A discussion has been ongoing in the socalsoccer forums the last couple of days. The topic began when UCSB lost to UCLA in the NCAA sweet 16. UCSB is known for being a very physical team. They’ve been labeled dirty, thuggish, low class, and the list goes on with fingers pointing at coach Tim Vom […]
Now This Is Beautiful Soccer!
The day US soccer starts demonstrating combination play like this, is the day we’ll graduate to the next level. How many times have you ever seen it on our National Teams or MLS? Here’s the video. (If you can’t see it, click here). This is what we should be striving for, this is what fans […]
College Soccer Freshman Honors (2009)
So conference play ended last week and the NCAA tournament has started. The All Conference teams have been announced along with Freshman of the Year accolades. Three out of the four selections we made received high recognition! Amobi Okugo Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Pac-10 Second Team All Conference * National Rookie of the season […]
The “Freshman Syndrome”
Allow me to introduce one of the many scourges in US soccer. What I like to call the “Freshman Syndrome”. A lot of high school and college coaches suffer from this idea that simply because you are a freshman, you should smell the fresh-cut grass from the bench, or not at all! Sure, in general […]
How Are The College “Top 100 Freshman” Doing?
Throughout the college season we’ve been compiling data on the so-called “top 100 freshman to watch“. With this data we hope to gain many insights into college soccer and these players. It’s one thing to declare these players to be the incoming elite, and it’s another to follow up and see what impact they had. […]
An American Soccer Player With Questions
This is a quick response to a player, jo_mclain, who commented on the article: Excuses. He says: Do you think … these many unprepared coaches in all levels, compared to brazil, argentina, spain can get us to world class consistency and possibly to a world cup final in the near future? Why do many top […]
US U-20 World Cup Performance Falls Short Due to Match Readiness?
U.S. coach Thomas Rongen, a Dutch-born veteran manager of Major League Soccer clubs, pointed to his player’s lack of game experience as the main reason for World Cup failure. His statement was: “We have a bunch of part-time players, quite frankly. Players around the world play hard games every weekend. Our players don’t,” Rongen said. […]
Report: US U-18 National Team Camp
I was at the U-18 National Team camp last Thursday at the Home Depot Center – primarily populated with 93s. They played two games, one with Arsenal (1-1), the other with Chivas USA (2-0). There were a couple big reasons for going. First, there are several players on both Arsenal and Chivas that use to […]
The Cream Isn’t Rising To The Top
I think we can all agree that the best should always get recognized and rise to the highest level. It is a basic principle that enables any country, company, team, etc to maximize their potential. In the case of a soccer team, we obviously want the best players, coach, management and staff possible. Today we’ll […]
Meet the Big West Men’s Soccer Coaches
Big West conference play opens up September 27, with UC Irvine at UC Santa Barbara. An attendance in the thousands is expected – I’ll definitely be there! The rest of the teams will have their openers on September 30. Here’s a couple of snippets on the coaches … UCSB – Tim Vom Steeg Head coach […]