Great call. I actually called Man City the other day and asked (since they are in SECOND place in the EPL) if they were interested in signing our starting lineup from Canada and playing them this weekend. Haven't heard back yet, but I'm optimistic... I think we need more than 300 mil people. Once we get to a population of 1bil like China/India, we will be a legitimate power to contend with...
your proving my point. You shouldn't be optimistic. You won't hear back. And the US will keep wallowing in mediocrity with MSL all stars.
So why do we suck so much? 1. We don't suck THAT much. Being around #34 or so in the world for a country with 300+ million people is not THAT bad once you consider only 5% care about soccer at the pro level. 2. The federation is terrible. Cliques, nepotism, and a strong suspicion of nativism/racism. However, and sadly, this is not uncommon around the world. The league cares mainly about making money, and that is wrong, although somewhat more understandable once you realize there is no grassroots culture willing to finance the game from the ground-up. 3. The league is not good. It's not hot garbage either, like some want us to believe. It may be around #24-#27 in the world, in quality (not salaries), but it's not showing any signs of helping improve the quality of US-eligible players, so that is bad. 4. The league doesn't develop good US-eligible players either because it gives too much preference to foreigners, or because there just are not enough good US-eligible players: ---a) but the foreigners make the league better, what would be the point to fill up the league with only Yanks if that makes the league drop from #25 in the world to #40? ---b) so the crux is, why there are no good US-eligible players? 5. Many Mexican-Americans and some other Hispanics in the USA think the system actively discourages Hispanic and underprivileged kids from achieving their potential. There may be some truth to that, and it could have two reasons (some say 'excuses,' I don't agree): ---a) USA learned from England, in soccer. Hence, the style is like the old English style: brawn over technique. Speed, strength & stamina are what coaches like, not because they hate minorities but because that's what they grew up with; ---b) there's no established soccer culture, thus to create a soccer culture the game must be made marketable first, and that means having a lot of middle-class white guys running around, so the people with the money feel more inclined to invest in the game. 6. This is my personal take, and one that is not popular at all: our players are usually dumb. They cannot adjust in-game. The great difference-makers were not so because of their athleticism or technical prowess, but because of their intelligence. Dolo, Boca, Jones, Dempsey, and above all Donovan were intelligent players. Yet we don't develop those because in a country like the USA, it's a much safer shot for someone with the brains to go to college, get an advanced degree in STEM or become a lawyer or a physician, than going for soccer, and risking to make peanuts for the rest of your life.
The guy from ESPNFC (Burley) said we'd never get beyond the round of 16, not knowing what happened in 2002. And he claimed the US will never have a star when Liberia did and his son chose to play for the US over them. He's also said we're delusional to think we should just be able to beat all these lowly opponents we've lost to the last 4 and a half years after regularly claiming what a joke CONCACAF is (the 1 thing he's right about). He talks himself in circles and spews objective or subjective b.s. because he's a combo of a Eurosnob, curmudgeon, and know-nothing on this topic but needs to fill time. And few nations have players of that caliber you're suggesting we need. Doesn't mean you're irredeemable. It's an unrealistically high standard. We used to be a top 15 or so side w/out them. How about at least expecting to get back to that, instead of not top 40 right now despite "official" rankings. How we got to our previous level was not making some prejudicial, short-sighted rule you're not going to call up new MLS players. That's what Klinsmann did and he ran the program into the ground. Now the subsequent coaches who the same brass hired are fools in a different way you want to overreact to the other extreme? You're foolish in your own right then. The top 2 outfield players on the field against Canada were guys who've solely competed in MLS. Most players naturally go through MLS because it's the domestic league in our country. That goes for every nation. We shouldn't be any different. Partially how they become European players is getting showcases on the national team first. Then all of a sudden you'll have an affinity for them because they play in Europe I guess. They are pretty much the same players. Same thing with managers. If we had identified Marsch when he was MLS we wouldn't be in this predicament in all likelihood. Now there's a clamor for him, we can't have him. The lack of pride in football in America (what we've been and can be), coherence of a plan to move forward from this period of dysfunction, and short-sightedness people like yourself and the brass display is emblematic of the real problems right now.
