General Soccer Thread

A forum for non-baseball sports
Post Reply
User avatar
thrill
bronoun enthusiast
Posts: 30369
Joined: April 14 06, 10:45 pm
Location: barely online

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

USA going to da super bowwlllll

User avatar
mikechamp
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 10132
Joined: April 17 06, 5:05 pm
Location: Southwestern Illinois

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by mikechamp »

@thrill hinted at this in the World Cup thread, but Berhalter is technically unemployed and also under investigation:
US Soccer reveals investigation involving manager Gregg Berhalter

U.S. Soccer has hired a law firm to oversee an investigation of manager Gregg Berhalter over details surrounding an altercation that occurred in 1991, the federation announced Tuesday.

Berhalter, whose contract expired on Dec. 31 according to an ESPN source, released a statement of his own Tuesday, saying someone had contacted U.S. Soccer with information that would "take him down" and revealing that he had kicked his longtime partner, Rosalind, following a barroom argument while in college at the University of North Carolina.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-stat ... -berhalter

User avatar
thrill
bronoun enthusiast
Posts: 30369
Joined: April 14 06, 10:45 pm
Location: barely online

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

He’s for sure out but the story is the investigation into the blackmail. I think it might get weird.

User avatar
thrill
bronoun enthusiast
Posts: 30369
Joined: April 14 06, 10:45 pm
Location: barely online

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

It got weird. The party who contacted USSF was Claudio and Danielle Reyna. Danielle Reyna was teammates with Berhalter's wife when it happened at UNC.

User avatar
BottenFieldofDreams
Perennial All-Star
Posts: 4502
Joined: June 4 17, 10:04 pm

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by BottenFieldofDreams »

Should have played Gio? If I didn’t hate this I might love it.

Domestic violence is bad, especially if you talk [expletive] about my son.


The players don’t deserve this [expletive].

User avatar
mikechamp
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 10132
Joined: April 17 06, 5:05 pm
Location: Southwestern Illinois

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by mikechamp »

thrill wrote:
January 4 23, 1:08 pm
It got weird. The party who contacted USSF was Claudio and Danielle Reyna. Danielle Reyna was teammates with Berhalter's wife when it happened at UNC.
Help me out here. Is this, bringing up a 30-year old incident that the two parties have clearly resolved, being viewed as revenge for not playing Gio at the World Cup?

User avatar
BottenFieldofDreams
Perennial All-Star
Posts: 4502
Joined: June 4 17, 10:04 pm

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by BottenFieldofDreams »

mikechamp wrote:
January 4 23, 2:15 pm
thrill wrote:
January 4 23, 1:08 pm
It got weird. The party who contacted USSF was Claudio and Danielle Reyna. Danielle Reyna was teammates with Berhalter's wife when it happened at UNC.
Help me out here. Is this, bringing up a 30-year old incident that the two parties have clearly resolved, being viewed as revenge for not playing Gio at the World Cup?
It was designed to be. Effing children.

Danielle Reyna said in a statement on Wednesday: "I thought it was especially unfair that Gio, who had apologized for acting immaturely about his playing time, was still being dragged through the mud when Gregg had asked for and received forgiveness for doing something so much worse at the same age."

User avatar
thrill
bronoun enthusiast
Posts: 30369
Joined: April 14 06, 10:45 pm
Location: barely online

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

BottenFieldofDreams wrote:
January 4 23, 1:24 pm
Should have played Gio?
In my humble opinion, Gio should start every game when he's healthy unless one of the other players is clearly in better form. In my humble opinion, GGG should not have spoken about Gio to the leadership summit. In my humble opinion, none of these behaviors are abnormal in high level professional coaching (there are plenty of performance-based arguments to be made for starting Tim Weah or Brendan Aaronson over Gio and GGG isn't the only coach who might air some laundry in public to put a problem player in his place) and the most egregious and selfish actors are Gio's meddling parents. The provincial/overly familiar setup at USSF needs to be more professional. Right now, most of the upper management are former players and I'm not sure that will or should continue. When the management team is made up of former teammates and long time "friends" of the most talented player's parents, [expletive] might get messy like this. US Soccer has failed to create a safe environment for female players and it has failed to create a professional environment for male players. It's a bush league operation that is obviously experiencing some growing pains. Seems clear that they need to clean house before they host the cup.

I mean, I guess it's not abnormal that a woman would see a young man assault her best friend and never quite trust or like him, despite the choice her friend makes to reconcile with him, and I guess it's not abnormal that if that guy becomes your son's boss, you might respond to any perceived grievance with the decades-old baggage of what he did to your friend, but that kind of dynamic shouldn't exist at the highest levels or sport or business. A great reason why, is that Claudio, in his role of GM/sporting director of Austin FC, allowed a star player accused of abusing his girlfriend to come back to the team. Glass houses, folks. Either it's about the assault and GGG being a "bad guy" or it's about your precious wonder boy son's playing time. If it was about the assault, I would hope Danielle brought that same energy to criticize her husband when he didn't cut his own player who abused a woman.

User avatar
BottenFieldofDreams
Perennial All-Star
Posts: 4502
Joined: June 4 17, 10:04 pm

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by BottenFieldofDreams »

I heard Ernie Stewart isn’t going to take the investigation seriously because his wife wasn’t addressed specifically on the Reyna’s Christmas card.

My read of this given Danielle’s quotes is that it’s some Real Housewives [expletive] and doesn’t have much to do with domestic violence.

User avatar
thrill
bronoun enthusiast
Posts: 30369
Joined: April 14 06, 10:45 pm
Location: barely online

Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

Forgot about the time David Villa sexually harassed an NYCFC staffer and Claudio did nothing. Add that to the "it's not really about the abuse" ledger.

Interpersonal drama between the Berhalters and the Reynas aside, it also doesn't help when the GM (McBride) and the sporting director (Earnie Stewart) are also people who have decades-long friendships with the Reynas, which made them feel like it was ok to treat the national team and world cup like it's a weekend youth tournament where parents feel entitled to [expletive] about their kids' playing time.

Post Reply