Topic: Soccer Discussion: 1.67% Chance of Being the Best Thread on the NWR Forums

[NWR_insanolord]

Yesterday an MLS legend and folk hero retired in Mike Magee. He had a great career as a forward, was the 2013 league MVP, and is also legendarily the all time MLS leader in save percentage. In a 2011 match while he was playing for the Galaxy against their bitter, hated rival San Jose Earthquakes, he was forced to play in goal after Donovan Ricketts had to leave the game because of injury and then his replacement Josh Saunders was sent off. He managed to keep a clean sheet for over a half, making 4 saves in the process, to finish the California Clasico 0-0 in San Jose.

[NWR_insanolord]

Clearly looking for a lot of press attention by announcing after 9 pm Eastern on a Friday, the U.S. Soccer Federation has decided, after a long process with several delays, to award Division 2 status to both the USL and NASL. Neither league meets the standards laid out for a D2 league, but the NASL has been given waivers regarding its shortcomings for years, and since the USL is no further from meeting those standards, the USSF decided it was only fair to let them in on the fun too.

What this also means is that the NASL is not, in fact, dead. It looked an awful lot like it would be for a while there, but it kept hanging on, and now with this news, and the fact that the New York Cosmos will be sold to someone who might not be completely terrible as an owner, things might be looking up. They lost a few teams to the USL, but there are a number of expansion teams in the works, at least some of which look like they might actually be real.

Also, in completely unrelated news, Bob Bradley appears to be on the verge of taking the job of manager of Norway's national team. He had an extremely successful stint managing in their domestic league a few years ago, which they obviously still remember.


EDIT: The official NASL response to the decision makes no mention of (former?) commissioner Bill Peterson, and if he's out of the picture I have a lot more confidence in that league being able to right the ship.

[Soren]

The report is the remaining owners have basically commandeered the league from Peterson, even as far as holding meetings without his knowledge. At this point its best to just keep it that way. A seven team spring league looks to be the best case scenario. US Soccer kicking the can for another year does present a bad look though.

[NWR_insanolord]

There's nothing they could have done that wouldn't have presented a bad look. Taking D2 from the NASL would have killed it, and denying it to USL didn't make any sense either. A forced merger would have created a legal shitstorm. This was the best option they had.

[rygar]

I'd be interested in watching USL games if I could get them consistently at a decent price (anything more than $5 a month would be over market given what I pay to stream a variety of other leagues/sports). I admit I haven't looked into this in a few years, but it was a nightmare finding games when I did. Do you know if this has improved or if it could potentially do so with the D2 move? I would love a US Open package.

Norway has a super hyped 18 yo prospect for Bradley to potentially build around in Martin Ødegaard.

[rygar]

So apparently I need the Knicks to hire Patrick Ewing, the Yankees Mariano Rivera, the Jets Curtis Martin, and the Rangers Mike Richter.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'd be interested in watching USL games if I could get them consistently at a decent price (anything more than $5 a month would be over market given what I pay to stream a variety of other leagues/sports). I admit I haven't looked into this in a few years, but it was a nightmare finding games when I did. Do you know if this has improved or if it could potentially do so with the D2 move? I would love a US Open package.

All USL games are available to stream for free on YouTube. The league started doing that a couple years ago.

[rygar]

Lol! Nice, I'll check it out next summer. I was literally on a USL team's website last year looking to see how I could watch games and didn't see anything about YouTube. Can you watch Cup games on there too?

[NWR_insanolord]

That varies by the team, but most of them are streamed either there or on the teams' sites.

[rygar]

2017 is a quiet sports summer, so it's a good opportunity to get into it. I may take a stab at following the Cup, USL Eastern Conference, and/or the PDL Mid-Atlantic division.

[Soren]

NASL will field 8 teams including a reborn New York Cosmos and Jacksonville Armada.

[Soren]

The World Cup may be expanding to as many as 48 teams starting in 2026. And I'm all for it.