The truth is always a defense against a defamation claim. Here is what Arena said after our flop in 2006: Q. What has to change? A. The league has to get better. The players will get better if they play in a better league. They will have better opportunities overseas, and that’s the way our national team will get better. The best players in Brazil and Argentina play in Europe and their domestic leagues are pretty good. Mexico has a pretty good domestic league, but its national team has struggled because they didn’t have many players in Europe. And we’re better than Mexico. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/sports/soccer/13arena.html
LOL @Suyuntuy is really in here arguing we don’t have the man power to beat Canada now. Too funny. You say “if someone watched they would think Davis is the 73m player!” Uhh... don’t you think that’s more of a shot at our coach then our talent level...? Also the players you listed WOULD drastically improve our team. In addition, I’ve been arguing for months that if a player is good enough for the USMNT we should not be playing them at u-23’s. I wonder how Toye, Pomykal, etc. would help us? GGG can’t even call the right MLS players. I get told “doing good at the olympics will boost morale!” Yeah, not while we are losing games to Canada it won’t. “These players MIGHT be able to improve us marginally but not enough to blah blah blah” that’s our mindset with everything here and it shows why we suck. Communicating with young dual nats won’t make that big of a difference Calling up better players won’t make that big of a difference. (Ludicrous take by the way) A new coach won’t make that much of a difference. New tactics won’t make that much of a difference. Not calling in u-23’s won’t make that much of a difference. It adds up. It seems that we as fans demand the bare minimum which is so bizarre to me.
I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that we don't have the manpower to beat Canada in Toronto right now, with Brooks, Adams and Altidore injured. Not even with our best non-injured team. We'd lose 1-0 in Toronto. That doesn't mean we wouldn't beat them 2-0 in Orlando. We have the squad to qualify out of CONCACAF, but if Berhalter stays I'm not sure. Still, qualifying out of CONCACAF is a low bar. Also, some humility is needed. People here keep talking as if we had the player pool to be awesome. We don't. We have the player pool to go three-and-out in Qatar. Maybe squeak a tie in an easy group.
No, it's not. I've followed Pulisic long enough to know he's: a) our best player; b) unlikely to rise much above Fabian Johnson once all is said and done, actually we may count ourselves lucky at this point if he reaches peak Fabian level consistently. The talent level is not that good. Most of our players in Europe are benched, or worse. And the ones playing are utterly replaceable. Leipzig has done fine without Adams, although losing steam of late. Same with Wolfsburg. Weston is perhaps the closest we have to an irreplaceable guy at the highest level, but he could be upgraded without spending much. The closest we have to an irreplaceable guy only comes at the 3.Liga level, where Terrence Boyd has been bagging goal after goal for Hallescher.
I actually agree with this. I think our overall pool is probably good enough to get us to Qatar and 1-1-1 is absolute best case. However, with the batch of players Egg is calling in, we won't make Qatar period. So, while I agree with your overall premise regarding our place in the world, I disagree that switching the players out wouldn't have much of an effect. Heck, going 0-3 in Qatar would be a big step forward from where we've been at for the last two years!
Mexico, the one team that IMO is clearly above us, has Raul Jimenez (Wolves) and Tecatito (Porto) as players that are irreplaceable, at this point. Even if Jimenez is not scoring, he proved such a danger last season that he's drawing two guys in each play. On top of that, Chucky is half way there (first season in Napoli), but injured right now. Costa Rica and Honduras are at about our level at this point (Egg included). Navas was great against Strasbourg, but PSG has such strong central midfield, I'd be hard pressed to name any keeper with them 'irreplaceable.'
Maybe, but did you see Ledezma liking a twitter post about that Tuesday Night being a total s show? Can't remember the words exactly, but liking the tweet basically was a passive aggressive way of saying EGG sucks. I think those 19 year olds know ---- when they smell it. They're playing with brilliant coaches and teachers in Europe, not some self-important delusional hack whose never won a damn thing in Berhalter. He'd make them look crappy, but they as players will grow or fail based on what they do w/their clubs. Once we have a competent coach, or Egg just starts channeling a coach that isn't an insufferable, self-important, inflexible idiot, they'll look good w/the US, whether or not they develop into full time USMNT automatic call ups/First XI types I don't know, but I know he can't hurt them in terms of their development, he can only make them look crappy in a US shirt. And I agree on your point. I said it a million times over, give me some holdover glue guys (not Bradley), then the core guys worth a damn in the 25-30 window (there's like 3 or 4 of them) and then turn it over to the best prospects born in 1995 or later, and let's go. I'll take the shellackings, I don't mind, so long as we build a coherent team around them, and honestly, I very much doubt we'd see shellackings, I'm betting we'd see a pretty damn good team. These kids beat Nigeria, France, and Senegal in the past two U20 World Cups in addition to some other good sides, and the U23's were pounding El Salvador into submission 6-1 at the same time as the Canada humiliation was happening. They've already played the best of the hex in 2017 and 2019 and kicked --- both times. Heck even the U17's managed to outplay Mexico and lose anyway in qualifying in '17 and '19. All those teams combined are playing about 10,000x better than Berhalter's has in any game ever. Just give the team to Wicky or Ramos, and watch what happens, I guarantee if you demand either coach make 2/3's of the 23 U25 or U23, they kick Canada's teeth in, in Canada, tuesday night (though it is worth noting that Doyle mentioned on that mls podcast: Ramos made the same idiotic Turnstyle at central Mid decision after beating France in the QF's vs Ecuador, and the same sorta result happened, wonder if that horrible choice came from a phoner with Egg lol). It's Berhalter and his selection. Simple as that.
