Copa America

[Dwaring]

Got a chance to watch the US win the group tonight. Just sad we can't fill a stadium watch our national team. Ticket prices were a big turn off. I was about to get a good deal to see all 3 matches here in Philly. Uraguay (let down), USA & Chile.

[Cocacolajojo]

Actually, it was Adidas who spelled Colombia wrong, not the US hosts.

when i wrote that the US played the wrong anthem and misspelled a country name I was merely referring to companies here not the actual US soccer federation. but yes, youre correct.

To the best of my knowledge Adidas are still German with their HQ in Bavaria.

Yeah but that's merely another country.

[carl_feedthegoat]

Surprised none of our American friends haven't got a thread going yet (or anyone for that matter).

Otamendi took the lead for the Argies last night in a 5-0 win over Panama, Sergio scored after coming from the bench and Messi bagged s hattrick

A tough one to follow from this side of the pond as most games from what I see are 02:00 or later

Im only interested in the real Copa America...this tourny is as micky fuckign mouse as you can get.

[Green & Blue]

I watched Brazil and Argentinas group stage openers but have lost interest now the Euros have started. The knockout stages should be good but the quality of football in the group stages is very poor. It seems Brazil are resting the big boys for the Rio olympics, Argentina should have more than enough to win it.

[bigblue]

Great goal in the Mexico - Venezuela game last night:

https://streamable.com/ciwq

Other angles:

https://streamable.com/cl4d

Being played in Houston, this was pretty much a home game for Mexico, just with more expensive beers

[phips]

Actually, it was Adidas who spelled Colombia wrong, not the US hosts.

when i wrote that the US played the wrong anthem and misspelled a country name I was merely referring to companies here not the actual US soccer federation. but yes, youre correct.

To the best of my knowledge Adidas are still German with their HQ in Bavaria.

Yeah but that's merely another country.

so the HQ in Bavaria printed the kits?

[JamieMCFC]

Just sad we can't fill a stadium watch our national team. Ticket prices were a big turn off. I was about to get a good deal to see all 3 matches here in Philly. Uraguay (let down), USA & Chile.

Average Attendance for Copa, Euros and World Cup

Copa Centenario: 41,693
Euro 2016: 48,794
Copa America 2015: 25,227
World Cup 2014: 53,592

[Wonderwall]

Just sad we can't fill a stadium watch our national team. Ticket prices were a big turn off. I was about to get a good deal to see all 3 matches here in Philly. Uraguay (let down), USA & Chile.

Average Attendance for Copa, Euros and World Cup

Copa Centenario: 41,693
Euro 2016: 48,794
Copa America 2015: 25,227
World Cup 2014: 53,592

It all depends on stadia size and pricing too. If they were all the same you could make a comparison but it's apples and orange's

[PrezIke]

Just sad we can't fill a stadium watch our national team. Ticket prices were a big turn off. I was about to get a good deal to see all 3 matches here in Philly. Uraguay (let down), USA & Chile.

Average Attendance for Copa, Euros and World Cup

Copa Centenario: 41,693
Euro 2016: 48,794
Copa America 2015: 25,227
World Cup 2014: 53,592

It all depends on stadia size and pricing too. If they were all the same you could make a comparison but it's apples and orange's

Indeed. Pricing for the Copa Centenario is very high for a tournament not as well known outside of serious football fans in the U.S., and games are almost all played in large capacity American football stadiums.

[Dwaring]

Just sad we can't fill a stadium watch our national team. Ticket prices were a big turn off. I was about to get a good deal to see all 3 matches here in Philly. Uraguay (let down), USA & Chile.

Average Attendance for Copa, Euros and World Cup

Copa Centenario: 41,693
Euro 2016: 48,794
Copa America 2015: 25,227
World Cup 2014: 53,592

It all depends on stadia size and pricing too. If they were all the same you could make a comparison but it's apples and orange's

Indeed. Pricing for the Copa Centenario is very high for a tournament not as well known outside of serious football fans in the U.S., and games are almost all played in large capacity American football stadiums.

Point was more to the fact that they have sold out some of these large stadiums when Mexico, Brazil and Argentina is playing but have yet to do so for a USMNT match.

[PrezIke]

Actually, that's my point. Serious football fans in the U.S. know about the event, but average fans haven't a clue, other than those of backgrounds that generally care about the sport. This would usually be immigrants/their children from the countries you list, although there are not quite as many Argentinian immigrants compared to other countries here (Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil), but the difference and also why those other nations are so well supported is that South American countries take the tournament seriously so their fans travelled here to watch...It's THEIR tournament. When Mexico plays matches in the U.S. it can often be a de facto home game, sometimes even against the U.S. if they play near the border (i.e. Southern California).

When the U.S. played Costa Rica there wasn't exactly a huge Costa Rican contingent at the game compared to when they played Colombia when 60% of the fans were there to support them not the Americans. Costa Rica being in CONCACAF, were one of the few invited nations from that region so this isn't even the Gold Cup (also not so important to average American sport fans), and generally football is just not as popular or ingrained in most of the CONCACAF nations' cultures as North American sports like Baseball, Basketball, Hockey and American Football.

