Women's CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying

[GoldenGate]

@GoldenGate I generally like your posts, but you literally have no idea what you're talking about in this case. I know this thread is about the woman's side, but let's take a step back for a moment. Do you think direct play / bully ball works on the men's side 100% of the time? I would hope your answer here would be a resounding "no". My point is, once the European teams dial in girl's side, the USWNT will be playing catch up. In soccer there's not much more embarrassing than watching a bunch of "alphas" getting schooled by much smarter players. Not unlike that PDA vs FCB game posted earlier -- those "alphas" were schooled big time. So much so, I don't even know how to define "alpha" anymore.

In Spain the coaches loath juggling exercises -- they prize thinking and decision making. The US clubs I'm familiar with spend way too much time on juggling, especially when said club just plays boot ball anyway. Juggling in the US is just a time killer for many coaches.

I was not talking about men's soccer. The fact that you think they're the same sport and should therefore be played the same way is misogynistic and naive.

You are seriously relying on a club game played by two girls teams as proof that the USWNT, winner of two straight WCs and half the WCs ever played, should start playing like a country that has never won a knockout stage game in its life? What a joke. You watched one soccer game played between a regional US club team and what is presumably the finest players that Spain has to offer all consolidated on one team and constantly training together, and you conclude that Spain knows what is going on? Seriously?

Can you tell me how many of those PDA girls will leverage their ability to play soccer into college opportunity and scholarships? What do you think those Barca girls will all be doing when they're 19? How many of the PDA kids will be better off as adults because of their soccer compared to the Barca players? You have not clue what the point of elite club soccer even is.

 

[GoldenGate]

Let's circle back in 10 years and see where this lands. I think there are many competent coaches in the US that agree with my perspective here. Unfortunately the spin cycle will continue on, especially if the general opinion is "I think our position as the premier women's soccer country in the world is secure".

You were saying this 10 years ago with Japan. You were saying this 6 years ago even with Spain, and they still have never won a knockout stage game in a major tournament in their history. If anyone is on spin cycle, it's you. The one thing that makes one country consistently better than another at a sport is that more kids play it at a high level over a longer span of years. That's it. If you had your way, you would take that advantage away from the US. You are an idiot.

 

[NorCalDad]

I was not talking about men's soccer. The fact that you think they're the same sport and should therefore be played the same way is misogynistic and naive.

You are seriously relying on a club game played by two girls teams as proof that the USWNT, winner of two straight WCs and half the WCs ever played, should start playing like a country that has never won a knockout stage game in its life? What a joke. You watched one soccer game played between a regional US club team and what is presumably the finest players that Spain has to offer all consolidated on one team and constantly training together, and you conclude that Spain knows what is going on? Seriously?

Can you tell me how many of those PDA girls will leverage their ability to play soccer into college opportunity and scholarships? What do you think those Barca girls will all be doing when they're 19? How many of the PDA kids will be better off as adults because of their soccer compared to the Barca players? You have not clue what the point of elite club soccer even is.

Yes, @GoldenGate it was just one video that convinced me that we need to change everything. You nailed it. I have watched MANY games in person and online at pretty much every level. I do agree with you the woman's side is almost a completely different sport than the men's side. In fact this likely explains why there is a higher rate of concussions on the woman's side.

I think every single one of those girls on the FCB team could land on a D1 roster if that's the path they wanted to take. This is already what happens on the mens side. As I said earlier, I think the collegiate approach to athletics in the US is much better for the masses than the academy approach in Europe -- purely from the perspective that not everyone will go pro and will actually need an education.

Like I said earlier -- let's circle back in 10 years and see where things land.

 

[Happened again]

You were saying this 10 years ago with Japan. You were saying this 6 years ago even with Spain, and they still have never won a knockout stage game in a major tournament in their history. If anyone is on spin cycle, it's you. The one thing that makes one country consistently better than another at a sport is that more kids play it at a high level over a longer span of years. That's it. If you had your way, you would take that advantage away from the US. You are an idiot.

you must be very small - so angry, so entertaining.

 

[NorCalDad]

You were saying this 10 years ago with Japan. You were saying this 6 years ago even with Spain, and they still have never won a knockout stage game in a major tournament in their history. If anyone is on spin cycle, it's you. The one thing that makes one country consistently better than another at a sport is that more kids play it at a high level over a longer span of years. That's it. If you had your way, you would take that advantage away from the US. You are an idiot.

I never said any of those things -- I've only been on this site for a couple of years.

