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

You think Pulisic, Mckennie, Yedlin, Steffen, etc have any interest in watching Zimmerman, Lovitz, Trapp, Yeuill, Roldan, Baird, Zardes, etc play. They should demand to just get the evening off.

 

Morris had more caps at that age.

Most players in MLS do play out their contracts though.

How is Pomykal close to Adam's or Miazga? Adam's left before he turned 20 and Miazga left in the winter after the u20 WC. It doesnt look like Pomykal is going anywhere this winter. In a couple of years, European teams wont be interested as they will expect him to be a final product which doesnt happen often with MLS players.

 

I would be more surprised if Paxton didn't go to Europe this winter window.

 

i assume you are trolling or have forgotten how big clubs actually work

most of these guys are quite used to watching someone else play, either from being benched themselves, or because euro teams rotate their squads for cup/champs league/europa games. if you've lived there or closely watched the games you know they run out B or A/B hybrids for games all the time. the A team doesn't freak out because they might have 50 games to play that year.

along similar lines, if they are "gamers," they probably want the canada game anyway. cuba should -- emphasis, should -- be a foregone conclusion. i am sure the more serious players want canada anyway.

if you look at the last cycle blowup, or pomykal mouthing off, or even the subtext of pulisic handing the PK ball to sargent.......what they will react to is do they feel like the right people are on the team and in the lineup. optimality. unfairness. they are there to win and will be upset if the best players aren't out there for the big games.

for example, as the snobs continue to pimp older germans like FJ and chandler, i don't think that was an abstract complaint being made, i think there were players who thought playing favorites was costing us results. you notice few beefed when we were qualifying and going down to brazil. people start getting cranky when we field weird people AND lose.

 

Lovely........11,500 tix sold for tonite.

 

i guess this is revisionist perseverance. since he's signed the deal that sets out his near term future where he won't leave on a free, we start acting like he'll be sold next window. on what planet. he will be here at least 2 years more.

my guess would be he sets himself up for january camp where he would be in front of the NT coach for weeks and getting minutes and maybe even a start. this would not be the winter to go train with bayern or whatnot. FCD isn't going to sell the minute they buy. FCD isn't going to buy then loan him right out. the upside move is rest and then improve his NT standing in January.

 

Signing that contract only means that he has protected himself financially and that Dallas will get something for him when he transfers. It may not be this January... but two years? You do know that players transfer all the time when under contract.

 

two things, one, why are we keeping a hurt keeper around, i don't think dropping down is that big a competitive risk

two, while i think he deserves time, why are we announcing it? why don't we just tell cuba and canada who to expect. i find the last minute lineups on social media harmless. i find revealing starters ahead of time less so.

fwiw he seems so defensive on sargent. this does not inspire confidence. a coach is supposed to have plans. a smart coach either plans this or acts like this was the plan all along. it's odd to have a coach like, ummmm, ok, yeah, sorry about that, uh, maybe he is good after all, ummm, well, he'll be out there this time. i want a coach who feels a little more constant in his opinions.

 

you don't sign a guy to an extension that doesn't really even start til next season and then sell them before that year starts. 1-1/2 to 2 years. FCD will get some more veteran value from their contract, but eventually sell. a buyer would not want the "well, you can buy his 4 year deal" price, they too will wait for this to move further along, and the contract-remaining premium to drop.

also, he's not a "6" and it will be in both his and his buyer's interests to wait for him to put up more serious numbers. i also think -- and it's odd the NT fans gloss right over it -- it's in his interests to make inroads there before he moves, if he likes the UK. and will also make his case for other transfers in a more adult as opposed to prospect sense. so many seem to miss the value in consolidating a club and country position of power before making the move. even under a NT coach that was more open to prospects with less track record, it's to our benefit to have prospects seeing the field regularly and beginning to flourish. my experience with colllege being the opposite of what you are selling -- that for younger players it helps a lot to simply be playing, and that if we're claiming some sort of training benefit of going ambitious but sitting, it better be truly elite ie you're at PSG.

i do know players routinely head out off of U20 worlds -- either that summer or this winter -- but that's not the decision he made. that's done and dusted.

the ones i think truly make bad decisions are the ones who stay in europe too long when they aren't playing, and then try and come back here at 23 or 24 having lost their confidence and edge, or the ones who keep signing here while saying they would like to go abroad....and then they never do it. i might understand the arguments if he was a dominant MLS mid, but he's a kid with kid numbers. he has plenty of room to grow in the current MLS and simply seeing the field will benefit us.

since some might say i am contradicting myself, i think we should select players with minutes as a minor factor. talent is talent, unless a player is slumping so bad they can't kick a ball straight. but i think regular minutes are better for younger players to get their careers going, and help ward off rust risk. but come down to it i would rather see the better, more talented people, even if rusty, than the merely busy. i think GB has gone the direction of favoring "busy" which with a team as ambitious as our pool is can have perverse results ie you start favoring workhorses over talent. i think talent should out but with this coach one would be wise to calibrate their ambition and basically take the "minutes" retort out of his hands. that and historically NT players at least used to try to get in a good club situation for qualifying. at least one thing i wonder is if the NT is as big a priority anymore. to me people used to take less money or prestige to get themselves on the field and prepared to help the NT. i think club has become an end in itself and maybe the failure to qualify undercuts the expectation that a trade off meant to help the Nats will pay off. which encourages the cynical decision instead. 2026 will be different of course.

