Month: November 2011

soccer

Dan Borislow statement on WPS suit

Posted on by Beau Dure
Full statement – story later:
Today we filed a lawsuit to get back what was stolen from us by the WPS.The many travesty’s outlined in the lawsuit include a scheme by Jennifer O’Sullivan and Kristina Hentschel ,being defended by their lawyer Pam Fulmer whom in essence is one of the acting leaders of the WPS,is a plot to extort magicJack of over $2.4 Million.O’Sullivan had been quoted”Dan very much wants to be a partner in this league” when we already were a paying partner(In the millions of dollars)in the league.magicJack possesses these “invoices’ from the WPS .
The lawsuit also spells out how we saved the league when nobody else wanted to,then went on to being the Focus team of the league having the foresight to obtain the four most popular fan favorites of the US Womens National team.magicJack was by far and away the largest draw for fans to the league.If it wasn’t for the outrageous behavior of the WPS management,it would have gone on to win the Championship too.There wasn’t a team in the league whom we didn’t beat convincingly.Now the league decided  the best thing to do,is to steal the team and it’s most valuable assets- the players-and enhance their own team after learning how to be successful like magicJack.The problem for them is,and the reason the US Womens National team cannot play for the WPS anymore,is they think the dont have to pay these players.magicJack on average paid its National team members an average of over $45,000 plus a super apartment and many other valuable benefits.The others figured if they got rid of me,there would be no competition to have to pay the players what they deserve and need to live on.After they got rid of magicJack,most teams have been offering these players in the $10,000 to $20,000 per year range.This is an impossible salary for the WNT players to play for.This is a league who’s primary function, in the eyes of the governing body , to supplement the US WNT salary and provide a farm system to develop the best players for our Country.What it has turned out to be is a league who doesn’t pay a fair salary and it’s best players will probably be foreign born.
We got into this to help the girls in our youth leagues,to help our Country build the best National team and to help Women see a path to fulfill their dreams.Now we have some foreign born coaches and Governors who seem to care little to none about our Womens National team.I personally play soccer with mostly foreign born people and share their Love for the game.But I know,when it comes time to watch the World Cup,they are cheerinf for where they were born in most cases.It’s a fact of life and something I would practice if I lived abroad.The last Men’s World Cup played,I participated in a game where we had Americans play against English born guys.These are players who normally play together all the time,but at World Cup and Olympics everything changes.I honestly believe three of the teams in the WPS would like to see the Americans lose to the Country they were born in.That being said,Pia our National Coach is the most avid fan of her own players and the US National team.It’s because she coaches the team,is ethical and understands this wonderful opportunity provided to her.I am also sure that the team she wants to come in second is the Swedish team.
So I believe the league is actually anti USA.It’s a league who doesn’t want to do the right thing for it’s Women’s US National Team.It’s a league who doesn’t follow one of the most valued principals of the USA-due process of the law.Did you see the NFL take away Al Davis’ team-NO.The NBA take Mark Cuban’s team-NO.The MLB take the Dodgers-NO.Some people will have a different opinion of how things should be and their opinions in many cases be cherished.The fact of the matter is,magicJack was the success of the league.Now the WPS did something that most undoubtly will be overturned in an American Court because they didn’t allow us our rights.Can you imagine if the government and others seized your valuable property for no reason,something you worked your whole life for?.This wouldn’t be the United States anymore.It would be anarchy with people getting killed.
I believe the only solution is to have a trustee run the league and try and reverse the damages the best they can.To make sure our Women get paid a fair wage and work in close cooperation with the US Womens National team.Without WNT success,we won’t have a product anybody will want to see anymore.It’s another unfortunate day in Soccer in the US,but hopefully part of the process to better things.magicJack remains committed to Professional Soccer for Women.
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mma

Washington Post piece lectures kids about evils of MMA

Posted on by Beau Dure

If in some parallel universe I was never given a chance to appreciate MMA, I hope I still managed to avoid writing pieces like this Washington Post monstrosity bashing an activity I neither understood nor cared to research.

Let’s be clear — MMA isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Neither is boxing. Or football, rugby, Australian rules football or any sport in which people collide with malice. Or hockey or indoor lacrosse, where they sometimes toss off their gloves for bare-knuckle head punches.