I didn't even realise the tournament was happening in the U.S. until about a month before the tournament, and I generally pay attention, so there has been very little promotion in the media compared to say if we had the World Cup which would surely attract huge crowds of casual fans wanting to attend. I looked into buying tickets, as I said elsewhere, for a quarter finals match in the NYC area and the tickets were very expensive for a semi-major tournament with a lot of mediocre nations, where Brazil doesn't even send their best team, and Messi sits out (would never happen if this was the WC).

[DoomMerchant]

And they won't. Ever. Until we get rid of ze German bullshit artist and play some fun football.

And fuck off Carl. It's still the Copa you dickweed.

Cheers

[PrezIke]

And they won't. Ever. Until we get rid of ze German bullshit artist and play some fun football.

And fuck off Carl. It's still the Copa you dickweed.

Cheers

I happen to be okay enough with Klinsmann as it ain't his fault we have such little talent and ruin players potential through crap development of clueless coaches and pay-for-play and college sports ("Boooo!"). Is it about winning in the short term or developing a system and talent? I have zero interest in going back to a Bruce Arena type of RAH RAH American style of pseudo-Leicester play of hard work and good team work that is probably more like how Greece won the Euros that one year, but bores me to death.

I'm not saying he's doing so great, but no American has the quality or credibility to manage the team. Problem is he is managing a lot of other aspects of youth development, etc. to try to fix the system, so perhaps he is stretched as well. Maybe Patrick Vieira would be a good choice in the future...I'm actually not joking.

I am starting to feel some hope with Wood, Pulisic and Nagbe now, but that's not enough. The model should be to send talent to Europe ASAP, avoid the MLS, but as you know too many Americans are contagious to living abroad.

[Saul Goodman]

Is Sergio injured? Why is he not playing more in this tournament?

[bigblue]

Levetzzi injured after tumbling over the billboards. All about the $$$ for FIFA, even over player safety.

On the US, our keeper is Brad Guzan, the team is build around an Asron Villa reject, and we sub on an average 17 year old kid from the bundesliga bench when looking for a goal. Says it all really. We'll be lucky to not get completely dicked

[PrezIke]

Is Sergio injured? Why is he not playing more in this tournament?

Seems the manager prefers Higuain primarily, and neither of them are really suited to playing out wide, so one has to sit. Higuain seems to play better than Kun with Argentina of late, and he had a stellar season, even better than Kun in terms of goals. Sergio rarely seems to have the kinds of performances we are used to in international games, but I also think as we saw with the season winding down, he seemed either tired, or just not in great form.

Odd thing is Aguero did miss part of the season so he didn't play as many games as others, but I think he did a lot of running, played a lot of minutes due to our desperate need for points or wins, and generally expended a lot of energy the last few months of the season. Hodgson arguably made the mistake of playing Kane who some pundits feel is tired as well. He seemed a bit frustrated and demoralized, compared to Higuain who may have been in better spirits. As a bench option he is pretty much the best substitute you could ask for if you are in need of a goal or Higuain is having a poor game.

I'm curious to see if the manager is willing to drop him for the final. They haven't really had the same level of competition so they haven't needed him as much, however Kun was on the bench in their win against Chile so it does seem rather likely.

[PrezIke]

Levetzzi injured after tumbling over the billboards. All about the $$$ for FIFA, even over player safety.

On the US, our keeper is Brad Guzan, the team is build around an Asron Villa reject, and we sub on an average 17 year old kid from the bundesliga bench when looking for a goal. Says it all really. We'll be lucky to not get completely dicked

Hah! Guzan had a pretty good tournament as far as I could see. It's also not entirely his fault the Villa defence was a utter shambles all season. Was excited to see Pulisic come on, and in the little we saw you could see that he has genuine skill and potential to be a star. But we couldn't string together two passes, let alone even one. I grow increasingly tired of seeing players with such poor touch and pass accuracy. It really was embarrassing to watch.

Pulisic exhibited very good movement, and I could see the team trying to find him on the left flank when he came on, but it was completely worthless because we couldn't keep the ball for any period of time. I don't know why Klinsmann didn't start him. We were going to lose anyway, and no one would have been bothered. Would it really have hurt his development to play decent minutes? Most of the rest of the team looks like they don't belong on the pitch with Argentina, other than Guzan, Pulisic, Yedlin (who did pretty well) and Bradley who had an okay game.

Dempsey was also invisible, but it was for the same reasons (much of the team stinks), and he's 33 years old, and pretty much carried us to the Semis, although we did see some other good performers (Wood) and the defence was well organised for a change. No Wood nor Jones did not help at all either, and could have made it a better game. Again, I want to see more hip-hop in our football. If we can get that injected into the culture of the game here we will see a change that is more representative of what we could offer.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Is Sergio injured? Why is he not playing more in this tournament?

Because the best individuals don't necessarily make the best team perhaps?

Delighted to hear he's not playing.

[bigblue]

The Messi freekick vs the USA was something else:

https://streamable.com/1igc
https://streamable.com/t5uw

they don't get much better than that; inch perfect

[john@staustell]

Is Sergio injured? Why is he not playing more in this tournament?

Because the best individuals don't necessarily make the best team perhaps?

Delighted to hear he's not playing.

When I was a kid I used to love it when players like Lee, Bell, Summerbee, Marsh, Watson played for England.

Now I hope nobody plays for their country, have some nice jollies and come back fresh and uninjured