11/17/24
December 15, 2004
Is American Soccer catching the NHL's flu?: The US Soccer Federation and the national team players association have been unable to agree to a new contract since the old one lapsed 24 months ago. Now the Federation is telling the players to sign a deal ASAP or Bruce Arena will be fielding a completely new team Feb. 9; the players have filed a compaint with the NLRB.
posted by billsaysthis to soccer at 08:25 PM - 15 comments
Can I just say this for every US soccer fan (with the NHL players dispute in mind): Aw Fuck!
posted by trox at 08:44 PM on December 15, 2004
Weird. It never occurred to me that players got paid for representing their country in international competition.
posted by molafson at 09:56 PM on December 15, 2004
I remember the Greeks got paid big for winning Euro2004.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:31 PM on December 15, 2004
They don't get paid... They get gifts and stuff...but not from FIFA..., nor their respective FAs...
posted by StarFucker at 11:07 PM on December 15, 2004
Did you actually read the article StarFucker? Of course players get paid for playing internationals, by their FAs.
posted by squealy at 04:16 AM on December 16, 2004
Fuck'em. If they don't want to play, they don't have to. Plenty of young guys waiting to get their shot. Sorry, but I hate extortion masquerading as fair labour practices. Sure these guys aren't professional atheletes pay-wise like baseball players or other higher-paying sports; but this also isn't the MLS (or the NFL, NBA, etc). This is the national team, and like the Olympics it should be an honour to play, not a job.
posted by scully at 08:03 AM on December 16, 2004
billsaysthis: Top 20, I'll give you. It looks like the players are aware that the USSF know they can't afford to not qualify for the world cup. This is certainly an opportune moment to strike from their point of view.
posted by salmacis at 12:15 PM on December 16, 2004
Sal, I was just going by FIFA rankings, I think we're 10 or 11 just now, though I'm not sure those rankings are on a quality par with, say, the BCS.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:25 PM on December 16, 2004
That brings up something I have wondered about lately: How does FIFA rank countries in football? Is there a formula that somehow incorporates weights for say beating a good team or losing to a bad one? Sorry if this is something I could find via Google, but there are some fine football minds in this community.
posted by scully at 02:18 PM on December 16, 2004
No i didn't read the article nor have i done any research about it... I always assumed you played for your country for free out of pride... If this is not the case, i am very disappointed.
posted by StarFucker at 03:07 PM on December 16, 2004
SF, the national associations take in cash for the games from TV, gate and merchandise, why wouldn't the players get a share? If you read the artcile you'd see that (other than World Cup Finals matches), the per player paycheck is not that much, between $2k and $6k depending on the type of match and result. Terrapin, right now the US is #11 right behind Mexico, Portugal and Italy, Brazil of course is at the top. Ranking Process.
posted by billsaysthis at 05:33 PM on December 16, 2004
Those rankings are seriously out of whack (and always are due to the weird process that still is taking into account results from the 98 world cup). First, there's no way the US are the 11th best team in the world. Second, there's no way that Mexico is better. How many times does the US need to prove that on the field (when was the last time Mexico actually beat them outright?).
posted by trox at 07:56 AM on December 17, 2004
FIFA may rank the Americans as high as #11, but after reading the page about the rankings are determined I am not convinced at all that the Americans are anywhere near the 11th best team. The main reason is the inclusion of friendly matches. First off, friendly ties for the US are often against teams like Jamaica, Costa Rica, etc. And yes, the FIFA page indicates their are weightings for the importance of the match and the strength of the region, but I still don't buy it. Also, they only count the 7 best results. Secondly, they are friendlies! They frequently are used as conditioning matches and talent evaluations. If they aren't going to include junior matches why include friendly ties? Seems almost as bad as the BCS, but at least FIFA doesn't use the rankings to determine who takes home the silverware. Thanks billsaysthis!
posted by scully at 09:21 AM on December 17, 2004
Trox, Mexico beat us for the spot in the Olympics though admittedly that is a mostly Under-23 constrained squad. Terrapin, granted friendlies ought not to be considered at all but reading a bit more I see that the importance of a match comes into play so that they have much less value than regular games and even less than important tournament matches like World Cup Finals and qualifiers. I would like to see the US schedule more qualifiers against better sides, though, and there are rumors about us having the second match at Wembley, against England, after it opens next Spring. Also, I would point out that we made the last 8 in the 2002 Finals and I don't think there's been any changes that would put us lower since then.
posted by billsaysthis at 04:24 PM on December 17, 2004
We've developed into a top 10(-ish) world ranked team but will an inability to resolve this disrupt what looks like a promising 2006 German campaign?