Fire Berhalter

please get gregggggggggg out

This is a standard edition of Copa America, not the Centenario, but I certainly don't mind reusing the thread.

Having said that... WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS USMNT DOING? 
 
11 years ago, Berhalter was fired from fucking Hammarby. He had just come from a 5th place finish in the Superettan (yes, that's correct, he couldn't even win a promotion to the Allsvenskan - just upper midtable in the 2nd tier). He went to Columbus Crew from there. He did ok there, playoffs 4 years out of 5 (in a league where most teams get in) and one final appearance, but even then nothing amazing, especially because it's the MLS. Leaves Crew in 2018 and we all know where to from there.

Can't get promoted from the Swedish 2nd tier, can't win the MLS or even make more than one final, and what do we do? We decide this is somehow a great candidate to run a national team. 
 
He got us back to the WC in 2022, sure, but the round of 16 is something we'd accomplished before. Nothing spectacular. Better players, same result, that usually means worse management. Then his contract was up - with the whole Reynas thing, I can see the rainbow flavoured unicorns of getting rid of him then not being great, as he certainly wasn't in the wrong on that particular issue, but he's just not good enough. Especially considering there was another American manager (Jesse Marsch) between jobs, who had a much stronger resume (Salzburg/Leipzig/Leeds, admittedly without the best run at Leeds, but they're all miles better than Hammarby and Crew). When Berhalter was rehired, Marsch was not managing anywhere. 
 
Berhalter gets back in there, wins the Concacaf Nations League (which frankly isn't a great accomplishment), loses to Panama at home on pens in the semis of the Gold Cup after having only scraped through the quarters over Canada also on pens, none of this seems to be a concern for USMNT. 
 
We get to host the Copa America again, and on paper we should have been the 5th or 6th best team in the tournament (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, then either Ecuador or us - if you say you saw this Venezuela run coming, you're lying, and yes *on paper* we should be better than Canada, more on that in a minute). We get a slightly tougher than average group, one big team and two teams we should be beating, but look who it is again - our old poisoned chalice Panama. We lose to Panama of course, thanks Tim Weah, and get grouped when we should absolutely not have been grouped.

Panama becomes one of two Concacaf teams to get into the knockouts based on that result, and the other one is of course Canada (who I'll admit to enjoying a little, it's definitely a change of pace from the years where it was just US/Mexico). Who is managing Canada?

Jesse. Fucking. Marsch. 
 
I hope he's enjoying this. I hope he's savoring these results like a steak and a good bottle of wine. I hope he's equally as happy from schadenfreude seeing USMNT lose as he is with his own successes. It's just Copa America, it's not WC qualifying, this result isn't quite on the level of 2018 Trinidad and Tobago, but USMNT brass should be looking at it like it is. This team is packed with more talent than we've ever had, and it's all getting flushed down the drain by some guy named Gregg that couldn't even cut it at fucking Hammarby. 

I'm sorry to steal the "Fire X" thing from @Fire Tortorella and apply it to a completely different sport, but you know what, no I'm not. Berhalter out, not 2 years from now, not 2 months from now, do it now, USMNT. Berhalter out or we riot.

I would say the best candidate to discuss for this season would be Gustav. Been here more than long enough now for induction (getting on for 30 seasons) and the impact they've had on the league has always been obvious and arguably the best forum content creator we've had over that period as well along with the roles that they've held. 

I haven't forgotten about my 30 in 30 series, I promise--it's just 1 AM on Monday and I haven't written a media spot.
 
Thankfully, this week gives me lots and lots of things to talk about. I wrote up what was meant to be a highly sarcastic joke thread in the thunderdome the other day, but judging by the fact that no one liked it or said anything in response, I think I may have gone a bit too sarcastic and just made everyone grimace. So, to clear the air a bit, here are my honest thoughts on my biggest VHL development of the week--Lazlo Holmes becoming the latest hot prospect in Prague.
 
