2014 World Cup

Only JR and JC understand this post.

It's bad enough that we're embracing this Euro-sport, but we didn't win WWII in order to adopt the metric system.

 

Oooof. Gonna disagree here.

1. Belgium is a better team, and the U-S took it to extra time and lost by one. The whole "It's time to admit we got our asses kicked!" argument is silly.

2. Losing a defender to injury did not make us "thin on the attack," as he contends. Not a major point of the column, but if you know that little about the makeup of the team, it doesn't exactly strengthen your credentials.

3. And the biggy: the "We need more blacks!" argument sounds like some 60s redneck marveling at how "them coloreds sure can run!" Yes, there's a legit argument to be made that the US is at a disadvantage because most of our best athletes play other sports. Boiling it down to "we need more blacks" and supporting it with "even Belgium's got one!" is pathetic.

 

Yeah, he started out kinda right and then just railed off into racist dumbness.

 

Also this is bullshit:

But we lack the adventurousness and freelance ability and electricity of schoolyard mutts who hang out and play eight hours a day on their own for kicks – like so many of the world's greatest players. When we need nonconformist creators, we are so often left lacking. We are a Little League-sanctioned suburban travel team to the rest of the world's Bad News Bears.

If you know anything about international soccer, you know about the academies these guys grow up in, often before age 10. They aren't just plucked out of the street no matter what Nike's commercials would have you believe.

 

I'll contend that your second point needs to be extended... Yedlin actually added to the attack, it didn't make the USA thin. Belgium had no answer for the kid with blazing speed bombing down the wing.

In short, the article sucked.

 

Yeah, that's why 5K runs are so unpopular in the USA.

 

PASTOR RETURNS!!!

 

Eh. Just sounds more impressive than 3 miles.

Speaking of which, I'm on board with the campaign to bring back 'America's Distance': The 1-Mile Race:

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/06/319512432/a-campaign-to-bring-back-americas-distance-the-1-mile-race

 

I rather expected somebody to go off on the racist rant there as opposed to looking at the common sense behind it.

I expected it to be somebody in Pennsyltucky, though.

 

"common sense" is the worst phrase in the English language. It just means "stuff I want to believe because I feel like it."

 

After all the extra times this year, FIFA has admitted it will look at allowing a fourth sub in those situations.

 

That would be an argument for Dempsey in '18. Can't see him playing a whole game, but he will probably still be the best option in a 30-minute max (and PKs).