watching the US national team is like getting a root canal..
as is MLS
horrible stuff... but then again the Argentine league is horrible.. Italy is horrible..anything in the western hemisphere is crap... Asia is all crap..Africa is all crap...
actually truth be told I've soured on the world's game..I've had to sit through too many plodding games the past few years.. the past two world cups have been HORRIBLE... I just think at certain levels its a thing of beauty and you have a good chance of seeing something great... but you have to focus on the Premier league (pains me to write that) which is entertaining (totally focused on attacking and the players don't foul much at all.... there is a rare idea in the premier league that acting, fouling, cheating sucks) and the Champions League...I mean when you see a game like say Barcelona against Bayern.. clashes between the top clubs who spend hundreds and hundreds of millions to get the game's best from all over the world.. well..it can be beautiful
the last few World Cups have been horrible.. and unless FIFA changes its approach it will be horrible next year too.. I mean the way it is right now a guy like Messi plays like 2-3 times a week during the year...because his team is so good it plays the local league, the champions league, the national tournament (equivalent of FA Cup) and on top of that qualifying for Argentina having to travel thousands of miles and playing in shitty stadiums all over South America (high altitude you name it).. then before the world cup they give him like a week off and then he meets his world cup teamates for a couple of days and the world cup starts! no wonder his body is totally shot and he can't perform.. he is DEAD tired..his muscles are dead...multiply that through all the best players an they are dead tired at the WC and they get injured and pull muscles left and right... they are simply overworked... then you have other countries whose players relatively suck so they are lucky to play 20% of the games that the world's best do.. they are fresh as a cucumber and they are able to negate the best players.. they need to have the season end way early..give them 2 months off..then a month to train with their teams so they actually can play together and well in the NATIONAL team.. then you would see some good stuff.. the way it is right now you just have to feel sorry for the world's elite players.. they are literally being playerd to death by FIFA, their national federations and their clubs.. and they don't even get paid for all the qualifying games or the World CUP! its a joke.. on top of that they play the World Cup in the middle of summer often times in places with crazy hot weather.. I mean the US in the summer in 1994 was brutal in some places... as was Brazil and they're going to play in Qatar??? I mean i don't care if the qataris can fuckin have servants running around on the pitch fanning the players while they play.its still going to suck... make the priority focusing on helping the players perform and the world cup will once again be fun.. the way they are doing it these days its just not happening
I enjoy watching Barcelona in Spain but in Spain you have like 4-5 decent teams and everybody else.. same in France... in Italy the problem is the stupid style (cattenacio)..incredibly defensive..makes it rather agonizing...
they need to fuckin change the rules...as players have got more fit they are pretty much able to cancel each other out (the physical has overtaken the technical).. its become so hard to score... then you got the refs fuckin'e verything up... they need to make the goals bigger or something.. also make the penalty area bigger...cut down the number of players to say 9 a side to create more space ..change the offside rule so that the striker can be a little ahead of the last defender.. at least err on the side of the striker.. right now the linesmen see a striker zip by the defender and look open and they put the flag up cause they're like "no way can the guy have gotten loose..."..well then you watch the replay and he did get free but the fuckin linesman fucked it up..another necessary change is to actually call shit.. like if a guy is holding someone's shirt then he's fuckin out of there...they do that shit all the time in the penalty box and nobody calls it.. also use more technology cause the refs and linesmen are constantly blowing calls... another necessary change which they'll never do is to stop thisbullshit of the clubs oWNING the player.. the player should own himself like players do in the US...also do something like basketball or hockey to penalize teams for fouling too much. .the way it is right now you can have a really great team playing against nobodies and scoring is like the hardest thing in the world.. i don't think a game where a team can't make their tactical and technical superiority count makes a lot of sense.. maybe alllow some subbing in and out and allow way more subs period.. if a team has a roster of 22 players and its really deep (and they had to leave 50 really good players off the team for lack of space) why shouldn't they be allowed to take advantage of that against a team that could only find 10 good players in the whole country (and maybe even had to nationalize a few Africans or Brazilians two weeks before the WC!)?
I also hate to say that Germany is the team that plays the way you should play these days.. and nobody else is close.. they have found a way to balance technique with brute force/power....everybody else is either too much one one side or the other...
geez..i sound like Julian..glad he won't see these words..