That said, a good exercise might be to go watch the Spanish woman's side play 10 years ago versus today. Is there a difference? I may dig into this later when I have some time.

 

[NorCalDad]

you must be very small - so angry, so entertaining.

I've always said @GoldenGate is a master of words. Even when it's targeted at me I can appreciate the word smithing.

 

[GoldenGate]

I played at a high level through high school in SoCal. Had several D1/D2 offers but declined to play in order to focus on academics instead. Plus that was all pre-MLS, so the path to pro wasn't as obvious -- or really desirable. Let's face it too, US soccer in the 80s was pretty abysmal. But I have played pickup/fun in both Spain and Brasil with locals so I've seen the contrast even at that level. Plus family members have played abroad. Outside of that I've read all the popular soccer books you all have and probably clock in the same number of hours watching professional soccer (if it's on TV I will watch it -- couldn't care less which league). Am I an authority? Nope. No more than most folks on these forums.

I disagree with you that playing possession is not a skill. I think it's both a strategy and a skill. Heck there are methodologies that completely focus on the foundations necessary to play possession. A coach can't simply say "hey let's play possession this game". It's just not that easy. The reason we don't teach this in the US is because it's hard and requires parents and players to not care about "win-now". Players make a ton of mistakes initially when learning how to play this way. It's just hard and takes massive amounts of patience.

I think there is a time and a place to play directly, low block, high block, etc. Heck even Man City will step out of their possession comfort zone depending on the opponent. In that scenario it's a conscious decision to do so. Unfortunately, very few youth clubs teach these skills so that players have an arsenal of options in their quiver.

Also, Messi isn't the only "outlier". Pretty sure Kante, Maradona, Xavi, Insigne, etc would like to have a word with you Also it's well documented that EPL players are bigger/taller than La Liga players. Interestingly enough, La Liga teams have fared far better in the Champions League than EPL teams over the last 20ish years. It's really not close.

It makes perfect sense if you were an "elite" American soccer player back in the day. Virtually ever boy who played soccer into their HS years did so because they weren't good enough to play real sports. They have lived their entire lives with chips on their shoulders, deluding themselves that they were athletes too, but the reality is they couldn't hold a candle to the real athletes who excelled at basketball, football and even baseball. They try to make themselves feel better by rationalizing that soccer is "special" because it requires tremendous skill but other sports don't, and now they carry that delusion forward because they're desperate for their middling level athlete princess to be "elite" too. The reality, however, is that other sports require every bit as much skill as soccer, and the vast majority of boys who played it back in the 1980s would have been in the chess club if soccer had been where the real athletes gravitated. The reality is that the genetic limitations that people like you gifted to your daughters will prevent them from becoming truly elite soccer players no matter how much "technical skill" and "classroom knowledge" they pick up.

You're also never going to realize that men's and women's soccer are two completely different sports, are you? Although the fields are the same size, they are actually significantly larger for women because men are faster and stronger overall. This puts more of a premium on differences in pure athleticism, which is more important on the women's side than the men's and it always will.

 

[GoldenGate]

I never said any of those things -- I've only been on this site for a couple of years.

That said, a good exercise might be to go watch the Spanish woman's side play 10 years ago versus today. Is there a difference? I may dig into this later when I have some time.

I never said you said those things here. You've been saying them to yourself and your friends for over a decade. You know you have.

10 years ago when Spain was terrible they had just as many knockout stage wins as they do now that they're so great.

 

[NorCalDad]

I never said you said those things here. You've been saying them to yourself and your friends for over a decade. You know you have.

10 years ago when Spain was terrible they had just as many knockout stage wins as they do now that they're so great.

Nope I haven't. I probably started to think about it a bit about 3 years ago as I got deeper into this.

 

[GoldenGate]

you must be very small - so angry, so entertaining.

I'm not angry. I love the USWNT. I love the way youth soccer works in the US. I love how girls here have the ability to play soccer at every conceivable level and price point. I love how girls can use soccer to leverage college opportunity and scholarships unlike in every other country in the world. I'm not whining that youth soccer costs what it costs, I'm not whining that the USWNT isn't pretty enough, I'm not the one complaining about how America sucks compared to countries that actually do suck. I'm not complaining about terrible coaching, or corrupt DOCs, or any of that nonsense. It's all you and your friends.

