Wrong. Torres is a useful player who was generally played out of position because no one else could do it.
Plenty of other players were available. But I do feel sorry for Torres for his injury in October 2011, as it cost him big time. He never got another match as a CM (though he seemed to switch with Donovan to move inside at Azteca). I don't feel like it would have changed the course the depth chart took, but who knows?
Exactly. I have become to grow more comfortable with JK. Early on he was making some horrendous mistakes, and I still can't believe so many people defended him. He is moving things along, but I still worry that his initial gut intuitions are way off, and it takes him to long to correct.
I disagree. Torres has had so many opportunities and done nothing with them. Sure a few good touches here and there, a nice pass against Turkey, but after that he is a very average international player, possibly even a liability.
This is false. He has looked to the mexican league for mexican americans, because as a whole, the league plays more of 'his' style of possession based than most MLS players. Therefore he relied heavily on guys in the beginning from there. Torres was an example to most, on how to be tidy, play to feet, and keep possession. I believe like Beckerman, Torres was an example of how he wanted our CM's to play....so he gave him many chances to play, and show what he can do. While I will admit, Torres has been to JK what Bornstein was to BB.... he may have gotten too many minutes towards the end.... but at least he has shown he is willing to let go of a guy WE ALL would have thought was forever a starter when available. That is PRETTY big of him to do this....as coaches have their favorites... and because of ego will sometimes never let them go. Torres I think too, is not a bad player, but can only be useful against the right teams, right situation, and right players around him to make it all work. Vs. Scotland he was a BIG reason we tore them to shreds.
JFT is a usefull player... in certain situations. He should not be an automatic starting 11 guy at this point in time. I stand by my belief that Jurgen thought JFT was more of a playmaker than he actually is.
I don't give a crap if or how much he has admitted he was wrong about this or that. None of my concern really. I think the results over the last year show that overall he is doing well and we are heading in the right direction. Like all coaches, sometimes he gets things just right, but most times a player here or there could have done better, maybe he could have used someone else. But that really gets down to splitting hairs, you have to look at the results on the balance. And in this regard, so far so good. And one thing I do think he has brought that is very important and that you see in his talk of Altidore and Donovan. He's been involved with the biggest players and coaches in the world. He's not about to be thrown off if Jozy sulks or doesn't show up working hard. He wants Donovan back in the fold, but he's frank in that if it doesn't happen, the team moves on and we find a solution. I am sure he likes both as players and would like to see them at their best and producing for the US. But, he does not at all seem convinced they are such big important superstars that he isn't free to leave them home even for an important game. We can and will win without them is the attitude, backed up by action. I think this works particularly well for the US because frankly, we don't have superstars. We have a small number of very good players, but we don't have superstars.
Torres, to me, is a player with a fascinating skill-set who can't get over a certain hump mentally with regards to his assertiveness on the field internationally. I don't blame Juergen for spending so much time with him since he is a player that could have been key to us. But, we're both over him now. JT will have to prove a lot in his new team before he's handed a starting role again.
I don't see what's so fascinating about his skill set. He's very tidy in a very slow paced league that does not test his lack of athleticism very much.
I think you misunderstood what I meant by that. I meant in the sense that, JK had a 'favorite' and would be untouchable if avaiable, and would always start.
If I remember correctly, there were a couple of interviews with Torres and with JK back in the Fall of 2011 that indicated that JK viewed Torres as a key linchpin to the US midfield, thanks to his touch and ablilty to accurately deliver the ball. But there was plenty of disagreement about that concept of Torres as a key player in the BigSoccer community.
Oh no doubt he had some enthusiasts (like myself), wiht reason. But like deejay stated, and I feel he represents the posters who felt he could have been an asset to the USMNT.... he just lacks the psycology to turn into the player JK wanted him to be. Still too timid in his approach to the game, despite having the tools (vision, passing accuracy). With that said, I am still a fan of his, and hope he can find himself back with the USMNT. He depending on the opponent, can be a very important contributor.
Tidy is exactly what we lack. That slow paced league has fit enough players and they are athletic enough when playing against MLS or the USMNT. It's also a league that has provided multiple players that play at a high level.
