North American Pro Soccer 2021

[MJWalker45]

17 hours ago, Dilbert said:

I dont care how bad FC Cincinnati is. Ted Unkel is a disgrace to soccer officiating.

But you didn't blow a 3-1 halftime lead! #Austinfail

[Dilbert]

Hard to blow a 3-1 halftime lead when the officiating doesnt even let you get that far..

 

Honestly when it comes to Jaap Stam, more likely than not he is gone after the season. He should have been gone a long time ago. Are the players making mistakes? Yes. But  when its the officials making mistakes he is instead blaming his own players and throwing them under the bus. Jaap has made a lot of mistakes but refuses to own up to them, again blaming the players. A lot of the mistakes last night was on bad officiating and Jaap did absolutely nothing.  If Lou Pinella was our coach he would have been all over the officials like a NYC rat on pizza. The players have been playing for pride for a while now, but its hard to be proud when you have a lame duck coach who doesnt stand up and support you.

 

Stam is by far the worst coach I have ever seen in any sport. He finally rotated the squad last Wednesday. Something he should have done a long time ago. He doesnt utilize his subs and when he does its too late in the game for anything significant to happen. Sure are players dont have depth but when you are only playing for pride its better to rotate and sub to avoid injury, exhaustion, fatigue, and cramping. When we played New England a while back Bruce Arena said at halftime that our team looks tired.  At this point Im starting to think that Attanga and Barreal took the reds just so they can actually get some rest and force Stam to rotate.

 

I know the front office will likely keep to Stam to the end of his contract at the end of the season and let the incoming GM hire new but Stam needs to just leave now. The fans are the only one being critical about him. Its time that the front office, players and the media to step up and show it too.

[Digby]

Oh wow, the latest revamp of the Concacaf Champions League coming in two years includes the nugget that the Leagues Cup will become a full midseason tournament with every team in MLS and Liga MX. So there's your merger for now, I guess. 

 

https://www.si.com/soccer/2021/09/21/concacaf-ccl-format-mls-liga-mx-leagues-cup-expansion 

[Dilbert]

Looking forward to seeing FC Cincinnati lose to teams outside USA and Canada.

[Digby]

Yeah I have a lot of questions about that, specifically that as it stands the big-spender MLS clubs can't hang with Liga MX squads, what's gonna happen when we throw in the lower-tier clubs? Besides making it so that every MLS market gets to sell a lot of tickets to local Mexico fans, anyway. I do like soccer's precedent for side quest tournaments like this, so that's kind of fun. But MLS will need to work on roster development, spending and scheduling for this to not be farcical.

 

In other news, Kansas City NWSL is playing at SKC's stadium next year, which is great. If memory serves, rumor was SKC refusing to even play ball on that front is partially what doomed the previous KC franchise.

[MJWalker45]

19 hours ago, Digby said:

Oh wow, the latest revamp of the Concacaf Champions League coming in two years includes the nugget that the Leagues Cup will become a full midseason tournament with every team in MLS and Liga MX. So there's your merger for now, I guess. 

 

https://www.si.com/soccer/2021/09/21/concacaf-ccl-format-mls-liga-mx-leagues-cup-expansion 

I'm not a fan of expending this a little, so expanding it to this monstrosity is even more annoying. But at least they are taking a break to play these games instead of having this minced out into the schedule. 

[BrySmalls]

I like the revamping of the Leagues Cup. It's the ultimate domestic litmus test for MLS. I hope that Liga MX doesn't dominate it as they have with other cross-league competitions.

[MJWalker45]

https://www.espn.com/soccer/usl-championship/story/4480136/usl-announces-new-professional-womens-soccer-league-usl-super-league

USL will be starting up a new women's soccer league. It will sit below the NWSL. 

[-kj]

That's on top of the USL W League (re-)starting in 2022.  Seems weird, but that's USL.

[MJWalker45]

16 minutes ago, -kj said:

That's on top of the USL W League (re-)starting in 2022.  Seems weird, but that's USL.

They said 15 teams have bought in but didn't list any. So I'm guessing that USL W League will become the USL WSL and then other teams will fill in the rest of the spots. 

[Digby]

I thought W League was meant to be amateur or semi-pro teams, so the men's/women's pyramid analogues would be:

 

MLS | NWSL

USL Championship | Super League

USL League Two | W League 

 

But no equivalent to League One. OR maybe W League takes the League One-type position but with League Two professionalism rules, if WPSL is also still around for the amateur clubs. Either way I think these are both efforts by USL to kind of wrangle the minor leagues for the women's game the way they did for the men's.

[MJWalker45]

22 hours ago, Digby said:

I thought W League was meant to be amateur or semi-pro teams, so the men's/women's pyramid analogues would be:

 

MLS | NWSL

USL Championship | Super League

USL League Two | W League 

 

But no equivalent to League One. OR maybe W League takes the League One-type position but with League Two professionalism rules, if WPSL is also still around for the amateur clubs. Either way I think these are both efforts by USL to kind of wrangle the minor leagues for the women's game the way they did for the men's.

Doesn't NISA have a women's league, too? I'm guessing even if they do it's run the same as the men's league which means not very well. 

[Dilbert]

While most teams play for a chance at the MLS Cup, my club plays for a different trophy and the race is hot right now between FC Cincinnati, Toronto FC and Austin FC for the Anthony Precourt Memorial Wooden Spoon. Next week FCC heads to Toronto with a one point lead over Toronto and Austin.  A pivotal match for the season on the line.

