Arena brought us up a level but he plays not to lose. One forward is just ridiculous and puts too much pressure on the midfield service. Like Wynalda says "what does Bruce Arena know about playing WC futball besides having bought a beer and a hot dog once?"

Creativity comes from playing the game for fun. Our kids rarely play anything other than structured youth practice and games.

Title IX killed mens soccer at the NCAA level. SMU is the only D1 in Texas with schollies at the moment and we have one of the best youth select programs in the nation.

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others!"
Groucho

You wrote...

Arena brought us up a level but he plays not to lose. One forward is just ridiculous and puts too much pressure on the midfield service. Like Wynalda says "what does Bruce Arena know about playing WC futball besides having bought a beer and a hot dog once?"


Exactly. The 4-5-1 is a fad and might work with a world class striker (e.g., Christian Ronaldo), but not Donovan. I don't want to take anything away from Donovan, but give him some support.


You wrote...

Creativity comes from playing the game for fun. Our kids rarely play anything other than structured youth practice and games.


Tonight I took my daughter to a "structured" practice and there were a whole bunch of HS kids playing a pick up game, for fun. I think we have more of it than people think, though less than I experienced when I lived in the UK as a kid.

I think the analogy is basketball. The Europeans have a more "structured" approach than our "improv" pick up games. Currently, they're flooding us with their players who are better fundamentally and better team players.

We'll do alright. If we used Pope and Beasley more, who knows what might have happened this cup.

Remember we're the only team Italy couldn't beat, even though they had a one man advantage and Italy's in the finals. We're very, very close.

used pope more...maybe im misreading this...pope was terrible

Brain fart. Eddie Johnson, not Pope.

The problem is not our youth or how they are taught the game. The problem is there is too little opportunity for our youth to continue playing the game once they graduate high school. My son plays for the Dallas Texans, and we have beaten European youth teams. I have never seen a group of kids so incredibly talented. There is another team of Texans a few years older than us that went to the UK and Sweden and played in huge youth tournaments and won both of them. Yet, maybe two kids on that team may get a scholarship offer for college. These kids are good. Dallas has one of the best areas in the US for youth soccer, yet many of these kids will never play past high school because there is simply nowhere to play (besides SMU).

And yes, the main reason schools in Texas don't have men's soccer is Title IX. It says you have to have as many opportunities available for women as men (opportunities=schollies). So, for A&M to have men's soccer, you have to add gymnastics or something along that line to even out the schollies available. Given there are no other programs to compete against (except SMU), it's just not cost-effective to add men's soccer and a women's sport, both of which will be huge money losers.

I have refereed some U-19 Dallas Texans’ games in Dallas. They, and several other area teams, have excellent talent. It is truly sad that there are so few opportunities for them to advance their skills.

AgLaw, since you are much more familiar with them than I am, what to do most of them do regarding soccer after their U-19 league play? I know that Texas colleges have club teams, but that is not really advanced enough for these players.

he will resign before he gets fired.

Arena's contract not renewed:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060714/ap_on_sp_so_ne/soc_us_arena_3