The [Horribly Unpopular] Soccer Thread

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hoppyhoppyhippo said:
Miazga didn't extend his Red Bulls contract and has several teams looking for him. Including Chelsea, Stoke, and Leicester.

So as I understand it Miazga can easily go to Europe and has his polish passport so he's good to go. I hope it's not Chelsea.

As far as Hamid it's more speculation on what would be the best thing for him
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Miazga declined to extend his contract (with a big pay raise), but he is still under contract with the NYRB, so any European teams wanting to pick him up will have to pay a transfer fee. That said, it seems pretty likely he won't be around past the 2016 season, barring a huge drop in form, it's possible a summer transfer could be in the works, but why pay a transfer fee for a young prospect when you can get him free in a year?
 
Talgrath said:
Miazga declined to extend his contract (with a big pay raise), but he is still under contract with the NYRB, so any European teams wanting to pick him up will have to pay a transfer fee. That said, it seems pretty likely he won't be around past the 2016 season, barring a huge drop in form, it's possible a summer transfer could be in the works, but why pay a transfer fee for a young prospect when you can get him free in a year?
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WEll I think the idea would be if Stoke wanted him, they could pay a fee to insure that Chelsea doesn't come knocking on the door when he's a FA. Would only cost them a few million and could be a worthwhile gamble if you think Miazga can be an impact player.
 
Grannyknot said:
I think the holiday fixture congestion will probably prove to be Leicester's downfall. They have rotated very little and will probably start to get overworked and pick up injuries. We saw drinkwater pull his hammy last night. The way those players press for 90 mins, more muscle injuries will come.

As for the transfer window, i see mahrez being a hotter prospect than Vardy.
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I'm hoping Leicester does much better, but I keep thinking about West Ham last year.

West Ham was in 3rd place last December, and that was it for them. They finished so poorly Allardyce got the chop at the end.
 
I wish Chelsea would dump Diego Costa and Mourinho, and bring in Ted Lasso. Leicester has done an amazing job since hiring him. Probably EPL manager of the year.
 
hoppyhoppyhippo said:
WEll I think the idea would be if Stoke wanted him, they could pay a fee to insure that Chelsea doesn't come knocking on the door when he's a FA. Would only cost them a few million and could be a worthwhile gamble if you think Miazga can be an impact player.
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Certainly a possibility, as is the idea of him heading to Europe this winter, his fee wouldn't be that large and for the right price NYRB will let him go, no matter how much they like him.
 
jspain3 said:
I wish Chelsea would dump Diego Costa and Mourinho, and bring in Ted Lasso. Leicester has done an amazing job since hiring him. Probably EPL manager of the year.
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Costa was just a matter of time. PLayers that grating can only last so long before they annoy their own fans and get a negative rep.

Chelsea IMO is suffering from Mourinho overplaying his players last year. Also the other issue is John Terry. He's sucked this year. I think he's finally cooked.
 
So the Abby Wambach farewell tour is over. SHe is arguably the best woman to play on the pitch. But I won't really miss her myself. Don't get me wrong, she is a legend, but she is also a healthy amount of a baby. Grumblings were around her being part of getting a coach to leave.

Glad she got a proper send off, glad there wasn't only 10,000 fans there. But overall I'm excited to see where the next batch goes. I don't think Jill Ellis will be the one to get them there. She showed a lack of creative flair to get the team out of a funk in the World CUp and basically Carly Lloyd bailed the team out by putting thme on her back and scoring seemingly every goal in the knockout stages.

Heading into a new era, none of the women up top are targets. Wambach was able to stay effective when she started sucking (and she's sucked for over a year at this point) because of her size advantage, there aren't many 5'11 women on the field. I think what will probably benefit the USWNT is to go to a 4-3-3 with a false 9. The idea being no one player is at the top to target, everyone is expected to drop back and help with build up.

What I imagine the best lineup for them to head into the Olympics is

GK - Solo
RB - Krieger
CB - Johnson
CB - Sauerbrunn
LB - Klingenberg
RM - Lloyd
CM - Brian
LM - Rapinoe
LW - Press
ST - Morgan
RW - Heath/Dunn

So the downfall to that team is not really any defensive mids. The upside is the back 4 is really solid and don't need to get too far forward. Other issue ofr the USWNT is so many attacking players, doesn't account for LeRoux, Rodriguez Horan, or McCaffrey.

