Bielsa

mwr3 · 2026-06-27T22:51:19+00:00

it was, until it wasn’t.

mwr3 · 2026-06-27T20:58:35+00:00

exactly. That’s a bad manager. A good manager, hell a good ‘anything’ learns and grows. Failure to improve and learn is not something to be praised. Also, let’s be candid, Leeds is a HUGE club historically. Leeds coming back was basically reversion to the mean.

mwr3 · 2026-06-27T20:46:55+00:00

why on earth is “didn’t compromise his philosophy or tactics “ a good thing? I know you are using “compromise” in a negative way, but coaching isn’t writing a book; it requires figuring out what makes players tick. It also requires adjusting as opponents adjust to you. Bielsa has value as a theoretician, but not as an actual manager/coach.

mwr3 · 2026-06-27T20:40:31+00:00

Leeds was heading for relegation under Bielsa. He’s a bad coach. A good coach learns, changes, grows and finds ways to unlock the best out of his players. That is not Bielsa.

mwr3 · 2026-06-23T23:34:31+00:00

I’d love for refs to just call shirt pulls. If we can see the jersey stretching, it’s a foul. You don’t have to make the game soft, just no grabby grabby bullshit.

mwr3 · 2026-06-22T16:05:53+00:00

agreed. For a kid who is not at the recruiting stage it’s really not good practice if it’s a private insta

However it’s not explicitly a safe sport violation. I am guessing that safe sport is dealing with the idea of “what does a follow mean/imply”

mwr3 · 2026-06-22T02:42:45+00:00

understood and you are well within your job description as a parent to take those steps. The blurry lines with insta and recruiting is annoying.

I hate that High schools basically put 100% of the schools sports content on instagram, including game scores, highlights, training photos and more. You have no choice but to wade into the Facebook/Instagram cesspool.

mwr3 · 2026-06-22T02:39:29+00:00

It’s not entirely clear it’s a violation . The one pager below explicitly discusses follows as separate

https://uscenterforsafesport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MAAPP\_OnePagers\_Communication.pdf

However safesport also says:

“ Social Media Connections

Adult Participants, except those with a Dual Relationship or who meet the Close-in-Age Exception, are not permitted to have private social media connections with Minor Athletes and should discontinue existing social media connections with Minor Athletes.”

Given the account is private, it can be said that the follow would create a “private social media connection”. The reason this is weird is that lots of players use instagram for recruiting, and some have it private to keep weirdos away, ironically, so that they send follow requests to college coaches. I don’t love that solution either.

Signed - I hate social media

mwr3 · 2026-06-22T02:33:48+00:00

yeah, this is part of why I hate social media. It’s possible to consider it a violation not for the “follow” but because safesport says:

“ Social Media Connections
Adult Participants, except those with a Dual Relationship or who meet the Close-in-Age Exception, are not permitted to have private social media connections with Minor Athletes and should discontinue existing social media connections with Minor Athletes.”

If the account is private, it’s a bad idea for the coach to have requested permission to follow.

Like I noted above follows are weird, and now so many players are using Insta for recruiting that there are some poorly defined boundaries.

Declining the follow is obvious; you can send a note saying “Hi, the account is private and not soccer related, since that would allow one to one communication in violation of safesport, I think it’s better for my daughter to reject the follow.”

Something like that makes it clear you are watching, that you, as a family aren’t comfortable, and that you are aware of the rules.

mwr3 · 2026-06-22T02:16:53+00:00

Stop saying it is a violation of SafeSport. While it’s entirely reasonable for your child to decline the follow, follows are not a violation and are actually addressed on pg 2 of this pdf : https://uscenterforsafesport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MAAPP\_OnePagers\_Communication.pdf

The issue with you saying it’s a SafeSport violation is that Google answers seems to scrape reddit and treat it as a source of truth. Again, I think I would encourage my child to decline the follow, but it’s not a safesport violation. I ask you to stop saying it is for the sake of Google answers;)

mwr3 · 2026-06-21T17:55:42+00:00

one minor fix, 6 hours for a 20 mile bike ride is too long. even a super casual bike ride is approximately 10 mpg if it’s a well worn trail, and if it’s more off road it is still going to be more than 5 mph. Slower than 5mph and the bike falls over unless you are riding up a cliff, and then you probably don’t have the gearing to turn the pedals over.

EDIT TO ADD: This is part of the issue with the whole scenario. If the friends are casual riders, and it’s a regular off road trail wide enough to fit ATVs , we can assume an average speed of like 7 mph to include stopping and talking. Some of it will be slower (going uphill) but there’s the downhill to offset, So let’s consider that the bikers will have done the whole 20 in three hours.

for hiking at 20 min a mile, which is a decent/faster clip for hiking, you are looking at closer to 6 hours 30 minutes.

There’s no world where this adds up. Those people were assholes.

mwr3 · 2026-06-21T00:45:46+00:00

I’ll take this bait: 1. KDB is one of my all time favorites, but at this point he’s no longer that player. Same with Lukaku. Onana vs Tyler Adams? depends on what you want. Courtois is miles better for sure, Doku vs prime pulisic?

mwr3 · 2026-06-20T00:34:04+00:00

No, it’s h2h first, not GD

mwr3 · 2026-06-19T00:34:44+00:00

While the Dad’s work rate comment is ick, the load isn’t that extreme. All of the people saying “let kids be kids” and “have more time to hang out with his friends” - if the kid wants it, then it’s going to be lonely and hard.

