USSF Presidential Election: A Very Special Guestie

Obviously, those of us with interest in both William & Mary and the United States Soccer Federation have a rooting interest in the race for the USSF Presidency. And some of us (coughshlaracough) aren't particularly subtle about our preference. So, in the interest of impartiality, we asked our pal Fay Guy in a Speedo to weigh in on the process that culminates on February 10 with the election of the new USSF boss.

Sunil Days Aren't Here Again

Columbia Grad

As the current president of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), Sunil Gulati has taken as much heat for the USMNT's failure to qualify for the upcoming World Cup as Bruce Arena, the coach he (re)hired for the campaign. As a result, Mr. Gulati has decided to step down from the  position he's held since 2006 after being re-elected for a record-breaking 4th time for the 4-year post. Obviously, Gulati has done some incredible work for the sport in the USA, you can check out his C.V. at econ.Columbia.edu if you don't believe me. The reason Gulati is affiliated with Columbia U is due to his status as a Senior Lecturer in Economics there. The reason he is a lecturer at Columbia is due to the fact that his position as current president of the USSF is a gratis position. How am I supposed to trash on a guy who is the de facto head of a non-profit and works for nothing?

The equivalent position in the FA in England made a couple million pounds last year for reference. The USSF is run as a non-profit and none of the 14 board members draw a salary, including the president. A quick scan of their 2016 tax return confirms this as well as a few other items of interest. Apparently all of the board members average 5 hours per week to oversee the behemoth that is US soccer while the staff (coaches, players, et al.) average 40 hours per week. These hours seem patently ridiculous given that a flight to talk to former head coach Jurgen Klinsmann to LA from NYC is 5 and a half hours if you're lucky. The numbers also reveal that USSF CEO, Dan Flynn, earned $695K while Klinsmann made $3M as head coach. If this doesn't annoy you enough note that his assistant coach, Andreas Herzog, earned almost $400K while Jill Ellis (W&M '87), the head coach of the unfathomably successful US Women's National Team earned just over $300K. The average salary of a Senior Lecturer at Columbia is $77K and it isn't even a tenure track position. No wonder the USMNT can't compete in the easiest and worst regional division of world soccer, CONCACAF; there isn't much at stake for the brass if the team succeeds or fails. No carrot, no stick. This seems incredibly un-American, maybe our Communistic approach to a relative nascent sport in this country is a reason for our lack of success. Gulati has been faulted in the past for not attending important games for the men's and women's teams in the tri-state area and his excuse for not attending is that he's had a class to teach at the time. I imagine this is a problem unique to soccer anywhere else in the world except for the 'shithole countries' recently referenced by our orange-in-chief.

Wharton grads

The election for a new overlord president is a few weeks away and there are eight candidates vying for the unlucrative position and middling power. Out of those eight, most Americans have only heard of one, Hope Solo, and although she has no shot of winning there would be a beautiful symmetry in having a dual dumpster fire presidency to rival the one in the Oval Office. The front-runners are Kathy Carter (W&M '91) and Eric Wynalda. One is a marketing guru and President of Soccer United Marketing and the other is Eric Wynalda. Mrs. Carter (Kathy, not Bey) represents the old regime and didn't decide to run until Gulati opted out. The current administrators are promoting her presidency while Mr. Wynalda is the populist front-runner with radical ideas to shake up the tedium also known as MLS. Either way, apparently there's not much at stake here. How can there be for a position that has no salary at five working hours per week? That's like me listing redtube.com viewing on my resume. Soccer will continue to limp along on the fringes of the American sporting consciousness. The MLS will continue to earn enough dough to keep it from radically altering its structure. The USA's developmental soccer progam will continue to be a pay for play affair that's only available to the privileged, unathletic few. Winter is no longer coming and there's no Game of Thrones until 2019. It could be worse, we could be Italian.*

DeVry grads

*Italy is neither a shithole country nor a place to be maligned. They failed to qualify for the World Cup as well.

(If you're scoring at home, the official G:TB prediction is that Wynalda and Kyle Martino join forces after several ballots fail to resolve the issue, and Wynalda wins. And is a trainwreck.)

