Jeez, the math was explained to you already. There's a huge difference between playing 80-90 minutes most run outs and averaging 80-90 minutes. ONCE AGAIN Player X plays 80+90+80+90+80+10 = 420 minutes played over 6 games Average = 70 minutes 5 of 6 games are 80+ minutes, even though the player's average is only 70. It is a 100% factual statement to say "Player X plays 80-90 minutes most run outs." How is this still going over your head?
Yeah, that's three of seven, and my post allows those. You gonna use the same explanation for the other four? Where does the word "most" slide from fact to fiction?
Where does your post allow anything? Who are the 3 you're talking about? Why do you keep saying I mentioned 7 players? I never mentioned 7 players, Patrick did in a separate argument.
I already gave you a list of 13 of the 17 players that didn't make the roster and their minutes played. Where is this long list of mythical players that got any significant playing time?
@taosjohn - Talk about sliding from fact to fiction... You're claiming that a lot of players got a look. Who are these players? Somehow, you rounded off 37 players from the original 50-60 players. Of those 37 players that supposedly "got a look," most of the players that didn't make the roster got 15-30 minutes here and there against tomato cans in garbage time, maybe 45 every once in a while. Getting 15-30 minutes in garbage time against a tomato can IS NOT "getting a look".
Regarding Goal Keeper playing time: This is over the last 18 months. Don't take the details of the trend lines as exact, rather only as indicative of the general nature of what the WNT has been doing with their GKs in the lead-up to the World Cup. I look at this as showing: 1. In the initial period, the WNT was focused on clearly establishing who would be the #1 Keeper: Naeher. 2. Once that was established, the WNT embarked on a path of getting the #2 Keeper -- Harris -- on the field for experience and familiarity with the field players. As in, 25% of the starting assignments over the last 20 games, plus an additional half game. 3. Once that was established, the WNT got a game for the #3 Keeper: Franch. I'm not saying anything about who the Keepers are or their order of selection, but this process seems well thought out and appropriate.
I always find the stats interesting, but not sure I can make much out of the few games the other keepers got without looking deeper... that's been the way it's been for a long time with this team, well before Ellis ever joined. Also, some of those games weren't planned and/or against complete tomato cans and Pugh could have played GK and got a shutout. Not sure how much you can get from those games. In the last 29 games you listed, 2 of the games Naeher didn't play were unplanned due to injury and 1 of the games was CONCACAF WCQ when 7 of the 11 starters were rested against Panama, and just about the entire B team played. They did the same thing in 2015 WCQ vs Haiti and 2016 OGQ vs Puerto Rico. Solo didn't play either of those games and the opponents had like 0.1% possession all game. It seems like the #1 and #2 were set from the start of the cycle. I'm fine with Naeher, but I think Franch should have gotten more of a look because Harris makes far too many silly blunders, for both club and country. All 3 of the GK are a major step down from Scurry/Solo of course, but I don't really see Naeher standing out. Like I said though, I'm fine with Naeher and think she's definitely better than Harris, but I think Franch is too and think Franch is probably (not definitely) the best of the 3. Most of Harris' games were against tomato cans with 1 or 2 exceptions. The best opponent she played against was vs Brazil when Naeher was injured, so the best game she got wasn't by plan. Belgium - 0 shots on goal (tomato can, played 2nd half) Brazil - 3 SOG (started because Naeher was injured) Panama - 1 SOG (tomato can, PAN barely got ball beyond midfield all game) Chile - 1 SOG (tomato can) China - 6 SOG Mexico - 0 SOG (subbed in for Campbell, Naeher wasn't on roster) Of those 6 games Harris played, 2 weren't planned. Also, 4 of them were against tomato cans that posed little or no threat all game, so not a good game at all to get "experience and familiarity with the field players". China was a good start. Not a top team, but not a tomato can either. Brazil was a quality start, but not planned at all. I don't think there's any trend at all over the past year or two, however. Harris gets a few games here and there every year since she joined the team in 2013. If you took you data all the way back to 2013, your trend line for Harris would be just about perfectly flat.
i could not disagree with you more. If you invite players to camp, you should already believe they can succeed IN GAMES based on your scouting. The only reason to be in camp is to integrate them into your methods. Camp is not and should not be the sole audition. Real meaningful game time has to be part of that. if you are inviting players to camp that you dont know enough about already to have confidence in them to pay in games, you are doing it wrong.
