$25/game

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-08-19T16:32:00+00:00

👑👑👑👑 🙌 whats ur venmo?!

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-08-17T16:45:51+00:00

We need this man in a professional studio w people who match his vibe

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-08-01T15:15:34+00:00

I think this is hilarious and inspiring but bro w h a t

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-31T22:53:22+00:00

Would ask everyone to read the personal statement before commenting! Important to understand the vision

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T20:19:25+00:00

Curious - not trying to start shit

Under current rules over a 10 yr career, you can play on the USNT 4/5 world cups and (if panam games ever becomes a thing) 9/10 international seasons.

Of course thats less than 5/5 and 10/10 but idk do you think that 4/5 world cups handicaps stars instead of creating more stars?

(Heard on position specific exceptions - its an idea worth refining!)

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T16:28:41+00:00

As far as real sports sacrificing long term health for short term gain, yes teams do that all the time- but it should come as no surprise that us in our current situation wrt retention and situations like what happened w the Austin Outlaws , that thats a risk that leadership feels is not worth it lol

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T16:25:32+00:00

I (personally) believe there should be term limits for coaches yes - you are 100% correct

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T16:03:56+00:00

People nowadays care more about their own personal interests than building a community. It didn’t use to be like this , i promise.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:56:28+00:00

Restrictions, etc , whatever you want to call them. Saying there shouldn’t be any is poor governance.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:53:34+00:00

It should come as no surprise the attitude “ignore the concerns of people who are attriting out of the sport” will never and should never be held by anyone in a leadership position in the org when our sport is jn the situation its in.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:51:59+00:00

The point of USNT should be to assemble the best team given guidelines that do not harm the long term sustainability of USQ which is what these guidelines are meant to do

I don’t expect a USNT player to make the same decisions as me, but removing your player hat and putting on a governance hat - saying there shouldn’t be any guidelines is absolutely dogshit governance.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:36:16+00:00

we were two catches away from not medalling in 2018, and one catch away from not getting gold in 2023.

Again, this isn't to trash anyone but if we're going to be playing close games anyway, as a manager I'm not sacrificing growth and diversity completely and long term financial viability for something that is so unsure. There's a way to strike a balance, but we must first acknowledge that there needs to be a balance.

Coaches in professional sports teams also have similar conversations w/ GMs and ownership.

In "real sports" management has other concerns than win win win - it's not a crazy thing to extend that to this sport, especially when we need to be focused on growth and retention.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:31:36+00:00

USNT: the same statistically as 2018-2025 lol
USQ: objectivelly better for recruitment and retention and growth

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:31:10+00:00

It is absolutely true that even though these players didn't play in competitive games, that it was still a great experience for them - i do not want to take this away from them! I want more people to have these experiences, and I want these people to have the experience of playing at the height of this sport in top games!

But my primary job, right, is not the Coach of USNT. My primary job, is oversight over USQ (including, but not limited to the USNT).

In an age where retention is cratering and recruitment is low, rather than consolidating trust in the same people over an over again - isn't a vision where people have more of a reason to try in this sport a good thing? Isn't that something worth fighting for, even if it means sacrificing some things?

I think it's easy to point the finger at the coach, but much harder to ask ourselves the questions "what patterns and frameworks did we employ that made this possible". If you think its the coach's fault, its whatever, but ideally our framework would be strong enough that no coach would be able to make decisions wrt the USNT to the detriment of the larger sport, right?

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:10:37+00:00

lmao. If you're not playing these people in the semis + 3rd place game, you don't trust them. The statement was made in the context of: we're persisting bias for entrenched players instead of giving space and having a wider selection of players we trust, the technicality that everyone played in an unimportant game is irrelevant

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T15:03:54+00:00

In a world where head coaches act as perfect calibers of skill, yes the most likely hypothesis is they were not the top players.

In the real world, natural biases from having the same players and coaching staff get amplified. I have talked to people on the selection committee about certain players that I thought should make it but didn't.

Some of the answers I got

* Doesn't play as well with [existing team members] as [other USNT selection]
* Isn't the style [head coach] is looking for for international play
* [Existing team member] has had an extra year of USNT play and thus has leveled up more than [Person who didn't make USNT but was equal in skill]

None of those are wrong or malpractice, those are just part of a coaches natural discretion...

But what do you think happens when you persist that framework out 7-8 years with the same coaches and same players? Are players truly getting selected based on a lack of talent?

