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Originally Posted by demonrail666

As the US's talent stock has risen there's an argument that Arena's and Bradley's periods in charge came in the wrong order, that Bradley would've been ideal to set some solid foundations that Arena could've then built on, rather than Arena oversdtretching the modest talent on offer to him and Bradley unnecessarily restraining the undeniable talent of someone like Clint Dempsey. So I tend to think Bradley was necessary for the ongoing evolution of US football rather than a particularly enjoyable contributer to it.

Personally, I'd like to see a player already within the US Team (maybe Donovon or Bocanegra) being groomed to eventually replace Klinsmann; I do think that while Klinsmann is another necessary step forward, US football will benefit longterm from having more of a home grown structure. That might also require the MLS to stop paying ludicrous salaries to aging European and SA players and to stop relying on the university system for player recruitment. If the rest of the world adopted the US's recruitment strategy there'd be no Messi, or Xavi or Ronaldo or almost any player currently leading the pack. America may well be sitting on the next Iniesta but, because he's probably playing in some park in a dodgy part of East LA, we'll almost certainly never know who he is.

what you're saying is correct, fucking correct. football is a middle-class sport here in 'merica-- "pay to play", capitalism at its worst. i mean they have these fucking "soccer moms"-- moms? seriously, growing up in the land of magical realism you'd play football to get away from your mom, school, homework, etc.--at least until dinner time. but no, here you have housewives in their minivans driving their kids around from school to training to games, paying for fees, uniforms, gas... and the coaches are people who learned from a book and never played. it's fucking unnatural and wrong. nobody fucking plays in the street the way people do in the rest of the world. and there's the problem. there's a class barrier. on the other hand, you go into any city and people will be shooting hoops all over, there are street games and that's where you grow talent--which is why there are so many great basketball players here.

just the other day watching copa américa the commentators (or whatever you call them) were talking about this new stadium in Argentina, I think it was the Mario Kempes in Córdoba, or maybe it's another one, but they were telling that it's in the middle of a huge park, and you have to walk like almost 2 miles to get to the stadium proper, and all the way down there were people playing football in the park outside the stadium. that's that's the kind of situation we don't get here. it's bizarro land, the poor can't play football because it's too expensive! !!! think tennis, or polo, for fucks sakes.

eh, enough rants. if i were to guess about future coaches maybe it will be bradley II-- he's got the coaching genes and he plays in germany so he's getting the experience his old man lacks. and he's good too! no superstar but pretty fucking decent. so maybe there. or some of the other internationals-- there are tons who are too good to play in the shitty MLS and its ridiculous draft system. but it's the federation officials who need to eat a bag of dicks--maybe we can import some officials. ha ha, here i go again. ok. rant over. interview w/ klinsmann here: http://www.ussoccer.com/