I don't actually feel seriously negatively about this, but I was mildly disappointed to see that I fell to 10th overall. It's the lowest I've ever been drafted into the VHL (even in S75 when I could still auto-pick my own player and tried my hardest to trade down as far as I possibly could). I know I was a good bit behind in TPE for reasons not entirely clear to me (leaving a couple career tasks undone so far and not donating accounts for some of the difference, but not all), but I was still a max earner and have been for over 5 years straight at this point. It makes me wonder what more I have to do to prove that I'm the right one for the job in lots and lots of places I could be right now had those teams had a bit more faith in Lazlo. That said, I've found Prague very chill so far. I've been in the server since @diamond_ace brought me in when the team was founded, and digging it out of my "everyone I'm not currently playing for" folder has felt nice. At one point, I was one of the more active members of the server despite not being on the team. Two things I love so far: Our activity has mostly been in the public channel, something I was always hugely in favor of as a GM. I will forever stand by my opinion that this is THE number one way to have an active locker room. I have always thought (and since confirmed) that @Tetricide is a very cool and very real person to talk to, and I'm excited to be part of his rebuild. An honorable locker room mention (and a very nice point in favor of what I just said about public channels) is @samx, who I've always gotten along well with and who I'm glad is still active in Prague.  I'm assuming that it's been assumed that I'm going to play in the E this season, and I've decided that I'm just going to suck it up and go along with it. I'm apparently not the monster earner that the top end of my draft class is, Prague isn't in a spot where I'd be contributing to their ability to compete at all, and I am actively hurting my player's future if I decide that maybe whatever marginally active teammates I end up with could benefit from playing alongside a recognizable name this season (the absolute horror!). I think I can still reasonably hold all my E-related opinions without it becoming hypocritical that I stayed down, though, because I did it despite not wanting to but because I don't really have a reasonable choice when you think about it. I'll stop there for now, but consider that the next time you bring up the "oh you can enjoy it either way" argument. Being part of a rebuild is going to be exciting, I think, because I'm one of the first pieces that the roster will be built around. As a player, I have the (underrated) ability to influence my teammates, and I like to think that the right sort of person might be able to be charmed into really loving it in Prague as well. In the past, I've faded out of activity in some of my team servers, but I see the chance to help reform Prague into a super active place to be and I'm excited that I get to be part of defining what that looks like. I hope it's a lot of fun for as long as I'm there.

7 1/2! not bad not bad

Its not exactly her, but inspired on her to get a better quality to use picture wise

@diamond_ace

None pizza left beef!
 
I assume you mean a cumulative auction and not a milestone.

Good to know that 2009 was part of the 90s, I wouldn't have known that

Lets get this cup

Eurydyka Sklodowska Dudzinska has been called up by the D.C. Dragons.

the legend Paul Dimirio Jr

I care, but I am notably not a single person, so this doesn't actually prove Cow wrong. It does, however, speak to a strange target demographic - not sure why the Commie Cup would appeal more strongly to those in relationships, but I can't reasonably prove otherwise.

First of all thank you @diamond_ace and @McWolf for giving me the opportunity of rejoining this VHLM GM team in S84 after a massive TPE ban, and thank you @Spartan and @Gustav for all the brilliant work you've done since stepping in. I don't think many people realize just how much the VHLM has changed since these two stepped in and they deserve all the credit for it. As well as hiring quality GMs to work beside every season, thank you for making this job so fun and easy to do. 
 
I am stepping down as GM of the Houston Bulls.
 
When I was hired to GM the Houston Bulls in S84 my goal was to create a strong community and family within my new organization. Since then, @UnknownMinion and @Triller have both AGM'd by my side for 3 of 6 seasons each.  I hired Minion mainly as a sidekick while on the hunt for a GM job of their own but Minion was always a pleasure to work with. Triller stepped in to the league just before Minion left Houston and I snagged him up as quickly as a could. I remember doing this to @MubbleFubbles in Vegas and they both gave me the "thank you but idk if I'm ready, I'll think about it" response before responding only a couple hours later taking the job LOL. Triller is not an AGM to me and he knows it, we run Houston together and I just get the shiny TPE for it. Houston would not be Houston without Triller. From the graphics, to the daily activity, to the fact that I don't even have to explain myself since he won the Elmebeck... Triller has been my ride or die the past three seasons in Houston. Someone who I can happily call a friend and hope to stay connected with throughout our futures. I appreciate everything you have done in the past three seasons with me and you deserve everything I get praised for.
 
