Jozy has had plenty of playing time and has not produced. The team is still struggling to score. That alone merits giving other guys a chance. Otherwise we revert to Bradley's style which made the starters feel secure in their position. If he cannot produce, put him in the bench. We cannot do any worse than another potential not producing. He is just too big for the quick movements needed in front of goal. JK should try Shea in front of goal as he is just as big but quicker than Jozy who was recently benched by his Euro team.
The Jozy haters are often funny, but this post contains extra lols. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve-AqdN7jmg"]USA Fail - YouTube[/ame]
In Spain he mostly rode pine, and in England he scored what....once? As for the Dutch and Turkish leagues and the Europa League competition faced thus far, I would not be comfortable saying they are better overall than the Mexican league.
I may be with you on the AA comparison, but you might want to consider the record of MLS versus MFL before suggesting AAA is a bad analogy. Mexican teams have been dominant, with a winning record on the road, and often do so while resting starters.
Disgusting statistics. I think it's ridiculous how people are saying that he might not fit in Klinsmann's system. If a forward scores, that's who you want up top.
That number might only included the games that he came in as a sub, since he had only scored as sub before tonight. His actual goal rate is a goal every 92.7 minutes (7 goals/ 649 minutes) , might fall to 81 minutes if he is given last week's goal that was ruled on OG by the ref. Tecos challenging the call. Just to compare the second best goal rate in Mexico is one every 111 min. by Oribe Peralta
No I carefully checked his total minutes on the pitch for each game with UAG. Prior to today it was in 2011 5 goals in 176 total minutes and today he played 70 mins and scored twice. I really don't care how it happens (attractive or not) but he has scored 7 goals with his butt on the field 246 mins. That is 35 mins per goal when he is on the pitch. Yes he is mainly a super sub although today he started and scored twice in the first 15 mins. I really could care less if he is a snail and has a telepathic read on where the ball will be in the future. Fact is when he is on the field he scores at an amazing rate per minute. Not just this year but in the past few years. He also shows an unselfish side .... The second goal today he credited to his strike partner who did most of the work. I am also not challenging whether he is the most productive per minute in FMF only that it is nuts that JK does not have him on every single US MNT match game day roster even if only a super sub. We do not score enough and that is Herc's stock and trade.
Sorry, that's just not true. He has a great strike rate, but it's not a goal every 35 minutes. http://www.yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=stats&id=201
I got the info from the Mexican League website and they have him at 649 minutes. http://www.femexfut.org.mx/portalv2/secciones.aspx?s=1783&ep=908&dd=1 I just went to ESPN Deportes and added the minutes there and the total from them adds up to 653 minutes.
Sorry folks great call - my bad. As a sub he scores a goal every 35 minutes. As a starter it is less (as one would expect). If I add yesterday's 70 mins and two goals to his sub time it is still 35 minutes per goal. As the last two posters pointed out it is (as a starter and a sub in 2011 it is 7 goals in 650 odd minutes (93 mins per) it is much less of a rate with his time as a starter added in. Except for yesterday he does not score very often as a starter. His goal scoring however as a sub is prolific and he still needs to be the first sub off the bench for the US particularly when we are not scoring.
Doing very well I'd call him and play the SAME role he has for his club.. the spark off the bench in terms of scoring... Gomez over Agudelo... at this point.
If Herculez doesn't get called up this time, it probably means he will never be called in by Klinsmann. You have to believe that Agudelo and Bunbury will be sent to the Under 23 Camp, thus opening spots for guys like Herculez, Buddle and Wondo.
My biggest problem with guys like Herculez Gomez and Chris Wondolowski is that they don't bring anything to the game tactically or contribute to the team's overall game. To explain, it's essentially the same reasoning that got Robbie Findley on the airplane to South Africa. His ridiculous speed can either exploit the space in behind defenses that play high up the field, or it can make defenses sit deeper so that they don't concede that space, which would then increase the space in between their lines of defense and midfield, which is where Donovan and Dempsey like to work. Target strikers like Brian Ching are useful when defenses play deep because of their hold-up play. When they hold the ball up like that, they give time for secondary runners to arrive, and when they do, they're now close to goal and can immediately trouble the goalie. Jozy Altidore is able to do both of the above things, which is why he has so much potential. Herculez Gomez and Chris Wondolowski don't do either of the above things. Their strength lies in their ability to finish chances, not helping create them. This is a problem when we're playing against teams of higher quality than us because we can't just expect Landon or Clint to be able to just dribble through them. Gomez and Wondolowski are scoring goals because they have teams that creating chances for them, and they're creating those chances because the team has all the other tactical chess pieces set up - all Gomez and Wondolowski have to do is finish the chances created. Now, I'm not saying that these guys are pathetic, or even that Gomez shouldn't get a chance. I'm saying that there is a time and a place for a guy like him. We have to realize what he contributes, and that would be his ability to finish chances. The problem is that we have to worry about how we're going to create those chances first, which has been a problem for these first five games.
I'll take it. Gomez and Wondolowski score goals. If they continue to do so, they'll get chances with the USMNT. We'll just have to see if they impress Klinsmann enough to stay in the squad. Why did Jeff Cunningham have a chance to make the 10 World Cup team? Because he scored goals in MLS leading up to the tournament. If you score goals, opportunities will come your way.
So we ether put in a forward that can help us create chances but can’t score or put in a scorer that won’t help us create chances to allow him to score. It does not sound very promising for us.
How few chances we are creating is certainly a problem, but the finishing on this team has been atrocious at least as far back as the Gold Cup. I don't want to derail this thread into another showdown about Klinnsman's transformative vision/Klinnsman's naivety, but I expect that at least through the first round of qualifying, this team is going to end up looking a lot like the USMNT of the last cycle. We'll score a lot of our goals off of counters and set pieces rather than through creative combinations through the midfield. When you have to make the most of those limited opportunities a striker with a knack for finishing is just what you need even if he doesn't offer a whole lot more.
That's certainly in line with modern tactics that generally caution against the poacher specialists and other one dimensional players. The flip side of the coin is that if a player is exceptional at finishing his chances then he'd be an asset on a a team that excels at creating chances but has mediocre finishers. I'd argue that if Shea, Dempsey, and Donovan are on the field at the same time plenty of chances are going to be created.
Yup. We haven't really had our "A" group together under Klinsmann. Throw in the 3 guys you mentioned plus Altidore & Holden..........and that has the potential of being quite potent. It's just up to Jurgen to figure out how to put those puzzle pieces together in a formation that works. [Of course, who knows what Holden's gonna be like when he returns.] Gomez has the potential of being a really good super-sub, which is what he has done so well the last couple of years in Mexico.
Last time I checked, the Xavi of the western hemisphere wasn't suiting up for either San Jose or Estudiantes. Who are these chance-makers you refer to? Wondo and Herc are opportunists. They are good at putting away chances when they receive them, but their calling cards are being the scrappy players who tend to be in the right place at the right time in the penalty box. I can recall numerous instances of both of these players scoring countless goals of rebounds or loose balls, 6 or so yards out. They may not be the answer for the US team, but Roy Lassiter these guys are not.
they only score goals .. if they score goals (which statistically they do pretty well) ... then they allow JK to have the team play a little more conservatively once we score. As I was watching Man U and Man City I noticed that Balotelli (while physically imposing) does not do a lot tactically either ... he just gets into position and puts the ball into the back of the net ... let's be serious ... Gomez and Wondo don't play in Europe and don't make a lot of noise .. they just do their job. and yes if JK wants to address the Latin influence on the US team it is nuts that he does yet include Gomez.