Nations League A, Camp 1, Cuba/Canada, Oct. 11/15

Again, you are conflating a correlation of NT and CL quality, with those teams being the vehicle to make you quality. For American players we actually have few players who dress for their CL team, and maybe 2 on elite ones who will survive group. Most people who sign as adults for big clubs get loaned back out.

This is reality. You can wave around theory but for that to mean a thing you need an explanation what they mean in practice. HOW does it correlate. I think you have your causation backwards. It's like saying playing for the Patriots makes you better. No, after all the winning they have done, people gravitate there when they have a chance. Voila, correlation between playing for the Patriots and winning. But it's really a combination of being a player magnet and then they on the other hand get to cherry pick who they want. It's like college football. Success breeds success breeds recruitment breeds recruitment. And then magically it looks like every good player went to Clemson or Bama or a select few.

In terms of this theory that I would relegate us to a bad ranking, all due respect, dude, but we're DOING YOUR THEORY NOW. Endless players signing big and sitting or out on loan. How is that working? I actually think we are a better team when club playing time is not a stumbling block to fielding our best players. It is now, trying your ideas, when we are missing out, and the coach won't play a half dozen talented players for so called "form." I think historically we did the opposite. Players dialed back or got released from bad decisions. The NT would call in people who found themselves in a bad spot, in part to help advertise their services elsewhere. And that was when we qualified.

I also think there are gradations between being pointlessly elitist and becoming Canada. I didn't say go sign in Yugoslavia. I said maybe sign closer to midtable of elite leagues. Or consider second divisions there. Or Holland or Denmark or Mexico or any number of leagues. Or all else fails players like Wood could consider MLS to prop their career back up. It's better than not being on the NT at all.

I agree on some level it should be a goal to produce by development the sort of player that big clubs want to sign. But current practical adult reality is what it is. Odds are they sign us and then sit us or loan us out. And for most of the team ambition like that is beyond them and not even a choice. Is Chelsea even considering Corey Baird or Christian Roldan? Like I said, you're leaving out the part where the CL team has to want you first.

 

I think y'all have the correlation backwards. When the team is at its peak, we have the sort of player the big clubs want. That was 2000-2010. We had a couple keepers abroad, Landon on loan, DmB, Reyna, Dempsey, etc. etc. When the talent becomes more prosaic, teams abroad have less interest, or the level of team that is interested doesn't have that much better a budget. Given how for decades we have played up our club associations -- which has less zing when we suck now -- fans complain. But to me it's just, for a while there, there was no talent. Now there is, but it's kids. Check back in 5 years. That doesn't make the kids worse during those 5 years. It takes Europe time to catch on when a team gets better. They lag our success. They don't produce it.

I think people over-state what Europe offers as you slide downwards. If Roma tells me no mas, I can deliberately sign for a weaker team for less money there, to keep the snobs happy but play more. I am guaranteed a crap league finish. Such teams will often play cynical tactics to avoid relegation. Gone is pretty top of the league soccer. I pay more taxes. My family is talking like they want to go home. I can go home for the same or more money -- talking a Bradley type -- be a star, on a team good enough to win their league.

By the time you are playing half minutes for QPR most NT historical players without a beef against MLS would be back here getting treated better for about the same money, not still abroad like Cameron. You want more players finishing their careers abroad? That is your template. Who has heard of him in years??

I think Roma is better than MLS. I am not sure if the 18th best team in the league is better, offers the same money, and is really a better choice than coming back to MLS and your new team is competing for a title in your home league.

I think at least part of the pretense here is to act like everyone in the big leagues plays the same high standard, attack first, purist tactics. I follow Fulham as well so I know what it's like to be a fan of a relegated team. You are often either getting shredded every week or have gone into some weekly bunker to save face. I am at a loss how dropping down towards that end of these leagues is going to result in some honed CL touch-meister.

 

it's also, i think you have to earn the right to get cute. GB hasn't. You do basics well. ok, i license you to freelance a little. when someone starts getting cute on the ball who is sloppy in their skills, the standard coaching instruction is simplify and execute your basic game. calm down, execute your dribbling skills, make the short pass. how about basic competence.

i think if he had 22 people basically right and aaronson is the 23rd, ok, i give him a pass. but we're not winning enough and 1/3? 1/2? of the roster is just wrong. so it's just another brick in the wall.

klinsmann came in with the combo of player history and Germany NT, and got some upsets quickly. ok, that buys you some liberties.

that being said, he had no clue how to reformulate the team second cycle sans jones and beckerman, how to fix the backline.

 

There have also been "reports" that Amelia Earhart's plane has been found.

 

Nope! They didnt invite me or Richie Ledezma.

Can you share these reports? I would be interested to see who made that claim.

