Monday's soccer-centric "Meh" list

The only thing I found unresolved was the mole, and I didn’t mind not knowing becuase all of the candidates weren’t very good.

You know what bothers me? American soccer journalists who write with fake British accents. I’m fine with Americans calling it “football” if they want, but I read more than a few U.S. blogs that use British mannerisms in their writing style. It just comes off as contrived to me. Leave the British mannerisms to the British writers.

Sometimes they aren’t really that fake. I have some friends who picked up the “Mid-Atlantic” accent after living in the UK for a few years – they didn’t make a conscious effort to change the way they speak; they just picked up a few things here an there until they added up to a noticeable change. Happens the other way around, too when Brits move over here.

You can still feel meh about it (and obviously, about whatever you damn well want), but “fake” can be a strong word in my experience.

I am loving them… I wish we had more coverage of the draft, better TV coverage of the ncaa tournament (for example many games including some big ones did not even have online streams), and more analysis of the picks. It’s slowly getting better but in the past it’s mostly a focus at the top 5 or 10 or so players and the rest most people don’t know very much about. That leaves gaping holes in the talent pipeline and lets lots of talented players like Chris Wondolowski, Steven Lenhart, and Steven Beitashour slip through unnoticed.

being that in MLS, there are only about 8 guys worth the effort. The first 1-2, you don’t need a mock draft because everyone already knows where they’ll go. The last couple of guys you can’t do a mock draft for, because no one knows who they are (they’re the ‘finds’). That leaves only about 4 guys.

I’m conflicted. This is a tournament ‘ahead of its time.’ Right now, no one ‘buys in’, because everyone believes European football to be the only top flight football, and would still believe that even if Barca hadn’t cruised. Given worldwide economic trends, though, Europe is bound to lose some of its market-cornering status on the top level of club football. It just hasn’t happened yet, and it’s going to take more than 10 years.

But if you look at the fastest growing soccer markets over the last 10-15 years, they aren’t in Europe, they’re in places like Brazil and Mexico (due to economic development), Japan and the US (due to increasing affinity for the sport). At some point, these markets should grow enough to reach some sort of tipping point where they do get some share of top talent. And when that does finally happen, we’ll probably be happy we’ve had the CWC around to monitor the progress and establish some history.