Hmmm... so we beat Italy head to head, but don't compare because it was a friendly? Did Italy play to win? Just as much as the USA did. Italy soccer is not on the rise. They are dropping. They've regressed more than any "power country" over the last 25 years. Tell me one that has dropped more. The USA is climbing, and Italy isn't. You can list names and say "better check, better check" but I can do the same back. You honestly don't think a guy like Altidore could play on Italy? Seriously? Which Gomez are you using? You're using Eddie Johnson as a first teamer? Interesting. 1-1 comparisons are much different than 11-11 comparisons. Italy has fallen apart in my view. What does Juventus against the Galaxy have to do with anything, and why say "End of discussion" and then go on and have a discussion if it has ended? I don't know what you're getting at.

Are you really Giuseppi Rossi in disguise? He also thinks Italy is the way to go... but I don't see it. Congrats to him, but it hasn't quite worked out like he'd hoped, except for that nice goal he got after entering against the US prior to blowing out his knee for about the fifth time. But I'm glad he took so much glee in prancing around and celebrating the team that "snubbed him". Unfortunately, he seems to forget that he snubbed the USA and got all crybaby about the fact that the USA didn't hound him endlessly. He had no interest in playing for the USA, even though he grew up here, and then acted like he was exacting revenge by getting a goal against us. Hopefully that's a good highlight for his life. Good on him... but I'd take the USA against Italy in any tourney game right now and feel very comfortable putting my money behind it.

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R.I.P. Dad. I miss you. You will never be forgotten
1/12/39 - 8/7/08

Italy was just in the Euro final, and won the 06' WC where is the decline? Obviously they are at the end of a cycle but you see that with every team, eventually you have to bring in inexperienced hungrier players.

Do I think Altidore has the talent to play on the Italian national team, yes. Do I think he has proven worthy at this point in his career? No. He's had one great season in an average league.

Juventus vs LAG was an example of a friendly being meaningless. The disparity between those teams in terms talent is HUGE yet LAG won the game 3-1... Does that make sense?
Friendlies are like preseason games in American football. Good for chemistry building and cohesion, meaningless because the emphasis is placed not on winning but on executing properly and trying out fringe squad members.

Look I love what the USA is doing, but lets not crown them before they've beaten a single top tier team in a meaningful game. MLS is evolving rapidly and I think with players like Julian Green and John Brooks coming up that we can be in the Italy, England, France discussion soon but we are not there yet.

club friendlies do not equal international friendlies...


thats all im going to say. One is to sell tickets, the other is to gauge the level and unity of your team.

USMNT beating Bosnia 4-3 holds way more weight than the galaxy beating Juve.

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Man up, stand in line.

I think you're missing my point.

Switzerland beat Brazil 1 nil, are the Swiss the next break out team?
No? They also beat WC favorites Germany 5-3.
The great Romanian national team beat Belgium 2-1... the same Belgium that trounced the USA 4-2.

Friendlies are meaningless.

You're saying the Swiss are winning the World Cup then....


Can't you three just cone to the realization that one if you undervalues the strength of the USMNT while the other two overestimate it? The truth is really right in between the two.

Si, we all know I'm right. So lets just leave it at that.

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Man up, stand in line.

I don't overestimate it. I compared it to 1990 and said we are significantly better off. Tell me how I'm wrong on that point Uncle Si. This team actually has 2 deep and plays together multiple times per year. That alone is a massive step up from 23 years ago. I don't see how it isn't. To say that kids in America aren't technically better players is stupid. Are the best American players as good technically as players from other countries? No. I didn't say that. What I did say is that the process is working and things are building up. The Academies are a huge part of teaching kids how to play right... not just having kids like me who were good athletes and fast and strong with relatively poor technical skills winning spots on teams.

Times are changing. The US team has improved more between 1990 and 2013 than they did in the previous 200+ years of the country combined. After the win over England back in 50, then the team did nothing. The makeup of that team was pretty sketchy too. But it should have really started a movement that really didn't take hold until the USA beat Colombia in LA. Then things started building (too slowly for some, but at least they were building finally). I think the idea that we're doing everything all wrong is understandable in comparison to other countries (like England, which is frequently held up as the standard bearer... but the USA's national team is better than England's, so I don't see how we're failing so monumentally). We're getting there. Do some things need to change? Of course. But to act like we're as bad off as we were when we fielded a team with Jeff Agoos and Mike Burns is silly. We were so desperate that guys like Preki and Thomas Dooley had to be recruited into playing, and they weren't young guys with great national team careers ahead of them. They were old and their best years were long gone.

