O LIMIANO a écrit :j'mexcuse si sa vous agasse mais le niveau de la 2ieme B au Portugal est bel et bien au niveau de la USL...c'est malheureux mais c'est vrai...venez pas avec des histoires de PDL...une chose ce sont les grandins sand monde et les vieux stades une autres chose est la qualite du jeux!
You can believe what you want but I get a bit fed up with people who think low level European leagues are better than our leagues because they are European leagues or because the league is in the country of their ethnicity. Yes Europe has some excellent leagues but likewise it has many very poor leagues. The USL is not a top league by any means but it is also not the crap league some Eurosnobs claim it is. No I don't consider the USL a first division European league though that depands what one is talking about as a first division European league. If it is Finnish or Belarus first division I think USL would be pretty comparable and if it is the Latvian or Moldavan first division I think USL is better.
Portugal has a very good first division which I would rate 8th best in Europe. Like most small European countries the level drops rapidly after the first division. By the third tier (div 2) they already start to regionalize the league considerably into 4 regional divisions which greatly dilutes the level. Germany for example is nationwide up to the third division and even in the 4th is only divided into 3 regional divisions. By the 4th division Portugal has already divided their league into 7 regional divisions which obviously have a poor level of play.
I don't know which league or team is shown in the video since this player was most recently playing in the Portuguese 4th tier (div 3). Whatever level it is I don't think one has to know much about football to see that the play is extremely poor and well below USL level. The team I support played in the German 4th division last year and the level of the league was better than this. At the same time the level of the German 4th division was not as good as the USL (with the exception of the three non-competitive teams this year). I would put the USL at about German 3rd division level (the equivalent in Portugal would probably be somewhere near the mid to lower half of the second division (with the exception of Minnesota, Cleveland and Austin who would be a division lower). Most of the good USL clubs would be mid-table German third division teams, the Impact and Caps the way they are playing so far would be in a relegation fight.
Now watch the video of Deodato. Yes he is trying to make fancy moves and do fancy footwork. Also watch at how poor his ball control is when he is doing it and how far it is in front of him. Even in the USL he would be losing the ball all the time if he is doing this. Watch how slow he passes the ball as well and how much the receiver is waiting for it. In the USL someone is going to pick that off and be alone against the keeper.
Certainly every player has to be judged by how he performs here but that video makes me pretty sceptical about his abilities and why he is here in the first place. I am also not very optimistic about the French 5th division player on trial. We need to be signing players who are better than the ones we have not depth players of questionable ability. If we are looking at Portugese players it should be guys on smaller 1st division teams or good 2nd division players. We need to improve the team as we are starting to fall below the USL level. We signed a 1st division Belgian player this year and he has been merely adequate since arriving. I think we could also get better players for lesser money if we looked more to Central and South America and if we are looking in Europe, eastern Europe would also get us better players than western Europe where the good players have been noticed and are playing on good teams and getting paid well.
