52914_isi_howardtim_usmntmp052714115 Michael Pimentel/isiphotos.com
5.29.14

ASN Morning Read: No Love for Stars and Stripes

America can't get a player into the top 50 at the World Cup; Tim Ream can get a new contract; Goldman Sachs can run some simulations for which they are roundly criticized.
BY Noah Davis Posted
May 29, 2014
7:59 AM
  • There's a list of the top 50 players at the World Cup that's bouncing around and not a single American features. Not Clint Dempsey. Not Michael Bradley. Not Tim Howard. Is that fair? Probably, but we are outraged regardless. Take solace in this quote from Taylor Twellman: "If I've got 18 guys on the same page but two players in the top 50 and no one wants to play together, I'll take the other team."

  • Goldman Sachs, clearly not believing Twellman, doesn't think the Americans will win a game while giving Brazil a nearly 50 percent chance to take home the World Cup trophy. Bankers, pssssh

  • Jimmy Conrad, who has a tough job but somebody has to do it, went to Ghana to try to find out why the United States always loses. He found some kid standing on top of a table another kid was holding in his mouth:
  • Tim Ream signs a three-year deal with Bolton. That's all there is to say about that.

  • Will Leitch goes long on the greatness of soccer coverage in the U.S.: "NBC Sports Network has given the EPL downright worshipful prominence, and ESPN was never better than it was at the last World Cup. It's an odd paradox for American sports television: The fewer people who watch a sport, the better the coverage of it is. It's as if the NFL is too big and too powerful for anyone to trust simply selling the sport to its fans; you have to blow it up, with every available bell and whistle, to wring every possible eyeball. There's a modesty with how we show soccer these days; networks don't want to offend the most loyal, devoted fans, so they give them what they want, how they want it, with respect. What a concept, right?"

  • And the Americans have a theme song:
  • Would you like to know why soccer doesn't explain Brazil anymore? Can we call for a moratorium on soccer explaining/not explaining stories?

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