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R.I.P. Dad. I miss you. You will never be forgotten
1/12/39 - 8/7/08

Some naivety in your post Shark.

I'll say this, we are not better than England. In one game.. sure. Overall... Still off a bit.

I work in the academies so I'm not sure where your assumptions come from regarding my thoughts on what we do.

You're assessment of the 1990 squad is way off. (And since 1950 theres been some changes in the game overall... A couple). Most of those players were D1 or professional right before. Technically speaking the whole world is better, so thst argument is fine if you assume the rest of the world has stopped developing. On to the squads....You conveniently say we recruited players in 90 while ignoring what klinsmanns doing now... Look at the roster. Kids from mexico and Germany coming in. Not from our club system but other countries.

I posted in another thread what youth soccer looks like right now. lots of positive development. Still setting the framework. Again look at our 21s compared to Spain's or Germany s.

It will happen.

Now who is being naive? You're claiming that because we still recruit players that means we're messed up somehow and not on the right track? EVERY country recruits players. Don't you think Spain tried awful hard to cap Messi? They did. Does that mean their program is a mess? Hardly. How about Italy taking Rossi. He's an American for crying out loud.

The players the US are getting now are polar opposites of who they got before. You really want to compare capping Timmy Chandler to capping Preki? HAHAHAHA. That's hilarious. They are quite different sir. Thomas Dooley was the other I mentioned. His situation was infinitely different than Jones or Chandler or others. Preki's situation and David Regis' situation were so so so much different than the young guys who we are trying to hurry and cap that your argument is pretty stale. We are doing our recruiting and capping exactly how Italy did with Rossi (before he could think logically and longterm, and they got him when he was 18 and really just acting like any NCAA recruit that needs his ass kissed).

To say that we're only better than England for one game is really not being forthright either. You think that England is going to win a World Cup really soon? Seriously? They have many young kids that are playing in their academy system. When is the last time they were good? Seriously seriously good? You don't think they'd have taken the US's run at the Confed cup? I bet they'd take it and then some. They haven't been relevant in quite a while. Do they have talent? No doubt. But to act like they are the standardbearer for Europe is a joke.

So you're bringing it down to the Academy level and saying, "Well... I coach in an academy!" Then do your job. How's that? What better way to change the system than from the inside if you see how weak it is and what problems there are? How about being positive and focusing on what we DO have. We have a much larger following and much more participation.

I get the feeling that what this boils down to is that you are trying to point out that you're a better coach than a lot of guys above you (I don't doubt it) and a lot of guys below you (again... I don't doubt it).

So put out some instructional videos to show kids how to play. Start your own academy and create a juggernaut, just like many AAU coaches do that develop the best basketball talent in the world (and most of it is coming out of the west coast teams). I've given up on coaching. Why? Because the pay sucks, the hours suck, and the parents suck. I will coach any kid where I teach regular school how to be a good player if he/she wants me to. But it is up to them to take what I've given them and progress.

I coached quarterbacks and was an offensive coordinator for a junior high team and got offered a job with a high school team, and turned it down. Why? Because it was a dead end. I'm a quitter. But you're not. I see holes in the system, as do you, but your unwillingness to accept the argument that USA's soccer system and overall situation is better than 1990 just seems funny to me. You honestly think it was better before? When you have to bring the likes of Bora in to even field a team, then I think that says a lot about the piss poor quality of the organizational structure. Now we have kids choosing to play for the USA, and that's a good thing. Not OLD MEN, but KIDS. There's a humongous difference.

Sure some are picking because they feel they have a better shot here because of inferior talent, but some of those same guys are getting beat out for positions by those who were born and raised within the American system. We're not waiting for the likes of mystery talents like Jovan Kirovsky to magically appear on our shores one day and show us all how to play (he came up in the European Academy system, and flat out sucked. He couldn't crack the top 25 right now if he were in his prime, and at one point they called him "The Future of American Soccer".). I say things are better now. You disagree. So be it. But I wouldn't be excited about US Soccer's future if we were still in the same pit we were in 1990.

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R.I.P. Dad. I miss you. You will never be forgotten
1/12/39 - 8/7/08

Shark your post is the most assumptive and absurd thing I've read on here. Congrats.

And you clearly have missed, ignored, misunderstood or are simply ignorant to many of the things I've said.

Let's summarize to simplify things for you, then I'm done because this is stupid

The US system as a whole is better organized then ever before and has many intricate layers of development. This will pay off in the future. the 1990 squad and current one is still based on the same principles of tactical acumen and physicality. Klinsmann sees us being more like Germany by 2018 not 2014.

