Still, there seems to be something deeper going on with the Mexican players. A dissatisfaction with playing for the national team. This has gone on with Vela for years, but it is new with Herrera and Corona for sure.
Ok And the World Cup had also been a ticket to the Confederations Cup. Meaningfulness has not changed.
Of course we will be disappointed. That comes with the territory of BigSoccer and being a USMNT fan. "Hope" is also a most common emotion here, right up there nose to nose with "disappointment."
My prediction is that for a host of reasons, the roster is going to be full of guys having average to slightly bad years in MLS. Looking at the Who scored ratings, there are a number of candidates over 200 out of 330 ranked players. Some of those players will make the roster. Sure, those ratings don't mean everything, but still .... I'm rooting for them, but that's just the state of the player pool right now.
Yes, nobody stepping up to the plate, except our 40mm DM who is being pushed to RB to accommodate two weak MFs nobody is better then.
Herrera http://www.espn.com/soccer/concacaf...rera-to-miss-gold-cup-after-twitter-statement Corona had some kind of disagreement - of the Fabian/Klinsmann type or something like that.
I don't really care who Berhalter calls up. I don't think it matters much. He has been pretty good at calling up the kind of guys he had at Columbus who like to play and lay it out there. That's good enough. I just hope he doesn't cave to outside pressures.
It's really different factors.. -Vela already came out publicly that currently he wants to focus on club and family. He mentioned he'll be 34 years old by 2022 and wants to give other younger players a chance to step up and play. He didn't say he's retired from the NT, but that for now he would rather focus on those two things and future will tell if he plays with Mexico again or not. -Herrera asked Tata to exclude him and give him the summer to rest up given that he hasn't taken a summer off for quite a few years and also played almost every match with Porto in all competitions. He primarily wants to rest and get ready with his new club he'll signed with, rumored to be Atletico. -Tecatito was excluded because there was something going on during that last call up. He was supposedly injured and Porto notified the Mexican Federation, but Tecatito had started and played all 90 minutes with Porto before the international matches and then started and played the 90 minutes with Porto again right after the international matches, which seemed to have upset Tata. Who knows what's going on there. -Chicharito's wife is expecting this summer and there was an agreement that it would be better for Chicharito to be excluded since Tata didn't want to lose a forward during the middle of the tournament, so that's why he wasn't called up. -Lastly, Chucky is injured, but will try to play if he get healthy by the time the tournament starts.
Yeah, it just seems that there is something close to a consensus here and among most fans on some guys who should not be called up, but probably will be anyway.
As long as he avoids insanity it does not matter much who he calls for the Gold Cup. With just decent play by any group of players in the top 30 or so of our pool we will at least place second. However I do think that Berhalter is making a horrendous mistake by having a "system" he wants to play and trying to find players that can play it well. A truly good coach/manager would get the top 18 or so players and then design a system to fit their best attributes. Having a preset system can miss top players that simply do not fit. But this is CONCACAF and it matters very little who we call up and play until we get out of our region. That is unless the players just give up as happened during the last qualifying cycle.
I’m sure our soccer media and rabid fanbase will put some pressure on the federation. *checks Grant Wahl’s twitter and finds he’s now the de facto arm of the USWNT
Maybe tomorrow? I know The USSF likes to keep to drop rosters either on Sunday or Monday in order to let The MLS games happen, but it's too late to change the 40 man roster now anyway
They took years to pick a very ho-hum successor to JK, methinks they don’t have a sense of urgency about anything
Yeah, or you can make the opposite mistake and call the best theoretical xi when they don't gel well in practice. Messi doesn't have a World Cup. Maradona does. In Argentina, Messi is not the GOAT, Maradona is. Personally, I don't think Berhalter's system survives play against real pros but I know a lot of experienced managers think Berhalter is a good manager. I think he opens too much space in central mid because he spreads the pitch (which is ok) and throws 2 10's into the attack. Because the attack can seem quite fearsome to minnows, we'll see a lot of teams falling back which gives the defense a lot of leeway. When we come up against the top 16 of the world it is another question. But how would Berhalter know that (or how would I know it) when we don't really see top 16 competition before we get to Qatar?
Hope I'm misunderstanding you. You aren't criticizing Berhalter for doing something that a poster predicts he will do? He hasn't called ANYONE into camp at this point. I predict that there will be some real surprises (at least for many) in this camp. Of course Berhalter hasn't been answering my calls and texts lately so I might be wrong.
Not to be rude, but Grant has been like on the front lines of criticizing the Fed and especially MLS lately. I really respect it too.
I guess a combo of the last two camps and expectations of who will be on this roster from the usual suspects in the media who seem to be well connected. Ives' article on goal.com (I know, people have said he's connected to the Bradleys) had McKennie, Pulisic, Adams, and MB all as MUST starters. I've said it before, like others being critical, but if there are some "real surprises", I'll be ecstatic, and the first one to own up to my "sky is falling" annoyances.
The flip side to this reasonable question is: if Berhalter calls in a camp similar to his last one and in line with Creditor's, would you criticize? What would you consider "some real surprises"?