What about this?

11/16/2011 4:12:53 PM

11/16/2011 4:15:27 PM

My uncle caught a ball that Alexi Lalas kicked into the audience during a filming of the Late Show with David Letterman, and subsequently got it signed by him. True story.


DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT BALL IS WORTH TODAY?










probably about $3.50

11/16/2011 4:29:53 PM

oh damn, there used to be a 96 New England jersey signed by Lalas with "Kick hard" on it for like $200 on this site but I don't see it anymore. Somebody actually bought that shit.

http://www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk/rest-of-the-world/usa-soccer-clubs.html?limit=100

11/16/2011 4:33:00 PM

It was probably Lalas' lover Twellman.

11/16/2011 6:09:20 PM

Good news: Harkes is out on ESPN soccer broadcasts as color.


Bad news: Taylor Twellman is in.

11/21/2011 3:59:44 PM

lateral move

11/21/2011 4:10:47 PM

Logical move ESPN.

Prerequisites, in order of importance, for the job of lead soccer analyst at ESPN:

1) Has kicked soccer ball
2) Terrible personality
3) Erroneous or impertinent analysis
...
98) Ability to articulate
99) Broadcast experience

11/21/2011 4:28:12 PM

haha Twellman does do color commentary for the Philadelphia Union

11/21/2011 4:29:49 PM

So he's got slightly more experience than me. Got it.

11/21/2011 4:54:23 PM

I actually think he's worse than Harkes

https://twitter.com/#!/TaylorTwellman

[Edited on November 21, 2011 at 4:56 PM. Reason : just browse through his Twitter]

11/21/2011 4:55:48 PM

http://www.footballshirtculture.com/12/13-kits/united-states-2012-2014-nike-home-football-shirt-leaked.html

12/7/2011 1:36:47 PM

I won't buy it but it's not bad. Fuck that stupid sash though and holy shit that site goes overboard with their watermarks

[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 1:39 PM. Reason : the back looks really stupid the more I look at it though]

12/7/2011 1:38:21 PM

prepare for the Where's Waldo? jokes

12/7/2011 1:50:25 PM

ugly, it's like reverse paraguay

12/7/2011 9:53:08 PM

Does that mean the road jersey will be blue with stars everywhere?

12/7/2011 10:01:46 PM

i like it

12/8/2011 1:15:57 AM

Copying ncsu 7s jerseys I see

12/8/2011 2:02:37 AM

Quote :

"Does that mean the road jersey will be blue with stars everywhere?"

Ahem.

12/8/2011 2:07:42 AM

I hate those jersey designs (horizontal stripes), because they never have a good solution for how to end the stripes where it meets the numbers. The sash design never bothered me, though. But I really wish we'd just pick a design and stick with it. I always really liked the 2006 WC jerseys.





[Edited on December 8, 2011 at 2:41 AM. Reason : ]

12/8/2011 2:32:01 AM

some jobber named Preston Zimmerman went off on Klinsmann yesterday on twitter. Mostly crap about "real Americans" and all the dual citizenship dudes he's bringing in. I thought this was nice though:

Quote :

"Squeaking out 1-0 wins against CONCACAF villages isn't success."

Here's all of it.

Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/soccer/story/2011-12-28/journeyman-preston-zimmerman-questions-jurgen-klinsmanns-inclusion-of-fake-ameri#ixzz1hw943Eq7

12/29/2011 10:06:26 AM

Tonight vs Venezuela in Phoenix. 9pm est.

ESPN 3
Galavison- (Spanish)

1/21/2012 4:30:42 PM

i was excited until i looked at the roster...

1/21/2012 5:41:43 PM

^
Our current A squad can't cut it internationally, I'd like to see what the future may hold.


.......but goddamn Ricardo Clark?

1/21/2012 5:45:21 PM

yeah, fuck that

Of course I'm still going to be watching because I'm a loser

1/21/2012 6:05:34 PM

1/21/2012 8:08:17 PM

what's that from?

Don't know about Bradley as a RM and I will be shocked if Gooch/Boca is the CB pairing in '14

1/21/2012 8:57:13 PM

Hope Bennie can get his shit back together. He looked promising.


Debut of Twellman.

1/21/2012 9:05:39 PM

the dude with him is worse

1/21/2012 10:11:24 PM

Quote :

"what's that from?"

The latest projected roster from ESPN.

1/21/2012 10:52:23 PM

some nice saves from their keeper

Shea has been terrible, Jones is easily our best player

1/21/2012 10:59:39 PM

Quote :

"but goddamn Ricardo Clark?"