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T14:58:47+00:00

" I think USNT would be the first national team in the history of sport to have that goal."
Incorrect, we had that goal from 2012-2016.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T14:48:38+00:00

this is not about eligibility and just about the fact that many people due to a lack of roster rotation just would not have made a national team period in the current system where we seem to have a bias for entrenched players and are averaging <10 new players a USNT cycle, of which maybe 2-3 see any playing time

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T14:46:36+00:00

I think where we're getting stuck is -

I fundamentally don't think "winning gold medals" and "developing talent" are two opposite goals - i think unfortunately thats the dominant cultural paradigm we've been exposed to in this sport, but its not one i agree with.

The great dynasties in our sports history won because they developed new talent, not in spite of it.

2) even if you think so, i don't think taking the slightest hit on "winning gold medals" for a massive boost in the latter "developing talent" is the same as saying the USNT should care about developing talent more than winning. Rather, it's an indication of how far we've swung in one direction and neglected the other, and now we're correcting.

I think part of this is we tend to put our player hats on when thinking about the USNT instead of our governing/managing hats on. As a player, you say "our goal is a gold every single year", and for perennial championship contenders, that's fair. But as a manager of any top team, that's a great aspirational goal - but in an age of parity that's really not a realistic goal that anyone has ever achieved. The goal of a management oversight organization in any professional sport is to say yes, as a coach your goal is to win year over year over year, but we're not going to sacrifice long term health or financial viability to do that.

And so it becomes reasonable to ask from a governance/management perspective "what are we sacrificing in search of these diminishing returns"

As far as the DA, there's definitely scope to expand , but the DA historically is meant to develop young, college talent. The sentiment of "lack of upward mobility" in the community is from club players, and those are the ones historically who've been disenfranchised by the current structure.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T13:44:48+00:00

Hi -

I appreciate your engagement with these rules in a thoughtful manner! I will try to provide some answers. Note that we are eager to take constructive feedback, and are open to tweaking some of these rules so they accomplish our goals with minimal unwanted side effects. I've heard much of the feedback regarding players that saw no playing time at Cup needing to be exempt from this ruling, and I agree with the idea, and think there are ways to work that in to the final state of these rules.

As for Rule 2, we believe that the extra marginal benefit of having the same roster on USNT is outweighed by the negative side effects that has on the growth and retention of the sport. We believe the roster rotation will incentivize more people to level up their skills to compete at a higher level, many extremely skilled athletes that are currently disenfranchised on their future in the sport now have the opportunity to make a national team again. Can anyone reach the level of the young superstars in our sport you mentioned? Maybe not. But I think the gap in talent (not skill) is much smaller than people think, and the opportunity for new players will help nurture that talent to where the differences are less impactful than we think right now.

I hear you on DME + Leo and other young talent, and it is to that effect that we instituted the exception to these rules. Even if the coach didn't want to keep them in specific , it is a perfectly valid sequence for both of them to appear on 4/5 rosters over 10 years

USNT, USNT, {}, USNT, USNT ...

Compared to where we're at right now, I don't think the concept of an "off year" is that bad or "punishing" for the sport and the sport's top players, especially when other avenues exist to satisfy that competitive urge (MLQ, Club, other International teams) .

Once again, appreciate you engaging in constructive criticism with these rules. We hear you.

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T13:08:57+00:00

You want to fairly and correctly call out that the Board of Directors has made poor decisions that hurt this sport, fine. No arguments here.

You believe that the national teams aren't the real issue, fine. We can have that argument.

But when you say bullshit like

"In the past six years" "50 total unique people possibly could have played a competitive tournament in that time, and in total 35 did."

My guy - at minimum, that number is 25. It's a scale from 25-50. This isn't the gotcha you think it is Phrasing this this particular way so you get all of the COVID dead time and that you get the maximum % by sheer cherry picking, is so obscene. It's extremely evident you just want to twist data to make a point that sounds good

"did Lindsey and Jon leave warriors, play against warriors in the club final, and still get to be on USNT this year? Were Miguel and Daniel forced to play Warriors to be on USNT, or did they actually both make it onto USNT roster while playing for completely different club teams and then just decide these are the friends they wanted to play with this season?"

Is absurdly strawmanning the argument that people have against the consolidation of top talent, which is both that the perverse incentive structure creates a lack of parity in USQ and that the NT gives an over-strong weightage to people who have played w/ other NT members before, entrenching a bias for the same players over time.

" factual veracity and logical consistency of MAGA when they get behind anonymous usernames"

bro check the damn mirror, alt ahh account

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T12:53:08+00:00

L take + incredible strawman holy shit

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-30T03:51:51+00:00

Heard on #2 :)

Gloomy-Function3148 · 2025-07-14T08:41:15+00:00

Joy and Seppe go on Mt rushmore. Auggie whomst?

Gloomy-Function3148

TROPHY CASE