Minnows and Narhwals

Embarrassment of footie riches this month, as our friend Fat Guy in a Speedo has been productive. The fifth round of the FA Cup kicks off this morning, with storylines to please the most discerning fan. We've got bigs versus littles, hooligans against champions, and probably an unavoidable thrashing or three. Fingers crossed that Fulham avoids getting completely throttled by a pissed off Tottenham side that's coming off dismal performances against Liverpool in the league and Gent(!) in the Europa League. Herewith the Fat Guy:

It’s the fifth round of the FA Cup this weekend and we all know what this means; a week off of soccer watching for everyone but the single, male whose team is still in the tourney. That being said the Cup still delivers in the minnows vs. narwhal scenario that was envisioned at its inception. Or maybe the FA never thought that grown men would kick a ball on some grass for a metric shit ton of poundage 120 years in the future.

The two teams to surprise this year are Lincoln City and Sutton United, two non-league teams - which means they are mostly made up of amateurs whose day jobs consist of non-soccer related activities envisioned by the FA 120 years in the past. (Speaking of Fat Guy, Men in Blazers had an awesome interview with Sutton's backup goalkeeper, 280-lb, 46 year-old Wayne Shaw.) Put into perspective by the Guardian (and proving its reporter wrong), “You probably won’t read this anywhere else this weekend, but just nine non-league teams have made it to the fifth round of the FA Cup since the end of the Second World War. This season, two of them have done so for the first time since the establishment of the Football League in 1888.” So there’s that.  

Unfortunately, statistical significance doesn’t equate to real-life excitement as prior girlfriends can confirm. Sutton United play an Arsenal team whose 5-1 midweek tonking in the Champions League by Bayern Munich should inspire them to victory in pursuit of the only silverware they might have a shot at this year. It’s actually looking like Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger will finally part ways with the club he’s been at for twenty-some years this summer. I hope not, as the angst of Arsenal fans worldwide has provided the rest of us with huge amounts of schadenfreude over the past decade. Lincoln City vs. Burnley might be more competitive but I doubt it. 

So, what’s worth watching you ask? Fuck if I know. Millwall plays Leicester City, and this might be interesting in that high-flying underdogs Leicester City won the league handily last season and are in danger of relegation this season, which would be a first in the modern era; paradoxical in light of the highly consistent Lester with whom we're all familiar. Plus, Millwall’s fans will chant “No one likes us, we don’t care” whilst hooliganing the shit out of the place as is their wont. Fulham – Tottenham has potential unless you follow oddsmaking. 

It's supposed to be beautiful outside this weekend. Maybe just go for a walk. 

Bigly Football

The English FA Cup fifth round matchups were drawn earlier this week. For the first time in history, as far as we know, two non-league sides have reached the final sixteen, with matches to take place two weekends from now. Sutton United will likely get smoked by Arsenal, and Lincoln City is a big underdog against Premier League minnows Burnley, but it's a miracle that both fifth-division teams are still alive. For what it's worth, I dated a girl named Sutton once. She was really cool and hip and I have no idea what she saw in me. The first night we met, I impressed her by putting an empty bread bag on my head. My game was strong. She still is cool and hip, actually. She's a lesbian art director in San Francisco now. 'An art director who happens to be a lesbian' might be a better way to write that sentence. So I'm rooting for Sutton United.

I'm also rooting for Fulham, who take on Tottenham Hotspur on February 19. The Cottagers are in good form, and Spurs won't necessarily field their first team. So I'm sayin' there's a chance.

We asked our so-called football expert, Fat Guy in a Speedo, to give us a fuller preview of the fifth round. We got more than we bargained for.

Okay? Look. Many, many people have been telling me many, many things about this FA Cup thing over in England. No one knows that I am a huge fan of English soccer, it’s true I am a tremendous fan, believe me. My friend, who happens to be a very famous soccer player, probably the most famous player ever, told me that no one is a bigger fan than me, no one. It’s true he said that.