 

i think based on the roster we called, cuba will be more work than expected. i expect something like

Guzan
Yedlin Miazga Robinson Lovitz
Lletget Trapp Yueill
Baird Sargent Boyd

does that really impress you much?

people are forgetting how hard we worked to beat Panama with the GB version of the Bs, or how they lost to Jamaica and Venezuela badly

these would be grinders and not a bunch of technicians or athletes, against an athletic team

we have pure attackers or speedsters but many were left off or would start

you could remedy this some by starting some starters but then you tire out some of the team for canada

no, i think unless they risk starters for cuba we will have two games on our hands.

people neglect that to get those 6-0 scorelines you have to field players with 6 goal scorelines in their bags. when we got those big numbers at GC on weak teams it was the first two games running out starters.

 

You often claim to make fact based arguments. Can you provide data to support that?

Just from the 1998 & 2002 WCs, here are players that spent time in second division or lower leagues... McBride, Moore, Wynalda, Ramos, Lewis, and Donovan. Pretty impressive list and I am sure I missed someone.

 

http://www.americansoccernow.com/ar...-u-23-progress-ahead-of-october-camp-in-miami

KREIS: I think it's terrific. This is what I mean when I say I think that's a real good collaborative effort between Gregg and myself because I was speaking to Gregg about how well this player has done for us and how much we really, really like him. I think that interested Gregg and he's got a little bit more interested in watching him. I think it's a player that gets a very deserved call-up. At the end of it all, it's extremely good for us as well to have players see that if they perform with us, that's another pathway into the full team.

 

Araujo was not released by the Galaxy... Initially, I was bummed he was not called up to the U23s.... but he probably was and got denied by his club. Uly is out 3 to 4 weeks w/ an ankle injury. Sometimes I forget just how young some of these guys are... I think both of them are still eligible to play in 2021 U20 WC.

 

Thank you for not being a jerk when asking for sources unlike someone else. I only had random journalist Twitter comments until today. Sciaretta released an interview with Kreis confirming that he had a good camp.

http://www.americansoccernow.com/ar...-u-23-progress-ahead-of-october-camp-in-miami

 

we're confusing two different arguments here. i agree with what you have anecdotally pointed out here, that we are better off with players making calibrated location decisions ie going where they will be played. that might include lower table teams or even the second division. i then also believe that it is defensible for a player to make a calibrated decision to come back home, that if an elite team releases them, and their choice is bottom of the serie a vs mls, that staying in europe is not the better decision for a list of reasons.

i also think that there isn't even really evidence that a talented player in a lower division can't hack what we need. we have run out people like gooch who are as low as the third division. we have also had some success playing elite collegians and players from age group/reserve teams abroad. granted, your average lower division player isn't ready. but if we are making absolute rules? no limits, use your darned eyes.

there is no basis for saying they fell apart the minute they got back. led the team back in the US all the way to the end of last cycle. jozy was good in MLS but then hurt his knee. bradley was a mixed bag who did well in MLS, scored in azteca and got us a point, but then did what he did. the snobs who rip on the big three for coming home tend to do so theoretically and with zero analysis. they offer counter-factual claims we would have been better off otherwise. anyone can pretend what would have happened otherwise. what did actually happen?

now, bradley fell off right in 2017, but he's also pushing 30 and played since a teenager, and basically hit the career wall. roma was already about to dump him and no one seems to see the linkage between that and SIMPLY GETTING OLD. if anything MLS revtalized him and dempsey, and got jozy back on form.

their two teams dominated the league for two years. it actually worked.

the thing no one seems to grasp is the dynamic where a new burst of players didn't come take their jobs. beckerman and jones aged out. where was someone to push bradley out and replace the other two??? it didn't happen. blaming bradley for that is strained. blaming bradley/the coach now is fine, because we have other options. but it's also 2 years later.

last, i find laughable how this snob club obsession correlates to the worst period in decades. just running out the XI best club names has worked awesome the past 6 years, hasn't it??? how about the coach does his job and actually evaluates?? to me this club/league heuristic stuff is just lazy, or talking points against someone's competition. how about emphasizing NT metrics for NT players instead of slipping league/club opinions or club numbers back in when we don't want to face reality.

 

I have nothing but good feelings for our friendly neighbors to the North. However, when it comes to football (soccer), a good beatdown is always welcome. We shall see. Each game is a new adventure.