But if you’re singling out MMA, the counterarguments are simple. Most boxing punches are aimed at the head; MMA targets the whole body. Chokes and armbars may look nasty on first glance, but they’re part of respectable Olympic judo, and they don’t cause long-term injuries. (Yes, we’ll make an exception for people who don’t tap when they’re in armbars or leglocks, but even then, we’re not talking about something as serious as the multiple concussions suffered by unfortunate athletes in football, hockey and soccer.) The rules used for the past decade are hardly “anything goes.”

In the Post piece, Fred Bowen offers up the odd factual clunker (boxing hasn’t had 15-round fights in decades) and an argument that would fail to impress your high school debate coach — to paraphrase, it’s basically “Excuse me, I’ve seen ultimate fighting, and it can’t possibly be more dangerous than cheerleading.”

I’ve seen triathlons, and I wouldn’t think they’re dangerous. But according to the Post, in a story I highly recommend reading, they are.

So we have the usual nightmare scenario for an opinion piece — poor/nonexistent research, misleading descriptions, personal dislike extrapolated to what the general public should avoid, etc.

Here’s the worst part: This isn’t an op-ed piece. It’s not a sports column. It’s in KidsPost, the section for children.

So instead of reading about historical figures, neat science facts or the swell things star athletes do, my kids get to read a lazy opinion piece telling them why no one should watch the sport Daddy covers.

Gee, thanks.

As always, the comments are open (within reason).

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mma

The Ultimate Fighter: Season 14, Episode 9: Efficient, yes, but exciting?

Posted on by Beau Dure

I messed up “Episode” and “Season” in my last headline. Oops. Anyway, it’s Season 14, Episode 9.

Dustin Pague and his Mayhem teammates drop off a bag of food for a needy guy they’ve seen on their route to and from the training center. Nice.

Dustin also has a fight coming up, and Mayhem says he has dramatically improved. The game plan: Move around a lot, create angles, stay away from TJ Dillashaw’s straight-ahead punches and takedown efforts. Also, God’s plan will prevail.

Continue reading →

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mma

UFC in transition as it debuts on Fox

Posted on by Beau Dure

A montage of Fox Sports properties scrolls past, with the UFC listed alongside the Super Bowl, World Series and other major American events. Then we see an overhead shot of the Honda Center in Anaheim, mimicking the skyline and arena shots that opened the first Ultimate Fighting Championship broadcast exactly 18 years earlier. But instead of generic music and graphics, it’s the familiar Fox theme and feel.

The first UFC on Fox broadcast is a milestone for a young sport. Yet it’s more of a symptom of the sport’s upheaval and progress than the cause. The UFC and mixed martial arts as a whole are still in a state of rapid transition from an underground movement with breakthrough stars to a new world of great potential … and uncertainty.

Technically, little about Saturday night’s broadcast was a “first.” It wasn’t the first UFC appearance on a Fox network — a 2002 bout between Robbie Lawler and Steve Berger was plucked from a hastily assembled fight card to air later on Fox Sports Net’s The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Live UFC fights have been on cable for several years. Mixed martial arts had been on network TV with CBS a few times, with UFC rival EliteXC leading the way in May 2008.

EliteXC’s run, though, was over by the end of 2008. Though the organization had a few good fighters — Lawler once again was on the broadcast, and outstanding female fighter Gina Carano drew plenty of publicity — EliteXC put much of its promotional efforts behind Kimbo Slice, who had risen to celebrity through YouTube videos of his knockouts in backyards and boat yards. It was the equivalent of an upstart basketball league hiring locked-out NBA players but featuring someone who had an impressive reel of playground dunks.

UFC President Dana White had pledged that he wouldn’t do a network TV deal just to say he had one. He waited until he and a broadcast partner could do it right.

Continue reading →

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sports culture

When a shocking event hits you at home

Posted on by Beau Dure

Terrific read here: A Penn State alumna on a community’s heartbreak – espnW

I’ve had a few misgivings about the reactions in all directions on the Penn State saga. Those who actually rioted — a small percentage of Penn State students and community members but still a substantial group — are going to regret it. (Imagine a job interview in which an employer recognizes the dude who celebrated on top of the toppled news van.) But I’m equally skeptical of the piling-on against Penn State as an institution.