 People, lots and lots of people, ask me why I’m such a huge fan of the FA Cup, they do, they really, really, do. Is it because it’s 144 years old, they ask? Look, I tell them, so what if it’s hugely, hugely old? John McCain is really, really old and he’s a total loser, big league. Could you imagine a 144-year-old broad? Please, what a total disaster that would look like. I would rather grab a total pig like Rosie O’Donnell’s pussy than some 144-year old’s. It’s true.  Believe me.

“Well,” they ask, “is it because every team in England gets to play in it, amateur and professional? David vs. Goliath?” Listen, I don’t care about a bunch of losers playing against their superiors. I mean what are we now, Communists? Wait, can we strike that quote. I actually know some important Communists, I mean they are very, very, very important and they are really great people, really great, believe me. If I ran the FA I would get rid of amateur teams, I mean, who needs them, who wants to pay money to watch their loser team do what they do best and lose? And we’re not even talking about a lot of money here, we’re talking about really not a lot of money. These are really, really, not smart people.

“Then why do you like it?” they ask, and it’s simple, so simple even that handicapped reporter the lying press said I made fun of could understand it. Fake news! Fake news! I was a tremendous soccer player when I was young, it’s true, ask anyone. I could play any position and I was the best at it, really the best. For free kicks, I used to build a wall with the other team’s players. It’s totally true, ask anyone. Everyone thought I played soccer because my tiny hands didn’t have to hold a ball but that is more fake news. True, I never had a handball but they were all very, very jealous losers. I mean, where are they now? Exactly. They all respected me a tremendous amount. I quit playing because team sports are for failures. Everyone knows this is true, go ask anyone. Winners don’t need to be dragged down by losers just because our team shirts are the same color. I mean, did you remember those shirts? How ugly were those things? I wouldn’t use them for toilet paper, am I right? Well we’re bringing the shirt making back to this country and it’s gonna be great and a lot of people are gonna have a lot of new jobs. People without jobs destroy things. What, you say they don’t? Well somebody out there is destroying those things.

Wait, wait, what’s that? You want to know who’s left in the Cup this year? All the big-league teams and some of the losers are left. Fulham plays Tottenham, I know this because Fulham are now total crap. They were good when they were owned by my friend Mohamed Al-Fayed and he had lots of Americans playing for him but he sold them and they are really, really, crap. His kid killed Lady Di, true story. I once rented him a hotel in London, the whole thing, for double the price it was worth. Then I told him he couldn’t stay there but he had to pay anyway and he did, true story.

What Does the Fox Say?

It's only fitting in the days after perhaps the most remarkable story in English football (and maybe world sports) history that our footie guy weighs in. Fat Guy in a Speedo, who is most certainly not Jamie Vardy, as far as we know, predicted that Chelsea would be the class of the EPL this season. Luckily for him, he's in excellent company, as exactly zero pundits thought Leicester City would win the league. And lucky for us, he's here to tell us about that Leicester City squadron.

One of the many new, lumbersexual, manbunning LCFC fans celebrating

At 5000 to 1 odds at the beginning of the season, the English Premier League’s Leicester City Foxes have managed to pull off the greatest sporting triumph since my 5th grade Presidential Fitness award. One year ago in mid-April last season, the Foxes were relegation-bound. They then won 7 of their last 9 matches and finished in 14th (out of 20), a feat the Guardian then called “not only arguably the greatest escape from relegation but even more unimaginable, the greatest sporting triumph in modern history.” So they’ve actually done it twice.

In one year’s time this group from the boondocks of the Midlands with a first team that was assembled for about $25M (Manchester City bought Belgian Kevin de Bruyne last summer for $85M) won the league Monday night after the second place Spurs blew a 2-0 league to tie Chelsea 2-2. It kind of sucks that they won without playing a game but no one is complaining. It’s really hard to find a reason to dislike a team of underdogs, seemingly egoless, with a manager, Claudio Ranieri, who is (perhaps more incredibly) an Italian who is highly regarded, laid back and eminently likable. He wasn’t even in Leicester for the victory as he had booked a trip to see his 96-year old mamma back in the Motherland. That’s Italian.