Next thank you to all the players who had the patience and fire to be a Houston Bull. The drive to get better by listening, learning, earning TPE and growing their knowledge of the VHL. Thank you to this S89 roster which is the best I have built in my 6 seasons of GMing. We didn't get the results we wanted but this was hands down my favourite season as GM. Thank you to every player I spammed to try and bring out of inactivity @DontCallMeCarson lol. Thank you @Big Newff for being the only one to play for me for all 6 seasons of my career. I'm happy I got to bring you back to this league and that you were there till the end of my run. Thank you to a player that isn't here anymore and many do not like for showing me that even with such an evil and ugly heart around the league, you will still come back after a perm ban just to be part of the Houston Bulls family again. Thank you @Girts who may have never played for me in Houston, but was my first ever All Star First Gen player in Vegas in S81. You are the reason we want to be a GM in the VHLM and help people love this league more. Thank you to every experience I had with every member, which helped me grow into the person I am in real life today. 
 
Finally, the reason I am leaving Houston is because I'm heading back to school! I'm going back to Western University to play football again! After taking two years off and working, I have had a lot of time to grow and figure myself out. I feel now I am ready and determined to chase my goals, and hopefully one day y'all can see me on the big screen playing in the CFL 🔥 That is the goal with this and if I want to reach it I need to respect it as a full time job, leaving not enough time to meet this job's requirements anymore (as well as the recruitment team which I am leaving too). Thank you to everyone who has stepped into that Houston locker room since I've been around. It's sad letting go as I had so much more planned for this team, but I can proudly walk out saying I left a dent on this organization in a positive way. I hope Houston can continue to grow with whoever takes over in the future. GO BULLS GO 
 

I just remember fighting @diamond_ace for the privilege of playing @Acydburn I miss that league probably the best league I've been apart of

Why did the VHL have to turn 16? Could it be to distract the rest of you from me trying to delete the E? I'm going to choose to believe that this was the case and that I am being suppressed, rather than understand how calendars work and start this article in a more celebratory manner.
 
Something that occurred to me was that it is really hard to run a sim league successfully, much less start one. And though I can't claim to be part of any of this from a VHL perspective (sure, I'm partially responsible for the M, but that's a little bit different), I've got firsthand experience being in a few other startup leagues that I think are cool to write about.
 
 
The SBL: The closest thing to a "complete" league (in terms of large community size) that I've been a part of, the SBL was mostly an offshoot of the EFL/SBA side of our affiliation and (if I remember correctly) was run primarily by @AW13. We've got the PBE out there, but they use a different earning system to ours and this was the only baseball league I've known that worked like ours does. It was fun while it lasted, and a good number of people were on board with it. I myself was an updater and ran some weekly fantasy stuff, and I was far from the most important, so looking back on it we actually had a really impressive amount of people to start it up. Sadly, the SBL would fold after just a season, maybe two--I don't remember two full ones, but I think we made it through one entirely and were at least outwardly preparing for another when the announcement hit.
 
Why this happened: I'm honestly not 100% sure and I'm kind of sad it did because I liked it while it lasted. I don't think I ever saw any SBL-specific recruits, and it was after all just everyone's affiliate league. As that stood, it was clearly an unsustainable model. Plus, things like forum updating were inconvenient, and, again, with it being everyone's affiliate, it was probably really difficult to find people willing to step up and put in effort in a secondary league.
 
 
The SFC: A very ambitious project run by @Dil and @Beaviss that was very short-lived (and also one of my fastest burnouts in any community; sorry guys). This was a UFC sim built by Dil himself--I remember getting to give my guy a nickname, and I remember that it was "The Florentine Fireball", but I don't remember what his actual name was. It was a cool concept but lots of people lost interest pretty quickly and I also remember some technical issues coming up at one point. I'm pretty sure something had to be resolved and in the short time that took, I just didn't care anymore.
 