 

[NorCalDad]

It makes perfect sense if you were an "elite" American soccer player back in the day. Virtually ever boy who played soccer into their HS years did so because they weren't good enough to play real sports. They have lived their entire lives with chips on their shoulders, deluding themselves that they were athletes too, but the reality is they couldn't hold a candle to the real athletes who excelled at basketball, football and even baseball. They try to make themselves feel better by rationalizing that soccer is "special" because it requires tremendous skill but other sports don't, and now they carry that delusion forward because they're desperate for their middling level athlete princess to be "elite" too. The reality, however, is that other sports require every bit as much skill as soccer, and the vast majority of boys who played it back in the 1980s would have been in the chess club if soccer had been where the real athletes gravitated. The reality is that the genetic limitations that people like you gifted to your daughters will prevent them from becoming truly elite soccer players no matter how much "technical skill" and "classroom knowledge" they pick up.

You're also never going to realize that men's and women's soccer are two completely different sports, are you? Although the fields are the same size, they are actually significantly larger for women because men are faster and stronger overall. This puts more of a premium on differences in pure athleticism, which is more important on the women's side than the men's and it always will.

Actually my primary sport was baseball. I also don't think there's any truth to this "Virtually ever boy who played soccer into their HS years did so because they weren't good enough to play real sports". Not a single player I played with sought soccer because they couldn't play anything else -- most were multi-sport, some would later go onto MLS in the early days (I played into the early 90s -- but the lions share of my soccer experience was in the 80s).

I get it. You like things are how they are. You don't want to see any change. That's great. I disagree. I think we need to evolve and demand higher quality coaching and the parents/players need to reset their expectations between development and "win-now". Indeed I struggle with the instant gratification of "boot ball". Maybe I'm wrong, but only time will tell.

 

[Happened again]

I'm not angry. I love the USWNT. I love the way youth soccer works in the US. I love how girls here have the ability to play soccer at every conceivable level and price point. I love how girls can use soccer to leverage college opportunity and scholarships unlike in every other country in the world. I'm not whining that youth soccer costs what it costs, I'm not whining that the USWNT isn't pretty enough, I'm not the one complaining about how America sucks compared to countries that actually do suck. I'm not complaining about terrible coaching, or corrupt DOCs, or any of that nonsense. It's all you and your friends.

what you are is a complete idiot. I 100% agree in principle with what you are saying. Doesn't detract from the fact that you are an idiot and the forum clown.

 

[NorCalDad]

This was a timely episode of Coach Cameron's podcast:

 

[outside!]

These Leagues exsit because parents are giving them money. I agree that there is no need for more than one elite league in SoCal, and local play could provide the challenge 95% of the players need. Blaming the leagues is not the solution, it is the parents who participate in the farce. If parents stop placing players in those teams, the leagues go away. There are plenty of play options in SOCAL NPL and Flight 1 teams for everyone. No need for governement oversight of youth soccer.

So you are asking parents to sacrifice the few short years an upper tier player has to train and be seen by scouts in order to somehow bring down the corrupt system that is US youth soccer? it is no coincidence that upper management of ECNL and US Soccer have many people in common. I am not asking for government oversight, but it is obvious that the primary focus of US Soccer right now is making money for a handful of connected individuals instead of producing the best soccer players. CSL had it's problems, but an expanded CSL for all of SoCal would concentrate the best players and in the end produce better soccer players.

 

[GoldenGate]

Actually my primary sport was baseball. I also don't think there's any truth to this "Virtually ever boy who played soccer into their HS years did so because they weren't good enough to play real sports". Not a single player I played with sought soccer because they couldn't play anything else -- most were multi-sport, some would later go onto MLS in the early days (I played into the early 90s -- but the lions share of my soccer experience was in the 80s).

I get it. You like things are how they are. You don't want to see any change. That's great. I disagree. I think we need to evolve and demand higher quality coaching and the parents/players need to reset their expectations between development and "win-now". Indeed I struggle with the instant gratification of "boot ball". Maybe I'm wrong, but only time will tell.

I am a big fan of change and, despite all of your rhetoric, things have changed significantly and are changing constantly with girls soccer. ECNL has developed from nothing into something great, and it has even recently changed some of its format. Girls soccer has gone from a pastime to serious business that includes professional youth coaches providing professional training. Girls soccer has become much stronger in many parts of the country where it used to be crap. GDA came and went. GA came (and will probably go too). HS has gone from a necessity to not-so-much. NIL has recently come into existence. NWSL's CBA has significantly improved standards and (although I personally think it's a terrible idea), they'll even let little kiddies play in the league. The new USSF CBA has further improved standards for women, and the old misogynists who were trying to treat girls soccer as if it were boys soccer were all run out. All of this has allowed the US to stay the best in the world.

