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Most sports writers only watch a little bit of tape on players, unless they cover the team (i.e. Bitter). If the writer only watched the Tulse bowl game, I could see how he came to this conclusion (Ford's screen pass for a TD).
But I agree with you, Ford doesn't have Tyrod's jukes or David Wilson's speed, so the assessment is definitely off. But it's been a long time since I've seen a VT WR with as good of route running and football IQ as Ford.
It's a system (that's not perfect) that shows that there can be international progress. I'm not saying that #18 kills #30 every time. I'm saying that there are international squads that have gone from near #100 to top 15. No matter how you look at the rankings, that's progress. The USMNT has not been able to maintain (even in a broken ranking system) despite making the WC consistently. Its a way to compare navel oranges to blood oranges. That's all.
At the end of the day, I do expect more out of our squad. I'm pleased after last nights win, but there's a lot of futbol left to be played.
I like Matt
NBC and the original Fox Soccer Channel. Growing up I never paid a lick of attention to soccer. Then living in the dorms they had the Fox Soccer Channel on the VT cable and it got me hooked. Now I watch every Liverpool match I can thanks to NBCSN and FS1.
It's amazing how much the wage difference are between England and the rest of Europe because of the TV contracts.
And to put it this way, how many years would we be okay with Fuente taking to get us into the top 20 consistently? 3? 5? And those rankings are reset yearly (though previous years results can play into the idiotic preseason rankings). Using FIFA rankings to gauge an international manager (and this isn't even considering the fact that many, including myself, consider them to be faulty in their judgments anyhow) is nearly futile.
Edit: I want to point out that I prefer the ELO rankings, and the calculation principles can be seen below. Note our position in them is a bit higher.
The Fifa rankings is a points calculation, based on your games in the past 24 48 months: P = M x I x T x C
M = match result (3 = win, 1 = draw, etc)
I = Importance of match (Friendly = 1, world cup = 2.5, etc.)
T = Strength of opposing team
C = Strength of confederation
FIFA rankings can't be taken as exact science of ranking teams only because there are ways to manipulate the system and increase your team's chances of receiving more points, based on who you schedule to play or choose not to play in your friendlies.
Edit: Games in the past 48 months are used, not 24 months. Even though games in the past 12 months are weighted more in the calculation.
I'm high on Fuente, but not on this season's record. Between our toughest schedule in the past 5 years and our limited depth, that this is the first season that I'm actually afraid our bowl streak could end. We could legitimately lose to UT, NC, Miami, Pitt, and ND will be very difficult. Duke, GT and ECU are all toss ups. That's 9 really difficult games.
On the other hand, if we stay healthy and our QB plays well, I could see us having a season/record similar to UF last year (but I'm not betting any money on that).
FIFA rankings are quite honestly crap. Period.
Understand. The rankings aren't perfect, but at least give some sort of correlation between squads and even from year to year. And a "full" Costa Rica team looks a lot different than it did last night. They worked to show improvement in the other national squads as well as the up-and-downs in the USMNT rankings.
TURN UP THE WICK
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year I'm right there with you.
I want to know who's paying for the travel costs to take both east coast teams to Michigan? I'm pretty sure it's the high schools themselves (at least it should be) but who approved this? Thankfully, they're both private schools, so no tax dollars are being used, but if my kid went to either school and wasn't on the football team, I wouldn't be happy.
If it's a "football fund" that already has money allocated to be used by the football team, then why not use that money to buy better equipment (lets be honest, all high schools can always use new equipment, except for IMG academy)?
If you want your football team to experience a college stadium (not really a valid reason to travel to Michigan) then play a game at Maryland or Rutgers, where your teams are closely located.
In other words, it seems to me that the schools are wasting a lot of money for an event that may benefit 1 or 2 recruits, who probably already have an offer to Michigan anyway.
Yeah dont trust fifa rankings at all. We were #2 in the world a few years back then bombed out in the group stages of the world cup the following year. That in itself should tell you how inaccurate these things are.
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year Muskegon is one of the teams playing, home of a current VT commitment and several targets
Aug. 27 games
Novi Detroit CC vs. Sterling Heights Stevenson, 1
East Kentwood vs. Farmington Hills Harrison, 4
Ann Arbor Pioneer vs. Muskegon, 7
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year I could see VT hosting a neutral site match up between a top team in Maryland, Charlotte area, and/or the 757, with the teams travel costs paid for by a third tier TV network that wanted to air it. If I lived closer I would go, which would likely be one of the issues with having it at VT, but would likely watch it on TV just because it was at VT.
We need to start a summer thread. Went for my first of the year cobia trip yesterday. Joining me was our own French, who drove all morning, fished all day, then drove back to the nightmare that is NOVA last night. Kudos to him for his stamina, he's a better man than I. We had an easy time making bait and were loaded with chum. Less than two hours into our set-up, I threw a small chunk of bluefish ravaged croaker out hoping to get a blue for bait, but as the rules of fishing require, my little bass rod with 8 lb test was chosen by the 20-25 lb cobia over the two perfectly lively croaker baits we had out on the big boy rods. After chasing the damned thing all over the Bay, we finally had it by the boat, but as the fishing rules also require, a desperation leap by the cobia finally broke the knot and we watched it swim away with its little buddy who shadowed it the whole fight, which lasted 20-25 minutes. Oh well, that's fishin'. Hope others of you will chime in on some more successful outings, and if you ever go fishing with French, don't let him drive the boat!!! (Just kidding, he played his part perfectly, I just didn't do what was necessary to land the fish.) Going again this weekend, maybe I'll have a little more solid report, but French and I had a blast.
