December 2011
"I Expected Nothing Less From A Bunch Of Blithering Idiots": The Angry Emails That Helped Cost Boca Raton Its All-Star Pro Soccer Team →
deadspin.com
A fine sampling of the emails Dan the Man has sent around, and some anecdotes about how he might have personally contributed to alienating Puma from WPS.
There’s been some hue and cry about why WPS would terminate magicJack if they weren’t 100% certain they could get a 6th team to replace them. I admit, I’ve been mad at WPS myself about that. But after reading this, it makes me reconsider. Could they have really stomached this kind of behavior for another entire year? Sure, they might have limped their way to 2013 with the help of some premium-grade blood pressure medication, but it seems like Borislow was fraying the league from the inside out. Maybe they could have sucked it up and dealt with him for the good of the league, since everyone was talking about a big 2013 expansion. Or maybe they realized someone at WPS would have ended up throttling Borislow long before the season was over. We’ll never know.
Open Letter by Anthony DiCicco regarding WPS future →
soccerplus.org
Honestly, if WPS had a vision and leadership as clear as the MLS and Don Garber, IMO, USSF would not have as much qualms as they currently have regarding WPS. As DiCicco points out, there is a 55.6% survival rate in the WPS. We’ve lost at least one team every year and the league’s teams have been on a downward slide from 7 to 6 to 5. Yes, this means WPS has never met the standards for the division 1 but it’s not that the WPS is moving closer toward meeting it: they’re consistently moving away as if the initial waiver should mean that every year they should get it, automatically.
I say sometimes that the WPS in respect to its leadership, its operations as a league is not professional. The very fact that other WoSo publications have to create a list for us to know the free agents rather than the WPS releasing it themselves is pathetic. The league is opaque: no one knows what’s going on until lawsuits get filed. The rhetoric used in press releases is narcissistic and arrogant, but more importantly, they’re empty. There’s no principles, no smaller goals in order to achieve “the best league in the world.”
Where is the vision? And once that vision is created, where is the leadership to let others buy into it?
The letter itself is very interesting. Well worth a read.
This is a good piece, but it’s not written by this one, but this one.
November 2011
“Stepping back from “Why local soccer?” to “Why American soccer?”, we can then take our passion for our individual local team, and use it to build passion for our “local” league. Whether that league is a fully national league, or a recreational league in a small city or town, passion for the league will help it to grow and improve. In the long term, that builds up the quality of play, and improves not just the local soccer environment, not just the national one, but the worldwide one. A stronger local recreational league improves exposure and talent level on the local basis, which in turn increases it on the national level, and eventually up to the global level. By having
better local leagues, we have the facilities to expose more people, young and old, to the sport. As soccer becomes more ingrained in our culture, the quality of the top players produced by our nations will continue to improve. If you are a fan of your national team, even if just for the World Cup, then it is in your interest to help improve your national league structure.” —The Free Beer Movement
better local leagues, we have the facilities to expose more people, young and old, to the sport. As soccer becomes more ingrained in our culture, the quality of the top players produced by our nations will continue to improve. If you are a fan of your national team, even if just for the World Cup, then it is in your interest to help improve your national league structure.” —The Free Beer Movement