Also, despite your assertion that youth coaching isn't good enough, the reality is it is far and away superior to what you see in other countries. You just don't appreciate it because you are too cheap to see the good coaching in action, and also because you don't know what good coaching is and what effective winning soccer looks like. You don't understand that good coaching requires keeping as many talented kids as possible interested in the sport, rather than bleeding the desire to play out of everyone by making them dribble through cones all day, every day.

 

[GoldenGate]

So you are asking parents to sacrifice the few short years an upper tier player has to train and be seen by scouts in order to somehow bring down the corrupt system that is US youth soccer? it is no coincidence that upper management of ECNL and US Soccer have many people in common. I am not asking for government oversight, but it is obvious that the primary focus of US Soccer right now is making money for a handful of connected individuals instead of producing the best soccer players. CSL had it's problems, but an expanded CSL for all of SoCal would concentrate the best players and in the end produce better soccer players.

There is no "system that is US youth soccer". There are a multitude of different platforms at every conceivable price point and which include thousands of independent clubs, agencies, leagues, and schools. It's offensive to the tens of thousands of hard working adults who are involved in youth soccer when people like you denigrate all of them by labeling all of them part of some monolithic system that is rotten to the core.

So who exactly are these handful of "connected individuals" whom US Soccer is spending all its time making money for? And how much money exactly is it making for them? And who exactly at US Soccer is making these "corrupt" decisions? Can you identify the specific people at US Soccer who are responsible for causing all this corruption in youth soccer? Can you even tell us what they're doing that is so "corrupt"?

 

[NorCalDad]

I am a big fan of change and, despite all of your rhetoric, things have changed significantly and are changing constantly with girls soccer. ECNL has developed from nothing into something great, and it has even recently changed some of its format. Girls soccer has gone from a pastime to serious business that includes professional youth coaches providing professional training. Girls soccer has become much stronger in many parts of the country where it used to be crap. GDA came and went. GA came (and will probably go too). HS has gone from a necessity to not-so-much. NIL has recently come into existence. NWSL's CBA has significantly improved standards and (although I personally think it's a terrible idea), they'll even let little kiddies play in the league. The new USSF CBA has further improved standards for women, and the old misogynists who were trying to treat girls soccer as if it were boys soccer were all run out. All of this has allowed the US to stay the best in the world.

Also, despite your assertion that youth coaching isn't good enough, the reality is it is far and away superior to what you see in other countries. You just don't appreciate it because you are too cheap to see the good coaching in action, and also because you don't know what good coaching is and what effective winning soccer looks like. You don't understand that good coaching requires keeping as many talented kids as possible interested in the sport, rather than bleeding the desire to play out of everyone by making them dribble through cones all day, every day.

The things you mention aren't really innovations. Girls soccer was strong in SoCal for as long as I can remember. They had girls club teams back in the early 90s and perhaps even before that (NHB comes to mind). There were just as many girls playing rec/ayso at age 5-7 as boys. High school girls soccer back then was a big deal too. But fair point, perhaps other parts of the country didn't have that. The rest of what you mention really isn't tied to development and in fact just perpetuates the win-now mindset.

I'm too cheap to see good coaching in action? What does that even mean? I've seen good coaching. I've seen coaches that state clearly the goal is development over win-now and they hold the team and themselves accountable to achieve that. This doesn't mean they don't try to win, more often than not they win a lot -- but not at the expense of development by resorting to boot ball. Dribbling through cones all day is precisely what I'm against. That statement alone makes it clear to me you have no idea what you're talking about. Read up on TOVO and other similar methodologies that emphasize decision making / cognition and come back here. After you learn what all that means, go watch a bunch of ECNL U14 or older girls games and tell me how many coaches are actually emphasizing those elements. There aren't many.

 

[GoldenGate]

The things you mention aren't really innovations. Girls soccer was strong in SoCal for as long as I can remember. They had girls club teams back in the early 90s and perhaps even before that (NHB comes to mind). There were just as many girls playing rec/ayso at age 5-7 as boys. High school girls soccer back then was a big deal too. But fair point, perhaps other parts of the country didn't have that. The rest of what you mention really isn't tied to development and in fact just perpetuates the win-now mindset.