[NWR_insanolord]

That's just too many. Look what happened to the Euros this year after they expanded that tournamnet, it got a lot less entertaining because of how watered down it was.

[Shaymin]

And Canada will *still* go out before the final round of qualifying.

[NWR_insanolord]

Canada's especially screwed if the new FIFA president's idea of combining CONCACAF and CONMEBOL qualifying actually happens, just like all but maybe three countries in CONCACAF.

[NWR_insanolord]

There are rumors of Caribbean nations wanting to break off into their own confederation, which would be just about the greatest thing to ever happen to soccer in North America. Get their uncompetitive,  corrupt asses the **** out of CONCACAF (or I guess CONCAF) and we'd have a better setup for qualifying and open the door for a combined North and South America Copa America to be a regular occurence.

[rygar]

I would be shocked by that. The only reason would be to avoid US jurisdiction because the money would be astonishingly smaller.

I also don't see the US/Mexico, CONEMBOL, or the media companies going along with combined qualification. The US and Mexico are almost guaranteed qualification now, and why would CONEMBOL counties make their travel demands even greater. Safer to merge just the continental cup competitions.

[NWR_insanolord]

The U.S. and Mexico are virtually guaranteed qualification now, but the lack of meaningful games against top teams hurts them once they actually get there. Having to go through the gauntlet of South American teams to qualify would leave them better prepared to make a serious run when they do make it. And CONMEBOL would be onboard because of the extra money and exposure it would bring from the North American market.

I agree the safer bet to start would be the expanded Copa America and maybe a merged CONCACAF Champions League/Copa Libertadores, at least to start, but there are reasons to think a full merger could work long term.

[rygar]

I definitely see the soccer reasons why it benefits the US, but I think the overall soccer would be worse since CONMEBOL already has the best qualification tournament. Adding the US would definitely increase revenue, but it would degrade the soccer. And FIFA would be crazy to allow it. Too much of the total value of the World Cup is tied to the US market. It would add huge unpredictability into figuring out media/sponsorship rights. It would be incredible risky with the foothold European clubs already have in North America and Asia. The biggest threat to FIFA and UEFA is the clubs working out a side deal with the US, China, and India.

[NWR_insanolord]

CONMEBOL's qualifying process is indeed the best, and if the Caribbean countries do leave CONCACAF would have 10 teams left, allowing us to use the same thing.

[Soren]

With the World Cup field expanding to 48 teams I see no reason for smaller CONCACAF nations to want to merge with CONMEBOL. I do see an end to the Hex and maybe either something like how UEFA or CONMEBOL does qualifiers.

[rygar]

And why would CONEMBOL even want them? If they split it has to be into a new federation that perhaps gets merged into OFC qualifying. But if they do that they almost garuntee that all their best prospects set up residency in another country. All you need to do is look at West Indies cricket to see what will happen. Nobody who actually cares about developing soccer in their country would ever willingly disengage from garunteed access to the US media market. This all seems like posturing because of the federal indictments.

[rygar]

Everton-City and United-Liverpool are great lead-ins to the NFL games on Sunday. I'll have two screens up for Sevilla-Madrid and Steelers-KC. I have to go in to the office today, but Leicester-Chelsea is a great lead-in too, especially with the Costa side show. And WatchESPN has three big games in the European Rugby Champions Cup's penultimate round. I love this time of year for football.

[Soren]

http://www.puertoricofc.com/news/2017/01/16/prfcs-statement-regarding-the-caribbean-club-championship

CONCACAF dicking around with the CFU Club Championship only stirs the rumors of them leaving CONCACAF outright even more. Very pissed off by this.

[NWR_insanolord]

I wouldn't be sure of that, that seems like part of the long-rumored plan to overhaul the format of the CONCACAF Champions League that seems to finally be happening. We heard things about it in recent leaks about the Canadian Premier League as well.