Bayern Munich boss bashes silly MLS

Sometimes being a blogger is so easy these blog posts write themselves. That's the case this time with Bayern Munich boss Carlo Ancelotti's obvious observation that MLS teams have no incentive with no promotion and relegation.

Said Ancelotti: "I think the fact that there is no relegation hurts, because it is demotivating. I'd watch Vancouver and they weren't doing well but, hey, what changes if they finish last? They don’t get relegated, they still get paid… But that’s the structure of U.S. sports and you have to respect it."

Actually that last point is where Ancelotti is dead wrong. You don't have to respect it. You shouldn't accept it. You shouldn't believe in the lies of the league commissioner.  This blogger went to three games in three different cities and barely lived to tell the tale. Thank goodness we also saw Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Chelsea and Real Madrid play vastly more entertaining matches in meaningless friendlies last summer.

One more quote from Ancelotti tells you all you need to know about the MLS.

"I spent a lot of time in Canada last year and watched a lot of MLS," he said. "It's different, it's a different approach, the way everything is structured is geared towards a spectacle, towards parity, rather than flat-out dog-eat-dog competition."

There you have it, folks. And that's why we don't tell you not to attend the matches. You go for the spectacle of it all. Just don't expect great competition in a league in which fans are too busy on Instagram or Tinder to notice how bad the product on the field is.

If there is one positive from this story, it's these pictures of Ancelotti's wedding in Vancouver in 2014. Enjoy!

MLS defeats the mighty Premier League!

Not many football blogs out there venture to make a comparison between the mighty Premier League and the MLS. But that's exactly what we will do because MLS has struck a major blow by beating out the Prem for a top European talent.

It's a move that has caused an uproar last Friday at Chicago's O'Hare Airport reminiscent of when the city's baseball Cubs won a rare championship.  Die-hard fans of Chicago Fire were on hand to greet Nemanja Nikolic, one of Hungary's best players.

Making this deal even sweeter is that Nikolic chose Chicago despite being the top transfer target of English Premier League powerhouse Hull City. That's right, the same club U.S. player of the year Jozy Altidore once plied his trade for. Apparently, Nikolic took a look at Altidore's Hull strike rate of one goal in 28 matches and decided to head to the MLS.

Nikolic played five Champions League group-stages matches for Legia Warsaw, starting twice. He was a substitute twice against Christian Pulisic's Borussia Dortmund and scored this amazing goal at the Signal Iduna Park.  Fast forward to 2:27 ...

Clearly MLS scouts did plenty of work watching Group F matches, with Legia Warsaw earning a Europa League place with a minus-15 goal differential that matched Dinamo Zagreb for the competition's worst.  Surely, Nikolic's move to the MLS will draw other notable players from Group F to take the league seriously; Cristiano Ronaldo, James Rodriguez, Gareth Bale, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele and our Pulisic competed fiercely against Nikolic and have to be wondering how Chicago Fire beat out Hull City.

Maybe your humble blogger was wrong because maybe the MLS is on the rise. Enjoy this victory over the Premier League, American football fans!

The Real Awful Comment by Tim Howard is Not What You Think

A controversy has exploded over comments made by Tim Howard recently. The former legend seemingly criticized foreign nationals in an interview with USA Today, which you can get free at any reputable hotel. Howard provided his insight into why our team is underperforming.

Said Howard about Jurgen Klinsmann: "(Klinsmann) had a project to unearth talent around the world that had American roots. But having American roots doesn't mean you are passionate about playing for that country."

"I know there were players that came in that it didn't matter as much to. If you get enough of those players, one or two can get found out, but if you get enough of those players you lose sight of what you are all about. While it was a good idea in theory, it had its flaws."

Well Howard had to take back his comments a later interview with ESPN. It goes without saying that they were not only nonsensical but grasping at straws when it's obvious we don't have enough top-level footballing talent. Now Jermaine Jones has criticized the comments.

