OldSchoolSnapper

They'd obviously only work something out with him if it made sense on their end. They're not going to pay him $10 million next year to rehab. This would have to be a minor league deal or vet minimum something or other on the hope that he can be a reliever in '28.

I mean aren't they doing the plan? He hasn't pitched in 13 days and then went 4 innings.

If they had any inclination Miz was legitimately hurt he'd be completely shut down already. It's July 21 not Game 6 of the World Series.

I actually can't believe this is his 5th season. Time really flies.

The #1 reason I hate replay is the buzz kill effect. The whole stadium goes nuts celebrating for a full minute and then it gets wiped out by a review. All the sports have this but VAR is the worst. There's nothing lamer than not wanting to celebrate a huge moment because you're waiting for New York/VAR to stay quiet. I hate it, and in the NFL in particular the calls consistently come back questionable anyway. It hasn't solved anything. There's as much controversy as ever.

The problem with VAR is that they're using it to replace officiating instead of complement it. We don't need a review on an obvious goal only to find out the sensor in the ball activated and it brushed some fabric on a Croatian player. That's not why any sport has replay. I am also a bit tired of unseen fouls getting called during VAR for something else. That's like reviewing a fumble and seeing holding in the back and deciding you're calling holding. It's stupid. As is calling back goals for a foul that happened 45 seconds ago. If it didn't get called, it didn't get called. Then again, the NFL consistently gets calls wrong after instant replay so I am tempted to just say, as I've said many times, just get rid of it all and go back to living with incorrect calls. I like offsides personally, find it very easy to grasp, I just don't like how it's called. The spirit of the rule is obviously to prevent somebody from hanging out on the opponent's half waiting for bombs. It shouldn't really matter if somebody's shoulder is 3 inches off. It's just dumb. Lastly...yeah, the 6-4 game was fun, but it was fun because it was a 3rd place game that neither team showed up with any anxiety for, and it was a slop fest. I'm sure the general observer thought it was fun, but it was far from the best tournament games I've seen personally.

I am all for the 64-team tournament. That was a huge net positive this go-around, I absolutely love the group stage, it's by far my favorite part of the tournament. I work remotely and there was just nothing better than wall-to-wall games for 3 weeks. It was one of my favorite things ever as a sports fan. The more teams in this tournament the better. The number of people around the world who get into it, makes it what it is. I know many purists hated it, but I thought it was great. Predictably, the cream rose anyway in the end and we had the four best teams IMO. The one issue soccer is going to have in the near future is the loss of mega icon players. Obviously there are always new ones coming (Yamal) but at the next cup Kane is 36, Mbappe is a 32-year-old speed player, Ronaldo is gone and Messi very likely as well. Messi and Ronaldo were really unique in that they were still capturing kids who were 6 years old as 40-year-olds. That doesn't really happen. The loss of those two looms large in terms of the sport being absorbed in the US as a commercial product. Haaland is definitely going to be Atlas here shortly. I am in no way saying the sport is in trouble worldwide, but those two guys are just enormous cleats to fill. Most excited for North America joining the next COPA. That's a huge step forward for the US, they really need to be in that tournament.

Spain was clearly the best team in the tournament. Their lack of really blowing anyone out overshadowed that they were scored on once the entire time. Still a bit bummed to see Messi lose, but glad he did get to win it. I have a gut feeling he'll be back for 2030 but maybe that's just fantasy stuff. I felt myself getting sad every time someone lost 😂. I couldn't help it. I just felt bad for the players and fans and how much they put into this tournament. Definitely in the dumps it's over. So glad I bit the bullet and attended a USA game too. It's going to be a long four years. The Golden Ball was the only disappointment. That was such a lame selection. To me, that was Messi without a doubt.

Griffin Conine homers to shallow infield. Leo Jiménez scores. Liam Hicks scores.

You're hitting the nail though on why it works in Japan. They could not be more culturally divergent from the US in that regard. EVERYTHING is for the good your peers, team and country. It's downright disgraceful in Japan to be self-serving.

