Official 2019 Soccer/Futbol Thread

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That goal by rose was pure class

And there was a shot earlier by Morgan that was also impressive but was blocked by a great save

[Cheesehead Craig]

Agree, loved her reaction right after she knew it was going in as she's falling down. Bonus is that she's a Badger.

[Joemailman]

Meanwhile, USMNT had no answer for Mexico in 2nd half of Gold Cup Final losing 1-0. Very disappointing after solid 1st half when they seemed to have the upper hand overall.

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Agree, loved her reaction right after she knew it was going in as she's falling down.

that was the best part

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Meanwhile, USMNT had no answer for Mexico in 2nd half of Gold Cup Final losing 1-0. Very disappointing after solid 1st half when they seemed to have the upper hand overall.

the men are always disappointing

when michael bradley is your captain, you know your screwed. how hes even on the team is beyond me. the guy is just shit

[Joemailman]

Jurgen Klinsmann thinks U.S. and Mexico need better competition than CONCACAF Nations League if they want to improve.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-wor...rgen-klinsmann

Former United States men's national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann called the CONCACAF Nations League "a waste of time" and said that if the U.S., Mexico and Costa Rica are ever going to get to the level of the top international sides, they need to find competition outside the region.

"I think the biggest challenge for the United States, or even Mexico or Costa Rica, for the key countries in this region, is you don't really have the highest competition outside," Klinsmann said. "That means when you play just within your own system, you don't have the big matches against European countries or South American countries in order to grow your program, in order to grow your players.

"So literally when you are kind of locked into CONCACAF and you don't play Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile every year, or you don't play Holland, Germany, England, Spain, Italy every year, you have no chance to grow.

Berhalter disagrees:

https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-s...oncacaf-claims

"Now, the points that Jurgen was making, of us playing in better competition, playing in a Copa America-type competition, playing in Europe against top teams, is valid. I also believe that the way for this team to grow is by playing top level competition. But when I look at the group, when I look at some of the inexperience we have in the group, these games are going to be valuable for us."

Berhalter also pointed out that the advent of the UEFA Nations League reduced the number of available dates for the U.S. to line up international friendlies against European opponents. He added that the U.S. is attempting to schedule games against such teams for the March, 2020 window.

"It's not straightforward," said Berhalter about scheduling friendlies. "We challenged ourselves with playing a heavy South American group in this last year, and that was for a reason. Those teams were available, but we think those teams are very competitive and very challenging and provide us good games. We want to play difficult games. We think it will help the group develop, and it's just finding the right windows to do so."

[hoosier]

I don't see how US men are ever going to be competitive on a global scale given national interest in baseball, basketball and football. Those sports draw away too many top athletes. US women have a two decade head start on the rest of the world, which was unbelievably slow to recognize that girls can run and kick too.

[Cheesehead Craig]

I don't see how US men are ever going to be competitive on a global scale given national interest in baseball, basketball and football. Those sports draw away too many top athletes.

I don't know about that. Not many below 6' players in the NBA and that is what thrives in soccer. 6'4" is a giant on the pitch and that's usually a rarity that's in goal or possibly a defenseman.

For football, throw out all the DL, OL, LB and TEs. They are simply too big. Defensive backs and some safties have the right body type as do some running backs. WRs are turning into sprinters which won't help and are also getting near that too tall body type.

When I think of baseball players, I don't think of great runners or I should say, guys who can run a lot. It's just a different skill set than soccer.