Interesting take on the lack of quality in the US team
Commonly called a Golden Generation because enough players are now playing in big european leagues that they can pick a team that includes 0 MLS players. The problem is none of those players are particularly important to the club they play for meaning that while they might be deeper than Canada or Uruguay, they dont have anything like the same top end quality.
They’ll have to join the queue behind England, Belgium, etc.
Canada beat the US last night, which was supposedly their first win in the US for 60 years.
The best bit about the trajectories these two sides have been on recently is how salty a bitch Marsch continues to be about it, and I fully support that
Spot on. The rehiring of Berhalter, when Marsch was there to had, was another gaffe by US Soccer. Now, it looks like Pochettino is on the way in, and he may get a tune out of these players, but disregarding Marsch was a mistake,IMO. But, Earnie and Gregg are besties, so…
At least Stewart is gone now. We’ll see if Crocker can put together a program that will lead to developing some top level talent.
It was technically Crocker who rehired Berhalter 
If I am looking for mitigation, that decision was taken very soon after he was appointed so it appears a lot of what happened in the time since Berhalter’s previous contract ran out was conducted by others.
What I can see of the timeline
IMO it was not a mistake.
Marsch is the biggest blowhard in global football…and you can see it in how he continues to deal with the issue. Its always about self aggrandizement. You saw it in the publication of the HT talk at Anfield while with Salzburg.
Tactically, his teams are as organized as a squad of headless chickens!
There’s a certain sense of entitlement among ex USMNT players who are pundits or coaches that is very harmful to the USMNT program. And the worst example of it was in the Reyna/Berhalter issue.
Hiring Poch is the best thing Crocker could ever do…
Miami got bounced out of the MLS play offs last night after losing a second game in a row to a shit Atlanta team. The winning goal was a joke as well. A Miami defender went down in the box holding his head and the ref allowed the game to go on through multiple phases, each time Miami assuming that after defending one surely the game would stop this time, only for it to keep going 
Commentary team seemed gutted
Congrats and all, but it tickled me that their official said they “shocked the world”.
Meanwhile, my hometown defending MLS Cup champion Columbus Crew lose out to another of those ghastly energy drink sides.
Since its beginning one of the criticisms of the MLS has been that its calendar doesnt align with most of the rest of the global football calendar. There are whispers of the league finally seriously considering adjusting the calendar to align, but the impetus is that they are finally listening to stakeholders, but because the summer, the heart of the current season, is now so full of international commitments, that it is making it increasingly difficult to continue the league play through that period. The period where all the other leagues have ended and players are supposed to be on a break.
Great work, FIFA.
I’m all for the alignment of scheduling. I am concerned, however, for the fan interest (turnout) in the MLS during college and NFL season…as well as during colder months of winter. Not so bad for southern sides, but here in Columbus…?
Wanting to avoid competition with NFL and NCAA is one of the supposed arguments for the original/current calendar, but with expansion the season now stretches on so far into the calendar year that MLS cup final is not being played until this weekend. That means they still play through 95% of those seasons as it is.
Maybe adjusting to Feb or something may help.
It’s sort of something watch in the summer but Baseball will tie me over I guess. It’s season currently aligns with all the South American ones.
Vermont won the NCAA national championship in a huge cinderella story shock.
They had two players from Maine on the team. One of then was just selected 17th overall in the MLS draft, by New York FC, making him only the 3rd Mainer to play in the MLS.
Taken this from the January window thread
That is a big hit to the status of the MLS. It speaks quite poorly when the lynchpin of one of the league’s best teams can be poached for that small a fee.
They can continue to wank themselves silly over Messi.
@Arminius thoughts?
Well, Canada Soccer is a mess, no doubt about that, and Montagliani has always seemed a bit off. But the coverage does sort of obscure the fact that when the CSB deal was done, Canada Soccer was broke and men’s team was not in great shape. The women were much stronger, which doesn’t pay the bills. The CSB deal did provide guaranteed funding at a time when Canada Soccer really needed it and did not have much to offer. As a deal, structuring it so that CSB got all of the upside isn’t great, and ramming it through the board is worse. But it is worth looking at the other possible states of the world, like no qualification for the 2022 WC, etc. CSB ended up with the best possible outcome, that was far from certain at the time.