oh no, Monday!

La Liga- Valencia beat Alaves 2-1 to stay in second place behind league leaders Barcelona who beat Athletic Bilbao 2-0. Real Madrid suffered a shock defeat against Girona. The 2-1 defeat puts Real Madrid 8 points behind Barcelona. The most recent team to make up an eight point deficit and win the league was Valencia during Rafael Benitiez years. La Liga, which is looking like a 3 team race after 10 games, is going to be one entertaining title race to keep an eye on.

MLS Playoffs- The MLS Playoffs are well on there way, Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps played the first match to a 0-0 draw. All I could say about the match is that the drama concerning the Columbus Crew SC and there potential move to Austin provided more entertainment. 

NFL- The best game of the week was between Seattle Seahawks vs the Houston Texans! Russell Wilson vs Deshaun Watson put on a show for the neutral spectator and almost put their two respective fan bases to suffer from cardiac arrests. 41-38 was the final score in favor of the Seahawks placing them 1st in their division ahead of the LA Rams.

NBA- It is great to have basketball everyday, still early in the season to make reasonable prediction on how the season will turn out. The Spurs started 4-0, but lost their last 2 games, The Cleveland Cavaliers are below .500 and the Warriors lost to the Detroit Pistons. I guess even if the finals are already set in the end, as predicted by some of the most intelligent NBA analysts, the regular season will provide plenty of entertainment. 

MLB- The world series! OMG! Game 5 between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers went to extra innings, lasted over 5 hours, and the final score was 13 to 12 giving the Astros a 3-2 lead in the series. Games 6 and 7-if necessary- will be played in L.A. This world series has been fun to watch. The best part is that I get to enjoy it without the allegiance to either ball club. Yet, that hasn't prevented me from experiencing a range of emotions during a single inning. I love October baseball.               

Oh No, Mondays!!

After a event weekend of sports here are a few thoughts on the variety of games I watched this past weekend.

MLB Playoffs-The ALCS proved the paradox that one team-in this case two- can be awful and great in the same series. The Houston Astros went on to beat the New York Yankees in game 7. Both teams were awful, really terrible when either ball club played away. Yet, when those same teams were at home they each played well enough where fans could argue that their team is world series caliber worthy. It was a fun series to watch from the neutral perspective.

NBA-The Los Angeles Lakers opened the new NBA season with a loss to the other L.A. Team. Lakers are going to be thriving in the loser column this season again, but the Clippers didn't look that much better than their rivals. It's the season opener and there are months ahead to play basketball, but I wouldn't be surprised if both L.A. teams do poorly this season.

MLS-Decision Day was entertaining. Having all games be played at the same time in order to keep the suspense to the very last minute is a good strategy to give each game an extra level of importance even for the teams that may be thinking about their holiday plans. The Columbus Crew will be the focal story during the off-season unless Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi decide to quick their careers in Europe and come to the MLS.

La Liga- Valencia beat Sevilla 4-0 taking Los Che to second place four points behind league leaders Barcelona. Under Marcelino's management, Valencia look well organized on the pitch and have enough talent up front and in the midfield to make the neutral observer enjoy a brilliant tactical display. It will be an entertaining to watch the league's big two teams be challenged by a team that used to be included as the big 3 in the early 2000 years. As usual Barcelona media accusing referees in helping Real Madrid and Madrid based media accusing referees in assisting Barcelona.

NFL- The L.A. Rams shutout their divisional rivals in London. The Arizona Cardinals didn't get on the board mostly due to their poor offensive line and the rams defense shutting them down all game. Carson Palmer went out with an injury, reports reveal that he broke his non-throwing arm and will be out for two months. The rams are 5-2 now and are looking like a complete team on all sides of the football. 

MLS, A False Promise

    October 10, 2017 is a day U.S. men's national team (usmnt) lost to Trinidad and Tobago 2-1. The result of that score will keep the usmnt from booking a ticket to play in the 2018 FIFA world cup in Russia. The nation's soccer community were in frustrated disbelief, which were expressed by soccer analysts such as Taylor Twellman who's rant will be replayed over again until the men's team qualifies for the 2020 FIFA World Cup. A positive that can be taken from this outcome is that soccer in the United States matters a lot more than during its infancy stage. However, this is not time to look for positives. Now is the time to look at what sits right front of us. Most were aware of the poor symptoms plaguing US soccer. From issues such as pay-to-play, inequality issues, and the ambiguous path the current USSF currently has on how to "grow the sport." The failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia served as an amplifier of what has been obvious for some time. There is no secret that there are plenty of issues that need to be addressed. Major League Soccer is an issue that has been overlooked due to Don Garber, the league's commissioner, publicly overselling the value of the league. Garber and former usmnt head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, didn't agree on how effective the MLS would be in benefitting the men's national team. Klinsmann advocated for players to seek to play overseas. Klinsmann wanted American players to challenge themselves and go play in stronger more competitive European leagues. Garber clearly did not agree with those comments and countered that if players stayed in the MLS they would get more playing time, which is essentially important to a player's development.
 