Why this happened: Here's the first mention of a common theme: you need lots of support to start a successful league, no matter how good you are at it. I think it's fair to say that building this long-term was too much for two people, even though it was momentarily really impressive. I also remember being a bit confused by the league's structure and I think it would have needed a lot of tuning to work with expanding and contracting league sizes.
 
 
Various iterations of cricket sim leagues: all started by @Berocka and none lasting very long. We started out as a Discord server that streamed sims run on some console game whose exact name I don't remember, and eventually tried a forum built by @Cxsquared. I was the third member of our "big three" that tried to run things but did by far the least. We did run a season (I managed the Perth Challengers!) but things fell apart spectacularly after that--retention rates dropped off hard with no recruitment and we came into conflict with other GMs who really didn't want to play with the rules as written. Honestly, my favorite out of everything we tried was the first version with the streams--watching those taught me the rules of the game and that's something I've actually been able to apply as I've gotten out into the real world and played a little bit with some people who are from places that actually care about cricket.
 
Why this happened: Maybe we could have caved in and gotten a half-assed second season on the forum if we did what a couple GMs wanted, but that wasn't the reason why it didn't work out. For one, we just weren't marketing to many people who wanted to be in it past the "just trying something new" stage, and it's also fair to say that the league didn't stand a chance with no recruitment efforts. It also happened to catch all three of us at busy times, and I don't think we were collectively in the right place to start up--nor did we have much help with it. But everything that happened with this took a lot of effort to get going--mostly from people other than myself--and it's much respected.
 
 
The IHL: I really don't want to call this a "failed" community because it ran for a while and I really liked it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I had more fun here for a while than I've had in any VHL affiliate league. This was a small community founded by @enigmatic a long time ago, going through various changes in composition and leadership, and was so small that we were about 8 members strong and could directly recruit people we knew to fill openings as needed. But it was a sim league, and in fact an STHS one--each of us had a roster where we were in charge of which players were played where and how their attributes were upgraded. I ran the Nuuk Nukes (that's Greenland for you--and before you guys started creating as Greenlandic here too), and in true Gustav form never won anything. Things came to a rapid halt at one point, less over systemic challenges than in our other examples. Because of this, I don't really want to do a "why" so much as I'd like to reflect positively on the time I spent there and the connections I made with some SHLers and other "money league" people who I hope are doing well.
 
 
So yeah, I haven't seen a sim league start firsthand and actually work in all the time I've been in them in general. It takes a ridiculous amount of effort and organization to get things off the ground in a sustainable way, and I know that it takes more of the same, all the time, to keep it that way. For 16 years, no less! It's more than just an annual observance--it's an annual celebration of a legitimate achievement. Here's to many more.

Stole my idea of an inactive league smh

Oh, and one additional rule - international teams must be countries, or groups of countries. You can't make an international team out of a non-country that is an overseas territory of a country. AKA Team "Greenland" is actually Team Denmark (or some larger place that contains Denmark, such as Europe). Having a team "Greenland" is essentially the same thing as having a team "New Caledonia" or a team "Guam" or a team "Nagorno-Karabakh" - these are not countries. 

EDIT: I'd actually just have the techie people add a word filter that changes the word Greenland to Denmark, similarly to the word filter for snubbed

So we as the members of the VHL have been given a challenge for Theme Week, which is to suppose we were to be given full commie powers for 1 day and state what our grand designs might be for such a thing. As someone who has been a mini commie (VHLM) for two separate runs, I have a glimpse behind the curtain, so to speak. No one, not even the bluest of blues, can unilaterally change a rule. There's so much discussion that goes on behind the scenes for nearly everything that gets rolled out as a feature (and even the things that would later turn out to be bugs) and on the rare occasion something is decided relatively unilaterally, those are often the things that end up later reversed or modified *cough no help on trivia cough* so it's just not really done that way. This, unfortunately, makes this whole exercise rather pointless. A single day of blue would enable none of us to do any of the things we'll be proposing. However, for the sake of the exercise, I have a few things I'd do (in an incredibly non-serious way). 

1. We stop caring about pesky little things like "real life teams" and revert back to the Ottawa Ice Dogs. Furthermore, as an addendum, all Lynx championships, records, and accomplishments are said to have been Ice Dogs accomplishments. We use either the old logo with the cute little dog, or a new logo with an even cuter little dog. 
 
