The US under 17s began their quest for World Cup glory on Monday against their Spanish counterparts. It was a promising start to their dream of World Cup Glory on Nigerian soil. It is a coaches dream to start a game off and see the opposition receive a straight red within a minute of kick-off. […]
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 […]
College Soccer: Big West Soccer Preview
Here is a detailed look at the Big West League that starts up this Wednesday, September 30th. We are doing a breakdown of team tactics, coaches, formations, players to watch, and of course the inevitable predictions. Note that in college soccer, this craft is a difficult one since it’s a crap shoot and at times […]
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 […]
Work Ethic – An Ellusive Player Trait
The main things to look for in a player when scouting, with the intention to recruit, were covered in the article about elite players. Now I want to cover one of the properties that is impossible to identify solely by scouting at games. That is, WORK ETHIC A player may currently have great qualities and […]
Inter Milan vs FC Barcelona Preview
The UEFA Champions League is under way and match day two has the most enticing match-up of the group stages. La Liga Champions FC Barcelona who won the treble (Spanish league, cup, and champions league) will visit Inter Milan who won the Scudetto (Italian League) last season. On any occasion this match up would be […]