     Garber's comments are not incorrect, but they should be analyzed on how it effects the US men's national team. There is no surprise in stating that the MLS is not at the same level as the leagues in Europe. (I understand that there are other leagues that exist that have a strong case in a debate on having a much higher standard than the MLS, but in this case Klinsmann meant Europe) I would argue that the Portuguese and Dutch league are still ahead in quality and player development when compared to Major League Soccer along with the top 5 leagues in the old continent. I am aware one could go case by case through individual cases when it comes to player development. Which are valid, but not the main focus at the moment. I provided a very unaesthetic chart that categorized players that represented the U-17, U-20, and U-23 teams in past tournaments and are currently affiliated with a MLS side. I searched the MLS website to attain the information regarding players' appearances during the season or past seasons if applicable. Most players from the U-17 and U-20 have limited appearance which can be expected due to the general difficulty in breaking into any professional team's starting line up. The U-23 players have an extra column. International cap (Int'l caps) is the number of times that player has played for the US men's national team.

    Garber argued that players will get more playing if they sign with an MLS team. From the data I retrieved players who have league experience under their belt tend to be overlooked, unnoticed , or possibly deemed not good enough to play on the senior team. In this case, players with at least 50 matches played is what I consider "League experience." I highlighted the players with experience in purple, the only exception is Tommy Redding who currently has 37 appearance respectively. Jordan Morris has 24 caps and Kellyn Acosta has 16. These two players are the only players on the list that get called up regularly. Morris sustained an injury that prevented him from being called up to play in the last two world cup qualifiers. The other players have a combined total of 6 caps. Which is concerning on the cooperation and awareness between the US men's national team and the MLS. Keep in mind that there are players in Europe and veteran usmnt players playing in MLS that Arena relied on. The usmnt has been cursed in finding a reliable left back. Beasley and Villafana are the two players on the national team that share playing time at the left back position. Brandon Vincent who plays left back for Chicago Fire has only played for the national team once, yet has appeared in 50 matches for Chicago Fire over two seasons. Each player can be analyzed on individual situations on the limited or exempt from the national team. But, as explained on the left back position, it is shocking how neither, Kilnsmann or Arena looked more closely at Chicago's Brandon Vincent.

   I'm not advocating that Major league soccer is not a good, competitive, of decent quality league, but clearly those who stay to play at home are not rewarded with justifiable opportunity to represent the US men's national team. This isn't a radical idea in any means, American players need to challenge themselves and play in Europe.           
     

US Soccer

U-17 M World cup Squad    age ProMatches- play MLS team years played 

GK Justin Garces                17 0 Atlanta United 0 

DF Jaylin Lindsay              17 0 Sporting Kansas City 0 

DF Chris Gloster                17 0 New York Red Bulls 0 

DF James Sands                 17 1 New York City FC 1 

DF Tyler Shaver                 17 0 New York City FC 0 

DF Chris Durkin                17 0 D.C. United 2 

DF Akil Watts                   17 0 Portland Timbers 0 

MF Andrew Carleston      17 1 Atlanta United 1 

MF Taylor Booth             16 0 Real Salt Lake 0 

MF Chris Goslin              17 0 Atlanta United 0 

FW Bryan Reynolds Jr    16 0 FC Dallas 1

 U-20 M World Cup Squad

                                                                                                        Int'l Caps 

DF Danny Acosta           19 15 Real Salt Lake 2 

DF Justin Glad                20 51 Real Salt Lake 4                                   0

DF Erik Palmer-Brown 20 20 Sporting Kansas City 4 

DF Tommy Redding       20 37 Orlando City 3                                      0 

DF Auston Trusty          19 0 Philadelphia Union 2 

MF Tyler Adams           18 23 New York Red Bulls 2 

MF Derrick Jones          20 12 Philadelphia Union 2 

FW Jeremy Ebobisse    20 12 Portland Timbers 1 

FW Lagos Kunga         18 0 Atlanta United 0 

FW Brooks Lennon       20 23 Real Salt Lake 1 

FW Sebastian Saucedo  20 0 Real Salt Lake 0 

U-23 M Squad 

GK Cody Cropper        24 29 New England Revolution 2 

GK Tyler Miller           24 2 Seattle Sounders FC 2 

DF Tim Parker            24 74 Vancouver Whitecaps FC 3                           0 

DF Brandon Vincent    23 51 Chicago Fire 2                                              1 

DF Kellyn Acosta        22 102 FC Dallas 5                                                 16 

DF Eric Miller             24 84 Colorado Rapids 4                                         0 

DF Walker Zimmerman 24 89 FC Dallas 5                                                 1 

MF Paul Arriola         22 9 D.C. United 1 

MF Dillon Serna        23 69 Colorado Rapids 5                                          0 

MF Matt Polster        24 77 Chicago Fire 3                                                 0 

MF Fatai Alashe        23 73 San Jose Earthquakes 3                                   0 

MF Will Trapp          24 125 Columbus Crew SC 5                                     2 

MF Luis Gill              23 155 Colorado Rapids 7                                         2 

FW Khiry Shelton     24 52 New York City FC 3                                        0 

FW Jordan Morris     22 57 Seattle Sounders FC 2                                     24