Last I don't know at all what to do with Tobin Heath if I'm the coach. She's got skill, and an engine that's second to none. But she way too often gets caught trying to take on the defense when she has no business and would be better off passing back and resetting. Rapinoe has the same problem. Incredibly talented player but she too often holds the ball at her feet when a pass or a cross would be better and I've seen many crosses from her get blocked because she hesitated. I think what gets some women in the game is they're used to playing inferior opponents, that when they play equals, they keep trying the same bag of tricks to no avail.
 
hoppyhoppyhippo said:
Costa was just a matter of time. PLayers that grating can only last so long before they annoy their own fans and get a negative rep.

Chelsea IMO is suffering from Mourinho overplaying his players last year. Also the other issue is John Terry. He's sucked this year. I think he's finally cooked.
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Chelsea are suffering from their manager being a grade A see you next tuesday.
 
In case you missed it, Abby Wambach's recent interview with Bill Simmons on his podcast had a little bombshell in it, she thinks Jurgen Klinsmann is using "too many foreign guys" and should be fired because of it, you can find more info on it here: http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/14381681/abby-wambach-blasts-jurgen-klinsmann-use-foreign-guys

I find the comments amusing on multiple levels, not the least of which is that she seems to have no problem with her "foreign" teammate Sydney Leroux. Wambach states the US hasn't gone far enough in revamping its youth system, and to a certain extent I do agree with that, but the idea that somehow we have a stable of American born Americans ready to go and win games is incorrect; hell, the kids that started in the program in Klinsmann's tenure wouldn't even be 18 yet. For the US women's team the pipeline to the top of the game through the youth system works quite well because where the womens' game is at right now, an NCAA female soccer player has received some of the best training for their gender in the world, there's no need to rely on foreign talent. For the USMNT however, the talent level is much higher at the international level and we simply aren't there yet, not only that but pretty much every single international team uses foreign born players if they're good enough and motivated. Wambach's comments also reflect a particular belief among some US fans that somehow these "mercenary foreigners" just don't have their hearts in it, a laughable bit of discrimination on their part; one of the funniest comments I ever read was an individual complaining about foreigners like Gyasi Zardes and Deandre Yedlin. It isn't like Klinsmann is the first to use foreign-born talent, Tab Ramos is one of the most famous and successful USMNT players of all time and he was born in Uruquay. The idea that somehow you must reach a certain level of "Americaness" to play for the national team is quite frankly, stupid, it's not like we're tracking down guys via their grandparents for eligibility after all, these players have at least one American parent and just happened to grow up or spend a lot of time in a foreign country; and there is nothing more American than the idea of coming to America from distant shores and making it big. But maybe Wambach is right, after all, it's not like a foreign born player ever helped his country win anything of signifi-

1405342454850_wps_7_RIO_DE_JANEIRO_BRAZIL_JUL.jpg


Oh.
 
Talgrath said:
In case you missed it, Abby Wambach's recent interview with Bill Simmons on his podcast had a little bombshell in it, she thinks Jurgen Klinsmann is using "too many foreign guys" and should be fired because of it, you can find more info on it here:/QUOTE]

I don't want to quote your whole article. I found the reasoning to be dumb. Seems to me like she's basically accusing Klinsmann of foreign favoritism. ANd I don't see that at all. In fact he's kidn of rejected a few dual nationals who had senior team experience like Feilhaber, Williams, and Boyd. He's looking for the right guys and if they are dual nationals, who cares. It's also something that has been done by the USMNT for ages.

Bob Bradley brought in some dual nationals like Jones, Diskerud, Feilhaber, Holden, Torres, and others I know I'm forgetting, Arena utilized players like Mastroni, Agoos, and Sanneh and others I'm sure as well.

Being a dual national doesn't make you better or worse.

2 players I know have responded on this, first a pretty vulnerable response from Mix

https://www.instagram.com/p/_Z4ChQk1t0/

Second an idiotic response from Landycakes.

http://sbisoccer.com/2015/12/donovan-offers-supportive-take-on-wambachs-dual-nationals-comments

First off, **** him. Jermaine Jones cares as much about USMNT success as the next guy. That's why he's not hanging the boots up and still busts his ass day in and day out. Aside from maybe the young guys, I dont' think anyone was taking the world cup for granted or some **** like that.

