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Earlier this morning, the draw was held to determine the groups for the 2018 World Cup. Obviously the United States won't be participating , so instead of focusing on how they would have done, let's take a look at the tournament as a whole.  --- Group stage --- The lack of a true group of death means Cinderellas will be less likely and big time, big money favorites will go deep, ensuring FIFA's pockets get deeper. Group A: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uruguay I dunno if we’re talking Human Rights Group A is the Group of Death tbqh — Ryan Keefer (@reefa_k) December 1, 2017 Somehow not even a top-three contender for the most controversial host of this millenium, the Russians drew a fairly easy group to contend with. I'm sure that sits well with Russian football authorities who will be hoping the national team can advance to the knockout stage for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union.  Arguably the strongest contender in the group is...

The U.S. men’s soccer team lost 2-1 last night at the hands of Trinidad and Tobago, missing out on a chance to play at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Seething experts and fans immediately called it the national team’s most humiliating loss ever. I can’t go into the technical aspect of it all, because frankly I don’t know a lot. But let me just try to give you a sense of what I make of this mess. The program seems adrift at sea with no help in sight. The women’s side – perennial powerhouses with a wealth of young talent constantly bettering the system – delivers on the pitch, so their shuffling of coaches a few years ago was more dismissible, especially since it produced a World Cup win in 2015 under Jill Ellis. Meanwhile, the men have been failing to build sustainable growth, alternating waves of impressive play with wholly pitiful performances. On the pitch, the Jurgen Klinsmann tenure was riddled with bad losses, including a disastrous appearance at the 2015 Gold Cup and a slo...

Old Team Tuesday is a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. This week’s edition does not look at the history of a single team, but revisits the entire scope of upper-level soccer in Western New York as a whole. ********************************************** The relationship between Buffalo and soccer has been more unstable than a marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor. Nine teams have set up shop here, with few finding any measure of success and most being forced to close down or move away. Now, as Americans finally seem to be falling for the beautiful game, that sentiment is echoed in Western New York, where Buffalonians finally have a team they can cozy up to. Let’s start in 1976, near the tail end of Gabor’s sixth marriage. The Buffalo Blazers of the Canadian-based National Soccer League opened play at War Memorial Stadium. A mediocre first season didn’t disparage the team, and in 1977, the club finally made progress, going 12-3-3 to wind up th...

Old Team Tuesday is a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. This week’s edition revisits the entire history of soccer in Western New York. This is the original, unedited version of the same topic that appeared on queencityblitzers.com on April 23, 2014. ********************************************** The relationship between Buffalo and soccer has been more unstable than a marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor. Nine teams have set up shop here, with few finding any measure of success and most being forced to close down or move away. Now, as Americans finally seem to be falling for the beautiful game, that sentiment is echoed in western New York, where Buffalonians finally have a team they can cozy up to. Our Past: Let’s start in 1976, near the tail end of Gabor’s sixth marriage. The Buffalo Blazers of the Canadian-based National Soccer League opened play at War Memorial Stadium. A mediocre first season didn’t disparage the team, and in 1977,...