DISQUS

If you watch Schalke you won't question the fact that this guy is a huge upgrade. Rico Clark? Are you joking he's never played outside of MLS. Michael Bradley is a sloppy tackler and Edu is good but not really a two way player. You don't play for the German U-21s and get called into the full national team and start for team with European ambitions and not be a serious upgrade over a typical American player.

I'm sorry but as an American we just don't produce players of this stature. Bradenton has failed as a development academy as that good article on MLS Talk demonstrated a few weeks back. Guys who come through the American system just don't have the technique and especially the tactical sense of a player who has been capped for Germany at both the youth and senior level.

good efforrt from um today.

it's amazing. i am suppossed to hate u guys but it is impossible not to root hard against duke every game.

what happened to collins?

dews looked solid. against a zone you need guys who can hit floaters like that in the lane.

good game. hold your heads high- u still have a shot at the ncaas.

Hurdle is terrible running the team. WTF was Dquan thinking?

We could have sealed an NCAA trip today. While losing doesn't hurt us, you don't get opportunities like this often. We now need to beat UNC OR run the table after that.

This team disgusts me. With different guys stepping up every game and a decent effort we alwaysw fall short. Why?

1- Lance Hurdle is the worst point guard in the ACC. He's last among starting ACC point guards in assists and is near the top in turnovers. He lacks common basketball sense and likes to pop from outside.

2- Jack McClinton is a ball hog whose athleticism is limited and who cannot create his own shot. Yet he seems to not play with his team mates. He's impatient and does not let them set screens for him or use dribble penetration to set up anyone else.

3- Dwayne Collins would be an all american candidate if he played somewhere else. Our coaching staff has proven for five years they have no clue how to use big men, and time and time again we rely too much on jum shots and our guards. Since Haith took over we have never ranked higher than 9th in the conference in team assists. Make whayever excuse you would like but that is coaching.

For our current level of talent, the results are unacceptable. If people poured praise on Haith last season, turnabout is fair play. He's wasting athelticism and outstanding role players this year with no offensive rythemn or system.

Becks didn't find MLS as easy as he thought and thus has bailed.

The best thing for MLS would be to focus on localized talent.

If Becks had been serious about MLS he would have taken the time to know something about his team and the names of his team mates besides Donovan when he came over here.

Angel, Blanco, etc did this. Becks did not!

Kartik..................why do we keep playing these games at the HDC?

Lagerbeck probably went nuts at halftime.

I assume Cooper will come in for the 2nd half.

AGH Davies.

Thorrington is playing very well.

WHAT A GREAT FREE KICK BY KLJESTAN.

Wynne is going to be our right back in the next World Cup. This will be his year.

LA is pathetic. Bring these winter camp games back to Florida where they used to be.

The ones who are clueless are those who post mindless hateful dribble on this site.

This is a great site for real analysis but the comments make me wants to vomit.

No offense to the league or its supporters but watching MLS is like watching Single A ball compared to the Premier League which is the majors.

FSU really held Pitt to 56 points? Whoa that's impressive!

The MLS lovers on other websites are saying this is a good thing and that ESPN is at fault, but you have previously pointed out the decline in ratings for MLS over ten years.

I think this nation's soccer fans didn't know quality and that we were getting a second rate product ten years ago and now with all the exposure to european soccer, we know can differentiate between good and bad and have chosen not to patron MLS.

Face it. MLS is doomed to failure on American TV. As you pointed out previously and I've double checked, MLS actually had more viewers on ESPN's family of networks ten years ago than today.

The competition from superior leagues abroad and lack of compelling story lines in MLS makes it difficult for even the average soccer fan to keep up.

Oh and Kartik those of us who believe ESPN bought the MLS rights only to get the FIFA competitions from SUM are not conspiracy theorists. We are correct!

MLS is actually a top 10 league by almost any standard.

Look at the number of Argentine players who have left Argentina to join MLS. They have come for better pay and a better standard of play.

I believe MLS is the best league in the Americas. If we were able to buy our way into the Copa Libertadoras the way the Mexican league has we'd show up all of these leagues ahead of us in this list: I include Argentina and Brazil in that list.

The CONCACAF competitions are mickey mouse. When something was on the line namely, a million dollars MLS teams have dominated Superliga. Three semifinalists in 2007 and an all MLS final in 2008.

Look at how well so many former MLS players have fit into the Premier League and Bundesliga. Most european scouts would admit MLS is the best league outside Europe which is why they mine it for so much talent. If Mexico is so good why do so many Mexican league players struggle in Europe? They cannot cope anywhere but Mexico.

Man undrafted, do you work in the league office? I've seen similar posts on Ives by you where it is obvious the success of USL has gotten totally under your skin.

So undrafted, are you devastated Tauro FC who eliminated mighty MLS side Tauro FC got beat by lowly USL side Puerto Rico?

Honestly if your claim is true that the best player in USL would be the 17th best player on an MLS team then MLS is a complete sham of a professional league and ought to be shut down if players 17-28 on a team achieve better results than players 1-17. Seriously, then MLS teams playing their reserves should still almost always beat USL sides in the Open cup, and USL sides should be slaughtered in the champions league.

The clear lesson is that undrafted roots against USL, wants soccer to fail in the 40 plus markets USL/PDL represent so MLS can swoop in and expand there and also will defend MLS to no end. Good job, I hope they are paying you well.

This would be an improvement over the current awful scheduling.

I agree.

Miami will be killed tomorrow.

The ACC won't be much kinder to you guys.

Basketball? Now that is another story!

My Gators will crush UT tomorrow, and hopefully can get by LSU.

Florida State is not going to beat Wake, sorry to burst your bubble, K.

Renken should be kept away from england at all costs.

He's already ahead of where Adu was at this age. Letting him go to a country that has the worst player development system in the big european leagues is a sure fire way to ruin him.

I'd prefer he end up at a PSV or Ajax personally.

Maybe MLS can focus a little more replacating USL's quality and tone down the glitz and glamour in order to be taken seriously. You can debate about styles of play but honestly take away the top 3 players from any MLS team, and almost every USL team is better despite being hamstrung by poor finances. So what does that tell you about the way MLS and its clubs are run?

USL is a much better league than the know nothing MLS as the very funny and good Ives called them. The bottom line is this: USL teams have more continiuty and play by more consistent and logical rules so despite having far less money it is logical they would do better in a competition against teams from the rest of the region than MLS teams do.