On top of that, this team was highly entertaining to watch. They played fast, counterattacking football that rendered teams asunder, and scored at will.  Two weeks ago their top goal scorer Jamie Vardy was red-carded for two yellows and earned a further one-match ban for calling the referee “a fucking cunt”. Pundits opined about the detrimental effect this would have on the team’s morale and title run until they beat Swansea 4-0 and tied Manchester United away without him, effectively clinching the title without their talisman.

Former LCFC manager Nigel Pearson had kind words for Crystal
Palace's James McArthur last season

There’s loads more that can and will be said, just not here. In all probability this heart-warming story of success, perseverance and teamwork in an era of Manzielian sports=riches=douchebaggery will have been circulated ad nauseum and Kelly and Michael will be interviewing Flying Fox Riyhad Mahrez on their shitshow next week and next year we will be hoping that Leicester gets relegated back into obscurity and one of their players might very well perish after upgrading the Citroen to a Lambo and t-boning a hedgerow after eating ketamine with George Michael and there’s already a movie in the works about journeyman Vardy’s rise from the obscurity in some dank factory to whatever you call this but I digress. It’s not often that a Leicester hears the words “job well done!”

What’s next for Leicester? Who knows, who cares. They’ve already punched well above their weight and provided enough entertainment for years of “remember when Leicester City won it” reflectionism. It’s a good bet that even if next season’s team isn’t co-opted by the big four for big ducats (Vardy signed a new deal and it’s hard to think a few of the better players won’t leave when double/triple salaries are offered) they won’t be able to replicate the intangibles that drove them to attain the unimaginable. What is cool is that we will get to watch them play in the Champions League next season. Leicester will be playing the likes of Barcelona, Bayern, Real Madrid and Lokomotiva Zagreb.  And they might keep on winning. But probably not. So long and thanks for all the fish, lads.

Daughters of Anarchy

We welcome back our favorite purveyor of footie features, Fat Guy in a Speedo, who eschews the incredible story playing out at the top of the Premier League for major news closer to home. We find ourselves agreeing in full with the move recently made by the best national side in the US of A.

This week four highly respected players of the U.S. Women’s National Team and Hope Solo filed a wage discrimination lawsuit against U.S. Soccer, the governing body in ‘M(m?)erica. The women argue that while representing the country on the pitch they earn roughly 40% of what the men garner despite the fact they are vastly more successful. U.S. Soccer argues that the men generate more revenue though attendance and TV rights and testicular acreage (Ed Note: U.S. Soccer may argue this, but they've got a bigger issue here. The governing body's own data suggests that the distaff Nats will actually generate more profit over the next two years than their counterparts with external genitalia). Two plausibly reasonable arguments that might result in a bit of a shitstorm given the way the payscales of the two teams are vastly different. 

In addition to qualifiers, both teams are obligated to play 20 exhibition “friendlies” per year for which the women are paid a base of $72,000 and a $1,350 bonus if they win. The men are guaranteed $5,000 and bonuses up to $8,000 for a win depending on the rank of their opponents. If the men beat Spain or Germany they make $18,156 while the women would make $4,950 for a similar victory. In other words, if the women win all 20 international friendlies they take home $99,000, if the men lose all 20 they take home $100,000. The women argue similar disparities in pay for competition play and even note a per diem discrepancy for national  ($50 women/$62.50 men) and international duties ($60w/75m). 

U.S. Soccer contends that the women collectively bargained for and approved this payout scale. The suit stems from the fact that this agreement expired in 2012 and U.S. Soccer contends a 2013 MOU extended it to which the union disagrees. I’m not a lawyer although I play one on two of my resumes and this case raises a number of financial, social and ethical questions. A few that come to mind:

Why would U.S. Soccer structure such disparate payscales for each team?

Is it true that the per diem discrepancy is because the men need to eat more food?

Do the U.S. Paralympic soccer teams have even lower per diems since they ostensibly require even less nutrition than the USMNT and USWNT?

