Marcel LaFleur-Janvier

I am just as annoying irl lol 🇵🇷 #Weirdo #Ratchetá. #Virgo #CFC ⭐️⭐️ #ObaMitsu4everrrr

[Brian Callaci @brian_callaci]

The point of having robust, accessible, affordable youth sports infrastructure is to serve the 99.999% of youth who will never continue to the elite level. It's not there to be a pipeline to the branded global TV event.

[B @ParmaJawnCheese]

Mitch McConnell called me and he said he wanted his lifeless body shot out of the Phanatic hot dog cannon during the All Star Game

[Josh RR Jokien @joshcarlosjosh]

unfortunately, using AI to make pictures of George Costanza more attractive and/or put him in costumes from various movies and tv shows is absolutely something George Costanza himself would be doing with his one wild and precious life

[BHENtel @TheBHentel]

Why he go so crazy doe 😭😭🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 “Welcome to da Wafiii where you know we got options”

[Books Behind Borders @MHTruthUltra]

I remember when I was young they had these people called “investigative journalists” who could find out stuff like if a senator was dead or not

[Paul Howard @AkaPaulHoward]

This is my favourite insane take of this World Cup so far.

[Fav ⛧ @Favwontmiss]

IF WE LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT THESE HEATWAVES LET IT BE THAT WE NEED TO MAKE OUR CITIES GREENER. PLANT SOME FUCKING TREES. BUILD A PARK. WE NEED MORE GREEN SPACES.

[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.

[Maia @maiamindel]

biggest rivalries of the world cup
- messi / ronaldo
- ancelotti / endrick
- haaland / gabriel
- ronaldo fans / reality
- mbappe / a paraguayan senator

[one dozen rats at a keyboard @PanasonicDX4500]

I’d be way happier with my tax dollars going to fund youth soccer programs instead of Raytheon.

[Cyrus Smith @CoolCyWrites]

Norway made youth sports free 40 years ago and just made the quarters for the first time ever. Probably not a coincidence.

[Van Lathan Jr @VanLathan]

The US is 16th in world in soccer and that sucks.

BUT. THERE IS SILVER LINING.

We are 36th in literacy.

[ostonox @ostonox]

i'm crying man zohran saw team USA's performance and has mandated nonstop training camps until 2030

[Matt Herdman @MattHerdman]

Europe: “America has no soccer culture”

America: *does a wildly corrupt thing with the president of fifa*

Europe: no not like that

[Marcel LaFleur-Janvier @joindthedarksid]

@MoWillySr I still got em from the other game too lol

[The Tennis Letter @TheTennisLetter]

Naomi Osaka on her Wimbledon Kimono:

"The kimono... we had to get it from Japan... there's this anime called Bleach. It's one of my favorites. I don't want to bore you, but anyway, I feel like I'm channeling a character from that whenever I wear the kimono in that way."

🇯🇵❤

[CarefreeLewisG🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇪🇹 #WORLDCHAMPIONS @CarefreeLewisG]

Here is a Brazil striker balling out at MetLife.

Do with it as you wish