I'd say there are many more euro clubs who agree that he's not ready, since they didn't go for him even after a stand-out season. Probably that was influenced by his NT work. It's how they play for the NT that matters. All of this comparing teams, and leagues, and playing time, etc, is unnecessary, except for maybe evaluating fitness. How do they perform for the NT?
90% of games one plays are for club, not country, hence club play drives evaluation a great deal... rotating 2 of these 3... edu, szetela, bradley would be fine with me..
I'm not a big fan of Jr but he is the only CDM that we have whom starts for a european first division club.
Wouldn't you say though that actual performance for the national team is a better evaluator than club play? It seems obvious to me, barring fitness issues. When he plays all the time, Bradley's play has to be its own justification, which I'm sure it is to Bob. I just don't agree with him.
How about let's move it to the nepotism complaints forum. Mods, can you create one of these? I'm really tired of this baseless garbage clogging the N&A forum.
You know I love you guys and gonna drink some beers with you during the game but some of you are not to savvy. To say a slothful, unskillful MB deserves 90 min lock due to playing on crummy last place German team is asinine. Seriously?
Calling him slothful is asinine, but I'm not surprised you've gone and done it. Of all your criticisms, this one is the LEAST valid. Slothful? Do you even know what that means? Have you ever watched MB play? That's just really bad analysis (if that's what you want to call this). Oh my god, your credibility is toast.
I view those ratings as a reasonable representation of US soccer fan's opinions about the players, so I used them in a discussion about opinions with gmonn. I think the decisions about an 18-man roster are different than for a 23-man roster, and I would be shocked if Adu didn't make the larger roster, but I'm not shocked that he didn't make the 18-man squad for tonight's match. Moreover, Bradley and Adu are not competing for the same role on the US team, and that plays a central part in any decision-making. To be a starter, Adu is competing with Donovan, one of the all-time greats, who just came off his most productive MLS season ever and is in the middle of a very promising loan with Euro giant Bayern. Adu loses this one hands down vs Donovan. Bradley is competing with a much less daunting group of equally plain CM's. Mastro has the highest average fan rating at 5.8, but he's suspended from this match. Edu has a slightly better 5.4 average fan rating in 10 Caps, but he hasn't started a competitive league game in about half a year, and his most recent US match saw the fans rip him a team-low 2.9 rating. Kljestan has a 4.1 average rating in 13 caps. Torres has a total of about 108 minutes in 2 Caps, so his 5.9 rating is basically meaningless, but his potential encouraging. None of these guys has any valid case to start ahead of Bradley tonight. That leaves Clark as the ONLY CM with a legitimate case to start ahead of Bradley in the Mexico match -- 5.6 average rating in 17 Caps, several good games vs. Mexico, and a solid 5.8 rating vs Sweden's B-team in his most recent match. But we usually play with 2 CM's, so based on fan ratings (opinions) it should be Clark and Bradley starting. Maybe Clint Eastwood will be right. Comparing Adu and Bradley just doesn't work, as their situations are very different. Bradley's US competition is much less daunting than Adu's. Adu's club situation is much less helpful than Bradley's. This really isn't a difficult choice for tonight.
You could call MB a reckless tackler or an inconsistent passer and shooter of the ball; but slothful? no.
Tru Fan 07... I took a painstaking 5-10 minutes to skim through this thread... You obviously want Clark to start over Bradley... and you're not the first or only person to have that desire. Can you explain why Clark is better (using positive things to describe Clark's ability, not negatives to describe Bradley's)? EDIT: And I ask because I personally think that Bradley has his flaws, but with Edu out of shape and Mastroeni injured, Clark is his only direct competition at CM (Torres and Sacha are more offensive minded, and should be paired with a defensive type like the 4 aforementioned). If you did this, it might at least bring some dignity from the head... and help eliminate the headache that I just got in the last... 5-10 minutes. Thanks!
Yeah, just as soon as we get their player base. Any argument that starts with comparing Brazil and the US in any meaningful way is completely off-base.