 

classic example, trapp. trapp was the 2013 U20 captain. he was groomed to succeed the 2014 generation. people make fun of him now. but what we don't talk about is a player like that should on paper have been the next generation punting bradley last cycle. he was brought in for a first cap 2015, a loss to Chile. 12 minutes against Canada in 2016 camp cupcake. 2 games, did not resurface until we were eliminated and it's 2018. since then he has almost been treated like a new prospect despite being now 26. when i think someone with his captaincy background unable to make enough mark at age 22 to displace an ageing bradley, was in a sense already a bust.

to me the last cycle says as much about that second tier of no-names who couldn't beat bradley, as it does about his own decline. i emphasize that because some of those names are still around.

i mean, it says something that we have basically skipped onward to the 2017 and 2019 U20 teams. trapp? joya? gil? lopez? acosta? about the only player to really do well from that team would be steffen. some would say yedlin but to me that would speak to how watered down you have to get to make that team look better.

and then before the 2013 U20 team there was the 2011 team that didn't even make it.

 

aaronson had a pretty through ball on a recent goal with U23 i saw.

but mendez, pomykal, and ledezma were who the YNT coaches had identified as the good ones, they looked good at U20 worlds, and mendez and ledezma are getting calls from mexico.

i was mentioning the big picture?? the big picture is you can get aaronson involved in january -- 2-3 months -- for a long camp with games. the big picture is he was not in the top several mids to make this U20 team. the big picture is he was then not among the top few U20s mids we had at worlds. the big picture is he is not a nationality risk.

even if you like him based on some isolated stuff, that's not yet the big picture. and even if he turns out best of them all, until you know that for a fact, the smart sequencing shouldn't have favored him.

i also question whether a good camp should override longer term evaluations. buy you playing time or up the pecking order, perhaps. but i'm a little concerned we don't think past the moment and see big pictures or lasting esteem of talent.

 

Jozy is officially out. If Sargent doesn't play 150 minutes in these two games...

 

I was going to cross post that interview too. It's a good one, both in terms of the details Kreis provides and also in giving the sense that, dare I say it, our national team program is not quite as dysfunctional as it appears from the outside. Berhalter finds and recruits Cardoso and lets Kreis know about him, Kreis tells Berhalter to check out Aaronson, and Kreis said he also had conversations with Ramos about promising guys who were still U-20 eligible.

 

This season so far no Yank has played in the Champions: Adams and Weah are injured, Horvath and Pulisic benched.

Dest did play but he's not ours (yet?).

 

Guilty as charged but I still don't buy that an 18yr old Aaronson gets a deserved full Nats call up before others.

 

why do you do this to yourself, man? you KNOW zardes is going to start one (if not both). just hope sargent gets minutes in both.

cause, i mean, he PROBABLY will...maybe.

 

Thanks for posting this. I agree with largegarlic that the article made me feel like our development process is not as poor as it seems at times.

Question? Do you guys think this response was about Uly?

KREIS: In my experiences, I think we've had one call-up that has been rejected. And rejected isn't even the right word - it's basically like: "this players is just coming back from injury. He could be fit enough to play but we think it would make a whole lot more sense for him to kind of finish up his return to play protocol and really get some matches under his belt." So that was the only one where we got rejected. All of the other call ups that we've made for the European-based players have been 100 percent yes.

 

I'm an optimist.

 

I don't think you are following...

1.To win the WC you need a roster full of UCL players.
2. You don't just get UCL players, you have to develop lots of prospects that push themselves to be the best. Pro minutes at U19 is a marker of a possible UCL caliber player.
3. Not pushing, taking easy PT doesn't land you at a UCL club (your prescription for our players)

Of course, we have 4 players on UCL teams, only 1 getting minutes, and he is probably switching NTs. But we will not get more by having all our players take the easiest minutes.

I think we are developing more pro ready 18 yo's than ever. But not in the numbers we can or that Germany or Argentina does. We might be doing better than Mexico though, recently.

 

Slightly surprising to me is that tickets to the Cuba match in DC have been trending upward in price on the secondary market. There were tons of tickets on Stubhub this weekend in the $15-$18 range, but now the range has increased to $23-$26 (before fees).

It looks like the actual good value seats are going to sell, but the most expensive seats and anything with poor sightlines are going to be empty.

*I mention this because I was hoping/expecting to get a $10 ticket on the secondary market.

 

1. Basically you are handing Europe the power to decide where we go. Why would they want competition?

Drop the U in UCL and let's construct a strong team. We aren't getting there by imitating Europe, trust me. To begin with, we need to focus on the right objective which isn't to win the WC, it is to reach the quarterfinals.

 

Last time I saw Cuba in DC was during a qualifier in 2008 at RFK. I remember a few things:

* There were defections
*. Every Cuban player wore Adidas Copa
Mundials, a boot not improved since 1976
(I have had my share of Copa’s over the years,
but it wouldn’t be my choice for a WCQ).
Their uniforms were super generic as well.
*. Freddy Adu got on as a sub and had an assist.
*. Lots of goals and resultant beer showers.