But it's another comment that Howard made that we at IMOTGP are most disturbed about. It's this:
"I think there has been this rhetoric that has been spewed out over the last couple of years – players have to go to Europe. If you want to go to Europe that’s fine, but I would guess that come 2018, 80 percent of our roster will be made up of MLS players. It is not about where you play, it is about what you bring to the team and how much you care."

This comment highlights the biggest problem with football in the United States; that MLS is considered a proper landing spot for influential team members. What Howard is saying is so wrong in claiming it is "rhetoric" that is "spewed" that players should "have to go to Europe."

He makes it sound as if going to Europe is like going to the dentist. No, as a footballer, you earn the right to play there. Not many of our guys have and if the national team down the road continues to comprise of 80 percent of MLS players, we will never make up ground on the world's best, no matter how many teams Don Garber puts in this damn league.

You don't need this blogger to tell you how well John Brooks, Bobby Wood and Alejandro Bedoya played in Copa Centenario and where they played their club football before that tournament. Many fans wonder why Michael Bradley's national team form has dipped; it isn't a stretch to say it has coincided with his return to North America.

The United States continues to set a low bar. After all, Jozy Altidore was named national player of the year in 2016.  Christian Pulisic finished second even though anyone being honest recognizes a player who started five Champions League games this past year including one in a pulsating 2-2 draw at Real Madrid is clearly the best we have to offer and truly more worthy of the honor. Altidore, meanwhile had a strike rate of 10 goals in 23 MLS matches. OK.

Let's get this straight one final time. The more U.S. players that play for top European teams, the better our national team will be. Now you don't "have to go to Europe" to play for the United States, but you do if you want to try to be the best in the world.  Howard's romantic notion about "how much you care" has nothing to do with any of this.

The MLS Combine May Be the Worst Football You Can Pay to Watch

It's the football offseason here in the United States and if you are like the IMOTGP blog, you are well connected to all going on in football in the U.S. That means that you follow all of the key Tweeters for your MLS gossip and you get Tweets like this:

The final match of the #MLSCombine is underway. Hofstra' Joe Holland among the players looking to cap a strong Combine: pic.twitter.com/ZID2TFDWHg

— Ives Galarcep (@SoccerByIves) January 12, 2017

This isn't to criticize the great Ives Galarcep, who does a fabulous job, but it is to be highly critical of a match between 'Chaos' and 'Tango' having any shred of importance in the U.S. football universe. What next?  U.S. Soccer will start scouting yours truly in the 35 and over league?

What is the MLS Combine?  According to Wikipedia, the "Major League Soccer Player Combine is a four-day annual showcase, occurring every January in Fort Lauderdale, Florida's Central Broward Regional Park, where future Major League Soccer players perform physical and mental tests in front of coaches, general managers, and scouts."

In case you didn't expect MLS to try to fleece every dollar out of you the football fan in the United States, here's another great nugget from Wikipedia: "Fans may purchase tickets to attend the six games that occur during the combine."

Granted players who are "stars" in MLS like Tesho Akindele and Joao Plata shined in the combine and made it to the league. Of course, this speaks to the fact that the United States has no idea how to develop top footballing talent.

Actually, that last part isn't true since many clubs are seeing success through their academies; the obvious way to producing top football talent since that's how the rest of the world does it. But leave it to MLS to not highlight that work and instead trumpet some ridiculous equivalent of the NFL combine to appeal to American fans.

Even dumber is to charge to watch these mediocre matches, especially when you can watch The Phantom play an equivalent brand of football for free in the summer. How silly is it to charge admission?  Yours truly attended a UEFA Youth League match with real prospects with no admission required. That's how football relates to the average person worldwide as opposed to here where they are money-hungry to the point of making you pay to watch players who aren't even good enough to reach this mediocre level.

