Glen

[Unfiltered Soccer @UnfilteredSoccr]

Landon says you would've had to drag him off the field in a World Cup knockout game.

"The reality is, Tim, [Pulisic] came out of a World Cup knockout game at home with his leg still intact. I'm saying this to you, Tim, and you know it because you've played with me, you would've had to fucking drag me off the field. And I would've punched the doctor in the face and said, 'You're not taking me off the field. Put whatever you need to put in me, and I'm staying on the field.' I told you this before, I never shared this publicly until a few months ago, I played with a torn hamstring against Ghana after the Algeria game. Nobody knew about it. I didn't have to tell anyone. There was no drama around it. I just did it."

[Unfiltered Soccer @UnfilteredSoccr]

Landon's message to Christian Pulisic:

"This is an opportunity to help and to change your life forever. One of the biggest problems - I speak to people who are at U.S. Soccer. I speak to his sponsors. I speak to his teammates. I speak to the staff and the coaches. People are fed up with the way things are handled around him. And it's not necessarily him, but it's his agents, his family, his hangers-on, the people who are influencing. People are fed up with it. They treat people poorly. They do things poorly. It's always a 'no' whenever you wanna ask, 'Can we do an interview?' It's always a, 'No, you can't get near him.' He doesn't say 'hi' to the commentators who do all the games all the time when they walk by. All the other guys come over and shake hands and say, 'Hello.' There's just this sense about him that you can't get near him. And I actually don't think it's from him. I think it's from I think it's from the people around him."

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🚨🇵🇹 Official, confirmed. João Palhinha returns to FC Bayern as Tottenham do not trigger the buy option clause.

Palhinha, not close to Sporting now and open to new chapter. 👀🔜

[Sam Mahmood @TheSammahmood_]

The U.S. soccer federation is a poor return on invested capital.

I played soccer for 20+ years.

Grassroots.
Academy.
D1 college.
Pursued professionally after.

And I’ll say the quiet part out loud:

The US soccer infrastructure is broken.

In America, we treat playing D1 soccer like it is the peak achievement.

For most families, clubs, coaches, and players, the entire youth soccer machine is built around one goal:

Get recruited.
Get a scholarship.
Play college soccer.

But if the objective is to produce world-class players, D1 soccer is a terrible development path.

From 18-22, some of the most important technical development years of your career, you are preparing for a 3-4 month season built largely around athleticism, direct play, set pieces, fitness, and survival.

Now compare that to an 18-year-old in Spain, Argentina, Morocco, Italy, England, or France.

That player has likely been in a professional environment for years.

Training daily.
Playing meaningful matches year-round.
Competing against grown professionals.
Getting thousands more touches.
Learning how to solve the game under pressure.

The gap is massive.

And it shows.

American players are usually athletic.
They are usually fit.
They usually compete hard.

But at the highest levels, that is not enough.

The biggest difference is technical comfort.

We do not move the ball like Spain.
We do not combine like Argentina.
We do not play with the same fluidity, rhythm, and confidence you see from countries where the game is embedded into the culture from childhood.

That comes down to volume.

Volume of touches.
Volume of street soccer.
Volume of futsal.
Volume of unstructured play.
Volume of high-level training environments.
Volume of meaningful games.

In the US, youth soccer is expensive, overly organized, overly coached, tournament-driven, and too often built around winning games at 13 instead of developing players for 23.

Parents spend thousands.
Clubs charge thousands.
Travel teams fly all over the country.
Showcases become the product.
Recruiting becomes the scoreboard.

But the return on invested capital is poor.

We probably spend more money on youth soccer than almost any country in the world, yet the technical output does not match the investment.

That is a broken operating model.

And like any business, if the output is weak, you do not blame the customer.

You inspect the system.

The US has talent.
The US has athletes.
The US has money.
The US has facilities.

But the foundation is wrong.

We built a pay-to-play, college-recruiting machine and confused it for a world-class player development system.

Those are not the same thing.

Until we fix the grassroots layer, increase meaningful touches, make development less dependent on family income, and stop treating college soccer as the top of the mountain, the US will keep underperforming relative to its resources.

I’m not saying this to trash US Soccer.

I’m saying it because I lived it.

And if we actually want to become a powerhouse, we have to be honest about the infrastructure first.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

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.

[Glen @eamuscatuli85]

@KrrishFT Why would you sell Romero for less than Vuskovic? I would assume 50 is the floor here.

[Glen @eamuscatuli85]

@arlowhite How poorly they played. Giveaways, lack of intensity/energy, and self inflicted mistakes. They looked like the old USMNT teams, which is not a good thing……

[Spurs Global @spurssglobal]

[🥇] NEW: There’s a clear desire from Spurs’ hierarchy to make statement signings. There is the potential for a further £250m to be spent this summer. @SamiMokbel_BBC ⚪️🤑

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🚨🇵🇹 João Palhinha will not stay at Spurs this summer despite his desire to continue at the club.

The decision has been made after Tonali and Mateus Fernandes signings, as @TomBarclay_ reports.

[kyle @RicharlisonSZNx]

Andrew Robertson 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 - Free
Marco Senesi 🇦🇷 - Free
Martin Dubravka 🇸🇰 - Free
JP Van Hecke 🇳🇱 - £52m
Mateus Fernandes 🇵🇹 - £85m
Sandro Tonali 🇮🇹 - £100m

Tottenham are moving mad this summer

[Tottenham Hotspur @SpursOfficial]

We are delighted to announce that Antonin Kinsky has signed a new contract with the Club ✍️

Congratulations, Toni! 🤍

🔗 https://t.co/3sxodlmNgH

[Tottenham Tiers @TottenhamTiers]

#Tottenham have made signing Folarin Balogun a priority.

Chelsea and PSG also interested.

[@sebnonda / @Santi_J_FM]🥇

[K.C. Johnson @KCJHoop]

Zach Collins was at Bulls’ first-round draft picks introductory news conference and has been working out/rehabilitating at Advocate Center virtually daily. Now he’s back for big man depth; @ShamsCharania 1st

[Glen @eamuscatuli85]

@Michael_Cerami Bench this clown

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🚨💣 EXCLUSIVE: Robert Lewandowski to Chicago Fire, HERE WE GO! 🇺🇸

The Polish striker has agreed to join Chicago Fire after visiting the club and city two weeks ago.

Lewandowski will sign early next week, ready for new chapter in MLS.

Big move. 🔥🇵🇱

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

George Kittle is speaking out on why grass is being used for World Cup matches but not NFL games.

📸 @NFLPA

[Awful Announcing @awfulannouncing]

Cubs announcers Boog Sciambi, Jim Deshaies in awe of dog at Citi Field https://t.co/D72hXgmBlJ

[Evan Drellich @EvanDrellich]

Major League Baseball today said that *if the players accept a salary cap* it would:

• Make the minimum salary $1 mil for players w/at least 2 years of service time; $900K with potential for $100K more for players w/0-1 yrs of service
• Eliminate qualifying offers
• Eliminate deferred salary for future contracts
• No change to arb process

[Baseball Quotes @BaseballQuotes1]

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake just took place during a game in Venezuela

[Shams Charania @ShamsCharania]

Sources: Chicago is trading Braden Smith to the Indiana Pacers for Kam Jones, future swaps and cash.