Who are Rory and Joey Feek and why is my news feed continually spammed since one of them died?

Given that soccer is the only major sport in the U.S. where the men and women’s team each has a dedicated fan base (USWNT averages 12K attendees per game versus men’s 28K) does U.S. Soccer have any obligation to structure pay equality based on performance? Women’s soccer is relatively new with fewer teams, since it’s inception in 1991 the U.S. women have won three World Cups. The men are average at best and never will win the big Cup (Ed Note: Never is a long time. We made the quarters as recently as X years ago. I bet we win one in the lifetime of at least one of us.). As a biased fan of the women’s team I say, “give ‘em hell girls!” But seriously, some of the top sports headlines of 2015 included the USWNT, Serena Williams and Ronda Rousey. Equal pay for equal work and play might make us look a tad less troglodytic to future generations.

In case my wife stumbles upon this blog I think a handy is in order by someone other than yours truly.

Boxing Day is Totally Nuts

In what's become yet another G:TB tradition, we once again welcome Fat Guy in a Speedo to tell get us up to speed on the glorious bounty of football we can expect beginning today.

Brits are funny, they enjoy irony and subtle eyepokes in the collective eye of world correctness. They are the Judean People’s Front. In light of this it makes sense that the biggest day of kickball falls on Boxing Day in the UK.

Much like teachers in the U.S., soccer players in Europe get summers off. Unlike teachers in the U.S., they don’t get to go on cross-country road trips over the summer. They still work: train with their team, international play, cup qualifiers, friendlies, etc. In light of this pretty much every European league gives their players at least the holiday week off. This gives the players a rare chance or downtime with family, mental breaks as well as time to recuperate which ostensibly also gives the national team a boost in terms of cup qualifications. The Empire is a cut above their EU neighbors, they remember Agincourt, the Spanish Armada and still deal in pounds sterling bitches. Therefore, their players play three games over the week from December 26^th to January 2^nd. The logic is that the rest of the lazy, soft world watches the Premier League as it’s the only game in town and England works harder than the rest and so should their imported entertainment.

The Premier League is about as good as it gets this season. Much to the delight of Clarence, Leicester City is top of the table. Much to the delight of the rest of the world, Chelsea hover at the bottom. This is pretty remarkable in that Leicester City were recently promoted and should be lingering at the bottom of the table around Chelsea who won the league last season. Leicester City have a player named Jamie Vardy who recently scored in 11 games in a row, a Premier League record. This is cool for a number of reasons, one of them being that after he was cut from his youth team, Sheffield Wednesday, he went to work in a factory and played on the side for £30 a game for a local team and worked his way up through the ranks. Even cooler is the fact that he’s not the best player on the team. Riyad Mahrez scores at will and assists Vardy when he feels like it. The two of them are fun to watch and the team is entertaining as hell, always taking it to their opposition. Catch them now while you can, as the odds of this pair being sold to a team like Chelsea for £60m and flatlining forever thereafter are pretty good. They play Liverpool today, and like all things Leicester, they are feisty when they are on their game but potentially teeter on the edge of implosion.

Unaccustomed to looking up at Leicester with envy, Chelsea are down. Favored to win the league at the beginning of the season, the champions have already imploded. Inner turmoil that seemingly began with the public humiliation and firing of their team doctor has led to many losses, stagnation, player revolt and the firing of one of the world’s most winningest coaches Jose Mourinho. Mourinho is a huge asshole which is why he fit in perfectly at Chelsea. He was fired by the owner Valdemort mid-season in 2007 after winning them back to back titles for the first time in history so there is no lack of precedent here. This becomes interesting in light of Manchester United.

Manchester United are awful to watch. Louis Van Gaal used to be a good coach but seems to have lost the plot. As a fan I find myself not watching games for the first time in recent memory, even less than the short Moyes debacle. Mourinho thought he was going to be Ferguson’s replacement over Moyes. Ferguson is another successful asshole who might also be a tad racist in selecting a fellow unproven Scot over a swarthy champion Portuguese, however, racism in football deserves its own encyclopedia. If Van Gaal doesn’t win and win with style over the holiday games, we could be looking at Mourinho at United in 2016. Thanks but no thanks. I will start watching though so there’s that. (Editor's note: the Man U and Chelsea dumpster fires are glorious to behold, though the Red Devils, for all their awful, unattractive soccer, are still tied for 4th in the league and will likely finish in the top 4.)