If he was really clever he would keep doing the same thing but sometimes at key games don't do at all what he's been talking about all week and what he usually does. Counterintelligence can be very effective.
So Porto, a team that dropped out of CL after losing to some club named Krosnodor, is the "highest level"? So Mexico has 1 or 2 players that their club team can't be without? Would Jimenez be irreplaceable at Chelsea? TransferMarkt has Mexico's squad rated at 173 mil. US is 153 mil. The mighty (and similar) Honduras? 10 mil. Costa Rica? 28. Even if you want to claim it's not perfect, the general sense of player worth is there. Sure, CP isn't worth 68 mil now, but McKennie at 25? Sure, that's just about reasonable. Adams rated at 14 mil, which I'd argue is a bit low. Anyways, again, we're much closer in talent to Mexico than we are to Honduras and CR. It's a valiant effort you're making to drop our level/potential, but it simply isn't the case.
I've posted it a few times. Not in this thread. I believe I've posted it in the "MLS should start caring about the MNT thread" that is in the "US Men" forum. I'd dig it up, but I'm tres busy today.
Porto (#16 as per UEFA coefficient) ranks a lot higher than McKennie's Schalke (#28) or Brooks's Wolfsburg (#52): https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2020 It's barely below Chelsea (#14).
Okay, my one big question is this -- what makes us think we will have a different result in Orlando when we play Canada again? We had pretty much our 'starting 11' (besides Brooks?) Canada now knows they can beat us and will be gunning for us again. I don't see how the 'home vs. away' thing makes that big a difference to be honest, at least not when we were outclassed the way we were.
In the Portuguese league, and crashed out of CL. Great. So take that one, I'm ambivalent. They have 2-3 key players, and by your metrics I'd give us 1-2 (CP sorta, McKennie sorta, Adams sorta). So they are marginally better than us with the nebulous "key players" definition, and slightly better when considering total transfer value. Still, we're closer to Mexico than Honduras or CR (or anyone else in CONCACAF). That's the point.
Value/worth ≠ Price. Price in influenced by several other factors, like availability (supply/demand), capitalization (how much associated value can it bring?), etc. Anyone who's studied economics can give a good explanation of it. Suffice to say that, in general, price is an indicator of what people are willing to spend on something (or someone), not on the utility of that something (or someone). A club may be willing to overpay for a Yank because the club's sugar daddy puts it as a condition, since he is doing deals with American investors and he wants to give them a show of good will (Bobby Wood's case), or because decent Yank players being a rarity, they want to open the market by buying the best of the lot, even if overpaying for him (Pulisic's case). If it were true that value = price, we'd be better than Chile (€80.85m to our €134.35m, as per Transfermarkt).
I knew that argument would come (it always does), which is why I said in general, it's pretty close and a decent (the best?) proxy. There is a reason Brazil/Germany/Spain/France have the highest valued teams. There is a reason England's team is valued more highly now than 5 years ago (and it's because they are much better). If Honduras was equivalent to the US in skill, but could be purchased for 10% of the price, what would teams do? They would purchase those players and play them, because they would help them win at a lower cost. They don't. Because they aren't as good. I don't need an economics lesson, as it's pretty basic, i agree. Pulisic wasn't ever worth 68 mil as a player, and Chelsea bought him bc they had their transfer issue and he was American. But that rationale can't be used across all Americans. It all balances out.
You need to pay more the more wealthy the society from which the player comes is. Otherwise, why would he leave? Since the USA is one of the wealthiest societies in the planet, the prices are inflated significantly. On the other hand, countries undergoing a crisis, which means the players want to leave at any cost, get shafted. Case in point: Venezuela. Their team has a price less than half ours, even though player by player they are better. It's like when your neighbor has to leave in a hurry because her dad had a stroke and she's going back to her hometown to take care of the old man for good. You can get a brand new 50" Smart TV from her for 100 bucks. The prices for our guys are inflated across the board. The only way to evaluate players is actually watching them play. Forget Transfermarkt and EA FIFA. I watch them play. They are not very good.
In his post presser, Herdman said he had discussions with Fonz about his general situation before deciding how he should use him. I.o.w., he'd need to know a little about the pool. You're probably used to the Berhalter approach: Here's the system, you fit in here and here and here.