The end of the game is grounds to dismiss Tuchel. I don't think that's extreme. You can't talk tough and be honest about your team's shortcomings and preach a new mentality and then immediately shrink into those habits when it counts. You just can't sit 5 back and let Messi create. They thought marking him aggressively was sufficient but once he realized he wouldn't be the one to score the goal, he adapted and tore them apart. England had a team good enough to win it this year. That was a disgraceful final 1/3. I said to the room I was watching that I believed Argentina would win the game in regular time once I saw England sit 5 back. It was just so predictable. They changed tactics completely and it was just open season on England's goal in the blink of an eye. I just can't believe Tuchel let that slide without an adjustment. Also, just for emphasis and I haven't seen it mentioned enough, Messi's winning cross came off his right foot.

This is worse than it's ever been in my area. You can feel it with every breath. Almost as bad as having to go on social media and see people suggest it's government gas and ask where the videos of the fires are.

The on-field mic-up is cringey.

This has been such a great World Cup. What a game between ENG and ARG. Not ready to say goodbye to it.

He's terrible so it's not exciting but they will somehow get a handful of starts and below 4 ERA out of him. No one should be surprised though, this is like the prototype Brewers mid-season addition.

The Derby was spectacular and I haven't watched it in years. The new format was much better. Netflix did a great job. Walker's family seem like wonderful people. The weirdest part was Bonds on the mic. It was so nonchalant and he was just part of the scene again.

It's bad but I can't figure out why anyone really cares. They will probably force him into the lineup to show the league he isn't as bad as last year, and if is, they'll taper minutes off. They aren't competing legitimately anyway. If he can show any value, he becomes a trade candidate, but it was clearly a handshake deal with a powerful agency. I'm honestly more interested in next season than I have been in some time. Haven't considered them real contenders for years, just NBA purgatory. I'll probably watch 75% of the games now that they're free.

what exactly makes it "such a stupid sport" any more than any other sport? What about its culture is disgusting relative to hockey, football, basketball or baseball? That you can play it anywhere with just a ball?

Nobody would pay for a service to watch the Bucks next season. And I don't even think they're going to be that bad, but there would be no way to market that this offseason given what's happened. This is a very smart thing for them to do.

I think this thread is proof of what actually ails American soccer and it's a topic Landon Donovan has touched on before. I have been coaching youth soccer here for a decade + but guys who watch every 4 years can diagnose the "real problem" and know it better than I do. The issue is that this thesis is common water cooler talk but it falls apart upon any critical thinking. "There isn't pick-up soccer in the US, the kids overseas learn from the street!" There is pick-up soccer in the US, my kids play it every week. The best players in the world are boarded in elite academies learning technique when they are 6. They are not grabbing Yamal from a street game when he's 12. And he's not playing 4 sports. To be clear I encourage kids to play multiple sports and put the soccer ball down for a season (can do 20 minutes of dribbling or whatever, but don't have to be playing) "It's just not a big deal in the US." It isn't the most popular sport...except it is in youth. And we have more kids playing than ever before. With better (not the best, but better) coaching opportunities. Better facilities...and yet...we're not getting better. "It's pay to play" This one is closer than the others, but all our sports are pay to play. And to be honest, I don't know of a single youth club that won't absorb the fee or work something out for a special kid. The real, actual issues I've come across are here, in no particular order: Specialization in a position too early due to an emphasis on winning youth games. All kids should be positionally rotated through age 12. The number of "defenders" on a U9 team is insane. You have to do it all to be a strong player. Aaron Rodgers doesn't have to throw 25% of his touchdowns with his left hand. In soccer you need to be able to use your other foot. Kids grow and change and when your cender mid turns 15 and suddenly isn't that fast, that's a problem because he doesn't want to go anywhere else and doesn't know how to play. But we need to beat Brown Deer this weekend so Ralph needs to play CM for 45 minutes. Running down the field faster than everyone works in American youth soccer. Those kids completely flame out when they have to have ball skills to succeed. Parents interjecting in development This one takes many forms. Can't count the number of times a Dad has asked me why Jonny is playing defense. "He's not a strong defender." Nope, he's not. That's why he's there. Or intervening to get their kids on teams with friends that they should not be on. Clubs usually cave to them. This is where pay to play actually hurts, not in the conventional way you'd think. Clubs don't want to lose registrations so the parents are actually running the clubs. If I want to teach 12 kids the Cryuff, I need 12 kids with the coordination to do it. If 4 just aren't there, I can't spend 1/4 of practice doing that. It's a waste of time for the 4 who aren't ready and the other 8 get bored. I'll coach those other 4 kids, but I need 12 of them then so I can develop training that's appropriate for where they are. Coaching has tons of red tape You don't have to have been a high level player to be an excellent coach, but we have all kinds of red tape to coach after rec that our other sports don't require. We lose coaches who don't have time or desire to get professional licenses, attend grassroots sessions etc., that are frankly a pain in the butt and provide little to no value when most of the best information is available free online.

