New Youth Structure, MLS to Cut Salaries

Last week brought out big news in MLS's little corner of the globe. Both items will have lasting impact on what the league looks like down the road.

1. USSF shut down its Development Academy program - all at once. MLS swooped in and announced that they would be picking up the slack and seemingly just slap their name on most of the teams USSF is no longer funding.

This is a surprising move because the next day...

2. MLS is exploring plans to cut player salaries more than 50%" in total. MLS Players Association figures tell us that the league spent about $290 million on player wages last year. Now, MLS's (reported) proposal to their Union is a little creative in that they want to cut everyone making over $100k by half (and not let anyone making over $100k dip below that). Quick math tells us that the new MLS wage bill would be $156 million.

During a 34 game season that is about $4.6m a week vs $8.5m. At this point, even with the best scenarios, MLS will not be playing a full schedule but they offered an olive branch the union by saying they will not cut down further even if the season is canceled.

I am skeptical on that last part, but it is possible because MLS has to somehow retain players through till next season (8 months) to avoid completely rebooting rosters.

MLS IN DENILE

Don Garber is still once of the only commissioners holding on to expected re-start dates. I've stopped tracking it, but I think it's now sometime in June. I'm not sure if that is wishful thinking or what. Large gatherings of more than 20 will probably not be in place by then, let alone enough to squeeze in full team training sessions. Playing games?! Even in empty stadiums? That's a pipe dream until late summer.

THE ONLY HOPE FOR DON

The only hope the team sports world has of getting anything going is if the governors decide that sports are an essential business and EVEN THEN it will likely follow a pecking order that allows the NFL and MLB to get going.

There simply aren't enough healthcare resources to fire up all sports all at once. Even if there were, can you imagine the optics of sports teams testing thousands a weekend? The entire state of Ohio is only able to test 2,600 people a day. That's likely how much a few NFL games on a Sunday would take.

So, here is my updated 2020 sports projection:

- Fall college sports? Cooked!
- MLS, NWSL, USL, ALL THINGS SOCCER - COOKED.
- Golf... not cooked.
- MLB? Will probably schedule a few games.
- NHL, NBA, WNBA - Cooked till fall at best.
- Bowling? Not cooked.
- NFL... will likely get to play somehow.

Run, Jenny! Run!

The story of Soccer in the United States.

By: Vidda Grubin

Read the story in this link to Forbes, 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2018/03/31/1-4b-us-soccer-deal-with-statsports-has-potential-to-monitor-the-performance-of-4-million-players/#6f0f2c7d6231

and then continue below.

At pick-up games at the local university, when I was high school age, I was “Runner” to my teammates. Runner, the not so subtle sarcastic reaction to the most obvious aspect of my game.

The university was Ohio State. The players ranged from wildly terrible to good local high school and college players to very good ex-professionals from around the world. This was the late 70’s and early 80’s.

I didn’t like the nickname. Don’t get me wrong, I could run fast and just about forever. But in the context of those games, “Runner” was definitely an insult. Pride and love of skilled sports would not let me wear that moniker for long.

I spent the entire summer before going off to play small college soccer working on dribbling and, more importantly, teaching myself to juggle without staring at the ball. My inspiration for using this training technique was basketball.

One of the first things you are taught in basketball is to dribble without looking at the ball. I surmised that if I could juggle without looking directly at the soccer ball, my touch and vision would improve dramatically. I was correct.

I could already juggle pretty well, but it took every day, an hour plus per day to become proficient at juggling without staring at the ball. The result by the end of the following year was a whole new appreciation for the sport of soccer, and a great deal more joy and success while playing. I was still a “Runner,” but I was a Runner that could play, bitches!

Back in the 80’s there were a lot of suburban kids who were “Runners.” Well meaning coaches, lacking real world soccer skills, tended to rely and fall back on fitness (running) as the answer to most issues with their teams. Three mile runs, six mile runs, twenty full field sprints, followed by a jog around the park were normal in a lot of suburbs back then.