I disagree, Bradley, Donovan, Dempsey, and probably Holden, Adu, and Jones, plus a few others are of equal skill or greater. Torres is great with the ball at his feet and lots and lots of time and space, and then some more time, facing the goal 10-40 yards from the goal box. Take anything out of that sentence and it all goes to crap for Torres. He peaked about a 3-4 years ago.
The problem is Torres is not so tidy against more athletic competition regardless of what a minority of his peers in the Mexican league have proven. We have a plethora of superior options at his position.
He's a dyed-in-the-wool optimist. It can come across as spin, PR, the work of a master politician... But to me, his quotes indicate the mind of the eternal optimist. Someone always looking forward, always looking to get to a better place, quickly forgetting about past mistakes he's made. Another argument against the "politician" angle is his brief coaching career in Germany. He took a lot of flack leading up to WC06 for leading the team while still living in LA, but he didn't move to Germany. A politician would have. He also was not masterful enough to play the politics to keep himself at Bayern Munich. A politician might have been able to navigate that situation. I'm going with optimist.
I would add Feilhaber at his peak was infinitely better than Torres. Shea, Zusi, and many of the young guns will also end up lapping up before 2014.
It's so interesting to see how folks get caught up in stuff and just ignore everything else that is needed to be a consistent international. The, Torres has so much skill line is one of them. There isn't some magic barrier he can't break. He just has some real limitations to his game. His skill isn't sublime either, or something other players in our pool can't match or exceed. He is the type of player less skilled US teams of the 90's used to beat all of the time for Mexico. the Mexes used to whine about how much better and skilled they were...blah, blah. Limited. Squad/situational player at best. There is no hump. It's the same with Edu. He has never been close to the player folks have made up in their mind through various reasons. Ream is another one. A defender has to defend I have said from day one. No, no, no...he will learn, look at that left foot, don't worry about it.....u are a soccer cretin, you just don't understand I was told. I didn't get it. I was an old school kick and run, physical play fool. Uh huh. Shea is another limited player that fits the mold. That bolt of lightening ain't comin. Limited players. Many tend to always over project when we see a player with a certain skillset and ignore all else. Torres is an average Mex league midfielder. That's it. That isn't gonna make him a cog on the US Nat Team. No amount of projection, hope, or making excuses, chopping others down to make him look better is gonna change that.
Here's today's looking into the crystal ball at Bocanegra's role: http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/...todays-topic-carlos-bocanegras-evolving-role/
Interesting. Like a lot of things about Klinsmann, he began by promising change (with his rotating captains)... but ended up returning to the Bradley era status quo. It will be a difficult decision if it has to be made.
I agree, for most of the early part of his tenure the Klinsmann system was definitely more conservative, but he's switched back in recent matches. Probably an overreaction to 1 certain personnel misjudgment in the last match of the previous era.
It's not a matter of "over-rating" the players in the Mexican league. It's that the players in the MLS have a much better fit with the style of the USMNT. The Mexican league is about first touch, speed-passing, quick combos and precise ball-throughs. The MLS is more about long balls, speed, stamina, height, and lethal counters. It's a bit like the difference between Spain and England: by nature, a Spanish player in La Liga is more likely to do better in their NT, due to style, than one who plies his trade in the EPL. And the same for the English players. JK wanted the USMNT to be more like the Latin/Mediterranean teams at first. His first interviews hinted at that: he wanted possession, precise passing, players able to keep the ball. But that's not the nature of US soccer. It's a bit like asking an elephant to fly. Well, no: the strength of the pachyderm is in his volume, not in his mobility. It's only in the measure that JK gave up on his dream of making them play more like Barca that they started having success. The big wins versus Mexico and Italy were obtained the old-fashioned way: bunker and counter, using speed, athleticism, open spaces, and long balls. That evolution has also marked the dismissal of the Liga MX-based players. Can't play tiki-taka possession hogging and midfield short-pass control when only 3 or 4 of the players in your pool can do it. So instead of rediscovering the wheel, JK is building on top of Bradley's foundation: using more attacking options, spreading the field more, but still with the English-style fundamentals. The attempt to "Latinize" US soccer is, for now, dormant.