And yet, gold cup is held every two years, and every time in the US. Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner lined their pockets, in part by reformatting the CONCACAF championship to the gold cup, and holding it every time in the US, and every 2 years.

By contrast, the euros are every 4 years, and the hosts rotate. If UEFA ran the Euros the same way as CONCACAF runs the gold cup, they'd have it every 2 years in the UK.

Copa America is generally every 2 years, but they rotate hosting. Same with the CAF Cup of Nations.

 

Having the federation cups biannually dilutes the quality of the competition. Some years, you'll have sides that won't bother to send their A team. (Such as the US, as we're going into WC qualifying.)

Other years, the top players will ditch a Confederation cup, because they've come off a long season with their clubs.

 

On balance, having it every 2 years, AND having it in the nation that can make the most cash for CONCACAF makes it a cash grab. Wasting your time watching a cash grab only reinforces CONCACAF's poor behavior, IMO.

Well yeah, the US hosting it every year is not ideal. Should rotate between Mexico and Canada as well. I don't think any other country has the infrastructure to be a credible host, unless you want some of the games in subpar facilities. That's CONCACAF! 

Really could make an argument CONCACAF and CONMEBOL need to merge and it should just be the Copa Americas every 4 years. 

On 7/31/2021 at 10:14 AM, y2chae said:

Well yeah, the US hosting it every year is not ideal. Should rotate between Mexico and Canada as well. I don't think any other country has the infrastructure to be a credible host, unless you want some of the games in subpar facilities. That's CONCACAF! 

Really could make an argument CONCACAF and CONMEBOL need to merge and it should just be the Copa Americas every 4 years. 

The other thing that hurts the US Mens is that by not having Gold Cup in other countries, the US loses that aspect of preparation that comes with playing IMPORTANT away games. Constantly playing important games at home makes the players mentally weak, and I believe that that had a part in last WC qualifying failures.

I dont give a fuck about the facilities, because as a fan, I'm not going to travel for GOLD cup, but I would for the WC. So yes, have it in Mexico and Canada. But also, Costa Rica and Honduras can jointly host as well. Or a Caribbean based gold cup, held quadrenally would be interesting.

 

But a constant home setting, just to pump up as much cash as possible for CONCACAF is stoopud. Having it every 2 years is stoopud. And worrying about the US sending their B Team is a waste of time, when WC qualifying is roughly a trillion times more important to the program than the CONCACAF cash grab.

Edited August 1, 20214 yr by Two-Gun Pete

Currently squandering my time.

 

US deserves to down by about three goals, and should have scored about three times, and I'm not sure how much sense that makes unless you've been watching. It's 0-0.

1 hour ago, Heads22 said:

Currently squandering my time.

 

US deserves to down by about three goals, and should have scored about three times, and I'm not sure how much sense that makes unless you've been watching. It's 0-0.

How the hell did we win? I don't know. But it happened. 

Some of the sloppiest and crappiest play I've watched, by both teams. US didn't know what build up play was. Terrible passes, terrible first touches, terrible misses on some sitters. Defense did its job and Mexico choked almost every chance they got. Acosta was probably the best player on the field and it showed on his assist on the goal. 

It feels pretty damn good to beat Mexico with a full MLS team, but that was probably the worst entertaining game I've watched in a while. 

Whats happening in Barcelona is absolutely shocking.

 

For the uninitiated, FC Barcelona are a soccer club that's been around for 120 or so years. And they're huge. Their valuation is routinely among the top 3-4 sports organizations in the world, up there with the Yankees and the Cowboys. 

 

Despite all of that, through years of horrific and moronic mismanagement, Leo Messi will have to leave their club. To put it into perspective, Messi has played in 1/3 of this club's trophies haul. 1/3rd, of a club thats been around for 120 years. Messi has scored, or assisted on one out of every 11 goals scored by this club in the entirety of its existence. 1 out of 11. Un-fucking real.

 

And yet, its all over. This is truly astounding, and a fucking tragedy. Never ever give stupid front offices a break. As a fan, don't ever let up on front office types. 

On 8/10/2021 at 12:55 AM, Two-Gun Pete said:

Whats happening in Barcelona is absolutely shocking.

 

For the uninitiated, FC Barcelona are a soccer club that's been around for 120 or so years. And they're huge. Their valuation is routinely among the top 3-4 sports organizations in the world, up there with the Yankees and the Cowboys. 

 

Despite all of that, through years of horrific and moronic mismanagement, Leo Messi will have to leave their club. To put it into perspective, Messi has played in 1/3 of this club's trophies haul. 1/3rd, of a club thats been around for 120 years. Messi has scored, or assisted on one out of every 11 goals scored by this club in the entirety of its existence. 1 out of 11. Un-fucking real.

 

And yet, its all over. This is truly astounding, and a fucking tragedy. Never ever give stupid front offices a break. As a fan, don't ever let up on front office types. 

Pandemic has hit the Spanish La Liga and money is scarce , Barca were supposed to be getting Liverpool's Wijnaldum on a free but wages were a problem and he also went to PSG . Barca also let Suarez go last season , probably a wages cut as well .

English Premier League kicks off this weekend , I'm not looking past Man City or Chelsea to be eventual winners .

7 hours ago, Bazox said:

English Premier League kicks off this weekend , I'm not looking past Man City or Chelsea to be eventual winners .

Im going to try and start watching some EPL again. Fanduel gave me a no risk same game parlay which I used on Chelsea v Crystal Palace. Given my past history with free parlays expect Crystal Palace to win. 