Fast forward to today. Millions of kids in the United States have played, are playing. They watch the best teams and players in the world. They emulate those players and understand a great deal more about the game than me and my peers did at the same age. And yet…

The United States Soccer Federation just contracted to spend a billion dollars on wearable gear that tracks where, how far and how fast players in the states are running during training and games. As much as things change (almost entirely due to the beauty of the sport itself and the kids who love the sport), some things just simply don’t/won’t die. Is this an April fools joke?

Great players are great because they can settle a ball within an inch of their foot, even if that ball was played to them from sixty yards away and there is a defender with an elbow in their back. Great players are great because they can see spaces and movement on the field before those spaces and movement even happen. Great players are great because they can spin a defender with a simple, clever touch and then split three defenders with a perfectly weighted pass to a teammate rushing to goal.

For sure, to do all those amazing things listed above, the great player has to be fit, but a fit player who cannot do those things is only a “Runner.”

I learned my lesson. I had the drive and love of sport to improve. Even in my late twenties, while playing open amateur league soccer, I was still finding ways to get better. Racquetball courts are amazing.

If there are any kids out there that read this, learn to juggle, then learn to juggle without looking at the ball, then find a racquetball court and pattern juggle.

For instance: play the ball with the right foot off one wall so that it comes off the wall and over your head, as you turn, play the next touch left footed off the opposite wall so the ball comes off the wall and back over your head. Now start making up your own patterns, and use every possible body part. Have fun, bitches!

All the best,

Vidda Grubin

Former “Runner”

And The Ghost

Talking USMNT and Crew

[podcast] part 2 --> crew!

The Autonomous League of US Soccer

OBJECTIVE: Build a nationwide soccer league system in the United States that is connected and healthy.

---
WHY: After the busy holiday season I wanted a project to work on at Helltown. Unifying multiple soccer entities and leagues is a worth while endeavor. It's an exciting thing to work on.

---
CHALLENGE: Many. Different organizations and more importantly different financial structures.

01: Existing Leagues. When you step back, Major League Soccer's (the United States "top division") closed single entity system is a tough nut to crack. They (MLS) want to own the team, the transfers, the sponsors, TV rights, the grass on the pitch and you. It's not just MLS, though. The NASL, USL and NPSL all have their own way of managing their existence.

02: Travel. MLS's business structure is a road block in creating a unified league system in the United States, but not the most difficult to overcome. Money is. Always money. How so? Travel. This country is huge. The United States Soccer Federation's biggest asset is also it most challenging hurdle.

03: USSF and Sunil Gulati. This number 3 is actually number one, but I have absolutely zero ways or means of controlling it or understanding it (fully). I don't know the thoughts of the board members or C level executives. Heck, don't even know or care who they are. All I need to know is if they realize they are sitting on something special or not. I'd like to think Gulati knows but resolving petty disputes (NASL) about lower leagues is not bringing anything forward and a waste of time.

04: FIFA Calendar. US does not follow it. Simple solution? Change the US calendar to fall in line with rest of the world. But work to be done to get to that. Weather and all that. Plus... the United States of America the most prosperous nation in the history of human kind. Sorta figure; we might be able to make a few rules if we so want. Maybe not.

---
THE FIRST TWO STEPS: Are always the hardest, and each step brings new challenges.

01: Split the soccer semi/pro playing clubs into EAST and WEST at top 2 levels (for scheduling during regular seasons, maybe play a east/west cup or something to determine US champ, we'll get there). Mississippi River being the divider. Southeast, southwest, northeast, northwest on 3rd, 4th and 5th will be determined by organizing league and team density and will feed East/West on top 2 levels.

02: Promotion and Relegation. Unify Major League Soccer, North American Soccer League, United Soccer League and National Premier Soccer League through promotion and relegation yet allow the individual leagues to retain control of their teams.

Promotion and relegation can be used as a tool to structure league sizes and regional divisions.

---
THE TEAMS: Autonomy has to be used to organize our current soccer chaos in the United States. It's not going to happen in one year. But it can happen in five... that said; the 1st question has to be asked, how many teams do we have in the US playing semi or pro soccer?