Two reasons for the misgivings:

1. I distrust howling mobs in general.One reason I love The Simpsons is that the show has done such a good job in so many situations skewering our tendency to get irrational at the drop of a hat.

http://www.hulu.com/embed/hNrDAWOGCYP5UVfeIg4ufA

Even if many people have good intentions, they end up fueling those who don’t. And you simply cannot have a rational conversation with someone who is caught up in it.

2. I’ve been through this. You know my school? Duke? Right. First, we were the evil Southern country-club school that looked the other way while our lacrosse team did everything up to and including rape. Then, when it turned out the rape story was fabricated, we were the bastion of political correctness that threw everyone under the bus so the African-American Studies department wouldn’t get offended. A couple of writers turned the latter into a nice little cottage industry.

But you don’t have to go through such a thing to put yourself in other people’s shoes. Picture the most admirable person in your community or someone you admire in the world at large, perhaps even a member of your family. Now suppose you’ve just learned about that person what we’ve learned in the past couple of weeks about Joe Paterno. You may be angry, yes. But you’ll also be shocked. And saddened. In some cases, you may not even want to believe the worst, clinging to any shred of exonerating evidence. (In the Penn State case, that would be the notion that Paterno only heard part of the story and didn’t realize how serious it was.)

When you walk that mile in someone else’s shoes, you still won’t be ready to forgive a decade of inaction among a handful of people. You’ll still scoff at Mr. Celebrating On Overturned News Van Guy.

But you’ll also be a little less inclined to pile on everyone at Penn State. The players. The fans who wore blue to yesterday’s game. The alumni who are more than 60% of the way to an ambitious goal of raising $500,000 for sex abuse-survior support group RAINN.

And you might even remember that coming to terms with what happened at Penn State will require a calm, patient investigation. Engaging in a contest to see how loudly you can denounce everything at Penn State won’t help a single abuse victim.

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sports culture

Student-athletes: Going on the endangered list?

Posted on by Beau Dure

So BYU is flirting with the Big East, Boise State may go anywhere, the SEC is adding teams that aren’t “Southeast” in any sense, and the Pac-12 is looking farther and farther inland. I’m still waiting for the University of Heidelberg to join the ACC.

The driving forces here are: football, TV, football, money, football, men’s basketball, money and football.

Then there’s Topic B in college sports: Whether to pay players a stipend or a little extra.

Not considered in these discussions: The existence of sports beyond football or men’s basketball. Even men’s basketball is hardly considered — it’s a factor in the ACC’s raids on the Big East but not much else. The current ESPN magazine has a stark claim on its cover: Superconferences will be very bad for college basketball. (Disclaimer: I do a good bit of freelance work for espnW.)

Football is unique among college sports, of course. For one thing, it’s difficult to have the marching band do a halftime show at a water polo game. (Surely Stanford’s band has tried.)

The two biggest considerations with football: It’s college sports’ biggest revenue-generator AND biggest expense sink. Check the numbers on college sports, and you’ll see that football is a gamble. From a financial point of view, schools can win big … or lose.

The “superconference” movement raises that stakes. Yes, there’s a lot of TV money on the table. But the expenses will creep up as well.

What the media have not noticed is that those expenses will be much worse for the nonrevenue sports. It’s one thing for Boise State to take its football team to South Florida for a Saturday football game. It’s another thing for Boise State to plan its conference travel for volleyball or softball. Midweek cross-country travel every week? That’ll be great for “student-athletes,” right? Especially the ones playing sports that don’t have professional futures.

ESPN’s story mentions the problem:

So it may be great for Syracuse’s football team to leave the poorly monetized Big East, but now its men’s basketball team has to fly once a week, if not more, to Miami and various spots in North Carolina to play. Its travel budget will balloon. Syracuse, like many schools in large conferences, will come to rely even more on football to provide for its other sports. The more money football doles out, the more power it wields.

Now suppose the “pay the players” movement gains momentum. Again, everything becomes more expensive.

