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2021-22-23-24 News Thread

For the first time since 2008, the US is in the Olympic Men’s Soccer tournament. While the tournament is still limited to U-23 teams, CONCACAF is sending U-20 teams. The US beat Honduras in the semifinals of the CONCACAF qualifying tournament to qualify. The other team from CONCACAF is the Dominican Republic.
 
andyt said:
For the first time since 2008, the US is in the Olympic Men’s Soccer tournament. While the tournament is still limited to U-23 teams, CONCACAF is sending U-20 teams. The US beat Honduras in the semifinals of the CONCACAF qualifying tournament to qualify. The other team from CONCACAF is the Dominican Republic.
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Mexico suffered the indignity of crashing out of the Olympics on a loss to freaking Guatemala. Ouch.
 
City Football Group have purchased their 12th team, Palermo in Italy’s Serie B. They’re a “Phoenix” club, having gone bankrupt in 2019 and starting from Serie D but rising quickly and winning the promotion playoff to Serie B. City’s ownership stake is 80%, former owner Dario Mirri retained a 20% stake and remains club president and chairman.
 
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were acquitted of corruption charges by a Swiss court.

 
andyt said:
Wayne Rooney headed to DC United as head coach.
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Weird move. Not that he can't coach/manage, because he seems surprisingly good at that. But when he left DC as a player, it was widely reported that his family hated it there. Maybe that was off base or over blown. Who knows? DC's roster is still a dumpster fire, no matter who's manning the white board. Seems to me that they'd be better off spending money on player personnel staff before throwing big bucks at a celebrity coach.
 
CONCACAF W Tournament wrapped up in Mexico last night. Here's hoping the Mexican Federation puts a little more effort into hosting the freaking World Cup in 4 years. They apparently barely bothered to seek sponsorship and spent next to nothing on promotion ... pretty much treating the CONCACAF Women's championships like some sort of low key summer invitational. How Mexico continue to get away with the nonsense their federation gets up to is beyond me.

Oh well ... the US churned in their next generation of talent and swept to the tournament win with a 1-0 defeat of Canada. Jamaica nipped Costa Rica 1-0 in all the extra time to nail down 3rd Place. The Americans and Canadians remain far, far ahead of the rest of the region, but quality depth is starting to emerge in fits and spurts. The US gained automatic qualification to both the World Cup and the Olympics, while Canada, Costa Rica and Jamaica also qualified for the World Cup. Jamaica and Canada will play a playoff round in the fall to settle the second automatic Olympics spot.

For the US, finishing remained the only real issue as they generated chance after chance throughout the tournament but struggled to put the ball in the back of the net. With some many relative newcomers playing key roles up front ... only Alex Morgan played serious minutes among the remaining attacking vets, while Rapinoe sprinkled in as a late sub ... that's to be expected. Sophia Smith and Mal Pugh drove play all tourney long and you have to figure the conversion rate will improve with exposure. Purce and Rodman were electric off the bench and Ashley Sanchez looks like a solid attacking deputy in midfield. Of the fresh-ish faces, only Ashely Hatch struggled and she ended up going home with an injury. Also, the US was missing their most technical young forward as Cat Maccarrio is out injured. They finally addressed a persistent utilization weakness from past years by actually playing two goaltenders. Naeher remains the No 1 when the chips are down, but Casey Murphy actually saw more minutes in the tournament. Andi Sullivan, Emily Fox and Sofia Huerta also nailed down their roles as full timers, and the young central defenders (Girma and Scott) were great. The US conceded not a single goal, and very few chances. All in all, a solid showing for the US as they get serious about the WC in a year. Hopefully they can get some better friendly competition in upcoming windows after pandemic conditions limited them to largely regional foes since Tokyo. Bottom line ... it's a work in progress, but the kids are alright.
 
Finishing was my biggest concern. Because that game last night should have 3 or 4-0. The good news is that Andonovski has a year to figure it all out, and he’ll get pieces back. Macario with her ACL, Sam Mewis with her knee injury, Ertz and Dunn from maternity leave. But Sonnett didn’t look out of place at left back and Huerta probably gave O’Hara the final shove out the door at right back. I though Naomi Girma was good partnering Saurbrunn in the back too; between her and Fox, they finally have someone to replace Dahlkamper. The kids are indeed alright.
 
I mean, having watched Pugh and Smith all season in NWSL, I have zero doubts that they'll start knocking in those chances as they settle into their roles. It's a lot of pressure to play up to the USWNT's standards when you're used to coming off the bench in Pugh's case ... or are barely above drinking age in Smith's case. They'll grow into the roles. The talent is 100% there. Rodman has a lot of room to grow as well, and is also ridiculously talented. If there's an issue up front, it's probably at the No. 9. Hatch has just never been convincing with the National team and Maccarrio ends up turning it into more of a false 9 scenario when she plays centrally. Morgan is probably OK for some sort of role through the next WC, but you'd love to see somebody else step up. None of the other younger strikers have shown much at international level and most of the vets who have been out with injury are also primarily wingers. It's prolly going to end up being Maccarrio, Morgan and Hatch and of those three Hatch is the only one who offers even the hint of an aerial threat.