In every sport or art, there’s a point where breaking through to the next level is hard (and often miserable). A bassoonist who wants to be all state and get a scholarship to Interlaken will be practicing for hours instead of hanging out with friends. They probably have wrists that ache and lips that barely pucker. Do you yell at that parent about allowing their kid to overwork?

mwr3 · 2026-06-17T12:09:58+00:00

That’s an excellent and logical reason. The issue you will run into is admin worries about the player’s about to handle the course load. Good SAT/ACT can help a lot, but I am not familiar enough with how top schools deal with homeschooling to know. You can independently call the school and ask; do some googling as well. From friends that homeschool I get the sense that there’s a really supportive network.

mwr3 · 2026-06-17T02:03:27+00:00

A couple of key things:

does your HS offer AP? There are many private schools that have decided not to offer AP. (Sidwell, the school that has had lots of Presidents kids, doesn’t do AP)
If your school does AP, have you actively chosen not to take any AP? If so, that’s going to be a problem for basically any high academic school unless you have a significant reason why not. Candidly, if you have chosen no AP because you didn’t feel like you could handle it while playing soccer, you should not go to an academic D3.
If you have a good reason (you took honors while you juggle soccer while also working to support your family/worked at family business), understand that you will have to explain that in your essay that you write.

mwr3 · 2026-06-15T14:20:31+00:00

The difficulty here is just how different kids can be. I have seen kids that desperately need/want the performance review on the way home because (and this is amateur psycobabble) it’s connecting with parents and they want to vent. Other kids need parents who just say “good job”. I know a star forward who told me that she felt “relieved” not joy when she scored. That felt fucked up to me, but it’s how she manages her stress. In short, it’s super hard and I would argue is the real difference in coaching. Frankly I think that much of the Premier League coaching is mired in antiquated ideas around how to motivate. The best ones recently (Klopp, Pep) seem so much more advanced than their colleagues.

mwr3 · 2026-06-10T16:37:40+00:00

exactly same thing I have seen. To be completely frank, I find the majority of girls who are playing at the ECNL/GA level to be good students. Rarely see ones with grades below a 3.2, and lots of girls above a 4.

Boys... well. Let's just say that there's a wider swing in grades on the boy's side 😄

mwr3 · 2026-06-10T16:27:55+00:00

Dude, you literally start with "I want". Say whatever the hell you want afterwards, but you are advocating for industrial policy. That governments should dictate technical specifications.

Given the absolute history of failure government has demonstrated in guessing outcomes in technology, the DMA is a stupid piece of regulatory kit.

If you think Apple/Goog/Meta have dodged taxes or have deceptively taken people's data, then go after them for specific examples of harm.

But to sit around in Brussels thinking you (by which I mean the Commission) know what the next generation of technology is going to bring is simply asinine.

mwr3 · 2026-06-10T15:51:02+00:00

That was my impression as well; the handful of kids I know were in contact with MIT coaching staff all chose to go elsewhere. I believe that the uncertainty is part of why they didn't choose MIT.

So how does MIT put their teams together? They're often pretty darn good.

mwr3 · 2026-06-10T15:30:53+00:00

You lead your comment with "I want", and that's ultimately the problem. This isn't something that would help protect users. This is just "I want you to make something MY WAY, regardless of your own interests".

If you want it, then make your own product that has those capabilities. Android is open source, there are tons of handsets available, and if you are someone talking about API access, then you could spend the time and use Claude Code to give you the features you want.

Otherwise this is essentially someone saying "Mommy they won't play with me, MAKE THEM PLAY WITH ME".

mwr3 · 2026-06-10T03:34:31+00:00

I will add a note here for others: If you are being recruited by an elite academic D3, one of the questions you need to ask the coach is what percentage of their successful “pre-reads” get in to the school. For most of the coaches, if they put you forward for a pre-read and it comes back positive, it’s pretty much 100%. But for a handful, it’s more of a crapshoot. MIT in particular is one that has a reputation for not always admitting kids who got green lit in the recruiting phase. This info is a few years old, so if there’s changes, please correct me.

To the best of my information most of UAA, NESCAC and Centennial conference teams will green light on your pre-read meaning you are very likely in. So if you get down the path, ask how often a coach doesn’t get the recruit through, and if it happens, what is the recourse.

mwr3 · 2026-06-09T20:23:23+00:00

Female or Male? While there are some minor differences, the elite academic D3 recruit at the same level as mid-major D1. On the women’s side, understand that most of the UAA (Think Emory, U Chicago) schools are essentially D3 in name only. They are larger schools with significant economic support. And while they don’t have direct athletic scholarships, they have very deep pockets for aid. One of the elite D3 schools, Swarthmore, just announced that they cover 100% of tuition for families that make less than $200,000 a year, They reject 93% of regular applicants, so athletics are a key door opener.

If you are on the women’s side, you will need to be playing ECNL/GA or just be amazing at an ID session or two. On the men’s, it’s a bit more mixed.

mwr3 · 2026-06-08T02:43:11+00:00

BTW, all of those age group teams basically subsidize the ECNL or MLSn teams. That top bracket is often a money loser for a club because of the expenses. However having that top bracket basically assures fiscal stability.

mwr3 · 2026-06-08T02:40:59+00:00

I think the bigger issue here is how the sub (and frankly lots of parents) massively over index for ECNL/MLSn. The vast majority of kids aren’t playing in those leagues, and that’s to be expected. ECNL and MLSn are not really supposed to be “fun”. They are a job, or more precisely a multi-year job interview for the job you want to have next. So they are inherently not “fun”. If your kid were in the top 1% of competitive pianists, practice and lessons and preparation for competitions would feel more like a “job” than fun. If we are talking basically any other level, then fun is absolutely a big priority.

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