Old School Shorts
SOCCER SHORTS: quick, random thoughts from Futbol Insider:
- Olympics Win Out: Kudos to FIFA for ruling that clubs must allow the likes of Messi to play in the Olympics. Would much rather see Messi playing in Beijing than in some fabricated pre-season tour. Sorry Fire fans, but Messi should be in Beijing this summer, not Chicago.
- Rise of American Strikers: Seems like the U.S. is finally starting to develop quality, or at least promising, strikers. Beyond the obvious choice of Jozy Altidore, players like Kenny Cooper, Edson Buddle, Charlie Davies, and Robbie Findley, to name a few, are displaying the type of talent and confidence rarely seen among US forwards.
- US Olympic Team: Speaking of the Olympics, will be interesting to see how well the US fares. While the US drew a tough group (Holland, Nigeria, Japan), it now has the type of talent to beat all 3 opponents. It will also serve as a good opportunity to see how the likely future core of the US senior side (Altidore, Adu, Edu, Bradley, Rogers, Feilhaber) performs against elite competition.
- SuperLiga: Though only 2 years old, Futbol Insider believes SuperLiga has been a huge success. Yes, the MLS Players Union may have some legitimate gripe with how the prize money is distributed. Still, the exposure and respect earned by MLS among the all-important Hispanic market by squaring up and beating Mexico’s best is priceless.
- CONCACAF Champions League: Should be interesting to see how well this new format performs. Indeed the new slogan “24 Champions – 1 Winner” is catchy. But the reality is beyond the Mexican and US clubs (and the occasional Honduran and Costa Rican team), the rest of CONCACAF is really diluted. While long-term it probably makes sense to make the tournament more inclusive, I prefer the SuperLiga short-term. Ultimately, if it achieves even a fraction of the success of the other Champions League, it will be a huge success.
- USSF Development Academy: Kudos to Carmel United and Baltimore Bays for winning the U15/16 and U17/18 titles at the HDC. The Academy system is certainly a step in the right direction and something many of us who suffered through the ODP system wished we had back in our day. That being said, there remain lots of unanswered questions. Who owns a player’s pass? The Academy team? USSF? And are the players not on an MLS affiliate team able to negotiate with any MLS team? No doubt we will get answers to these questions once the next Jozy Altidore comes through the Academy system. That being said, the quality of play is getting better each year. Just watch some of the cutbacks made by Chris Agorsor from the Baltimore Bays. Kid breaks ankles.
- USSF Videos: Speaking of the USSF, I do commend their media people for producing some wonderful behind the scene videos. I would strongly encourage you to check out their video library. One suggestion, however, would be to make the videos appear in full screen mode. Too much straining on these rapidly aging eyes.
