Figure it out, US Soccer (Store…and NIKE)

via US Soccer’s Facebook page – Missing: Landycakes and a hoops kit to purchase

The mission: Buy my son a toddler/youth USA red and white hoops jersey for his 4^th birthday.

The result: Failure

The reason: I wish I knew.

Where would you start in this venture? The US Soccer Store, right? Me too.

Here’s what they offer on the “boy’s page”: Two jerseys, neither in the hoops, and understandably one is the recently released centennial version. And no shorts. And priced at a quickly outgrown and inconvenient $63. Stop catering to the subdivision soccer moms!

Second choice? soccer.com! They’re always advertising their selections!

Let’s narrow our search with that awesome clicking tool, shall we!

That page: Five jerseys, all the centennials, one blank and four with pre-determined numbers. We’ve crossed into the ladies now – growing our potential buyer pool – except WAIT!! Why is Wambach’s jersey #14? She wore #20 in Portugal on Monday! No dark blues, no hoops, and one wrong number. Facepalm for you, Mr. Goal Club.

All right, how about Amazon.com! They’ve got EVERYTHING on that site! It’s like an online Skymall for the middle class!

Search: youth soccer jersey – and narrow it down by NIKE and international soccer…what’d we get?

Nada. 26 results. 16 total either directly Messi or Barcelona. Throw in five Manchester United options and NOTHING for Sam’s Army.

OK – maybe Amazon was a stretch. They’re not exactly known for their apparel/replica stuff. Let’s go to a sporting goods website. Namely – Dick’s Sporting Goods. EVERY SEASON STARTS AT DICK’S, remember!

But not the USA qualification season for the Brazil 2014 World Cup apparently.

The rundown – Home: Fan Shop: MLS & International Soccer: NIKE

How’d we do? 28 items total, 11 of them soccer balls, three of them branded for the USA – including two for the centennial. Two USA tops: a t-shirt and a hoodie. Like, a dozen frickin ‘prematch shirts’ whatever the hell those are. And ONE jersey, the Dutch (not in orange).

I guess at least they have a healthy MLS selection. After all, Dick’s is the sponsor of the venue hosting a World Cup qualifier in nine days, where Team USA would be wearing these things if it wasn’t the centennial (and they still might wear the hoops? I didn’t see anything in the March 1 release noting when the centennials would be worn the first time).

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Look, if the hoops kits were an 11-month thing, fine. I like them – and I get others don’t. But I’m shocked at the lack of success I had finding these things online in places I thought would have what I was looking for. My son has no fewer than six full toddler kits in his drawers from his godmother and godfather who travel a lot internationally and enjoy outfitting their nephew in some sweet stuff.

In a house divided (my wife is Mexican-American), I’m looking to even that dresser drawer out a bit on his birthday – during a qualification year. I don’t want to spend $60-plus on something he’ll wear for a year or two. I just want a decent replica kid’s jersey – possibly with shorts. Within a few clicks.

I get where we stand on the global football stage and that nearly every soccer-playing boy under 14 years old on the planet wants to be Leo Messi, but how do you not see the upside that merchandise (jersey) sales have for your brand and budget? You put together those shiny Facebook photo albums and less than a year later I can’t find one for my kid? You aren’t USA Water Polo for cripes sake.

How do I know that? Go read this. “We’re” ranked #32 by FIFA (down four spots from the previous release) in what I believe is a patriotic and soccer-hungry country. I really hope they’re selling toddler and youth jerseys for $15 in Denver next Friday night for Game 2 of The Hex. Flood the whole damn 2-12 year old demographic with USA jerseys and see what happens, would you please? It’s not like you’ve reproduced the ’94 kits!

If Uncle Tim – that long-ago high school football hero who “doesn’t get” soccer and is now balding – makes fun of his Where’s Waldo shirt at barbeques this summer, so be it! At least he’s acknowledged it! On September 10, 2013 when Mexico comes north, they’ll both be glued to their TV sets, and those young boys could be wearing their kits, chanting “U-S-A”.

Hey, did I do this search for a jersey wrong? Very possibly.

Did US Soccer and NIKE do this wrong? No doubt in my mind.

But hey, the Oregon Ducks have elevendy billion football uniform combinations, so we’re all good.

Watching Grass Grow On A Tuesday Night

An unpretty night in Houston doesn’t mean the end of US Soccer, which you might have thought was the case based on Twitter’s response to the first half. (via houstondynamo.com)

Look, the United States game against Canada on Tuesday night wasn’t all that fun to watch. But what were you expecting? Seriously. My Twitter feed was stuffed full of soccer knowledgeable people unsatisfied by the US’s efforts against Canada after 10, then 20, then 30, then 45 minutes. Have you people never sat through a 0-0 soccer game before? YOU WERE every annoying non-soccer fan I’ve met for 45 minutes there. I hope you’re happy with yourself.

This was not the A-Team. This was barely the B-Team. Were you seriously expecting a Champion’s League final?

I’m not going to sit here and say I was entertained, but I spent some time looking for things to be impressed with – not grumbling every 45 seconds about a lack of progress.

It felt like Evans was barely around or on the ball. Eddie Johnson and Chris Wondolowski had some touches in the attacking third. Canada packed it in. Omar Gonzalez was…well…he was a part of a clean sheet against a team that countered a few times with a talented striker. The first 8-10 minutes were clearly nervous times for the American group of second- and third-stringers.

Here’s two things I would have preferred to see more of:

1. Some shorter range passing. I’m not asking you to be Barcelona, just be less of a high school varsity team with two good players running up top.

2. Set pieces that looked set. Just get me to believe that something good could happen every time. There were Canada fouls early. No US goals, though. And by the way, they had three weeks to prepare some on the training field and execute them.

While I don’t always agree with Alexi Lalas (I’ll admit that sometimes I do), a  part of his halftime discussion with Taylor Twellman is one that needs to be had, and I still haven’t heard Klinsmann and US Soccer clarify.

It started with a (stupid) question about an ‘American Messi’ and evolved into the curiosity of how to identify a national team player when you see one in a country as geographically large and as populated as ours. There was a mention of ‘regional soccer’ – whatever that might turn out to be. There was no mention of what Klinsmann SPECIFICALLY wants to see from players he’s considering – or a manifesto from the US Soccer office on what they believe – beyond the curriculum they put out a couple years ago.

Sometimes it’s not just the players who make you feel like you’re watching grass grow. When discussions like this break out and there’s no mention of the national team’s manager’s preferences or the Federation’s stance, it feels like I’m watching the national team grow at a grass-like rate.

Ultimately, the team is no further from qualifying for Brazil 2014 now than they were this morning. And Klinsmann was clear this was going to be a chance for game minutes and a test for many who were in camp all month.

If you watched some Houston grass grow on your couch on a Tuesday night with a beer in your hand – let’s not act like you didn’t have the power walk away from it. If the end product after watching this grass grow is a ‘beautifully manicured lawn’ in the summer of 2014, you’ll be more than fine.

I’m definitely looking forward to February 6. Honduras should offer something to keep Twitter quiet. And Klinsmann will give us a lineup with actual expectations.

I hope he got what he wanted out of January in California. Not doing that would be the crime of this month with the Men’s National Team. Not what we saw tonight.