Now suppose we have a downturn in a superconference’s TV revenue. It could happen. Bubbles burst.

We’d have athletic departments looking at red ink. What do you suppose will get cut?  Probably not the football teams.

The great blog tracksuperfan.com has rounded up a few of the reasons for alarm, including George Dohrman’s thoughtful, thoroughly researched SI piece this week exploring a few options to pay players while making the whole operation viable. One option in that SI piece: Make a lot of the nonrevenue sports “club” rather than varsity.

In a way, the “club” idea brings sports back into the realm of normal college activity, and getting out from the NCAA’s umbrella is tempting. In another way, it’s brutally unfair to nonrevenue sports, particularly when other options are saner. And it means you’ll have Olympic athletes holding bake sales so they can take one flight to a national championship.

Already, nonrevenue sports’ spring seasons — a small attempt to give soccer players and company something beyond their absurdly short fall season — are under attack. For soccer players, this is particularly galling. They could lose their poorly publicized spring games, but they’re expected to leave their summer amateur teams in early August to get back to “school” before the dorms even open? That’s more cost-effective? Better for the players? How?

SI’s piece has a rather chilling quote in bold type: COLLEGE SPORTS IS FULL OF TEAMS THE MARKET DOESN’T SUPPORT, YET THEY GET FUNDED.

Before we leap into Ayn Rand’s America, let me make this counterargument: The value of college sports to a school goes far beyond tangible revenue. If we reduce college sports to NFL and NBA development leagues with everything else puttering around at the “club” level, what’s the point?

(Technically, because of Title IX and the SI piece’s suggestion that schools should just focus on strict proportionality so they’d be able to cut sports without violating Prongs 2 and 3, we’d have football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and a 65-member women’s rowing team. But let’s not digress down that road just yet.)

Take a look at the 2010-11 standings for the Directors’ Cup (long associated with my former employer and frequent freelance client, USA TODAY) and the newer Capital One Cup. Look at these schools. Stanford. Cal. Notre Dame. Duke. North Carolina. Virginia. Northwestern. Michigan. Lots of good schools. (Yes, Duke gave me two degrees, but it’s still a good school.) Even a non-scholarship Ivy League school such as Princeton can check into the top 40 ahead of a lot of the schools that can fill their swimming pools with football money.

From the Greek academy to the Bay Area, sports have been part of student life. It’s a big selling point for a lot of schools. Hyperachievers like to hang out with hyperachievers.

Does “the market” support that? No more so or less so than it supports the marching band, the art museum, the library’s updated card catalog system or the people who clean up the statue of John Q. Schoolfounder when he’s TP’d after homecoming.

So let’s toss out a few ideas:

– Football conferences are simply different entities than basketball conferences, lacrosse conferences, soccer conferences and so forth. Let football conferences go national while the other sports stay regional.

– Figure out a way to trim a few athletes off those giant rowing teams without falling out of compliance with Title IX. Maybe put a few more of those athletes on the teams in, say, swimming, track and other sports that actually have millions of high school athletes from whom to choose.

– If football is going to be the rainmaker for the rest of the athletic department, fine. Beef up the minimum support given to other sports. Let it be the rainmaker.

– Ease up on additional financial aid for needy athletes. But don’t pretend it’s some problem that’s unique to athletes. I knew plenty of people who had trouble paying for a holiday flight home in school. The fourth-string tight end shares some problems with the band’s second-chair tuba player.

Whatever the solutions, the sports that don’t rake in money should be part of the discussion. And part of the schools.

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mma

The Ultimate Fighter: Episode 14, Season 8: Fire extinguishers! Near-KOs!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Five minutes ago, I was watching the Family Ties episode in which Alex races to the train station to confess his love to Ellen, a scene made that much sweeter by the knowledge that the actors — Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan — are a couple to this day.

Now? Michael Bisping. This is like switching from the Sundays singing “Wild Horses” to Megadeth ranting about whatever those idiots rant about.

The house is splitting up into three groups. John Dodson and the other flyweight leprechaun dudes hang out in one spot. Dennis Bermudez, Johnny Bedford and a few others are studying the Bible. The others are in the “casino” group, playing cards.

