FCearth: Play Soccer. Change The World.

#445 Estadio Azteca

Jeff — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:15:05 +0000

Mexico City's Estadio Azteca- host of tonight's important USMNT World Cup qualifier vs. Mexico- was built in the 1960s to host Club América and the 1970 World Cup. It has outlasted many American stadiums built in the same decade; in Major League Baseball, only Dodger Stadium and Oakland Alameda County Coliseum are still in service from the 60s (notwithstanding, of course, Fenway and Wrigley.) But Azteca is much more on the scale of large college stadia, such as Michigan's Big House (capacity: 109k) and Ohio State's Horseshoe (102k). With American reporters on the ground reporting that seat renovations seem to have reduced Azteca's capacity, it is still listed as a 104,000 seat stadium, putting it in the good company of 6 U.S. college stadia (Michigan, Penn State, Tennessee, Ohio State, Alabama and Texas) that seat over 100k.

It may be tough to find as many US Nike kits in the stands tonight, but FCearth still optimistically projects:

US 2, Mexico 1

#446 Costa Rica Owns U.S. ...So What?

Jeff — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:12:12 +0000

Fact: The United State Men's National Team is 0-3-2 in our last five matches over nearly 8 years, per Soccer America. USMNT has beaten Mexico FIVE times in that stretch. The 3 losses to Costa Rica include USMNT's first loss under Jurgen Klinsmann in September, 2011.

Fact: So WHAT?! Historical context is great...for context...and has no bearing on tonight.

Let's do this!

Leadership & Assimilation

Jeff — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:14:17 +0000

Soccer coaches at all levels value a few key factors when choosing their lineups and rosters: past and projected performance (of course), but also match fitness, chemistry, experience.

As my high school coach once said- it's not just the XI Best players you want (he was talking hoops, so he said Best XII.) But it's the Best XI- the best group of players that compliment each other.

Coaches of national teams get to take it a few steps further: Recent playing time and performance for club teams, experience in pressure situations like World Cup qualifiers or tumultuous away game environments, and even extraneous factors like travel logistics or international work permit issues.

The question is: what's the best way to weigh a player's total experience vs. recent performance vs. the logistics of assimilating him into the team?

It's not just a National Team issue. Imagine a State ODP team where 6 of the kids are from the same town, and another kid is sloughing 3 hours across the state for practice (like Clint Dempsey did in Texas). There's travel issues on top of peer to peer considerations.

So it's not surprising that ahead of tonight's US Men's National Team qualifier against Costa Rica in Denver, a huge fervor broke out when Sporting News reported that there was dissent and second-guessing among the US Men's National Team pool players (among others) and a lack of support of Coach Jurgen Klinsmann.

We're in the camp that argues that all the attention is a great sign of the growing passion for our national team in the US. And we won't deconstruct the incident, since it's been done so well by many others.

But the leadership issue is worth diving into. Even though it has been a focal point of the week, the exclusion of 7-year US captain Carlos Bocanegra still somehow doesn't seem to have had enough of the spotlight.

SI's Grant Wahl focused on Bocanegra immediately, and recapped Bocanegra's immense contributions to the national team:

Wearing the armband isn't easy, and Bocanegra had it for the 2010 World Cup (in which the U.S. won its group ahead of England), the '09 Confederations Cup (beating Spain and reaching the final), the '09 CONCACAF Hexagonal (winning the group) and the '07 Gold Cup final (a win vs. Mexico), among other occasions. Bocanegra has never been flashy, but he has been a consistent and terrific servant to U.S. Soccer over the years, and I can't help but feel that this transition could be handled better by Klinsmann.

And yet...the USMNT heads into to two critical games (home vs. Costa Rica, and in Mexico City on Tuesday night) without the clear-cut most consistent, most stable contributor and on-field leader of the last seven years- dating back to the 2006 World Cup.

The relevant questions to ask yourself:

What's the value of recent playing time vs. someone who's fit from training (if not matches), and has such a body of work? Players can maintain peak fitness today without matches (as they do when they are in their club offseason.)

In other words, what value would a leader of Boca's caliber have in being on the roster and traveling squad, even if not a starter?

And at a deeper level: How long does it take to assemble 24 individuals in camp and assimilate each one back into the team culture?

USMNT had roughly a four day camp this week ahead of tonight. That's not a long time to get over travel schedules and weekend match fatigue- let alone get back in the rhythm of playing together. Granted, both teams face a similar timeline. But the logistics of getting the team together and on the same page in time for kickoff is not to be underestimated.

(Soccernomics has a tremendous chapter on how even top flight European clubs, until recently, would often pay huge transfer fees for top players and basically drop them off in a new city, with new languages, new fans, new culture, and almost no help getting adjusted. They finally got smart and realized it was worth the relatively tiny cost to basically offer relocation assistance.)