I'm too cheap to see good coaching in action? What does that even mean? I've seen good coaching. I've seen coaches that state clearly the goal is development over win-now and they hold the team and themselves accountable to achieve that. This doesn't mean they don't try to win, more often than not they win a lot -- but not at the expense of development by resorting to boot ball. Dribbling through cones all day is precisely what I'm against. That statement alone makes it clear to me you have no idea what you're talking about. Read up on TOVO and other similar methodologies that emphasize decision making / cognition and come back here. After you learn what all that means, go watch a bunch of ECNL U14 or older girls games and tell me how many coaches are actually emphasizing those elements. There aren't many.

Sucker. TOVO is one of many fringe soccer cults that are out to fleece weak-minded "soccer people" like yourself. Its website (much of which is so pathetic that many of the links don't work), is just so great. I mean, little girls totally "need to understand the game like never before", and it is such a blessing that the TOVO Academy will teach it to them using "sound pedagogical principles and based upon profound research into human development". The fact that going to their vaunted academy costs more than 19,000 euros is just so fantastic. If only kiddie soccer for girls in the U.S. could be that expensive, the USWNT would be able to turn around its terrible run of form over the last decade and a half. In fact, TOVO has such a track record of success, that I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to shell out that much coin. It's own website has a testimonial section with a grand total of one girl, who allegedly parlayed the boatload of cash that her parents forked over to gain admission to USD. Wow, that is just so incredible. Can you imagine how much better Macario, Rodman, Smith, Girma and boatloads of others could have been if only they learned from the proprietary training methods one can only get in Spain for 20,000 euros? Maybe they could have also gone to USD.

 

[NorCalDad]

Sucker. TOVO is one of many fringe soccer cults that are out to fleece weak-minded "soccer people" like yourself. Its website (much of which is so pathetic that many of the links don't work), is just so great. I mean, little girls totally "need to understand the game like never before", and it is such a blessing that the TOVO Academy will teach it to them using "sound pedagogical principles and based upon profound research into human development". The fact that going to their vaunted academy costs more than 19,000 euros is just so fantastic. If only kiddie soccer for girls in the U.S. could be that expensive, the USWNT would be able to turn around its terrible run of form over the last decade and a half. In fact, TOVO has such a track record of success, that I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to shell out that much coin. It's own website has a testimonial section with a grand total of one girl, who allegedly parlayed the boatload of cash that her parents forked over to gain admission to USD. Wow, that is just so incredible. Can you imagine how much better Macario, Rodman, Smith, Girma and boatloads of others could have been if only they learned from the proprietary training methods one can only get in Spain for 20,000 euros? Maybe they could have also gone to USD.

Maybe it's you that's too cheap to experience good coaching

You don't have to go to the TOVO Academy/Institute to experience the methodology. They have training programs for coaches (remote and local) that are reasonably priced. Many coaches in the US have done just that (whether or not they implement the methodology is a different question) TOVO isn't the be-end-be-all for soccer training, but it shifts the mindset to focus on decision making and less time on repetitive brain dead drills that a lot, if not most, coaches implement.

Of course I wouldn't expect you to know this as you have no idea what you're talking about. Did you get a chance to watch some games on youtube? Let me know how that goes.

 

[GoldenGate]

Maybe it's you that's too cheap to experience good coaching

You don't have to go to the TOVO Academy/Institute to experience the methodology. They have training programs for coaches (remote and local) that are reasonably priced. Many coaches in the US have done just that (whether or not they implement the methodology is a different question) TOVO isn't the be-end-be-all for soccer training, but it shifts the mindset to focus on decision making and less time on repetitive brain dead drills that a lot, if not most, coaches implement.

Of course I wouldn't expect you to know this as you have no idea what you're talking about. Did you get a chance to watch some games on youtube? Let me know how that goes.

What? So now you're saying many American coaches actually do use this TOVO cult nonsense and other "methodologies" that you approve? So now you're saying that only "a lot" but not all (or most) girls youth coaches are terrible? So are you now admitting that the USofA actually does have the richest, most diverse set of options of any country in the entire world? Then WTF are you complaining about if little girls can get this vaunted TOVO training that will help them get into USD, or they can do something else like what Macario and Girma did to get into Stanford? Or what Trinity Rodman did to just go pro? Or just play for fun, or some combination of fun and comp that doesn't require wasting hours a week learning the "cognitive" aspects of team play that they "need" to make the idiotic decision to be a pro soccer player who makes $30,000 a year instead of going to college?

So, anyway, I take it your daughter spurned full rides from Stanford and UCLA to play for Barca? I mean, if anyone has such superior knowledge of how to turn middling athletes into the best players the world has every seen, it must be you, right?