 

Akira, the prankster who manages to rationalize his own hijinks while flipping out when someone returns the favor, shaves part of someone’s hair. That appears to be Bryan Caraway, who chases him across the house to threaten him. These lighter weight classes are FAST. (See SB Nation for more of Akira’s rationalizations. They’re actually quite amusing. He might be the most diabolical genius ever to appear on this show.)

Mayhem heard Bisping was planning a prank on his car. He arrives at the training center by bike.

Bisping and his coaches arrive in the parking lot with a massive skid, as if they’ve just won a NASCAR race and want to try a few donuts in celebration. Bisping and Tiki Ghosn peek into Team Mayhem’s dressing room for an idiotic chat to distract everyone. Spike has been building this prank up for weeks. Let’s see … after the break …

The ad break includes a terrific ad for UFC 139, which has a tremendous main card. Hendo-Shogun, Wandy-Cung Le, Faber-Bowles, Kampmann-Story. How deep is the card? Ryan Bader and Miguel Torres are in the prelims. (No, not against each other. Bader wold have a slight size advantage.)

When we return, Bisping blasts fire extinguishers into Mayhem’s dressing room. Bisping’s dressing room door is destroyed. Then a mariachi band walks through the hallway and appears outside. No further explanation would make any more sense of the situation.

Mayhem applauds, giving the credit to Tiki. Bedford, who can be found griping each week at mma.usatoday.com, gripes about it.

Bisping says they did the research and found the fire extinguishers aren’t toxic.

The whole thing seems to backfire on Bisping in a sense, though. The gym is trashed from the fire extinguisher crossfire, so Louis, Diego, Josh and Akira run sprints around the parking lot because they can’t train.

Back to the house — we don’t know much about Dennis, and it turns out we haven’t heard much because he’s not particularly coherent.

Back to the gym — Bisping gets a water-spraying ambush from a restroom. He doesn’t like water sprays. He kicks open the door. Surprise! It’s Akira! Who’s on his team!

Since Akira is supposed to be fighting Dennis, they put Akira through a brutal workout in which he starts out on his back and has to escape over and over while teammates take turns holding him down.

But Akira has enough energy to do another prank with Marcus Brimage’s help. Marcus jumps on Bisping’s back and rubs his sweaty jock strap in Bisping’s face. Marcus runs away, leaving Akira to deal with Bisping. The larger, fresher coach tosses Akira down and wraps the jock strap around Akira’s face. “I actually had to taste his salty balls,” Akira says.

This has gone to a weird place.

After the ad break, Bisping shows up at the house and calls Marcus out of the house. The result: A silly-string war.

Team Miller finally gets some screen time. Mayhem brought his dog again. More importantly, he brings Siyar Bahadurzada, a Golden Glory-trained fighter who just signed with the UFC and has impressive kickboxing skills. He apparently has some experience with Akira as well.

Back from the break, Akira serenades Dennis, rhyming “weigh-in” with “slaying.” He has a terrific voice. The UFC should hire him to do trash talk for reticent fighters.

Johnny says Akira-Dennis will be about a “three-minute beating.”

Dana thinks Akira bit off more than he can chew by calling out Dennis.

Bisping talks more trash to Mayhem, leading to this odd confessional quote from Mayhem: “I respect Michael Bisping. He’s a seasoned fighter. But I respect my father, and that didn’t stop me from kicking his ass.”

It’s already 10:47. This is shaping up to be a short fight. And the winner is in the final. He’ll get slaughtered by Diego Brandao, but still …

MMA Junkie always posts its recap at 10:55, so we may know the result before the broadcast of the fight starts.

We start at 10:52. Akira catches him early. And again. And he stuffs two Dennis takedown attempts. Dennis is lunging with punches. They trade big punches. Akira lands another big one. Dennis responds. Huge left drops Dennis, who recovers and shoots, then slams. He ends up with a guillotine. Akira taps just before he conks out. Herb Dean, ironically, was the ref when Akira possibly tapped in his last fight, and he’s here to stop this one.

