Recent Comments
I always thought of Taylor and Houseright as a team like Hall and Adibi, and would have given him a low vote if on the LB list. That one was the hardest for me yet - probably because they wanted you to select so many, when we've only had a few that jump out at me.
pulusic wasnt a regular starter for dortmund though, in fact as high of a level as he played, he still didnt start seeing any time until the league was well out of reach for them. (mathematically they were still in it but a 12 point deficit to bayern isnt going to be overcome). Nagbe is probably still learning, I have to put my trust into klinnsman seeing as he got us as far as he did with a team that had a lot of question marks. Besler would have been ripped apart by Argentina's pace. Zusi did not look bad at all, the only one I'm really upset we picked was wondo, our gameplan was clearly to setup shop on defense and hit on the counter and hopefully win through some headers and set pieces (aka american gameplan for the better part of the last 2 decades). Wondo and dempsey are good in the air, zusi is a great crosser of the ball, beckerman was a defensive minded player. Likewise i think we can all agree argentina's weakness is in the net. Romero is a joke, and otamendi and buenes furi (the other cb the everton guy) aren't particularly big, we had an advantage in the air. I really cant fault the gameplan seeing argentina beats us 9 times out of 10, maybe even more like 95 out of 100. But when you surrender a goal in the 3rd minute that changes EVERYTHING, you cant play that style anymore. furthermore from kickoff our players just looked confused and lost, their touches were awful, the passes were horrendous, the positioning wasn't good, we were ball watching on defense... the list goes on, and while some of it has to be attributed to argentina our players deserve some blame too. they didnt play their game.
Overall, I think this was a reality check for US soccer, just as the Belgium game should have been, it certainly brought us back down to Earth. We should have lost to belgium by a similar scoreline if not for Howard's heroics. We just dont have the depth or talent at this point, but you have to get props to klinnsman for what he did in this tournament. Brooks looks like a stud in the back, a lot of the questions were answered, bobby wood looked spectacular, zardes had some really bright moments, pulusic looks like a future star. but again lets not burn the kid out, look what happened to julian green, he was making a lot of noise in the bundesliga as well, and was supposed to start for hamburg following the world cup. The kid is still just 17, and i think klinnsman is taking a cautious approach to him, nurture him until hes ready. The guy knows a lot more than we do and there is a reason he did what he did
Cookies are the best.
Cake and pie are okay, too.
Cookie Monster rules!
Yep, totally agree they are worlds better than us. No argument from me on that end. One obvious spot should have been Nagbe. I don't buy into the destroy their confidence notion. Besler could step into the left back position, and push Fabian up or Yedlin to the outside mid instead of Zusi. Pulisic has been playing in Germany at a high level, so it's not like the stage is too big for him to start up top instead of Wondo. Pulisic's pace and dynamic game would have opened things up for Dempsey. Judging Pulisic and Nagbe in garbage time isn't fair, as the game had already been lost and it's a totally different situation at that point of the game. Klinnsman does own some blame or a lot of it as he didn't put his team in the best position to perform at their best. Now at their best probably still loses, unless Argentina just makes some huge mistakes that allows us to capitalize. My thought going in with the the lineup I suggest gets us to a 0-1 or 0-2 loss, but not a drudging of what we saw last night....32% possession, 0 Shots!, and 1 Corner...Not good enough period!!!!
That was an incredibly exciting match between Portugal and Hungary. Honestly, it was an excellent example of how to swing above your weight class by Hungary. They benefitted from some deflected long shots, but they made the chances they got count and counterattacked very well.
DON'TNEEDNOSTINKING⭐
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10 years 1 month
# | The Colonization of Bristol Motor Speedway (Who is camping?) No camping for this guy. Luckily, my old roommate lives in Bristol. I'll be crashing there.
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10 years 1 month
# | Hokies Preview Schemes with 2017 Prospects During "More In Depth" Recruiting Weekend now we have two RPO's
Run Pass Option and Real Pretty Offense
if one doesn't work, we just roll out the other one
and when Fu calls out "RPO", the opponent will be completely bumfuzzled
Problem is ramsey gets hurt a lot and I dont trust Wenger at all. I think we can all agree arsenal has an amazing midfield but I just think you wont get it done with that coach. Plus your centerback pairing lacks something to be desired, you definitely need another guy there
Ive had a day to adjust and contemplate and I think jurgens comments were spot on. We respected them wayyyyy to much. We didnt look like ourselves, our touches were off our passing was predictable and there was little to no creativity on the field.
Also I think this game was evidence for why players cant just beat up on the mls. Bradley looked so out of whack the second he was pressed. Hes not used to it because it probably doesnt happen as quickly or aggresively at the mls level. Dude needs to play more top level competition so that hes ready for that style of play. (Just one example of the struggles we suffered)
Here's the Messi video.