The current USMnT is not at the level you think it is nor as bad as knowone suggests. Its a top 20 squad with experienced players capable of beating any of the worlds best but would never be beset with the expectations of winning one of those games

We are struggling to develop technically gifted players on a world class level. I'll try to do better

Soccer in this country is at its peak in popularity. This has caused a massive increase in investment in development.

We are on a good path that might take a meteoric rise at the lower levels over the next five years. The current USMNT and its u21 component are still behind its world class counterparts. Some of this is purely generational. I just don't care if you agree.

Is all this clear now so you stop with your baseless accusations of my negative feelings on US soccer. Christ on a bike I'd have a better chance arguing with my ex wife

I actually agree with you Uncle Si.

We are a top 20 team and we can hang with just about every team in the world.

I still believe that the gap between us and the top 5-10 teams is pretty huge.

I would say we are a 6.5 out of 10 in terms of overall quality and depth, solidly above average but lacking 1 or 2 key pieces and overall depth from being a top 10 team.

The USMNT looked horrid tonight against Costa Rica. If Bradley's injury keeps him out of the Mexico match on Tuesday I think we're looking at two straight losses.

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You are absolutely entitled to state your opinion whenever you wish, and I am absolutely entitled to point out the stupidity of that opinion with the same frequency.

Yeah...they were absolutely awful. Tim Howard was very below average. Actually the defense was abysmal. Orozco sucks and shouldn't be on the team. Beasley had a bad game too. The worst part is Bradley is injured and they play considerably worse without him plus Altidore is out next game for yellow card accumulation. Got to win against Mexico.

See? I try to keep telling you, Smurf, but you never listen. USMNT will be lucky to make is out of the group stage of the World cup. Not in the same class as the European or South AMerican teams.

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Rzzzzz...

I was at the US-Italy friendly in Genova that night. America looked good and IS a team on the rise. However, Italy is the better squad by a long shot. They were playing without the majority of their heavy hitters and the US hung on by a thread. If that game is played ten times, Italy wins 7 of them. I'm American, I bleed red, white and blue and the Americans played their hearts out, but the Italians were the better squad.

Italy was runner up in the European Championship LAST YEAR and finished third in the Confederations Cup THIS YEAR. Did I mention that on the way to their finishing as runners up in the European Championship they absolutely manhandled Germany in a game where they easily could have scored 7 goals.

Before losing to the United States, Italy beat Spain in a friendly 2-1 which was/is on one of the greatest tears in the history of futbol/soccer/calcio. This same "aging" Italian squad played Spain to a draw in the semi-final of the Confederations Cup only to lose on PKs 7-6. Outside of losing to Brazil 4-2, Italy has beat Spain (#1 ranked in FIFA), England (#14) and Germany (#2) in last three years while finishing with an average placing of 2.5 in the two tournaments they've played. In the mean time,the United States hasn't done anything coming close to this.

Buffon is getting older, true. Balotelli is 23 years old and is the future heart of this team for years to go.

SharkHawk I like your posts in the football forum, but I really don't understand how you can even compare Italy with the United States in soccer.

Italy was the runner up in the 1996 World Cup (17 years ago), but won the 2006 World Cup (7 years ago). That looks like an upward trajectory to me if we are looking at 25 years of data.

France just played Georgia to 0-0 and is now 23rd in the FIFA rankings. Italy is #6 and has beat the #1 and #2 teams in the last two season and lost 2-1 to the third (Argentina). Are you serious?

Yeah Shark, you appear to be out of your element here...

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Rzzzzz...

I was unable to watch the game (was camping)...but from what I read it wasn't pretty.

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Man up, stand in line.

Yeah Italy beat Bulgaria while the US lost to Costa Rica.

apparently its my fault...

I think the Costa Rica game simply exposes the USMNT's weaknesses as well Shark's flacid argument, which failed to address two simple points: 1. yes, the US is developing better soccer players, but so is the rest of the world (we've simply managed to organize our youth system to look more like Europe's, which has existed since the 60s). 2. while the current national team squads reflect a balance of youth and ageing experience, Shark doesnt seem to see the talent pool in Italy, Spain, England, Germany, etc. in the younger age groups. Italy finished 2nd in the u21 Euro Cup last year. This is what worries me about the USMNT. This very well may be the last chance in some time to make a run at something in the World Cup (our u21 team has yet to reveal any game changing talents, the 18s have two very good prospects, including a Liverpool academy player)

Shit game for the US the other night (well, shit start). But I'm willing to let it go. I think they had a loss in their hearts before they even travelled down. I expect a better performance with a desperate Mexico squad. A win there and all is better