The Morning Rekrap: July 6, 2017

Time to hunker down for what will seem like forever until the next Atlanta United game, and it will be a good long time until the next home match. Luckily there’s other soccer and news to pay attention to, so let’s take a peek at what else is going on around the beautiful game.

Arsenal, who clearly made a massive error by not signing Miguel Almiron, signed an expensive soccer man to score goals for them, goals are good and this man is going to be good at scoring them for Arsenal. For a fee of 50 million Euro the team signed Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette, who? You know the guy Didier Deschamps keeps passing over for current Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud. Pay no attention to that, the Arsenal hipster hypetrain has left the station conducted by Deadspin Chief Eurosnob Billy Haisley. Haisley is probably right and he’ll probably be fine but Arsenal will still finish fourth and Piers Morgan will have another existential crisis.

Seems like the NWSL needs to reevaluate its concussion protocol. The current system includes: self-reporting, team doctors having the final say, and an evaluation that makes players perform 45 headers to prove they don’t have a concussion risking worsening the injury. None of this is in line with best practices and stepping up to an NFL style protocol would be a major improvement.

A word of warning for anyone looking for a Development Academy for a youngster, that academy may be presenting itself as something it isn’t. Even more confusing, or exploitative, is that some academies that do have official USSF Development Academy designation can operate non-Development Academy teams under the name Development Academy when in fact they are just regular youth club teams. Basically, this is another reason that pay to play is a terrible system.

So this is fun. The Tennessee Titans were so mediocre at American football last year that a firework from their Fourth of July show became self-aware and tried to destroy the stadium. It succeeded at damaging some seats but since the team is so bad at American football, Fansided took a shot at filling a soccer roster with the Titans players. I don’t know about putting the kickers at center mid, but some of this looks about right. Also, what would you call this team FC Hot Chicken?

“I’m blind, I’m deaf, I wanna be a ref” and, well a whole lot worse from what I’ve heard at Bobby Dodd, is just one of the ways fans mock officials during games. But these are human beings, whether or not all of them are fun hating snitches may be a different issue, and the story that Wes Burdine over at FiftyFive.One has about Amber O’Connor is an interesting one. She’s one of only 11 female referees in the USSF national referee program and is making her top flight debut when she is the head official in this weekend’s NWSL match between FC Kansas City and Sky Blue FC.