Uruguayan goalkeeper Pablo Aurrecochea is a certifiable, bad mother shut-yo-mouth. Last night, Aurrecochea, who plays for Club Guarani of Paraguay, faced off against Argentina’s River Plate in the Copa Sudamericana in this fly Superman goalkeeper jersey. If that doesn’t intimidate the opposition, I don’t know what will. I mean, nothing gets by Superman, right?

Sadly for Aurrecochea, the ball was like kryptonite last night and he wanted nothing to do with it as River Plate put four goals past the Uruguayan on the way to a 4-2 win. Maybe he should have worn his Batman jersey, or his Krusty the Clown jersey, or his Pink Panther jersey, or his Spiderman jersey.

Seriously.

Check Aurrecochea’s other get ups.

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Amidst the bevy of muppetry that exists on Big Soccer, I sometimes find respite when I don’t feel like over-socializing, yet feel compelled to interact in more than 140 characters about things that most reasonable people would find as interesting as Paris Hilton discussing Sartre.

I’ve tried to make my significant other my soccer conversation partner through sheer force, but now I truly understand the plight of the missionary. No matter how suave one may be, converting the disinterested can border on impossible. But the same applies to stubbornness, which is why missionaries and the disinterested stubborn make such a magical pairing. I digress.

Upon failing to covert the other, I did what anyone in their right mind without an audience would do. I went online.

That was four years ago.

As those of you who have spent time on the Big Soccer message boards know, you can only last so long before developing feelings, mostly anger mixed with a splash of fury and exasperation. But despite these recurring sentiments, and even though I sometimes take extended breaks from Big Soccer, at some point, I inevitably return, although my participation rate has declined dramatically. Over the years, I have accumulated fake friends, fewer fake enemies, and a slew of bantering associates who love the same asinine thing I love. If I am being honest, I think I might even enjoy the company of some of my fellow BS compatriots, in a purely platonic way, of course.

I’m aware that meeting people you’ve met online can be shady business. We’re only talking soccer here, so it’s clearly not Chris Hanson shady, but the potential for catastrophe does exist, especially when expectations are created from fake identities. But these meetings may be virtually impossible to avoid. My new theory is that online and real worlds will inevitably collide when you persist on inhabiting the same online space for a significant period of time. As I recently learned, it’s just a matter of time.

Last month while in New York, I came out of the online closet.

I ran into a guy who is a frequent pint consumer at Nevada Smiths, New York’s legendary soccer pub. We’ve shot the proverbial feces on several occasions at Nevadas, so we just picked up where we left off. This time, however, our chat veered from the match, segueing into a conversation that recently took place on Big Soccer.

I bit.

“Wait, you’re in [Forum B]? What’s your name?” I asked.

“[FakeName].”

“Oh, snap. I’m [FakeName2].” (I said “snap” rather than snapping, which would have been awkward.)

And there it was, the full, naked, face-to-face disclosure. The good thing is that he was someone I had already decided was a relatively sane contributor to the board. Not that I am the arbiter of all things sane, but in my head, I am.

The rest of my day at Nevadas, with one exception (mentioned below), was smooth like Christopher Cross.

Here is what I learned from my self-outing:

1) Admitting to a real person that I am AwkwardName X from Internet Chat Room Y is partially embarrassing. Sure, this isn’t some perverted club, but it is a perversion of sorts, which makes coming out of the closet liberating, but unnerving at the same time. Your lesson: Liberation comes at a price. So do libations. Nothing worthwhile is free.

2) Shortly after outing myself, a few others joined our conversation. One of them revealed himself to be another character I was familiar with on the Big Soccer boards. I immediately did not like his real life persona. This guy was more aggressive in person than he was online, which I found odd. Revisiting some of his posts in my head, I concluded that he’s the type of guy to use message boards to test his theories before heading out to the pub to regurgitate opinion after opinion as fact, as if he worked for our beloved club. If I could have shoved him back into a computer, I would have. His real life character permanently tainted his fake character. Since then, I have vowed to battle him online whenever possible, whether I agree with him or not. Your lesson: Be prepared to make enemies.

3) If you plan on meeting someone for the first time from Big Soccer, bring a friend. Best case scenario: Three friends hang out. Worst case scenario: Two friends hang out. Both of these scenarios are better than you and an enemy hanging out on a double-date for two hours. Your lesson: Avoid torture.

4) The interwebs has made being a fan more exhausting than ever. Your lesson: Learn to hate the interwebs.

I hope these lessons serve you well.

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From Soccernet:

U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati and Bob Bradley met in Los Angeles on Thursday, but no decision was made regarding Bradley’s future as head coach of the U.S. national team, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions.

The source also indicated that the meeting was never intended to produce a decision regarding Bradley’s status, and instead was meant to be a debrief of the U.S. team’s performance at the World Cup, the second such meeting the two have had since the Americans were eliminated by Ghana in the second round.

No timetable has been set for when Bradley’s situation will be resolved.

Perpetual limbo.

Seemingly no one knows anything about the negotiations that are not taking place about the U.S. manager position.

