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QUESTION MARK EDITION

Even with global warming staking its claim on October here in New York, it feels cold. Maybe it’s just the women’s national team’s treatment of their (former?) goal keeper keeping chills in the air, or maybe it’s the collective air being pulled away as the media abandon the team.

With or without the media attention, USSF has been un-surprisingly mum on the crumbling persona of the WNT. Do they have a responsibility to clean this up? Or are they correct in their silence? I think there is an argument for both sides with “protecting this house” being the reasoning.

I’ll be be watching the October 13th game versus Mexico in St. Louis from my house. Will Hope Solo be saying the same thing?

More questions after the jump…

Does Carlos Ruiz feel guilty or proud this morning after Ricardo Clark received a 9-game suspension and was fined $10,000 for kicking him? The answer to that question will tell you the kind of man Ruiz is. History points me toward ‘proud’. Either way I like MLS cracking down tough. I only wish they would do the same with Ruiz and players of his ilk. Ives Galarcep, one professional writer not scared to share an opinion, spells it out perfectly, writing on his blog:

Who will win the Player of the Year Award? Can they just not give one out?

Honda Soccer Symposium? Not sure what the point is, and from the sound of it, there was nothing we haven’t heard already, although a January camp for the US MNT with a friendly against Sweden was announced. It did have most of the big names in American soccer taking questions, but that usually doesn’t mean a lot when those discussions are public. Alexi Lalas was - you’ve got to be kidding me - the keynote speaker. I never thought I would see the words Keynote and Lalas together. Local purveyor Sidleine Views has all the minutia covered with audio and comments (scroll down their busy site to find the relating posts).

“I mean seriously, it is pretty dumb to react the way Clark did when he could have just waited two minutes and delivered a two-footed lunge on Ruiz’s ankle, breaking it and finishing the suspension in time for the playoffs. That’s how things go in MLS. Break a player’s leg or ankle with a bad tackle and get a game or three. Kick a player who just hit you from behind in the kidneys and you’re missing a third of a season and paying a fine worth more than the salaries of a third of the players in MLS.”

Can a soccer skills competition be a successful Pay-Per-View event? What if it’s Ronaldinho et al. striking free kicks against keepers such as Kasey Keller for a million dollars? We’ll find out December 22 in Houston, Texas, with the Free Kick Masters. Oddly, Beckham won’t be there.

Is it safe to say there are more American players plying their trade successfully overseas than ever before? If it is not, we’re getting close. There is even talk that Freddy Adu is making strides at Benfica. While I’m waiting on that particular answer, Mike Woitalla, executive editor of Soccer America Magazine, makes his case for the Yanks Abroad in The New York Sun. Are they owned by the same company, or is it a coincidence SAM writers consistently show up in the Sun?

How far should we stretch what we call news? According to Yahoo! Buzz, David Beckham wins the award for “most popular jersey search.” Whatever that means. Walter Payton was 4th; Michael Vick was 7th; Hope Solo was 8th. There is no info on how long the data was collected for or anything substantiating it. But of course, clearly “the athlete’s status in buzz is cemented.” We are all now dumber for having read this. Yahoo!

Lastly, and most important to me, how will the U.S. Soccer Development Academy change youth soccer in America as it opens its inaugural season?

From US Soccer:

THE USSDA is hosting the first Academy Fall Showcase this weekend from October 6-8 at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center at The Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

Thirty-six teams from 18 elite clubs will join two U.S. Youth Men’s National Teams to play 38 matches during the three-day event. In addition to U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Bob Bradley and other U.S. National Team coaches, the event will draw scores of college coaches from around the country.

“I am very much looking forward to the U.S. Soccer Development Academy Fall Showcase. It should be a weekend of great competition,” Bradley said. “The Fall Showcase launches what we feel is a very important initiative to provide the best possible opportunity for young players to reach the elite levels of our sport. It will very beneficial to these players, and we believe for our national teams as well.”

I can only imagine Robert Ziegler is all over this.

I’m hopeful, but not exactly confident this is going to work like some suggest. I don’t see this “academy” changing the imbedded politics and hegemony that presently reign American youth soccer. It’s a good first step, sure, but that implies there will be more. Which hopefully there will be.