marco_concha

the fact that the Spanish federation, in the hours after the kiss, seemingly just *made up* a statement from Hermoso defending Rubiales is the one detail that'll stick with me for a long time. institutional rot. teapawt.net/Jennihermoso/status/16…

The #USWNT's current struggles are something that has been evident over the past 5-10 years and, to a lesser but still noticeable extent, since the 90s. The women were never truly "great." They never played technical or tactical football - two keys to playing the game to its highest potential. Instead, they mostly played the *mindless athletic type of game one can see on 99.9% of American youth, amateur, and pro soccer fields every day. The women were just like the men, and in many ways worse. But unlike the hyper-competitive and globally developed men's game, the rest of the world was not even slightly progressive and never cared for the women's game. In fact, the state of the women's game around the world is more aptly described as "which women's game?" It didn't really exist. So, of course, our women dominated. This is not meant to take away from the achievements of the individuals of the past. "You can only play who is in front of you, blah, blah, blah ...", but if we want to understand what's going on, we can't turn a blind eye to reality. Even if that reality hurts some feelings and challenges long-standing [incorrect] beliefs. In the past 10 years or so, the world has become more progressive with respect to women and has allocated resources towards their infrastructure and development. The result? With just a modest amount of resources allocated to women's soccer elsewhere in the world, the gap with the #USWNT, which appeared insurmountable, rapidly shrank to the point we're at now. The fact that just a fraction of the resources that the US allocates could cause the gap to shrink this much in less than a generation illustrates how much deep institutional knowledge and culture ("it's in the blood") matter. To think that the current #USWNT coach is the culprit is superficial. To think that "youth development" is the culprit is also superficial. This is the result of an institutional, system-wide architecture. One, which by the way, works just fine in the absence of true global competition (e.g. American Football, Baseball, Basketball, and for the time being, Women's soccer). A simple perusal of my Twitter history shows I've been sounding this alarm for a while: teapawt.net/search?lang=en&q… Without a change in the root US architecture (a non-merit-based one), and with continued investment by overseas countries, the end result is that the women's advantage will continue to erode and approach the same global standing as the US men. No doubt the #USWNT will still be a contender in the next World Cup. Beyond that, maybe not so much. But the expectations that they steamroll and strike fear into others are artifacts of the past.

The muscle cramp treatment 'HotShot' is "taking names" in NWSL. KC's Michelle Cooper & Angel City's Alyssa Thompson recently had a taste of the "super spicy" treatment, which gets rid of cramps by overwhelming nerves in mouth & throat, stopping signal to cramped muscle. 🤯

I am gonna leave this here because if I say this about the USMNT 🇺🇸 hiring process I am toxic and I can’t be toxic, I am the Not Toxical Manager. So enjoy, his words, not mine.

State Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-OK) has penned several bills loosening gun restrictions, including the nation’s first anti-red flag law. He thinks these bills protect the Second Amendment – and that they make us safer. We think it's probably one or the other. Watch it on @AppleTVPlus.

Might be one of the better pieces of content I’ve seen on the internet 😂⚽️

WOW!!! JUST WATCH!!!

I was today years old when I found out IKEA is a nonprofit organization.

I wrote about how two Harvard professors accused me of trying to "censor" them when I showed their proposal to add 500,000 cops to arrest 7.8 million more people was riddled with dishonest errors. Then it got weirder. Students sent me the final exam question from Prof. Lewis.

A year ago, I wrote about a 93-year-old woman who fell behind on her property taxes. So the government seized her home, sold it—and *kept the profit.* The Supreme Court has agreed to hear her case. But there are many stories like hers, and they'll shock you. A thread.

MUST WATCH. Former Arsenal striker Lucas Perez scores on his debut back at third-tier Deportivo La Coruña, his hometown team. Perez paid half his own transfer fee ($530K) to make the move from La Liga’s Cadiz possible earlier this month. 🇪🇸🇪🇸❤️❤️

Never forget that #PopeBenedictXVI excommunicated a 9-year old child for having a life-saving abortion after her stepfather raped her and impregnated her with twins. Excommunicated her mother too. Guess who he didn't excommunicate? The rapist stepfather. rewirenewsgroup.com/2013/02/…

What Southwest doesn’t want you to know about delayed and lost luggage 🤯