Non-meandering Sentence of Da Rest: Liverpool have a great, shiny new coach Jurgen Klopp but lack the talent to succeed. Arsenal look great and then they look like shite, so they look like Arsenal; they are the soccering equivalent of Clemsoning and might find themselves with an unlikely title as well. City, eh. Tottenham are fun to watch but will take 5^th or 6^th per their wont. That’s all folks, see you in 2016. On a side note the pundits seem to think that MSU match up well with Bama, Vegas disagrees. Bama by double digits.

No Money Mo Problems

Just days after the triumphant close of BlazerCon, our very own footie fetishist stops by for a timely look at the state of the Premier League. I, for one, will be eagerly scanning Fat Guy in Speedo's work for commentary on Fulham's hiring of former West Brom manager Steve Clarke to the top spot at Craven Cottage and/or Fulham's inability to lure Clarke to the job. Eighth/Fourteenth place in the Championship, here we come!

After noting Gheorghies waiting for Godave’s post, I figured I’d quickly pop off some more Premier League propaganda in hopes that I could beat Dave’s probable self-promotional post to the proverbial punch. (Editor's note: Dave's post was at once self-promotional and non-existent, as he actually posted it on a different blog. We're not sure he completely understands the modern world.) It’s week 33 into the 86-week season and pundits are already waxing poetic about the incredibly improbable and unpredictable shake up among the leagues traditional powerhouses. The top 4 generally consists of some iteration of Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal and Man United in those positions. However, the leaderboard currently reads Man City, Arsenal, LEICESTER CITY and Manchester United. Note that one of these teams is not like the others. Stop the madness. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, squirrels riding birds... mass hysteria!

What’s worth noting is that Leicester City is a recently promoted Premier League side, having returned to the top league in 2014 for the first time since 2004, so the fact that they are flying at such heady heights is nothing short of remarkable. In the Premier League, money spent on player salaries generally correlates to a team’s position in the table. The top four salary spenders are Manchester United (£215), Manchester City (£205), Chelsea (£192) and Arsenal (£166). The lack of a salary cap in the MLB makes that league a (luxury tax noted) reasonably comparable model and there the top four wage bills are Dodgers ($273M), Yankees ($219M), Red Sox ($187M) and Tigers ($174M).  The two World Series teams were the Mets are at #21 ($101M) and the Royals ($113M) at #16. What does this prove? Win or lose, owning any professional sports team in the United States is a guaranteed license to print money.

Wait, what about Chelsea? Their poor play is proof that if enough people wish for something worldwide, it will come true. The 2014 league winners have collapsed and currently occupy 16^th place (out of 20) in the EPL table. There is no real reason for their decline, the same players, owner, coach and horribly defensive style of play are replicas of what drove them to victory last season. Every week heralds a new low and the players look defeated before play even begins.

Meanwhile, Leicester City play with total positivity and attacking abandon, they are like an injury-laden Notre Dame team without the international support, coffers or Showtime series. They have come from behind several times and never show intimidation regardless of the venue. Check ‘em out this weekend, I’m sure if you do based on this post you will be rewarded with an incredibly dreary 0-0 defensive draw. In other sporting news, does anyone really think that a one-defeat Notre Dame team will get trumped out of the playoffs by whatever crap team climbs to the top of the turd tower that is the Big 12?

I was at this game.

See you on Boxing Day! Dave’s post should be up by then.

Additional editor's note: says here that Tottenham Hotspur will claim one of the Prem's four Champions League spots. They haven't lost since the season's opening match, and they boast one of the youngest and most athletic lineups in the league. Plus, they have guys with fun names, like Dele Alli, Erik Lamela, Toby Alderweireld, Hugo Lloris, Moussa Dembele, and Harry Kane.