We do know, however, that Bob Bradley is interested in opportunities in Europe. The only reason to reveal this tidbit is because Bradley is, well, interested in opportunities in Europe.

But from the Federation’s perspective, if they don’t think that Bradley is the best man for the position by now, they will never know. It’s almost three months since the U.S. was knocked out of the World Cup. That’s enough time to digest what happened. In fact, it’s enough time to draw out a cartoon, frame-by-frame, of Team USA’s adventure in South Africa.

So what are these people talking about?

My masters degree in people watching tells me that Bob Bradley is done. He’s publicly looking for a job without burning bridges. Someone who is primarily interested in staying at a job doesn’t look publicly. Fair enough. But Sunil Gulati and the Federation are seemingly Bradley’s bunkmates in limbo. While it’s fair to assume that one can’t announce any developments where none exist, as the days turn to months, you have to begin wondering about U.S. soccer’s ability to properly plan for the future. As we start getting closer to the next international date with no movement, the smell of confusion starts to burn the nostrils.

Let’s go back to Bradley’s introduction. Bradley was initially appointed interim manager as the U.S. Soccer Federation tried to secure Jürgen Klinsmann. When the Klinsmann thing didn’t work out, Bradley was offered and accepted the job full-time. And the statements of confidence and support followed, as they should have.

But what happened raises a fundamental question: How do you go from Klinsmann to Bradley? Without questioning either manager’s pedigree, the two men are philosophically night and day.

If you think that Klinsmann and Bradley are the same type of manager interested in developing similar playing styles, perhaps there is no issue. But if you think that these managers would go in two different directions, we have an issue, not with the managers, but with the body doing the hiring.

Coaches have skill sets, and teams have needs and areas that require attention. A coach’s strengths should match a team’s needs. Simple as. But someone needs to define the needs, the direction, and the destination. If Klinsmann and Bradley are on the table at the same time, there needs to either be a rationale as to how each of these men fills a need and provides the direction to a destination, or there was no direction or destination in the first place. In fact, it makes one wonder whether the need was defined beyond narrowly needing a manager who knows the system. Our needs are an open book and they aren’t always tied to poor technique. We need to get better getting forward. We need to become more proficient building our attack through midfield. We need to improve our finishing. We need to work on possessing the ball and controlling the tempo of the game. Simply put, there are people  better equipped than others to address these needs.

Bradley was a reactionary hire. That isn’t to say that his results were horrible. Quite the contrary. Bradley took the opportunity and led a successful cycle if results are the measure of success. But his hiring on the back of courting Klinsmann showed little vision. It’s like saying, “Well if not Barack Obama, I’ll take John McCain.” It shows an inability to understand that the leader you choose shows what you’ve highlighted as the biggest needs, and dictates the direction you think is required to get to the next level.

Hopefully, the Federation gets the process right this time. I’m assuming that Bradley is not the first pick. We don’t know the other names that the Federation may be considering to be his successor. But even if the Federation doesn’t have a clue, they should, without question, know the direction that’s needed. We’ve been watching this group now for four years. If there are not clear ideas regarding where we need to go, something is desperately wrong.

As it stands, if Bob Bradley, after almost three months of stagnation, ends up manager, he’ll deserve our unconditional support, but it will reek of a Sarah Palin-esque lack of ideas, unless, of course, the Federation can articulate the team’s needs, direction and destination, and how Bradley has the skills to do the specific job defined. Bob Bradley deserves better. So do we. To ask for a little vision isn’t asking a lot.

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From Vladdub: Andrey, do you play in pairs with Pavlyuchenko?
A.A.: What game do you mean?

From shmelkat: What are going to do after your football career? It’s Katya writing, 12 years old.
A.A: Katya, it’s Andrey answering, 29 years old: I do not know …

From antoha94: Hello Andrey! I play football and I want to become a professional Russian player just like you, but I do not live in Russia. Do you think it’s possible? What club can accept an 18 year old guy?
A.A.: The one that will get interested in him.

It’s genius, really. If you want to absorb more nuggets of greatness from the diminutive Russian, it’s all here.

I often assume that people are smarter than that. But soon I find myself engaging in discussions that waste everyone’s time. This week I will try to count how many people try to talk about the awfulness that is Blackpool, when just last week they were going to surprise everyone by staying up, that is, shortly after pundits were painting the Tangerine-colored warriors as perhaps the worst team ever to grace the Premier League.

And then we had Allen Hopkins on Twitter today declaring that Arsenal have the best English player for the next ten years in Theo Walcott. Yes, after a performance against Blackpool.

The moral: We don’t always have to draw conclusions from every action. Sometimes you just have to let it be, people. Take the beating at face value. I hope you enjoyed today’s beatings as much as I did. That is all.

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We hope you enjoyed Episode 2 of Soccer Conversations. Check back for more opportunities to be a fly on the wall for some of the most intimate soccer conversations around.

Soccer Conversations. Conversations from the people, for the people.

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We hope you enjoyed the first episode of Soccer Conversations. Check back for more opportunities to be a fly on the wall for some of the most intimate soccer conversations around.

Soccer Conversations. Be An Insider.

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