1/21/2012 11:08:08 PM

hahah GOOD CALL HEY NOW

We totally deserved that goal though. Wasn't a typical 0-0 game under Klinsmann because we thoroughly dominated

1/21/2012 11:09:49 PM

Venezuela looked MAD.

1/21/2012 11:11:02 PM

they shouldn't have been time wasting like little bitches for 2-3 minutes during the extra time

1/21/2012 11:11:47 PM

US up 1-0 over Panama. 40th minute on espn3, if anybody's interested.

1/25/2012 9:16:18 PM

our team looks pretty terrible aside from the goal and the 2 close chances, but no surprise considering who is in the starting 11

1/25/2012 9:24:35 PM

Shea nowhere to be found. Forwards seeing none of the ball.

The only player I even notice regularly is Jones and he's done some good things but made a ton of mistakes too.

okay fuck this. I'm not watching this shit with 10 men now

[Edited on January 25, 2012 at 9:48 PM. Reason : .]

1/25/2012 9:32:04 PM

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

1/25/2012 10:32:11 PM

lol at getting scored on by graham zusi

1/26/2012 12:16:46 AM

What is the deal with these recent games not being on t.v.?

1/26/2012 12:00:53 PM

shitty B squads against opponents nobody cares about

I think ESPN only has a few games this year too so they're using them on games that people will be interested in, like Italy next month. I'm pretty sure that one is on ESPN2.

1/26/2012 12:18:03 PM

We're playing Brazil May 30th. Hooray for 90 minutes of getting curb stomped and/or bunkering.

Here's the USSF scheduling guide:

1) Is there a top 10 team available to dominate us? (We need the cash and we can probably use the result as a moral victory.)

2) Mexico available? Let's play them near the border. (We need the cash.)

3) Let's find some scrub team that we can probably beat so our record doesn't look so crappy.

2/9/2012 10:51:18 AM

^
I think you just covered almost every team in the world with that criteria, but I'm still feeling your point.

2/9/2012 10:54:17 AM

I don't understand why we never play friendlies against African/Asian teams. And I know we play some of the mid-tier European teams but we should be doing it more.

I just don't get why we play so many friendlies against teams we play in WCQ/Gold Cup. We don't learn anything from those games different from what we already knew. Unless you buy the bullshit from people like Taylor Twellman that games like that friendly expose our team (players that will not even make WCQ rosters) to "hostile" environments.

2/9/2012 11:01:52 AM

ESPN insider article from yesterday on scheduling.

Quote :

"Last week's news that the U.S. will travel to Toronto for a June 3 match against Canada marked the first of three such announcements on the Yanks' final pre-World Cup qualifying schedule. It also provided a bit of insight into coach Jurgen Klinsmann's approach to the tune-ups. The tilt against the Canucks is the Americans' last before hosting tiny Antigua and Barbuda (pop. 90,000) at a site to be determined in the first competitive game of the Klinsmann era (June 8). The word is that the Yanks will host Scotland in an East Coast city on May 26 or 27, and the Washington Post is reporting that they will take on Brazil at FedEx Field, just outside Washington D.C., on May 30. That docket is quite different from the one the U.S. put together four years ago before embarking on the road to South Africa. In 2008, before their qualifying opener against Barbados, the Americans played a murderers row of friendlies: at England, at Spain, and in New Jersey against Argentina. The Americans dropped both road games and eked out a scoreless draw against the Albiceleste thanks to otherworldly goalkeeping by Tim Howard. But the experience proved invaluable. Some Yanks were reportedly quaking in their boots during pre-game handshakes before the 2-0 loss at Wembley Stadium.; two years later, a supremely confident U.S. team tied England in the World Cup opener and went on to take the group ahead of the Three Lions. The experience this time around will be different. Sure, even at home, the game against Brazil will pose a huge challenge for the U.S. But Canada and Scotland are much closer to the Americans' level, and both teams are known to make up in effort what they lack in skill. That mimics in some way what the U.S. will see in qualifying. Or, in the Canadians' case, precisely what it will see. "Canada is a team we could see in the final round of qualifying," Klinsmann said in the announcement. "This is exactly the type of challenge we are looking for." Not insignificantly, it will also mark the second road game the coach has scheduled against a CONCACAF foe, after last month's 1-0 win in Panama. Before that, the U.S hadn't played a road friendly in the region since 2003. And it's rumored that in August the team will schedule yet another road friendly, in Mexico. While it's true that playing in Canada presents fewer travel and logistical challenges than visiting Guatemala or Jamaica, where the Yanks will play road qualifiers on June 8 and Sept. 7, respectively, it's still an away game against a legitimate rival. What's expected to be an overwhelmingly pro-Canadian crowd at BMO Field will surely boo the Yanks every chance they get. The game against the Scots could mimic qualifying conditions in another way. If it's played in the South (published reports suggest Jacksonville, Fla., is on the shortlist of possible hosts), the late May heat and humidity will be closer to the climate the Americans will face this summer in sticky, smoggy Kingston or in the jungle of Mazatenango, site of a U.S.-Guatemala qualifier back in 2000. Granted, nothing can fully prepare young Americans like Timmy Chandler and Brek Shea for the bumpy fields, projectile-heaving fans and inconsistent officiating that have long been hallmarks of away qualifiers. But the late-spring trio of matches is shaping up to give them a decent idea. Notes • Speaking of friendlies, U.S. Soccer just announced that the U.S. U-23 squad will play host to Mexico's U-23s at FC Dallas Stadium on Feb. 29, the same day the senior squad is in Italy. The game will be the culmination of training camp in Texas that starts Feb. 19. "In this camp we expect to have the majority of the players who are in contention for final roster spots for qualifying," coach Caleb Porter said. "A match against Mexico will serve as a great measuring stick both individually and collectively as we put the finishing touches on our roster selection." • What should you be watching for at that February camp? How many European-based players make the trip to Texas on the FIFA fixture date. The name of one of those European-based youngsters, Alfredo Morales, kept coming up in conversations about potential defensive starters during the January U-23 camp, even though Morales wasn't in the States training with the team. There may have been a good reason for the name-dropping: Morales earned his first Bundesliga start last weekend for Hertha Berlin in a 1-0 loss to Steve Cherundolo's Hannover 96 squad."