2. We create a 4th league, full of only inactives, just in case they happen to come back. This league is called the VHLF, and is comprised of only teams in Finland. Kolari comes back. Turku comes back. Oulu, Joensuu, Espoo, Kuopio, Vantaa, Tampere, Jyvaskyla, and Rovaniemi each get teams, divided into the Vowels Conference (for the teams with more vowels than consonants: Oulu, Joensuu, Espoo, Kuopio, and Rovaniemi) and the Consonants Conference (for the teams who have at least as many consonants as vowels: Kolari, Turku, Vantaa, Tampere, and Jyvaskyla).

3. The Helsinki Titans remain in the VHL, despite now having an entire league in their country, but just for confusion's sake, the Titans would now play in Mariehamn and would be closer geographically to Sweden than Finland despite being technically still in Finland. Despite playing in Mariehamn, they would still be called the Helsinki Titans. Anyone who questions this will be asked to point out the existence of the East Rutherford Jets and/or Giants. 
 
4. The VHL will add an entire additional conference, but this conference will be entirely in Africa. The inaugural winner of this conference will be the Abidjan Elephants, who will have a history of regular season success and underwhelming playoff experiences. This is similar to their now-defunct IHL counterparts. Their minor league franchise, the Nairobi Rhinos, will also have a team in this conference, and the Ouagadougou Kudu will be a team name simply to twist people's tongues. The other 5 African teams are free to go where they please.

519 words

Yes

So we as the members of the VHL have been given a challenge for Theme Week, which is to suppose we were to be given full commie powers for 1 day and state what our grand designs might be for such a thing. As someone who has been a mini commie (VHLM) for two separate runs, I have a glimpse behind the curtain, so to speak. No one, not even the bluest of blues, can unilaterally change a rule. There's so much discussion that goes on behind the scenes for nearly everything that gets rolled out as a feature (and even the things that would later turn out to be bugs) and on the rare occasion something is decided relatively unilaterally, those are often the things that end up later reversed or modified *cough no help on trivia cough* so it's just not really done that way. This, unfortunately, makes this whole exercise rather pointless. A single day of blue would enable none of us to do any of the things we'll be proposing. However, for the sake of the exercise, I have a few things I'd do (in an incredibly non-serious way). 

1. We stop caring about pesky little things like "real life teams" and revert back to the Ottawa Ice Dogs. Furthermore, as an addendum, all Lynx championships, records, and accomplishments are said to have been Ice Dogs accomplishments. We use either the old logo with the cute little dog, or a new logo with an even cuter little dog. 
 
2. We create a 4th league, full of only inactives, just in case they happen to come back. This league is called the VHLF, and is comprised of only teams in Finland. Kolari comes back. Turku comes back. Oulu, Joensuu, Espoo, Kuopio, Vantaa, Tampere, Jyvaskyla, and Rovaniemi each get teams, divided into the Vowels Conference (for the teams with more vowels than consonants: Oulu, Joensuu, Espoo, Kuopio, and Rovaniemi) and the Consonants Conference (for the teams who have at least as many consonants as vowels: Kolari, Turku, Vantaa, Tampere, and Jyvaskyla).

3. The Helsinki Titans remain in the VHL, despite now having an entire league in their country, but just for confusion's sake, the Titans would now play in Mariehamn and would be closer geographically to Sweden than Finland despite being technically still in Finland. Despite playing in Mariehamn, they would still be called the Helsinki Titans. Anyone who questions this will be asked to point out the existence of the East Rutherford Jets and/or Giants. 
 
4. The VHL will add an entire additional conference, but this conference will be entirely in Africa. The inaugural winner of this conference will be the Abidjan Elephants, who will have a history of regular season success and underwhelming playoff experiences. This is similar to their now-defunct IHL counterparts. Their minor league franchise, the Nairobi Rhinos, will also have a team in this conference, and the Ouagadougou Kudu will be a team name simply to twist people's tongues. The other 5 African teams are free to go where they please.

519 words