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year so... a HS team from north Jersey plays a team from Baltimore and the game is in ann arbor, michigan? I don't get the appeal.
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year Good luck to the NCAA on that. They can sniff all they want but I'm sure only "casual fans" that aren't defined as boosters will do the talking. The NCAA has no teeth especially since Michigan is a blue blood.
Regardless of that, the idea behind it is solid.
So it may be impossible to know when you're very young and want to be a running back in the NFL, that you will end up being a great high school rb, but your full size adult body is smaller than you expected. Reality sets in, you're 5'8 160, your chances of an NFL career are slim regardless of your athletic ability, but that same player in soccer does not have the artificial height/weight limitations. That speed, suddenness, and body control coupled with playing soccer from a young age, developing great touch, and in game understanding could become a USMNT starter.
It doesn't take an expert to realize that our best athletes aspire to play football and basketball. But soccer has become more popular recently. Hopefully more kids start playing soccer at a young age, even if it's their second choice to football/basketball, we may end up with more elite athletes choosing to pursue soccer as they get older.
This is far from a novel observation, I'm sure everyone is aware of this, it's just always bugged me. I know a few guys I grew up that were absolutely unreal athletes that were just a little too small or a little too short and missed out on a college education/real shot at a career as an athlete that could have been the best soccer players in the state if they had been kicking a ball around since they were 4-5 years old. That's not to downplay the difficulty of becoming a great soccer player, that's to highlight that those same kids born in another country where the best athletes play soccer, might have had a real shot.
We'll get there some day.
Honestly, I think that US TV networks heavily investing in soccer programming might make the biggest difference in the long run. There's a chance we'll look back in 20 years and credit a lot of the growth to NBC and the Premier League.
Honestly, I would be absolutely ecstatic if we can go 8-4. That would be major success for Fuente's first year, and a great sign for the future.
I expect somewhere around a 7-5 season, but honestly the only disappointment for me would be a losing season. I have high expectations for Fuente, but I'm not expecting a ton his first year. If we just show signs of life on offense, and progressively get better each week than that's all I can ask for.
FIFA rankings can be useful sometimes, but you should be careful when you apply them.
In the case of Costa Rica, they were without some of their best players in this tournament (and yesterday's game in particular for various reasons). No #1 keeper Keylor Navas is injured, one of their best center backs opted not to play in this tournament to rest after a grueling 2 year schedule, Kendall Waston was suspended for his red card in Costa Rica's first match, and Marco Urea came off due to injury in the first 20 minutes.
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year I saw figures of between 65k and 75k, article says 72k for all 8 games combined.
That's basically a pittance. And the other 7 games are being played tourney style back to back in August, with 10 dollar tickets per day. And it appears most of the teams are all Michigan schools, if they don't have very solid turnout and make a profit I would be shocked. Honestly this seems like an amazing time for anyone who enjoys football.
While the Paramus one seems made for a down tier ESPN channel to show, which would bring in its own money.
AWESOME SAUCE
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10 years 1 month
# | The arms race in College Football and what it could mean for the ACC That's good to hear and thank you for sharing. As to the question of which model would be better for the ACC schools is above my pay grade. If it is a dedicated sports channel on cable, then I will fork over the money to pay for it. If it is a combination of ESPN and streaming, great! I'll pay for that option since then I can select, I hope, which teams/games I want to follow.
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10 years 1 month
# | Paramus Catholic(NJ) among others playing HS games at the Big House this year Mich boosters certainly can though. I think it's a savy move by Michigan. Use what you've got to recruit.
The thing that peeves me with FIFA's ranking system is that last factor - strength of confederation. It pretty much always plays out that UEFA/CONMEBOL have the maximum value and everybody else has the minimum. Since the average of the two strengths is what's applied to any points gained from the match, you're already missing out on points if you're not in one of the top two confederations.
For example, US beating Germany last year was worth ~7% less than if another European team did so: C = (1.0 + .85) / 2 = 0.925 vs C = (1.0 + 1.0) / 2 = 1.0. Same thing with our recent win against Costa Rica: C = (0.85 + 0.85) / 2 = 0.85 vs C = (1.0 + 0.85) / 2 = 0.925. And all the matches we've played since the strength of confederation factor has been part of the calculations. Near impossible for any non-UEFA/CONMEBOL team to ascend the rankings when your point calculations are handicapped by this ridiculousness.
I'd also argue that friendlies shouldn't be weighted as lightly as they are, but understand the reasoning since nobody hardly plays those at full strength and they're more for experimenting with lineups/tactics. Plus, I'm a bit biased since I've seen the US knock off a ton of quality teams in frendlies with hardly any change in rankings.