No player that I can think of has done more damage to my opinion of them in retirement than Landon Donovan. Heck only one I think of historically would be OJ. Donovan has become such a whiny baby in retirement.
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Jose sacked. Didn't see that one coming. ManYoo should drop VG now and make a go at getting Jose. That would be the coup of the century!
 
hoppyhoppyhippo said:
Was it you who had the really long post about Jurgen becoming just a TD and having Jose coach?
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I posted up an article about it from a website a while back, yeah; I thought it was wildly speculative both then and now; I don't think there's realistically any chance of Mourinho coaching team USA, but I could be wrong. On paper, at least, this could be a very good combination, Mourinho seems to do well in maximizing the talent at his disposal so if you hand him a team and say "see what you can do", he does well; where he fails is in buying and selling talent which is something coaches are expected to do in Europe, that's why everything falls apart about around year 3 (doesn't help that he's kind of a jackass too). With a national team Mourinho has no choice in the matter, he has who he has and that's all he'll get unless a new recruit is acquired from another country. So if you have Mourinho coaching, Klinsmann as full time technical director could focus on recruitment, something he is very good at, in no small part due to his legendary status as a player. Together Mourinho and Klinsmann could make an absolutely killer team.

The problem, of course, is that Mourinho likes money and fame; the fame is still there as USMNT coach but the money isn't. Mourinho's salary is approximately $20 million at current conversion rates, the USMNT is paying Klinsmann about 1/10th of that as both coach and technical director. The only way I see Mourinho coaching any national team, much less team USA, is if he's burned so many bridges at the club level that no one wants to hire him and he needs a way to get back into people's good graces.
 
Landon Donovan has always been an *******, it's just now that he has nothing to do but talk that other people are realizing this.
 
Talgrath said:
Landon Donovan has always been an *******, it's just now that he has nothing to do but talk that other people are realizing this.
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+1 "Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln
 
Grannyknot said:
"I'm sorry people think i'm an *******, but I would've buried that sitter against Belgium" - Landon Donovan
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This is something that's always annoyed me. I've heard fans say it for years. Wondo is a more clinical finisher than Donovan in their club careers. Landon is obviously a better scorer, but he does it via build up. Wondo is a poacher in the truest regard, he gets in position to score, and scores. He's a poacher, he was in that position to score that goal because of his skill set. Donovan would have likely have been well behind the play because that's where he makes plays from. 3 players on the USMNT would have been in that position, Dempsey, Jozy, and Wondo. Jozy was hurt, and Dempsey was the more inside player.

And no credit was given to Thibaut Courtois who had no business being near the play but actually cut off about half the goal from Wondo. He also made an amazing save against Dempsey doing the same thing. Courtois was the reason Belgium advanced IMO. As Howard was the reason we were in the game. He was just less of the reason.
 
The Chelsea players are much better when they're not trying to get their manager fired.:fro:
 
Qhrumphf said:
A mate was saying the same thing. I suspect LVG isn't too far from the sack as well, and wouldn't be far fetched to see Mou replace him.
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Well Sir Alex was lobbying him to take the job before Abramovich blew everyone away with money. Mou also knows pressure will be much higher on him in Manchester than Chelsea as he had an extremely positive legacy at Chelsea, and a healthy majority of fans there supported him even with them facing relegation.
 
hoppyhoppyhippo said:
Well Sir Alex was lobbying him to take the job before Abramovich blew everyone away with money. Mou also knows pressure will be much higher on him in Manchester than Chelsea as he had an extremely positive legacy at Chelsea, and a healthy majority of fans there supported him even with them facing relegation.
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But I wonder if he'd be facing dressing room mutiny at Old Trafford...
 
Qhrumphf said:
But I wonder if he'd be facing dressing room mutiny at Old Trafford...
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Possibly. I bet he'd immediately get rid of a whole bunch of guys. I mean Juan Mata would be gone again I'm sure.

I personally think Pep is a better fit for United. It owuld be the 3rd team he took over after Van Gaal had laid the groundwork at the organization. Though this would be the first he took over right after LvG.
 
So Pep won't renew with Bayern (which is what everyone expected) Ancelotti is announced as their next new coach. What does this mean?

Ancelotti was the second highest ranker on Man City's odds list after Pep. If Pep goes to Chelsea or United and that's a big deal.

Chelsea's leaders are Diego Simeone and Pep according to early reports. Where I see the fault in this is SImeone could be called into Real Madrid.

I think while Chelsea and City have the money. Man U has the money and the Pedigree. For glory seekers, moving to Man U and becoming potentially another Fergie has to be tempting for Pep and Jose.
 

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