Ehhhhh, yes and no. The data strongly suggests otherwise. If you don't have strong foundational foot skills by 14, you're not learning them. If you are playing rec soccer a few months a year and doing other sports, odds are very high you're not getting exposed to that level of training, you just have a well-intentioned Dad doing what he can to beat the neighboring town. You can definitely play 3 or 4 sports and have those foot skills, but soccer is going to be much, much, more difficult to get really into at 14 and be elite than something like American football, where your success is hugely determined by post-puberty growth and the technique basics can be learned in a season. It would be more akin to something like wrestling that has a very high technique demand and can't just be picked up at 16 for 99% of people. The technical requirements of elite soccer are simply too high not to specialize fairly young. You can watch just about any NFL game and see a good, starting player with poor tackling technique skirting by on speed or aggression. Not a chance you'd see something like that in the EPL. Getting the 7 /yos into academies absolutely matters, just not for the majority of kids. A ton of the great players in the world do exactly that. If we're talking about making good high school players, then sure, if we're talking about the best of the best, then yeah, unfortunately, they really do have to specialize in soccer early due to the extremely high technical requirements, The norm for the greats is that they are scouted by 9 and in those academies. 6 and 7 are normal ages for that to happen. The vast, vast majority are in fact in said academies between 5 and 8. Several players on the USMNT are birthright citizens or the children of servicemen who grew up in Europe going to those schools. The gap between Barcelona Youth and anything in the USA is staggering. Lamine Yamal's youth games are on YouTube. His team at 10U is more technically sound than any high school-aged team I've ever seen in this country. So, my TLDR is that for most kids moving on to office careers, who want to play college soccer, specializing doesn't need to happen. But if the goal is getting US Soccer competitive in Europe, then our best 50 kids should be in those academies.

As a whole, the US hosting experience has gone a lot better than I envisioned. The atmosphere at that game, as bad as it was, was incredible. I am already bummed there's no game today and the teams are dwindling. I think this is the best sporting event there is, and I can't wait for the next one. Four years is just too long.

Idk. Hard for me to feel bad for anyone giving up 3 goals in 15 minutes. Can't do that and blame refs.

Yeah, this illustrates the problem almost exactly. Starts at age 13 and is geared entirely towards getting your kid an athletic scholarship to play college soccer, not funnel to the USMNT exclusively. La Masia is taking 7 year olds who they find, there is no "applying." In these powerhouse soccer countries, everything funnels to the national team. Everything.

I think that's sort of myth. All these top guys overseas are plucked into elite academies at very young ages. Even the best Americans are. The old wives tale that they're learning on the streets of little towns is just not what's happening. Messi was undersized at 11 so Barca paid to relocate him to Spain and pay for his HGH treatments. Plus, all these sports that America is great at have the same club situation going on. Bigger factor honestly is just losing our best athletes to those other sports. If anything, honestly, I'd say the opposite is more the issue. In the US it is extremely accessible but you're coached by someone's dad until you're 13. France, Spain, Germany, England? The best kids are getting academy training at 6. By 10 they don't even really go to school. They board at a football academy.