 

That's a decent little number, all considered.

 

well, let me frame it this way- 21 isnt especially young, and wright is a player who had one strong season with shalkes reserves but otherwise was never close to breaking through to the first team (a fluke cameo due to injuries last season notwithstanding). from there he took a clear stop down to a historically second division dutch side who took a flyer on him.

i personally have never rated him, but sure- you can say thats not a bad position. but its not all that impressive, either.

im not completely sold on toye or anything either, but production is production. we have to wait and see.

but i dont think theres anything close to a clear argument for wright, club name-dropping doesnt mean anything when they dont actually play. hes no more (one step removed) a bund player than zelalem is a former arsenal player. thats just reading whos name is on their paycheck.

part time vvv player doesnt exactly blow my skirt up is all im saying. and while its not a full throated argument by any means, is not scoring better in a marginally better team (in a solidly better league) really better than scoring in a marginally worse team/league?

 

given that FCD controlled his contract for two year from today, how does this change what they would “get” for him if he does transfer this window? Not sure I understand - he wasn’t about to go for a free.

 

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I assume the transfer fee would more than make up for it. Only time will tell whether he finishes out this contract in Dallas... I would rather see him transfer to Europe this winter... like the host on Counter Attack thinks he will... but I don't think another year in the MLS would be terrible for him. Just would be very surprised if he stayed the full two. Just my $.02

 

Taken over a two year basis, the players that were the top performers and showed most advancement in the U20 world cup were Dest, Richards and Pomykal. Weah was also a top performer but he was among the group expected to advance. Ledezma, Mendez and Soto did show good stuff but maybe did not advance as expected and did not quite make it as a top performer. I'd even go so far as to say that the two key players head and shoulders above the rest were Pomykal and Richards.
To my eye FC Dallas is doing good stuff. Dest advanced but he is in Ajax. This is sort of expected. The guys in Wolfsburg and Freiland just didn't really move on that much even though they are considered the most talented. Pomykal, in particular was not projected to make the U20 WC as a starter and certainly not as a key member.

Meanwhile in the same age group, Sargent is a level higher still in Bremen. But Adams is by far the superstar of this age group. The great majority of which was with NY Red Bulls who benefit from their association with their European counterpart.

All this to say once again: It's not so simple as leave MLS to go to Europe anymore.

 

See post #715.

Note: I am by no means talking about Americans staying only in MLS.

 

They are completely bagging on this number on Sirius XM FC. They are saying they sold more tickets in the last DC United Game against FC Cinci w/ Rooney out. Not a good look :-(

I wish they were playing in So Cal... I would be there for sure.

 

What's so exciting about watching our best player get relegated to the bench twice in the same year?

 

When Americans in top leagues in Europe are on the bench, they're used to watching very good players play in front if them. Young talents like Jadon Sancho, World Cup vets like Marco Reus, or up-and-coming mid-career players like Ederson.

Not MLS level players who are consistently displaced by halfway-decent South Americans, or are memorable mainly for scoring fluke with their eyeballs.

Once again, ambition to be a better player by trying to play in Europe is severely punished. Meanwhile, we're not going to produce another Landon Donovan or Eddie Pope, and in the decades since that 2002 team, we've produced only a handful of MLS-only stars. This is compared to an entire "lost generation" of poor players, many of whom were made in MLS.

Doesn't mean that MLS academies haven't, or can't, develop talent. Doesn't mean that MLS can't be a good stepping stone for professional development. It does mean that, if we're relying heavily on MLS players, and they're not guys who are moving to Europe by their mid-late 20's, we're going to miss the World Cup again...

 

Chelsea's bench would absolutely wipe the floor with Berhalter's "core" of MLS players, especially considering he's decided against including all the young, up-and-coming players like Pomykal et. al.

 

Lots of Cubans in NJ/NY...

 

It is a difficult situation all around. IMO, CP has been pretty decent to start his Chelsea career considering his age and adjustment to a new league... but he has a really tough row to hoe in that Chelsea has had the best youth team in England for a while and Jody Morris was the coach. Now he is helping Frank make player decisions and I think their is naturally inclination to start the players that have been with the organization for years. CP really had one bad half against Sheffield and then was benched for over a month. I don't really think it is fair but it seems like he needs to score/assist in almost every appearance he makes. On top of that, he is going to need to improve defensively to supplant Willian... because Mount and Odoi have their spots on lock as they also play for the England NT. In the end, I have to hope that this hardship actually makes CP improve overall as a player and that it shows on the pitch. Unfortunately, it still might not be enough to garner a starting slot and he may need to hope for a loan. Of course, if Willian, Mount or Odoi come down with an injury then CP will likely be right back in the spotlight.

 

I'm quite aware of the challenges Pulisic is facing, and I hope he can recover soon. But watching his career at this point is more worrisome than exciting.

 

Any ideas on how to watch the game today? Don’t see it on TV anywhere.