They got us to stop talking about Lindsey Graham by botching the Mitch McConnell cover-up so bad that he seems more dead now than before they put out the photo. Incredible work
I miss when "The News" was just a guy in a suit telling you what happened, instead of a 24 hour panic machine designed to make you hate your neighbor so you don't notice your rent went up 30%.
I’m saddened to hear of the passing of Earth’s nemesis, Thanos. While we were often on opposing sides of humanity, for example I thought we shouldn’t arbitrarily eliminate half the population, I respected his commitment to fitness and great taste in jewelry.
@genesimmons Thank you for creating this band. Your music has been a part of my life since childhood and will be until the day I am buried in a KISS shirt! 🤘🏻
You believed. You filled stadiums. You brought the game into homes and communities across the country.
Most of all, you showed everyone what this crest means. Thank you.
In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.
That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.
FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.
US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.
So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.
Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.
Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.
They will not.
Dear America... Thank you for standing with us and for believing in this team. Thank you for believing in the future of soccer in this country.
A toda nuestra gente... Gracias por su apoyo y por creer en este equipo. Gracias por creer en el futuro del fútbol en nuestro país.
My debut World Cup… it hurts to wait 4 years to compete at the highest level our sport has to offer. I want to say sorry to our fans it was not good enough when it mattered most and we let you down
Soccer in America will only become bigger the belief, the talent, and the passion is continually growing and I know the best days are in front of us, the future belongs to those who never stop believing, this moment will fuel us. We will be back
Why not us?
For the nation. For the flag.
🇺🇸🦅
B