged at me, “Isn’t this just a bigger version of what went wrong with Washington football?”
Mike Bellotti out as Oregon’s head coach
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Huge news out of Oregon today that head football coach Mike Bellotti will step down to become Athletic Director.
Image: bleacherreport.com
The Dean of Pac-10 coaches is down. Pete Carroll is now the longest tenured football coach in the Pac-10.
This news just dropped, so I’m going to hash out my initial reactions and your comments are welcome to refine the points.
Bellotti’s move to AD removes him as a threat to Phil Knight.
Did Leroy Hill fake his pot arrest?
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UPDATE: Leroy Hill gets the franchise tag anyway. Nice try, though.
sea.scout.com
Leroy Hill was arrested on January 24th in Atlanta for misdemeanor marijuana possession. On the surface the arrest would appear to come at a terrible time for the free agent to be.
But could it have been a calculated move by Hill to avoid a franchise tag from the notoriously character conscious Seahawk GM Tim Ruskell? The arrest could free up Hill to negotiate a long term contract with any team, rather than be held up for another year in the shadow of Julian Peterson and Lofa Tatupu.
Brett Favre Announces He Sucks Too Bad To Keep Sucking At Football
Brett Favre announced his retirement again today. To give the legend a proper send-off, here is a guest post written by commentator LS-DubC.
With all the absolutely terrible sports we had to endure in 2008 there has been one issue alone that has driven me to near homicidal levels of anger. This post is an attempt to purge my system of this terrible ball of hate from last year.
Let’s ease into this with one of those blind stat comparisons:
Here we have the 2008 season stats for 3 NFL starting quarterbacks
QB 1-3653 yds, 67.4 CMP %, 19 TD, 7 INT, 97.4 QB RATING (2nd in NFL)
QB 2-4038 yds, 63.6 CMP %, 28 TD, 13 INT, 93.8 QB RATING (6th in NFL)
QB 3-3472 yds, 65.7 CMP %, 22 TD, 22 INT, 81.0 QB RATING (22nd in NFL)
Now how about the last 5 games of the season when it really matters
QB 1-Record (5-0) 187.6 yds per game, 64.8 CMP %, 8 TD, 1 INT, 106.5 QB RATING
QB 2-Record (1-4) 287.8 yds per game, 63.9 CMP %, 11 TD, 4 INT, 101.6 QB RATING
QB 3-Record (1-4) 202.2 yds per game, 56.7 CMP %, 2 TD, 9 INT, 55.8 QB RATING
Wow QB 3 seems like a real piece of shit compared to the other 2 guys. In fact I would imagine he is hated by nearly everyone and is considered to be a huge cry baby ego maniac piece of shit. Oh really, you are telling me is he beloved by the media and is going to the Pro Bowl and the other two aren’t. That seems fair.
The 3 quarterbacks
QB 1- Chad Pennington- The guy who was cut from his team of 8 years the day the messiah landed in New York. The very same guy who lead the Dolphins (1-15 a year ago) to a victory against his old team to secure an 11-5 season and a division championship.
QB 2- Aaron Rodgers- The guy who was booed at practice, at games, and pretty much everywhere else he went in the state of Wisconsin before he even started a game. The guy who has been blamed for their digression and lack of playoff appearance despite having a slightly better statistical season than their QB from last year. It is worth noting that the Green bay’s scoring defense went from 4th in the league in 2007 to 22nd in the league in 2008.
QB 3- You guessed it…Brett Favre. The incredible Quarterback of the New York Brett’s. The QB who was tortured and killed on the cross for our sins only to rise again 3 days later and assent to his Heavenly throne. The guy who can’t walk down the street without a sportscaster trying to mouth-fuck him.
Anyone Else Having A Hard Time Rooting For A Super Bowl Team?
Sager Bombs
Usually picking a team to root for in the Super Bowl is easy. Since your team didn’t make it (again) you just have to think about which team you hate the least. New England’s recent run made things very easy in that regard, at least until the NE/NYG battle, where I was rooting for both teams to kill each other off Mutant League Football style.
This year offers a similar setup between two teams I don’t like, but if you’re a Seahawks fan the reasons are more personal. I don’t really think much needs to be said about the Steelers. OK fine, let’s talk about the Steelers. I think our Roethlisberger hatred is well documented around here, but you know what we haven’t talked about? The pretty large story ESPN did about the Pittsburgh Dr. Feelgood who handed out HGH like the cheap house on Halloween gave out Tootsie Roll Midgees (confidential to that house: fuck you for weighing down my pillowcase). Really though… this wasn’t a bigger story? Is it because Pittsburgh is such a beloved franchise that receives a lot of cushion from both the local and national media? You really think that if this was the doctor for the Cowboys we wouldn’t still be seeing fallout from this. Oh wait, that would require a Dallas team to reach the Super Bowl. That might be more of a stretch than anyone can handle.
Let me focus here. You know in your heart Pittsburgh sucks. But do you really feel good embracing Arizona? They’ve got Kurt Warner, who can draw God (or, er… Jesus) and Anquan Boldin, who recovered from a broken face and did it without painkillers according to some reports. Some reports? Um, sorry, but if my face got shattered and I was recovering without any kind of drugs I wouldn’t let that become a matter of debate or some sort of urban legend. I’d be advertising that shit like Macy Gray at the VMAs. Despite this somewhat questionable cast of characters these guys are a division rival. And I don’t feel great supporting a division rival. ESPECIALLY Arizona. Even if it means casting a vote against God/Jesus/Other Tough Guys. Knowing the history of the NFC West franchises you have to figure that SF and STL will rebuild over time. If Zona finally wakes up and becomes a “real” team (yes, I’m still not giving them that yet) then all of a sudden we’re in an actual division instead of one where 6-0 seems like a real possibility every offseason.
So where does that leave me? Same place I end up most of these years… more excited about the Puppy Bowl than the actual game. Don’t worry… preview is coming later this week!
Ben Roethlisberger is a clown VI
Constable Echelon
Warner vs. Roethlisberger – click to enlarge
So if that image is a little small – and it is – here’s the breakdown: ESPN SportsNation (UN recognition status: pending) asked “Which Super Bowl quarterback would you rather have leading your team?”
Warner supporting states are red; Ben backers in blue.
Now, my hatred of Ben Roethlisberger is based on the theory that many people think he’s good. Turns out that may not be the case at all.
Apparently the only folks who believe in Big Ben’s viability are Steeler fans and Michael Wilbon. Honestly, look at that map. Walter Mondale thinks that’s a landslide.
Thank you America for brightening my day.