It's a pool with all kinds of midfield and wing talent, but they could really use a banger in the middle. Sounds a lot like another national team that wears very similar jerseys.
 
England take home the Women's Euros at Wembley with a 2-1 win over Germany ... with the winner coming deep, deep into the extra sessions. Chloe Kelly got the winner with a kung fu kick reaction shot off a pinballed rebound in traffic and promptly went with a cross between Brandi Chastain and Petey Pablo on the celebration. They packed 87K into Wembley for this one, which is a pretty loud statement in a country that has been more than a little reluctant to support the women's game down the years. Shame that German scoring machine Alexandra Popp was hurt during warmups and had to miss the contest. It was high level stuff and a heck of a fun game to watch. UEFA's growing depth in the women's field is impressive ... and kind of inevitable now that the federations have been effectively shamed into pouring some resources into the distaff side of the game. Maybe one day South America (outside of Brazil) will get the message.
 
jeffbear said:
England take home the Women's Euros at Wembley with a 2-1 win over Germany ... with the winner coming deep, deep into the extra sessions. Chloe Kelly got the winner with a kung fu kick reaction shot off a pinballed rebound in traffic and promptly went with a cross between Brandi Chastain and Petey Pablo on the celebration. They packed 87K into Wembley for this one, which is a pretty loud statement in a country that has been more than a little reluctant to support the women's game down the years. Shame that German scoring machine Alexandra Popp was hurt during warmups and had to miss the contest. It was high level stuff and a heck of a fun game to watch. UEFA's growing depth in the women's field is impressive ... and kind of inevitable now that the federations have been effectively shamed into pouring some resources into the distaff side of the game. Maybe one day South America (outside of Brazil) will get the message.
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The 3 biggest crowds in Europe this year have been for women’s games. Barca had 91+k for Women's UCL matches against Real Madrid and Wolfsburg. The FA and Carabao Cup finals at Wembley were each just under 87k.
 
I seem to recall that there was some conversation a few pages back about NBC's EPL coverage and over the weekend Rebecca Lowe announced on her socials that she was re-upping with NBC through the 2027-28 season and will continue to be a part of their Olympic coverage team. Not sure about the other studio roles, but I don't think many of those contracts were up for renewal this year. Sop it should be much the same crew as we've gotten used to on the NBC family of networks, which is good. I can't imagine weekend mornings with the Prem without Lowe being even half as good as they are with her.
 
jeffbear said:
I seem to recall that there was some conversation a few pages back about NBC's EPL coverage and over the weekend Rebecca Lowe announced on her socials that she was re-upping with NBC through the 2027-28 season and will continue to be a part of their Olympic coverage team. Not sure about the other studio roles, but I don't think many of those contracts were up for renewal this year. Sop it should be much the same crew as we've gotten used to on the NBC family of networks, which is good. I can't imagine weekend mornings with the Prem without Lowe being even half as good as they are with her.
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NBC found a unicorn when they hired Lowe. As for the rest of the studio crew, I think you’re right, no changes, so a rotating cast of the 2 Robbies, Tim Howard and Danny Higgenbotham.

With Peter Drury replacing Arlo White as the lead play by play voice, it will be interesting to see who gets the early match. Most often, it was Drury with Jim Beglin but IIRC, Jim Proudfoot called some of those too.
 
Habsy said:
I don't watch either.

Sport just doesn't do it for me
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You don't have to watch ... so long as you don't crap all over it because you choose to not watch. Pretty low bar, I know. You'd be surprised how many people trip over it.
 
andyt said:
NBC found a unicorn when they hired Lowe. As for the rest of the studio crew, I think you’re right, no changes, so a rotating cast of the 2 Robbies, Tim Howard and Danny Higgenbotham.

With Peter Drury replacing Arlo White as the lead play by play voice, it will be interesting to see who gets the early match. Most often, it was Drury with Jim Beglin but IIRC, Jim Proudfoot called some of those too.
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Drury is the only one they really put any effort into talking about this summer so I'd assume it will be him. Honestly, I'd just like them to pick one for the early match and stick with it. That was people can get used to the rotation. Do that and folks will quit bitching about Arlo being gone soon enough.
 
jeffbear said:
You don't have to watch ... so long as you don't crap all over it because you choose to not watch. Pretty low bar, I know. You'd be surprised how many people trip over it.
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Just announced, US WNT v. England at Wembley on October 7, assuming England qualifies for the World Cup in September.
 
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