This isn't to insult the players on trial except to say if you are dreaming of playing at the MLS level, you have already failed.  No one dreams of playing baseball for the Calgary Outlaws or basketball for the Liaoning Scale Industry Flying Leopards unless you are from Calgary or Liaoning. Bottom line: The MLS Combine, while having some value to the actual clubs, is crap. Don't give it any attention.

Thanks FIFA: An Idea Even Dumber Than MLS

If you thought the expansion plans of MLS to 28 teams was the worst idea in the football world, the brains over at FIFA have surpassed it with the new 48-team World Cup with full credit going to FIFA head man Gianni Infantino.  The turn of events had the Twitterverse thinking the unthinkable:

Tell me you don't miss Sepp Blatter

— Alex (@ajtickle) January 10, 2017

Wtf? Bring back Sepp Blatter #Fifa #WorldCup2026

FIFA to expand World Cup to 48 teams for 2026 tournament https://t.co/YY0ISwORXY

— Ben (@thecattery) January 10, 2017

I kinda miss Sepp Blatter now.

I kinda miss Sepp Blatter now.

— Chadd Maia (@ChaddMaia) January 10, 2017

Yes the corrupt Blatter is gone but did you really think the stooge that would replace him wouldn't be excited to cash in on a major payday as soon as possible? Infantino essentially treated the public as if we have the minds of infants by declaring that "sporting merit" was his purpose for the expanded field.

The 2026 World Cup may be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada but it is a broken event. Having sixteen groups feeding into a knockout round of 32 is too much of a lottery and you can expect about five or six teams to advance with one point or two, meaning not winning a match. We already saw what a diluted field does at Euro 2016, where a team that failed to win a group-stage match won the trophy; in fact, Portugal posted a victory within 90 minutes on just one occasion in an utter embarrassment to football. Though not as shameful as a club winning a Cup final and league title without a single shot on target.

Yes, that was your 2016 MLS season and now the Euros and World Cup will resemble the mediocrity and randomness of Don Garber's monstrosity. Sadly, maybe only Copa America and Asian Cup tournaments offer the best in national team football; we know the Gold Cup is always corrupt. 

In all honesty, 48 teams may not be enough since it won't get the record seven times South Asian Cup champion India into the World Cup.  That's why the IMOTGP blog suggests a 96-team tournament with each federation getting one wild card to help faltering nations who still can't qualify despite having obvious appeal.  The entrants should be the following:

Asia: India (Never played a World Cup match and current top-ranked test cricket team in the world)
South America: Venezuela (Never played a World Cup match; known for baseball and beauty queens)
North America: Canada (Dead last in only appearance in 1986; used to wearing skates)
Europe: Israel (Outscored 3-1 and finished with 1 point in only appearance in 1970)
Africa: Sudan (Never played a World Cup match, ranked in top 7 in GDP in Africa thanks to oil)
Oceania: American Samoa (Imagine a group with them and the United States!)

The IMOTGP 96-team World Cup will feature 32 byes for the top 32 teams in the world or the top 31 plus the United States if we are below that ranking. The remaining 64 teams will be drawn into one-game knockout matches and the 32 that survive that will face off for two-legged ties to determine the 16 who advance to the 48-team group stage - just like Infantino proposed.  Our proposal wouldn't affect the top European club teams since none of these crap countries have players good enough to play for Europe's elite! The extra 64 matches will add to the pageantry of the World Cup with the additional revenue going right to FIFA and IMOTGP. You can trust that FIFA will put that extra dough to good use. Here at IMOTGP we will enhance the blog with more content so you the football fan will get even more IMOTGP insight!

Of course, 96 teams would work only for 2026 because in 2030 in order to celebrate a century of the World Cup, we will add four teams to make it an even 100!  By then, the world footballing product will be even better since MLS will have about 42 teams. There is no doubt that expansion teams like the Boise Spudmuffins, Saginaw Shinguards, Fresno Freekicks and Honolulu Obamas will have full-fledged internationals as designated players as football soars to new heights!