Bring it all back home:

Clearly the questions above are loaded toward our opinion that a player of Boca's leadership caliber SHOULD be in the mix. Simply put, we think it's worth a spot on a 24-man camp roster for someone who has been through what Boca's been through and done it all with sheer focus and class. To inject that kind of continuity and poise when you're lacking other vets (Howard, Donovan, Cherundolo). If not to start, then to help a young backfield and overall inexperienced roster assimilate to the pressure cooker of the hexagonal...playing a critical game on Friday night in the snow and then flying to the unfriendly confines of Azteca for an impossible Tuesday task.

This is less about questioning the strategy, and more about calling attention to the impressive task of gathering up a team from all over the world and bringing them together for a tremendously important game- a task that requires leadership.

Regardless, we're forecasting, along with the snow, an unexpected explosion of offense from our blazing strikers, and a 3-1 home win that gets this campaign back on track.

#447: Club dominance

Jeff — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:07:25 +0000

Spring state cup season is open us and hundreds of youth club teams in 50 states will be descending upon their state championship tournaments. Since 2006, Real Colorado (of Highlands Ranch, Colorado) has won 17 girls age group state cup championships- about a third of available titles!

What are the most dominant youth soccer clubs in your state? Email jeff@fcearth.com.

#448: The First Ball

Jeff — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:07:27 +0000

Since we have a near-obsession with soccer's objet d'art, let's cover the first modern soccer ball. History has claimed pig bladders, cow hide leather, and even skulls as the first soccer balls, reflecting centuries of sports that sort of resembled soccer. But the modern soccer ball is generally credited to hard-luck 19th century inventor Charles Goodyear, who used his technique for vulcanizing rubber to form the first footie in 1855. (Yes, he for whom the tire company was named when it launched near the turn of the century.) The sphere evolved to be inflatable, then stitched, though the general size of Goodyear's was adopted by the English Football Association as the standard in 1872.

#449 US Youth Soccer

Jeff — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:01:35 +0000

Let's get right to it. According to US Youth Soccer, more than 3M kids in the US played organized soccer in 2010. That's about as many people as the entire population of Uruguay- which finished fourth at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

#450: World Cup Origins

Jeff — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 20:25:15 +0000

Today mark's the first of our daily attempts to give you an incredible, socially informative, culturally impactful fact about the game of soccer, each day from now until the launch of World Cup 2014 on June 12 in Brazil.

Have an awesome nugget of soccer culture to share? Send it to jeff@fcearth.com It can be about youth, college, club or national soccer...historic perspective, present-day players, coaches, lifestyle, languages or whatever.

#450:

From 1914-1928, FIFA regarded the Olympic soccer tournament as the world's amateur soccer championship. But the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles would not feature soccer, so FIFA, under president Jules Rimet of France, decided to host the inaugural 1930 World Cup in Uruguay, selected as reigning champions from the 1928 Summer Games. With 13 European and North and South American nations convinced to foot the travel bill to Uruguay, the hosts defeating Argentina 4-2 on July 30, 1930 at Estadio Centenario in in Montevideo.

Sources: multiple.

Relaunch

Jeff — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 20:24:13 +0000

Much has changed on the pitch since FCearth first attempted to capture soccer as a sporting reflection of global culture and passion, during our quiet launch in 2008.

Gobs of of quality books, blogs, pundits and programs have emerged to offer colorful, comprehensive, data-driven, or anecdotal (and cable-viewable, assuming an away-game) account of the game, at all levels, beyond the final score.

While Spain has achieved total domination at the club and national levels, a Portuguese has emerged as the Edison of international soccer - only to be trumped, usually, by a 25-year-old Argentinian Einstein of the pitch.

One former coach of the US National Team - a Serbian who has taken four other countries (Mexico, Costa Rica, Nigeria, China) to the World Cup- is an ambassador in Qatar, the tiny, loaded Middle Eastern nation that somehow won the right to host the 2022 World Cup. The other former US coach is now leading Egypt...and participating in organized demonstrations for peace in that country.

The next World Cup launches in the explosively-growing Latin American nation of Brazil in 450 days, promising to unite 736 players officially representing 32 nations- but actually born in far more.

In the US, Major League Soccer's attendance and social momentum- owing largely to regional fanatics such as those of you in the Northwest- has sort of come to symbolize soccer's growing influence, or at least stability, and place in the hierarchy of American sports- although you'd never know it by the continuously dim-witted comments of some leaders.

And more importantly, a generation of early adopters who grew up playing on the generous, increasingly well-organized youth soccer fields of America in the 70s and 80s have become commentators, coaches, clinical and youth directors, and parents. Their (our) players and kids consume the sport more vociferously than ever: indoor, at weeknight clinics or tournaments in Texas, clad in Messi replicas or expensive club kits, or simply with a battered ball on the playground or in a barren back alley.

It may be mostly intangible but it is undeniably happening.

--------

Yet in many ways, nothing has changed at all. Soccer still transcends languages, borders and cultures more totally than almost any human activity - at least any that inspires tears of anguish, swells of national/club/neighborhood pride.