Yes, he's a once-in-a-lifetime talent, yes, he's the classiest player alive right now, yes, I love everything about his game... but man that one stings. Kind of like Braxton Miller's spin move x 1000.
Who would you have started in their place? Jordan morris hasnt exactly lit the world on fire and we have 0 depth in the midfield. I agree we need to add some pace but you also dont want to destroy some kids condidence by throwing him to the wolves of argentina, that team was better than us. Period end of story. This isnt on klinnsman
I unapologetically enjoy all 3
I'd say Louisville or Clemson. We need to develop a rivalry with one of these to help us for the long run.
Someone else mentioned UNC and our recruiting footprint overlap, that makes sense as well.
Vote for the All-Beamer team at defensive line and linebacker https://t.co/qfZsE00Sgh #Hokies pic.twitter.com/OLAJtRcIOD— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) June 22, 2016
The problem with scrapping divisions is issues with tiebreakers. With the current setup, since I'm not really a fan of the 9-game conference schedule because it's unbalanced, I'd rather see the permanent rival scrapped and have both cross-divisional games rotate so you would have say:
Year 1:
@FSU
WF
Year 2
@BC
Clemson
Year 3
@NCSU
Syracuse
Year 4
FSU
@Louisville
Year 5
@WF
BC
Year 6
@Clemson
NCSU
Year 8
@Syracuse
Louisville
You'd at least play every team every 4 years, and we'd be rid of the annual BC game, too (thank God). Though the downside is you'd lose traditional annual rivalry games (traditional for these teams, anyway) between FSU and Miami, Clemson and Georgia Tech, UNC and NC State, and Duke and Wake.
Barring that, I'd want to see an expansion to 16 teams made up of 4-team pods. Assign each team three permanent rivals from the other three pods. Each season, you play the three teams in your pod + all four teams from one of the other pods every year (rotating), then either:
* the two permanent rivals you didn't play from the other pods (9-game schedule) OR
* one of the permanent rival from the other pods (8-game schedule).
You could then do the Championship one of two ways:
* Top two teams from different pods with the best conference record plays in the Championship game OR
* move to an 11-game 'regular season' (8-game conference schedule). The week before Championship Saturday you host a semi-final between the top team in each pod (home game to the better records) with the winners advancing to the ACCCG. The other 12 teams then get paired against either:
a. one of their permanent rivals they didn't play that season
b. any remaining teams they didn't play that season who also are lacking one or both of their permanent rivals
For example, you could have a pod of:
Miami
VT
UVA
UNC
Our permanent rivals could then be (for example): Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh, and Louisville.
This is hugely better then our current setup. The division structure is far past it's usefulness.
Now someone will start arguing that those buffet style dessert pizza's count as pie.
Louisville would be a great option from a geographical standpoint. Also, they aren't that dissimilar to us in terms of how they go to where they currently are. Two fantastic fanbases!
First priority - ABBC
Who helps recruiting the most? Clemson IFF we can start beating them.
When first reading I had Lville - the new choice is always sexier.
I like NC State from the similar school POV, but with so many NC schools and ECU we play there enough.
Pitt is not sexy, but I'd be okay with it.
I'd take Clemson first, because I hate them more than other ACC school not on the list, and beating them would likely help recruiting the most. Flip a coin on Pitt/Lville for second choice.
why would you ruin a pie with blasphemy
if you can believe in such an abomination...
Sorry to say I told you so, but I have been a part of this game since 6 from kiddy soccer to the Pro level. I predicted all 3 roster spots Klinnsman went with (Beck, Zusi, and Wondo). All 3 aging players, but Klinnsman thought would add experience. Total backfire! It's his MO.....talked a big game about his players taking risks and going for it, but then doesn't back it up from his coaching decisions.
The free kick from Messi was reminiscent of Ronaldo's in this video at the 1:28 mark. Messi's was a tad more in the upper corner, but similar pathway to the back of the net.
Top 10 Ronaldo
That first play was all like
I much prefer the 3 protected rivalry model, as long as we have 14 teams and an 8-game conference schedule. It sets up nicely to get a home-and-home every 4 years with everyone in the conference. If we HAD to add a fourth I wouldn't mind keeping the BC rivalry alive (....ducks and covers....). We have a fair amount of history with them and, despite recent struggles, they're a decent program. I would also like Wake Forest, just based on proximity and theoretical ease of beating them any given year. (VT00WF didn't really happen, dammit!) Of course none of that matters, because in this hypothetical, we'd get Louisville, whether we like it or not. Let's face it, SOMEBODY has to play them, and as the closest team geographically, we'd be the logical choice.
In fact, even if there were only 3 protected rivalries, it seems more likely that we'd get UL than GT, anyway. The Jackets would certainly get paired with Clemson and probably with FSU. Their 3rd would likely be someone with whom they have more history (old-guard ACC team like UVa or NC State, perhaps?) or, for the sake of balance, a team with less history of success (Syracuse, Pitt).