Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Because the state and its cities are a stinking cesspool of segregation and idiocy that is currently in the process of destroying the one good thing they have there (and I'm not talking about the fucking Packers). They are killing the University of Wisconsin, which has already had to cut funding because of their dumbass tax policy.

And if this policy passes, I wonder which type of students it will be used as a weapon against.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...006-story.html

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yup. It's wild fever dreams of "self defense" against....

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yeah, my college hired as President the former Chancellor of the U of W, and my impression is she was really happy to get out of dodge. I watched Mass. republican governors do the same thing to a lesser institution, UMass Amherst. Fuckers.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Mass at least has other things going for it. Wisconsin doesn't seem to realize how little it actually has.

What are we doing?
 

For those who missed it, and it would be easy to miss because you could not even watch the final and deciding world cup qualifying game for U.S. Men's Soccer without a fucking "Bein" subscription (I watched it in Spanish on NBC Universo), the U.S. will not be participating in the World Cup next summer. They had a tall task ahead of them, needing to pull off at least a draw with powerhouse Trinidad and Tobago, the double island nation of 1.3 million that was coming off a seven game losing streak in world cup qualifying action, in an away game in front of a hostile crowd of what seemed like a dozen or more T&T supporters. Actually, a loss could have gotten them through if either Honduras or Panama lost, and both were losing their games after the first half. But as the U.S. team flailed helplessly about the field, both Honduras and Panama began mounting unbelievable comebacks against Mexico and Costa Rica respectively. The US, having gone down 2-0 (!!!!!) in the first half, pulled one back with wunderkid Pulisic's second half goal, but were unable to muster much if any offense against the mighty Trinidadians and Tobagoans (?), and came close to giving up more goals on at least three occasions. When, in the 87th minute, I head the announcers scream the word Panama over and over, I knew they had scored the go-ahead goal against Costa Rica (Honduras had already rallied from a 2-0 deficit to be up 3-2 against Mexico), and I knew the window was closing. Despite a shot off the post by Dempsey which would have saved the U.S., the final minutes were as weak and pathetic as the rest of the game. The U.S. are out. Here are Taylor Twellman's thoughts on the matter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgFh729L2oA

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

yup.

Re: What are we doing?
 

We will have a world cup team. They even have a chance of winning.

Re: What are we doing?
 

We have a ban on USMNT games in our house due to very superstitious ideas that "i'll make them lose," so we didn't know until Deadspin posted Twellman's not unreasonable rant.

Burn it to the fucking ground from the top of USA Soccer on down to the players (maybe keeping Pulisec and Brooks). And stop relying on the fucking MLS to fill in the roster. Heaven forbid that AMERICAN players in Europe get called up. What happened on this run (not just last night, though really? Trinidad and Tobago?) Really???) is embarrassing and takes the sport back decades in this country.


Fucking clusterfuck.

The ONLY bright spot is that Fox spent $400 million for the next two World Cups.

Re: What are we doing?
 

Someone commented on Deadspin that this would be embarrassing for the USA if we weren't already at peak embarrassment.

Re: What are we doing?
 

Last night . . .

Me (ranting): We couldn't even tie Trinidad? It's an embarrassment!

My wife: Wait, Trump's our president, and you're embarrassed about our soccer team?

Re: What are we doing?
 

I think we should create a NAFTA Men's team.

Re: What are we doing?
 

Well, maybe Russia can argue that since we're theirs now, we can get in under the "host country gets automatic entry" tradition.

Re: What are we doing?
 

As you all know, I am not a soccer aficionado, although I have been watching a lot more soccer since my daughter took up the sport quite a few years ago now. I think I have a better appreciation for the game (the women's game is more respectable, btw, because they don't spend all their time fucking flopping like beached fish).

I watched Taylor Twellman criticize the US soccer machine. I think he's an excellent analyst and his points are well taken. But I will tell you, from my perspective, what the real problem is. (And to be fair, nothing he said and nothing I will say will be an excuse or even an explanation for why the USMNT lost to fucking Trinidad and Tobago. Jesus.)

Soccer, like many sports now, in this country is not for poor kids. You might not think that this makes any sense at all since it certainly is for everyone else, the world over. But here, what I am going to call The Great De Facto Segregation, which used to apply to mostly schools and neighborhoods, is destroying youth sports.

If your kid wants to play soccer competitively, she needs to be on a club team early on, before there is an option to play for a school, which costs money. If they show any talent and want to continue, they need to play travel, which costs money. Dues, uniforms, fees, gas money, hotels, gifts for coaches, meals away from home, team parties, skill-position extra coaching, etc. It's not cheap. And it's a year-round slog.

You may think, "Well, if they're not on a travel team, they can just play for their schools." Nope. If you want to play for a good school team (public or private--and we're obviously not talking about private schools are we?), you better have been playing travel for years before you try out or you won't get a spot. Worse yet, travel players with ambitions of a scholarship (read: 80% of players) often don't even play for their schools because all of the good coaches are connected to travel teams and playing for your school is often looked at very negatively and may be considered a step backwards. And that's if you even have the time. The better travel programs require you to choose one sport and will not tolerate you missing their practices or games when there is a conflict. So, even if you're pretty good without going to travel, you're playing with and against unskilled players and being instructed by shitty coaches.

Finally, if you're still pretty good and want to try to play at the next level, college coaches won't even see you play to recruit you. They're all at the college showcase tournaments that the travel juggernaut sets up. The relationships between travel coaches and schools run deep. And travel teams have all the talent and have been highly coached since they were little kids.

So, our best black and Latino kids don't even try to play soccer. Hell, the same thing is going on in basketball, except the love of basketball in poor communities is so strong that parents are killing themselves to pay for their kids to get on travel basketball teams. But if US soccer can't draw black and Latino athletes to soccer at a young age, they're never going to be able to compete, no matter how many billions we spend on soccer as a country. And I say this with the understanding that Germany, for example, is lilly white and is a powerhouse. That's not us.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

More attractive in some ways than the wild fever dreams of "gun control legislation," to be fair.

Re: What are we doing?
 

T&T were upset that Iceland is now the smallest country to qualify. That's who I'll be rooting for.

If you look at the US roster last night, there's this missing generation of players who should be in the prime of their careers. Yedlin is 24, and there are some younger players. There are a whole bunch who are past 30. Between them, you only had Altidore and Nagbe (27), Villafana (28) and Gonzalez (29).