[Digby]

Would be poetic for Austin to win/lose it. Credit to Austin fans for proving the doubters like me wrong, but I’m also glad their team sucks.

[Dilbert]

Would be just as poetic to win the wooden spoon in their first season named after the man who created them

[GDAWG]

So in order to stroke his ego even further, Frat Boy Precourt gets his own trophy in MLS......that doesn't surprise me.  

[Dilbert]

well its not an official MLS trophy but sure, why not. It is awarded each year by the Independent Supporters Councils.  Beginning with the 2015 season an actual trophy was made and was named after Anthony Precourt in 2017 when the whole Columbus fiasco was taking place. San Jose has the most wooden spoons since MLS began in 1996, however Chicago has the most since the trophy itself was made. The ISC decided not to award the trophy in 2020 due to the pandemic shortened and geographic based season.

 

[Sport]

On 9/19/2021 at 6:13 PM, Dilbert said:

Hard to blow a 3-1 halftime lead when the officiating doesnt even let you get that far..

 

Honestly when it comes to Jaap Stam, more likely than not he is gone after the season. He should have been gone a long time ago. Are the players making mistakes? Yes. But  when its the officials making mistakes he is instead blaming his own players and throwing them under the bus. Jaap has made a lot of mistakes but refuses to own up to them, again blaming the players. A lot of the mistakes last night was on bad officiating and Jaap did absolutely nothing.  If Lou Pinella was our coach he would have been all over the officials like a NYC rat on pizza. The players have been playing for pride for a while now, but its hard to be proud when you have a lame duck coach who doesnt stand up and support you.

 

Stam is by far the worst coach I have ever seen in any sport. He finally rotated the squad last Wednesday. Something he should have done a long time ago. He doesnt utilize his subs and when he does its too late in the game for anything significant to happen. Sure are players dont have depth but when you are only playing for pride its better to rotate and sub to avoid injury, exhaustion, fatigue, and cramping. When we played New England a while back Bruce Arena said at halftime that our team looks tired.  At this point Im starting to think that Attanga and Barreal took the reds just so they can actually get some rest and force Stam to rotate.

 

I know the front office will likely keep to Stam to the end of his contract at the end of the season and let the incoming GM hire new but Stam needs to just leave now. The fans are the only one being critical about him. Its time that the front office, players and the media to step up and show it too.

 

And he's gone. 

[Dilbert]

YES! FC Cincinnati finally dumped Jaap Stam to the curb but its too little too late.  He was gonna be gone at the end of the season anyway with a new GM coming in and his contract ending . Two assistants, including former two time interim coach Yoann Damet were also let go. Yes Stam was part of the issue but he wasnt the only issue for the team. The GM was another issue. He left a few weeks back. My issue right now is the front office.

 

This team has existed for six seasons now between USL and MLS play. We've had 6 head coaches at 7 times throughout our 6 season existence.  John Harkes lasted a full season before he was suddenly let go just days before the second season opener in favor of Alan Koch. Koch coached the final two USL seasons plus part of the first MLS season before he was let go. He was replaced with interim coach Yoann Damet for much of the season until we hired Ron Jans who lasted just the remainder of the season. He was let go amid a racial scandel during preseason training for MLS year two. Damet returned to interim status for a couple games before the season paused for the pandemic. At that time we hire Jaap Stam lasting most of the past two MLS seasons. Now we have interim coach Tyrone Marshall who is our U-19 coach until our next head coach is named.

 

When you have had this many coaches in this short amount of time, this lies on the front office, particularly with Jeff Berding.  The man has no business for running a soccer club, let alone in hiring personel for the team.

Coach Stam needed to go. GM Gerrard Nijkamp needed to go. In my opinion two more need to go. That would be GK coach Jack Stern and President Jeff Berding.

[Sport]

18 hours ago, Dilbert said:

When you have had this many coaches in this short amount of time, this lies on the front office, particularly with Jeff Berding.  The man has no business for running a soccer club, let alone in hiring personel for the team.

Coach Stam needed to go. GM Gerrard Nijkamp needed to go. In my opinion two more need to go. That would be GK coach Jack Stern and President Jeff Berding.

 

I once gave my seat at The Precinct bar to Jeff Berding (not to brag). Jeff Berding did an admirable job getting the club off the ground and overseeing the run to MLS. Where they are now in MLS in a beautiful new stadium exceeds anyone's wildest dreams from when the USL team was announced in late 2015, but how long can he coast off of that? He clearly doesn't know what he's doing in regards to fielding a team that, forget MLS cup contention, can even contend for the playoffs. They've never been close to the playoffs and winning games consistently is all that matters for getting people to show up to games at this level. Yeah the stadium's cool, but now that I've seen it a few times I'm not gonna pay good money just to walk around it if I only have a 1 in 10 chance of seeing a victory. Patience is gone. 

 

They've tried a lot of things, but haven't tried hiring soccer guys who know MLS, which seems like it's a different animal entirely to other leagues around the world. It's not just FCC, either. Other teams have tried bringing in non-MLS names and those teams have struggled as well. To FCC and Berding/Lindner's credit their problem is not because they haven't tried to spend money and their training facilities rival Premier League teams, but they need an actual MLS person making the soccer decisions now. They need a coach who knows how to maneuver players in specifically MLS. I do believe if they ever light this candle it could be a top franchise in the league. They have everything you need except good decision makers.