http://insider.espn.go.com/sports/soccer/blog?name=us_national_soccer&id=7555445&_slug_=us-soccer-brazil-canada-meaning-upcoming-friendlies

2/9/2012 2:41:09 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand why we never play friendlies against African/Asian teams. And I know we play some of the mid-tier European teams but we should be doing it more."

The fanbase of the U.S. of who would show up to a game by itself based on looking at attendances of past games where if you said the U.S. played Random Team X and Random Team X has no fans here in the U.S. or is not a big deal (like, say, Antigua & Barbuda) my guess is around 10000, maybe a little more than 10000. So how they get more than 10000 to show up at a game is by: a.) scheduling a mega-huge team with a lot of bandwagoners to get all the eurosnobs to buy tickets, or b.) a team with a lot of immigrants here. There's no large African diaspora here concentrated in any area to where they feel connected to their home country, and for Asians you're looking at playing Japan or South Korea in California and that's it.

So, it's box office.

2/9/2012 3:07:26 PM

^^ Fair enough. I guess Klinsmann's scheduling has been better than it was in the past. I just don't get jacked up to play Brazil like so many people do and I was getting annoyed at that this morning.


^ Yeah, I mentioned the part about doing it for the cash. But I think the USSF makes enough money now that they don't need to play friendlies purely for money grabs. This isn't the early 90's. To your point about average attendances, the only teams that move the needle above 15-20k are the Brazil's, Argentina's, etc. If you put the US against any team in Cary, North Carolina, they'd get 10 and would get more if the stadium was bigger. It's not a surprise when the US plays the 10th game in LA in 2 years against some shitty team like Barbados and gets under 10k. Mix that shit up and it won't matter who you're playing... you'll get the 15-20 if it's a decent soccer market.

Also, I think I'm spoiled about qualifying. We don't need massive amounts of prep games against CONCACAF opponents. If we can't finish 3rd out of the Hex than we've got some serious problems.

[Edited on February 9, 2012 at 4:09 PM. Reason : I also like to complain about everything]

[Edited on February 9, 2012 at 4:13 PM. Reason : ,]

2/9/2012 4:09:19 PM

jacksonville? lame...how about charlotte? they did a gold cup match last year

2/9/2012 5:38:05 PM

Quote :

"If you put the US against any team in Cary, North Carolina, they'd get 10 and would get more if the stadium was bigger."

I wish more games would come to Cary too vs the small islands of CONCACAF. When the Railhawks were in their first season I was talking to some of the top people involved with the Railhawks and Wake Med Soccer Park. I asked them why we didn't get any of the U-23 Olympic qualifiers and Tampa did in their NFL Stadium. His response was, "I tried to get the USSF to have some of the Olympic qualifiers in Cary and told them we would have a better atmosphere than Tampa, but they weren't interested."

[Edited on February 9, 2012 at 10:34 PM. Reason : .]

2/9/2012 10:32:48 PM