In the recap, Marcus marvels that one of Akira’s punches spun Dennis around. Mayhem laments Dennis’s long-range takedown efforts but was happy that the takedown occurred in his own corner. He was able to ccoach Dennis like he was playing a video game.

Akira comes to and thinks the fight is still on. Bisping has to stop him, saying “guillotine, guillotine.”

A stunning fight, one that surely won’t hurt Akira’s UFC prospects despite the loss. And another fast-paced episode. Did you ever guess Mayhem would be less interested in pranks than Bisping?

Next week: Bisping-Mayhem coach’s challenge — air hockey! Dustin Pague eats a bug and then faces TJ Dillashaw.

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soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: “Boot it!”

Posted on by Beau Dure

Just another good piece on the value of understated coaching.

I had observed this parent’s sideline behavior several times, and had also seen him silenced by his daughter’s coach on more than one occasion. This parent’s pearls of coaching wisdom included phrases like “Go!” ”Get the ball!”  “Shoot it!” “Get back!” “Hard kicks!” “Don’t Bunch!” and liberal doses of the one phrase guaranteed to make me cringe whenever I hear it: “Boot it!”

via SoccerAmerica – Sideline coaching — Dump the GPS and let the kids drive 11/09/2011.

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soccer

The annual MLS playoff fretting

Posted on by Beau Dure

Every year, MLS has exciting playoff action, and every year, people complain. Then people complain about the complainers.

But the argument changes a little each year. Especially this year, with the first 10-team playoff in league history. The tournament has produced its share of excitement as always, and it allowed the big-money, big-market, big-name New York Red Bulls to overcome that pesky stretch of winning two out of 20 games. (Hey, they only lost five.)

I’m not completely joking here. One advantage of a playoff format is that it allows a team to sort things out over the course of a season and build toward something big at the end. The Red Bulls might not be the best example, but consider Real Salt Lake, an obviously excellent team that was battered by injuries and a busy schedule. Jason Kreis’s club will face the Galaxy on Sunday in one of those truly outstanding matchups that the playoffs can produce.

Here’s the problem — we have less than 72 hours to build up to that game.

You might not be thinking, “Hey, how does this affect USA TODAY?” But it does. I was able to get a story in Wednesday’s paper on the Galaxy-Red Bulls series and other games — just my third MLS story of the year, which indicates a few more problems. A story on the Salt Lake-Galaxy semifinal would be great, but it can’t be done for any print version of USA TODAY. The Galaxy-Red Bulls game ended at 1 a.m. ET, beyond all reasonable deadlines for the Friday paper. USA TODAY doesn’t publish again until Monday. (Some sports merit online-only coverage on weekends, but MLS isn’t there. Yet.)

Other media outlets have similar problems. Everyone has to scramble to get things ready for a huge game in just three days.

Then there are those other people who have just a couple of days to prepare. What are they called? Oh, right — players.

So to sum up — the biggest games of the season so far will feature two tired teams in a media dead zone.

Tweaking the schedule could help a little bit. But the basic problem is that a 10-team playoff forces another round of games to be squeezed into what is already a narrow window of decent weather in North America.

Everyone has a favorite fix-all for the playoffs. I posted mine at this time last year, and it was ignored as always. The basic idea: Play an Apertura and Clausura season, with a Cup tournament at the end of the Clausura (before the summer break). You could even give the Supporters Shield to an Apertura winner, MLS Cup to the Clausura/playoff winner and an MLS SuperCup to the winner of a big neutral-site game in August, when there’s less competition for attention.

Barring a major shakeup like that, though, the simplest thing to ask would be to scale it back to eight teams. Just not enough time to get those wild cards in the mix.

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soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: Jurgen Klinsmann’s advice to U8 coaches

Posted on by Beau Dure

The U.S. national team coach and legendary German player wants to see more “informal” soccer akin to basketball’s 1-on-1 and H-O-R-S-E games.

He also has direct advice for U8 coaches:

Have fun! Let the children enjoy themselves! Help them learn the excitement they can experience kicking a ball and playing soccer-type games on their own, with their friends, and with their parents wherever they are with whatever ball they have available.

via SoccerAmerica – Klinsmann Q&A: Parents can set an example Part 1 11/04/2011.

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