First season all in on Everton, after boycotting Liverpool until John Henry and the rest of the Fenway Group scum no longer own the club. It will likely be a very long time.

Everton faces Southampton in just over an hour.

 

Edited August 14, 20214 yr by South Side Hit Men

3 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:

First season all in on Everton

It's gonna be a tough season like always but nice to have you on board .

Great start 3-1 the Blues .

I'm a White Sox and Arsenal supporter.  Why do I do this to myself?

1 hour ago, Colome's Hat said:

I'm a White Sox and Arsenal supporter.  Why do I do this to myself?

Hey ! Arsenal have won things recently , my team hasn't won anything since 1995 .

I don't know how rare this is, but the Premier League just finished its first weekend with a winner in all 10 matches. Ten teams sitting on 3 points and ten teams on zero.

On 8/9/2021 at 6:55 PM, Two-Gun Pete said:

Whats happening in Barcelona is absolutely shocking.

 

For the uninitiated, FC Barcelona are a soccer club that's been around for 120 or so years. And they're huge. Their valuation is routinely among the top 3-4 sports organizations in the world, up there with the Yankees and the Cowboys. 

Despite all of that, through years of horrific and moronic mismanagement, Leo Messi will have to leave their club. To put it into perspective, Messi has played in 1/3 of this club's trophies haul. 1/3rd, of a club thats been around for 120 years.

The American League Chicago White Sox have also been around for 120 years. Geoff Blum has played in 1/3 of this club’s trophies haul, and has hit 1/12, or over 8% of White Sox World Series Home Runs over 120 seasons.

White Sox Baseball, messy indeed. ? ?

Edited August 16, 20214 yr by South Side Hit Men

On 8/13/2021 at 9:23 AM, Bazox said:

Pandemic has hit the Spanish La Liga and money is scarce , Barca were supposed to be getting Liverpool's Wijnaldum on a free but wages were a problem and he also went to PSG . Barca also let Suarez go last season , probably a wages cut as well .

All this shit started BEFORE the pandemic. This club had BOTH Puyol and Pique as centre halves. They still haven't replaced Puyol, and have allowed Pique to grow old without a proper partner or successor.

In the MF, once upon a time, there were Xavier and Iniesta pulling the strings. These two made Fabregas redundant! And still, we're still waiting for this club to have done anything to properly replace them.

Up front, they squandered the Neymar haul on a lazy Dembele, an unnecessary Griezman, and a misfit Coutinho; the latter of which never had a role in a club that already featured Messi.

Bad and dumb front office decisions are familiar to most SOX fans. While the pandemic hurt La Liga, it was a decade of horrific mismanagement that led to this point for Barcelona.

Messi should have been a one club man, full stop. But Bartomeu crapped his pants on this.

 

1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:

The American League Chicago White Sox have also been around for 120 years. Geoff Blum has played in 1/3 of this club’s trophies haul, and has hit 1/12, or over 8% of White Sox World Series Home Runs over 120 seasons.

White Sox Baseball, messy indeed. ? ?

Not exactly. 

Messi's goal haul would be more akin to the total runs scored over the course of the history of the SOX, not the HRs hit.

The other difference is that Barcelona are regularly successful, akin to the Yankees, and Messi was more important to Barcelona than Ruth was to the Yankees. 

 

Other than that, youd be close.

Edited August 16, 20214 yr by Two-Gun Pete

????

 

my thoughts on the season

US World Cup qualifying starting right now on CBSSN.

Horrible looking performance so far vs. a lousy El Salvador team.  

12 hours ago, Chisoxfn said:

Horrible looking performance so far vs. a lousy El Salvador team.  

Yeah, that wasn't worth staying up for. Thankfully, nobody other than Mexico got 3 points last night so no damage done.

Not having VAR in WC qualifying is total bullshit. So is playing on a field that bad. So were those announcers.

24 minutes ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

Yeah, that wasn't worth staying up for. Thankfully, nobody other than Mexico got 3 points last night so no damage done.

Not having VAR in WC qualifying is total bullshit. So is playing on a field that bad. So were those announcers.

The broadcast was so bad. I thought I was watching a game on a CRT in 1998. 

2 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

Yeah, that wasn't worth staying up for. Thankfully, nobody other than Mexico got 3 points last night so no damage done.

Not having VAR in WC qualifying is total bullshit. So is playing on a field that bad. So were those announcers.

I don’t have cbs sports so was on the Spanish broadcast. I thought it was the poor steaming quality - who knew it was actually the camera quality. 

Berhalter needs to be fired.  Completely asinine that the USA has its most talent group ever and the coach is a guy who got the job solely because of nepotism.  

Let's face it. They just don't wanna go to Qatar.

I really don't want to be the old guy that looks down upon today's generation of player, but:

1. Despite this team having a metric fuckton more talent than ever in US history, it plays like 11 guys out gloryhunting.

2. Yes, this team is mentally weak. And yes, the crappy teams from the 90s would have killed this team, just based on sheer guts and desire. Dooley and Lalas and Balboa and the rest of them would have beaten these weak sacks of shit into submission. 

3. McKennie's moronic behavior is emblematic of the mental weakness of this team. Its also embarrassing that Berhalter has apparently done exactly jack and shit about this. How some fucking 23 year old gets off doing the stoopud shit hes done, as if he's actually done anything in this game is beyond me.

 

Yeah, I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting close to giving as many fucks about the US Mens National Team as they give.

Edited September 6, 20214 yr by Two-Gun Pete