Whew. Been off in the brush doing archaeology for 10 days. Good to be back in the world of football.
I was at the match. Incredible atmosphere(especially compared to what kind of crowd we get here in Nashville for USMNT). At first we were playing a lot like England did earlier that afternoon... poorly.
An outstanding result for the USA. I was only able to watch the first half live, but saw an abreviated version of the second half later. We should have no illusions about a big paradigm shift in CONCACAF though - we'd just been beaten by Costa Rica and Mexico were
terrible. They are disorganized and demoralized at the moment. They are much better than they showed in Columbus.
With that being said, USA won convincingly without two of their best players (Altidore and Bradley) and two of our better defenders. USA played well in the second half after a slightly dodgy start.
The biggest thing for me was the crowd in Columbus. When I attended the 2009 edition of this match, USA fans were outnumbered 2-1 by the Mexico fans. But this time, for the first time, it was really a
home atmosphere. This
is a paradigm shift, a watershed moment. A new generation of fans are turning out in much bigger numbers than ever before.
Now that qualification has been achieved, the difficult work begins. Klinsmann must build and prepare a squad with sufficient talent, depth and confidence to make an impact in Brazil next year. I think the raw materials are there. With hard work and a little luck a quarterfinal appearance is not an unreasonable goal.
Meanwhile, if
this piece in today's Guardian is anything to go by it looks like as we expected the Allams are dropping any pretence of retaining 'City' in the club's name and are hellbent on just 'Hull Tigers'.
Also of note is that the Premier League have qualified their earlier refusal to put the new name on League tables and stuff - they've confirmed that it was merely due no official application being made and that they're apparently not opposed to the change in principle.
"In a few years many clubs will follow and change their names to something more interesting and I will have proved I am a leader."
Bloody hell. Prepare yourselves for the Sheffield Steelmen, Reading Monarchs, Manchester Lucky Seven and Tottenham... er... Cocks.
I read that Guardian piece as well. On a certain level, I understand Allam's point of view. He is a successful businessman and much of running a football club is business. Most of his business decisions as club owner have been sound up to this point. He doesn't strike me as a man who would run up big debts, for example.
But the part where I disagree with him is the notion that a club can be successfully run by an owner who sees all decisions as strictly informed by business principles, or that business should always be the first priority. More worrying still, he seems unwilling to listen to the fans.
A football club is much more than a business; it is a social phenomenon, and one with
very strong local ties. Allam has completely miscalculated the extent to which the club can be successfully converted into an (allegedly) export-friendly product in spite of local resistance. If the people of Hull don't recognize or support the club, it doesn't matter what people in Asia think of it.
I think he has also vastly overestimated the benefits of shortening and simplifying the club's name as a means to attract fans and sponsorship. If you want to become a global footballing power, you need to buy top players and win trophies. It's a simple (and as hard) as that. All of the "branding" is based off success on the pitch first and foremost.
Allam is clearly an astute, hard-working man on a certain level - that's how he managed to acquire a fortune - but his ideas for "rebranding" football clubs are completely off the rails.