Questioning Ellis is not being anti-USWNT. Blindly supporting Ellis is not supporting the USWNT. Alex, Emily, Kelly, etc have worked their entire lives to make the squad and win the World Cup. They deserve to have the best shot at that. I don't think Ellis is giving them the best shot and I don't think having Ellis as the coach is USSF giving them the best shot. They can win despite Ellis as they have enormous individual talent. They could overcome Ellis and her decisions. They tried to get rid of her in 2017 and the USSF rightly backed Ellis (you can't have the players getting rid of the coach every few years). They had valid reasons to question Ellis as she failed at the OG (the second most important tournament for the USWNT) and has failed to win two domestic based tournaments; coming in last in the 2017 SheBelieves. The roster has obvious, and unnecessary, weaknesses that could hurt the team badly. But luck and Ellis staying out of the way and they could win. But their chances are less than they should be.
I think Ellis is a great coach. I'm not sure, however, that she's the right coach for this team. As time goes on, the more convinced I'm becoming that national team coaches should be changed regularly. Coaches in their second World Cup cycle with the same team tend to get steadily worse results. There are a lot of reasons for this, you can see it in both men's and women's soccer. Yes, there are counter examples, but I stand by the generality. I also think that this USWNT can win the World Cup. And I think if they do, Ellis will be part of that - she is a great coach. But I also feel she has chosen to go into this tournament with the proverbial arm tied behind her back. But then, here we are. It appears that no lessons were taken from the debacle of Rio 2016. Taking injured players is a recipe for disaster. It's a sign of a coach that has no faith in the player pool. We saw it with Arena and John O'Brien in 20006. Coaches who stay too long get too conservative in their roster picks. Ellis has all but eschewed integrating new players. The pulling in of O'Hara and Brian and the reaching into the past to pull Long and Krieger back looks like a coach playing it safe and going with comfort picks and not pushing the edge you need to make a difference in the World Cup. I hope Ellis got it right. We'll find out soon enough.
Game sense. Tactical knowledge. As a trainer. Her record is impressive. There are two narratives explaining the result in Canada 2015. One involves her making brilliant adjustments, the other makes her a lucky fool who got out of the way of a team of destiny. I fall into the latter camp.
This year's team has 11 newbies since the 2015 team. People who are prone to criticize cite the 2016 Olympics, but we had a debate here on BS over whether the Olympics really matter or instead should be the beginning of preparation for this year's World Cup. I think it's pretty obvious that Ellis' view was the US should be on a four-year cycle ending with the World Cup and beginning right after (except maybe for the victory tour). I think that to her, the Olympic result wasn't critical nor was the first She Believes following the World Cup. I believe this was pretty clear. Some posters here disagreed with that approach whereas others thought it made sense. My point is that one shouldn't count new players to the team as from the Olympics, which was the beginning of the lead up to this year's World Cup, but rather from the end of the last cycle, which was the World Cup in 2015. The US's 11 newbies since 2015 is just short of half the team. For comparison, here's how the teams so far look so far as newbies are concerned: France 14 Norway 13 US 11 England 11 Netherlands 10 New Zealand 6
Japan's squad was out today and it has a record 17 newbies! (Although some of them, despite never playing in a Senior World Cup, are U-17 or U-20 World Champions; others are multiple Asian Champions). So just 6 veterans in the team: 1 of them played another World Cup, 3 played 2 other World Cups and 2 played 3 other World Cups.
When you take the oldest team to the tournament, you're automatically going to have a lot of newbies in the next cycle. Players that have retired or not attempting to make roster (since 2015)... 1) Hope Solo 2) Sydney Leroux 3) Christie Rampone 4) Whitney Engen 5) Shannon Boxx 6) Heather O'Reilly 7) Lauren Holiday 8) Lori Chalupny 9) Abby Wambach 10) Meghan Klingenberg Players still available and attempting to make roster (since 2015)... 1) Amy Rodriguez Ellis didn't consider the end of WC15 as the end of the cycle, she considered OG16 as the end of the cycle because there wasn't much time between WC15 and OGQ16 (6 months). How many times did she make the comment about now is the time for "experimenting" and "bringing in new players" following OG16? Just about every interview after OG16.
Believe what you will. The facts (regardless of what anyone said) show that the new cycle began after the World Cup.
FROM USSOCCER --- Oct 6, 2016 "The roster for the USA’s September friendlies following the 2016 Olympics feature players that were in Brazil, but as the U.S. team BEGINS the new cycle leading up to qualifying for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Ellis chose not to call up several veterans, making space in camp for 11 uncapped players." https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...mes-24-players-for-usa-matches-vs-switzerland --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE FROM JILL ELLIS --- Sept 8, 2016 “We are really looking forward to both of these matches,” Ellis said. “These first two games will all be players who were at the Olympics and then in October, we’ll really start to focus on the new cycle." https://equalizersoccer.com/2016/09/08/rapinoe-included-on-uswnt-team-for-hao-farewell/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM USSOCCER --- Jan 15, 2017 BEHIND THE CREST: NEW CYCLE OFFICIALLY BEGINS FOR THE WNT https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...-a-new-cycle-has-officially-begun-for-the-usa
So, Kevin625, are you saying you believe whatever US Soccer and Jill Ellis say is true? A simple "yes" or "no" will do.
