I've been looking at the Goal of the Year winner. A wonderful free kick by Colorado's Shkelzen Gashi. A hell of a goal. A worthy winner, then? Well that depends.

Another decidedly non-memorable final. Maybe we get the finals we deserve. Scrappy, at times ill-tempered, incoherent -- all of which can be excused, will be excused by those who specialize in making excuses, as "competitive." That sounds good, now doesn't it?

Back in the 1970s I recall watching a soccer panel on English TV. They were discussing an important upcoming game -- maybe it was the FA Cup final. Both of the teams who would feature in that game had just had big wins and had scored a lot of goals. The moderator asked the two panel members -- both of them coaches --- what that meant for the upcoming final.

Bruce Arena never had any doubts about his own ability to move smoothly and successfully from the college game to the pros. I did. I thought the change was altogether too fundamental, too demanding. It looked to me like a change that, even supposing it could be made, would need time.

For decades now, a very special and specific conundrum has been making its presence felt in American soccer. What to do about the growing presence of American-born Latino players? They can be seen as a welcome addition to the American talent pool. Or they can be seen as a damn nuisance because their style of play is rather different from the northern Europe style that has been traditionally favored in the USA.