152 total teams in the USA

4 "Major" Leagues, 18 different divisions

75 USL (10 Divisions)
50 NPSL (5 Div)
19 MLS (2 Div)
8 NASL (1)

90 East of the Mississippi, 62 West

---
Click to view all 152 teams in the top four leagues of the US soccer "pyramid".
---
It is necessary for the USA to have all soccer leagues working together in order to be competitive on the world stage. I have more coming, just a start!

USL, NASL, USSF & Creation Centre

Grab some coffee, it's going to be a long one here.

Good news! Lower division soccer in North America exists! Okay, that's good, but not news. Alternate good news! It is a mess that is trying to get organized! Right now, as I type. 2011 could be seen as one of two things for our lower divisions.

1. Just another transition year that will be followed by many more.

2. The start of a real lower league that will finally hold for years to come.

Others more mighty then I have perished trying to explain lower league soccer in North America. I'm trying to put all this together right now and looking at the top of my browser I see that I have about 10 tabs open. Anyway, the best I can find is the the United States Soccer Pyramid.

I believe that 2011 will be the year that lower division soccer will get a foothold even though it is still in flux. The Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps are moving to the MLS this year leaving a void that will have to be filled behind them. They were not promoted based on performance or anything. More just about how much money they can make. Promotion/Relegation in the US is not in the cards anytime soon. The Timbers and Whitecaps were founded in 2009, this is frustrating. The USL has teams that have been around for over 10 years and a couple for 17 years. Portland and Vancouver were chosen based on two simple facts.

1. Location (the MLS wants a clear cut East / West)
2. Revenue Potential

I'm not a fan of "United States Soccer Federation" (USSF). It's an organization that despite sitting on a goldmine (of potential money and millions of American kids playing) fails to organize the sport here. But, it takes a national organization like it to create order out of chaos. Once this gets sorted the US will begin to get better. Or even better, depending on how you feel about our quality out here.

Looking at Lower Division Challenges:

The biggest challenge for the USSF is distance. Covering it requires money. In England it is not a problem. In the US? it is. It is very expensive to travel a team all around the country. Another challenge is obscurity. Only a small fraction of the country knows that there is more pro soccer out there other then the MLS.

The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup:

With the USSF taking the reins on Lower Division soccer I can see this cup becoming more interesting in the coming years. It has been around forever, but now that the MLS has finally proved that pro soccer can be sustainable in the US I believe that the key to future success of soccer in this country is the US Open Cup.

Only once since the MLS has been around has a team outside that league not won the CUP. The Rochester (Ragin') Rhinos. Charleston Battery made the final in 2008 but lost to DC United. I've read in the past that those two have a fierce rivalry. This is a little thing but means big things for the future.

It's a good thing that MLS teams are winning this Cup. It shows that our "top division" truly has the best teams even without relegation and promotion. That said, I hope that we see more teams not from the MLS doing well. It will bring them out into the national spotlight and raise awareness to the fact that soccer has already arrived in the US whether ESPN likes to admit it or not. I'd venture to say that the anchors over at that cable station all have kids playing soccer and choosing soccer over other sports and are slowly coming to terms that - In fact; it is the most played sport in this country.

CREATION CENTRE:

FIFA 11's incredible feature that allows people to create teams is incredibly popular. I once felt that I was in the minority in spending hours creating my own team filled with friends using reasonable, believable stats on skill and height. But I am not!

Just yesterday I discovered that there are many. Yeah, there are the unbeatable teams filled with 99 rated players, but I also found a wealth of teams just like the Helltown Brewmasters. There are also folks uploading lower division US teams like the Richmond Kickers and Charleston Battery. How great is this? EA might not include them but players are creating them.

There are varying levels of good though. Example; Richmond is lovingly done, but the stats are off the charts. Charleston is fairly done though. It's great. That team fits exactly where it should in terms of stats.

England football fans have also come out in force in creating teams even further down the league tables. I was able to find Kettering Town (my grandmothers home) that was realistically created.

I intend to find more. Long post here so in the future I can create a list of teams fairly done from the US lower divisions.