LOL... where are these "facts" that you claimed to have? I just provided you with the facts. Give it up already.
You didn't provide any facts other than what US Soccer and Ellis said they were doing. It's definitely a fact they said what's in the materials you posted. That doesn't establish, however, the facts of what they actually did. Also, you should be one of the last ones to quote their statements as evidence for what they actually did, since it's pretty clear from your posting history you don't really think they have a lot of credibility. I gather from your "LOL" -- which gave me a big smile -- that you understand the irony of your quoting USSF and Ellis as support for your position. Here's what I was talking about in saying that the transition to the new cycle began before the Olympics. These are facts that are indisputable: Comparing the 2016 Olympics 18-player roster to the 23-player 2015 World Cup roster: 2015 World Cup players on the 2016 Olympics roster: Naeher Solo Engen Ertz Klingenberg Krieger O'Hara Sauerbruun Brian Heath Lloyd Rapinoe Morgan Press "Newbies" on the 2016 Olympics roster: Horan Long Pugh Dunn 2015 World Cup players on the "alternates" 2016 Olympics roster: Harris O'Reilly "Newbies" on the 2016 Olympics roster: Sonnett Mewis 2015 World Cup players not on the 2016 Olympics roster or as alternates: Chalupny Rampone Boxx Holiday Leroux Rodriguez Wambach I suppose there could be differences of opinion about what these changes meant. To me, as I thought and posted about at the time, they meant that the process of building the roster for the 2019 World Cup already had begun. Which meant to me that Ellis thinks the "real game" is the World Cup, not the Olympics, which is what I believe most of the soccer world thinks -- which might explain part of why, if my memory is correct, no World Cup winner has followed up by winning the succeeding Olympics. It's really in the US, and maybe Canada, that some fans think the Olympics are at the same level of importance as the World Cup. As I recall, some posters argued pretty vehemently that the Olympics were at that level of importance, I just didn't agree and thought from what I was seeing that Ellis didn't really agree either, no matter what she said publicly. It didn't matter to me, by the way, whether some of the roster changes for the Olympics were forced by player decisions or initiated by coach decisions. I still think the central intention was to begin to put together the roster for 2019. (Plus, some of the player decisions made it pretty clear the players themselves thought the World Cup was much more important than the Olympics. They wanted to be on that World Cup winning team. The Olympics? Not so much.)
Give it a rest. All 7 players you listed that didn't make the OG roster as starters or alternates were either... 1) Retired 2) Pregnant # players getting 1st CAP in the 13 months between WC15 & OG16 2 (Pugh, Sonnett) # players getting 1st CAP in the 3 months following OG16 7 (Dahlkemper, Short, Williams, Sullivan, McDonald, Ohai, Hatch) # players getting 1st CAP in the 14 months following OG16 12 (7 listed above, Lavelle, Smith, Zerboni, Huerta, Oyster) So, what Ellis and USSoccer said is exactly what they did.
This stat is irrelevant. Only 1 team has ever defended the World Cup (Germany). The US won the 1996 OG and 1999 WC back-to-back, so they were concurrently reigning champions of both for a 3-year span, just in the opposite order. I'd argue that it's harder to win OG and then the WC (3 years apart), than it is to win WC then OG (1 year apart), because of the bigger roster turnovers. None of this is evidence that the coaches, federations, players aren't trying as hard to win the Olympics. They're both single-game elimination knockout tournaments and the best team doesn't always win. They're hard to win in the first place. The US and France are the two favorites to win the WC, but neither of them is even close to a 50% chance to win... both are probably realistically less than 25% chance to win. Also, sample size. The WC started in 1991 and the Olympics started in 1996. It's not like there's a long history here. I've already said in this thread that the WC is much more prestigious and am sure Ellis, every coach and every player feels the same way. Why are we bringing up what an extremely small minority of people said in the past in other threads/forums? What does it have to do with this discussion? If that was the intention, then why did only 2 players earn their first CAP in the 13-month span between the WC & OG, but 7 players earned their first CAP right after the OG and 12 players (SIX times as many) earned their first CAP in the 14-month span after the OG? This isn't a discussion about which tournament is more prestigious. I've never contended this point and 100% agree with it and even said so much earlier in this thread. The facts are... • Ellis brought in far, far more new players after OG16 than after WC15. • The uninjured regulars (Morgan, Johnston/Ertz, Sauerbrunn, Solo, Lloyd, Klingenberg, Heath, Brian) were starting and playing 75-90 minutes in almost every game between WC/OG. • After the OG, many of these same players had their minutes significantly reduced and oftentimes only played 0-45 minutes in games when the new players started earning their first CAPs.