Since millions of American youth- on top of hundreds of millions internationally- play and consume the sport, it continues to offer an unbelievable reflection on the confluence of world cultures. Nowhere else - from the pitches of working class London neighborhoods to the splashy temporary stadia of South African World Cup venues, from the shuttered academies of suburban Cleveland to the thriving ones of Bradenton or Carson- do classes and languages and cultures and lifestyles clash not only to camp and train together, but to compete in the same jersey, whether for the short run of a tournament or the duration of a youth club..

Heavy stuff, especially if you've awoken at 6:30am to watch Premiership matches, now playing on ESPN2? No problem; give it some time. We're back to help tell the story of how soccer brings people together. With the World Cup set to launch in just 450 days, we've got plenty of stories to tell. Stay tuned!

FCearth

Plat Soccer, Change the World.

On-field attitude & a country's culture

Jeff — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:07:26 +0000

One of the better-written stories about new USMNT head coach Jurgen Klinnsman's deliberate effort to create an onfield identity for the US Men's National Team that somehow matches the culture of the United States of America, by Brian Straus of AOL Sporting News.

The money quote by Klinnsman:

“One of my challenges will be to find a way to define how a U.S. team should represent its country. What should be the style of play? Is it more proactive and aggressive, a forward-thinking style of play? Or is it more reacting style of play,” Klinsmann asked shortly after his appointment.

My initial thought: isn't it ambitious, or even wacky, to think you can change a national team's style of play to reflect the mentality of a country? Even if you have a year or so to do it, before the games start to (really, really) count again?

The answer: no. Coaching a national team has some factors - time, friendlies, pools of players that occasionally get together for minicamps and a relatively small number of games per year - and one key mechanism that actually do make this possible.

That mechanism: player selection. We need to remind ourselves that even in a top 10 global soccer national team, and even more so for a (for now) 2nd tier program like the USMNT, it is not abundantly clear who the XI best players - or even best XI players - are. So the adage of playing the cards you're dealt is out the window.

With every little choice Klinnsman makes- from dusting off Jose Torres to where you position a Donovan or Dempsey to which U-20 athletes you begin to take chances with - you actually, deliberately forge an identity. Straus reminds us of this in terms of the 2 best in the team:

The style born from the talents of Donovan and Dempsey indeed reflects a certain American mentality, which Klinsmann (a 13-year resident of Southern California) described as one that “never really waits and sees and leaves it up to other people to decide what is next.”

And with time to enact bigger-picture philosophies- like apparently emphasizing US-Mexican players or evangelizing soccer in, ahem, underrepresented parts of the country (like non-posh suburban locales), Klinnsman can set a tone from the top.

Here's hoping he's around more than one World Cup cycle to see some benefits of his new emphasis float to the top - while somehow NOT sacrificing what is currently the identity of the USMNT, the no-deficit-is-too-large, play-from-behind, scrappy, resilient persona the team took on during the road to South Africa 2010.

Silly Season

Jeff — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 06:19:00 +0000

Guest Post: Aaron Young

With some of the biggest professional soccer leagues in the world finalizing their squads this week, it got me wondering about how this frentic marketplace effects the average fan and supporter. Let me explain, this is what many English pundits call "silly season." Unlike most American professional sports where trades and salary caps regulate a teams personnel, soccer is dominated by transfer markets, where clubs buy and sell the contracts of a player at what is deemed fair market value for the player's services. Often time the media and fan base can have a large influence on who goes where or the terms of the deal.

This brings me to my point: why do we care? Are we so invested in a sport and their stars that our sole focus throughout the "silly season" is on the market? Do we really become the Wall Street traders of soccer? Yes and no. Fans and supporters do keep a close eye on "commodity trading," but more so the everyday fan and supporter care about the club and the promise for something better. Each year we all believe our club will win it all. Few actually do. Barcelona FC has recently become the exception to the rule having won every title it competes in. The reality is that putting our faith and hopes into clubs is much like the ambition to have a better life we all strive for. And through our obession of following transfers we somehow feel more in control over our own situation. While Americans have the opportunity reflected by the pursuit of the American dream, the rest of the world can see it in their soccer club's push for success; and it's during the transfer season when this becomes most transparent to each of us.

Editor's Note: I believe there is a third-level answer to "Why do we care (about silly season)?" that, as Aaron suggests, goes beyond obsession with our favorite clubs, and fascination with the trading of players as commodities. The most intrinsic factor that compels us to football transfers might be that there is no cultural parallel for it in any other sport, labor market or maybe even sociology. The idea, for example, of a 30 year old Cameroonian being sold by a global powerhouse Italian club for a reported 28M Euros to an obscure Russian club that commutes by plane to its own home games from the safer confines of suburban Moscow...it's so culturally mind-boggling that it at least adds a layer of complexity to our annual obsession with the transfer window.