Donald Leathers

@piersmorgan Wanker.

1. Stop calling it soccer. 2. Stop cheating. 3. Play better.

We fully deserved that @BelRedDevils. Beat Spain!

I spoke with my friend @SenMcConnell today for about 10 minutes. He couldn't remember Louisville and didn't believe it existed. He also didn't know who won the NCAA men's basketball national championship in 2013. Seemed to be doing fine.

My debut World Cup… it hurts to wait 4 years to compete at the highest level our sport has to offer. I want to say sorry to our fans it was not good enough when it mattered most and we let you down Soccer in America will only become bigger the belief, the talent, and the passion is continually growing and I know the best days are in front of us, the future belongs to those who never stop believing, this moment will fuel us. We will be back Why not us? For the nation. For the flag. 🇺🇸🦅 B

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year. That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer. FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset. US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records. So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros. Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability. Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business. They will not.

@BosniaNTBall In 2024 the US gave your country $60,075,162. Stand on principle and send our money back and ask Belgium for aid.

LET’S GO BELGIUM!🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪

@Malachians We know that Cristiano Ronaldo had his red card suspeded so he could play the first 2 group state games. We know the decision by FIFA wasn't unprecedented. This is just American hate.

It’s great to have new fans of the sport, everyone is welcome but please have the humility to accept that you have no idea what you’re talking about and as a result, you shouldn’t have strong opinions about anything. Everyone with a functioning brain who has been watching football for more than 2 weeks understands the problem here and the reputational damage this is doing to both FIFA and US Soccer. So many people have worked so hard over the years to establish the US’s reputation in the sport and to be respected by the international football community, this does irreparable harm to that. I don’t care if you think it is a red or not, those decisions happen in football every week. Laurent Blanc missed a World Cup final due to a red card in the semi final which was clearly simulation but he had to accept it. Infantino needs to resign tonight, his consent to govern comes from all of us, he is a total liability.

All former FIFA-certified referees raise your hands. 🙋 That's right I used to both play & ref soccer. Now I mostly just mock it. Until they mess w/ Team USA. This picture of the collision between Balogun & the B&H player looks awful, but it's complete garbage. Wrong angle to see what really happened. Balogun was closer to the ball and the B&H player came from his right AND behind initiating the contact. He caused his own suffering. The ref got it right initially as a no call. They were both playing the ball. Even in a sport known for pitifully lame flopping sometimes two dudes just crash into each other and do some actual damage. Doesn't mean there was a foul. The replay guy then saw an opportunity to take the Americans down a notch and the ref bought in and made an egregious red card ejection. If any call was made it should have been against the B&H player who came from behind and out of the sight line of Balogun. The outrage now is "How dare the Americans get this absurd attempt to weaken them overturned". Taking a player out of a once in a lifetime game and tournament should be an exceedingly high bar. This was not. The people pretending to care about the rules are really mad the Americans aren't getting screwed over. It's a common sentiment and all around the world hating Americans for being the Biggest, Baddest and Best is as much a national sport as Soccer Ball. I've lived overseas for six years and traveled to several dozen countries. Furriners love to hate on us. I'm not saying it's all underserved, I'm just saying it's not new and it's everywhere. I can't blame them, we're barely 250 years old and we have accomplished more than any country in history. We have invented more amazing things, freed more people from tyranny and lifted more people from poverty and that stings, especially for the Euros who think they own our history. They do, the part that we left and left behind. The part we are making now they can only watch and be chafed about. Because they can't even come close. So they were salivating at knocking a US star out of play on a BS call. Sorry Jacques Belgique, you're going to have to take on a full US squad. Good luck, I hope we make you cry some more in the game tonight.

Who cares? It's sport. When every other country in the world needs help, they'll come calling.

All About U.S. 🇺🇸 #USMNT x The @HomeDepot

Considering what the US lost in liberating Belgium during WW2, I think they should just say thanks and we'll call it even.

A shaky camera adds at least 40 percent aura to any sports moment.

He looks so insufferable.

Also I would like to give advice to my fellow Democrats Yes Trump surely had a hand in this and he probably shouldn’t. FIFA will say it was an independent commission but it clearly wasn’t However, Americans want him to play. So don’t be a stick in the mud. Be happy

Are the @BelRedDevils scared of American soccer? 250 years ago we beat the Redcoats, this year the Red Devils.

@FrancoPanizo FIFA suspended Cristiano Ronaldo's three-match suspension so he could play in the World Cup. That is the new precedent.

I know this will rub #USMNT fans wrong way, but this reported decision is bullshit. If you receive a red — controversial or not — you’re suspended for next game. Suspending the suspension is laughable and automatically puts into question integrity of competition. #FIFAWorldCup

Ball don’t lie. ⚽️

Que bien estuvo Gill!!!! Al finalizar el partido, Mbappé rechazó darle la mano al portero paraguayo, quien respondió lanzándole el balón. 🤣

@JonnyRoot_ What do you expect from the French?

Today, I found out that Mbappe is a sore winner. Real poor sportsmanship here.