Well he wasn’t fired after THOSE results. He was fired later on with back to back Hex poops. Just sayin’.
Wait - so you're saying Honduras players are as good as ours, and that their society is so poor that it costs next to nothing to purchase their players. Yet nobody is actually purchasing their players? You're trying to negate a point about total value of the squad, but it just leads to another issue contradicting your ideas. Argentina's economy is getting crushed right now. How is their young talent valued? You can argue all you want about any relatively impartial metric, fine. It all comes back to your last few points. You don't trust any independent metric. You only trust your eyes. I trust the eyes of people more skilled than you on evaluating talent, and getting paid large sums to do so at some of the world's biggest clubs. To each his own. And seriously - if your eyes are that great (and they very well might be), you should be running a club, since you could literally find the same, or better, players at 10% of the cost that every other club in the world is paying. That is legit value right there.
We need humility? I suppose... I don’t really see the cockiness on this board. If you think people’s belief that we should beat Canada is cocky than that’s fair enough. I don’t see many people saying we have World Cup caliber level talent at The ready. In fact, I’ve been called a pessimist far more often then cocky on this board
Remember: my main point is that with a better coach we'll be #2 in CONCACAF but 3-and-out in Qatar even if Jesus were coaching us. So no, not as good as ours, but close. A lot closer than the prices would tell you. Why would they? You can buy a Nigerian player for even cheaper and have 190 million poor people following, instead of 9 million poor people. A lot less than it used to. Still, Argentina in the middle of an economic crisis is significantly wealthier than Central America in a good day. Yes. Soccer is not the sort of sport that lends itself to metrics. Too many random variables. 22 men on a field and, unlike gridiron, there are no set starting positions. It becomes far too unpredictable, and that without adding field conditions, which are much more variable than in other team sports (including dimensions). It's not just talent they evaluate. Market price has several other components. Also, the ratio of flops to successes would argue against future development being predictable at all. No, it's not legit value. You want players that bring eyes to the monitor. You want players that inflame passion, that make people follow the team and spend money on it. That is not always the same as top quality. You can have a top quality guy that is detrimental to the marketability of your team. It's happened many times. Look at Neymar right now: top guy, but can easily be a marketing nightmare. Or Balotelli. Sports are about making money. And it's not just in MLS, but everywhere. You buy good players, and you buy some not-so-good players to fill up the roster without breaking the bank. You choose players that will put more eyes watching, that will increase the waves the team creates. The entire idea that "the best always get to the top" is fairy tale stuff. People in menial jobs often get stuck there when they are awesome at it because, after all, why would you promote someone who is good at what most hate doing?
It was pointed out that in the pre-game show, guys were saying "of course this competition is beneath the USA...…" To me it seems as if the pundits are far more decisive in their condemnation of present management than they ever were about Klinsmann or Arena. They are fairly unanimous in their opinion that Berhalter's system will not work in practice. Imo, USA is fighting for 3rd place in the Hex with Costa Rica and Jamaica as things stand. If we lose to CR or Jamaica and cop 4th, we go to the playoff which is not just the inter-continental playoff (we would have lost to Australia in 2018) but also a qualifying game against the team which comes through a non-hex tournament of "all the rest" in concacaf other than Hex (this gives everybody a chance at the WC). Consider, however, the team that comes through that trial is likely to be a team 'in form' and in a special place and if it's a home and away deal (you'd think it is) we could be playing in some unfamiliar climes. I can see why pundits are suggesting a serious consideration of changing management now.
It's like people don't remember that we were beating Mexico and better with well deployed journeymen,kids and a sprinkle of special talent. Does anyone think that Jorge Pinto wouldn't do better with the same pool and 1 camp? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_FIFA_Confederations_Cup_knockout_stage Look at the Confederations Cup roster.
in concacaf terms, there is uncaf -- Unión Centroamericana de Fútbol -- there is cfu -- Caribbean Football Union -- and there is nafu -- North American Football Union. there are 3 (obvious) countries in nafu. we live our lives blissfully unaware of nafu because our teams historically have been gifted passage through to competition finals. we didn't have to qualify for GC, we were sent through most years to the WCQ semis. most of the rest of concacaf would know this breakdown intimately, as it created the silos for GC qualifying. the countries from CFU and UNCAF not automatically in would hold tournaments and the top few teams emerging would make GC. this will be less relevant in the Nations League era. GC is now coming out of the silos and into generic pots. also, i think people down there would be mildly amused by being deemed part of us. politically there is CAFTA (like nafta). etc etc i think they also often hate each other, something we in el norte gloss over. wars, interventions, border claims. so many of the countries have a "thing" with their neighbors.
BS. If he wasn’t on the USSF Board, he could say whatever he wants. He was speaking with both hats when he spoke about how the two are “inextricably linked” and demanding that all USSF employees refrain from speaking critically of MLS. If he wants the freedom to do that, he needs to resign from the ussf board.
meh. houston made its last playoff semi off of being the hondurynamo. currently boniek figueroa quioto elis. lopez garrido escalante have also passed through. no, it wouldn't be an equivalence problem for the pick of their litter. they are definitely not worse and for a year were a competitive advantage. it would be more that the old ones are falling off, and the new ones are not carlos vela. we didn't finish last, but we also didn't make the playoffs. they are decent, but not as good as what some people spend on DPs. but that doesn't mean they suck. fwiw figueroa had a long career at wigan and hull. elis got bids from celtic and a turkish club that i think topped out around $6m. i thought we were idiots to turn it down. quioto has played in poland. outside of houston, garrido is at cordoba, rivas at reggina, najar at anderlecht, alvarez at norkopring. palacios was at wigan, spurs, and stoke. i feel like i am walking into another one of these "but where are the world class players" discussions, despite their 4th place finish ahead of us last time. one reason i am sure my cheap dynamo signed hondurans is they are probably cheaper for us than jozy, and not that much worse on the field. and they have them in sufficient bulk to finish ahead of us in WCQ. so the fact an american costs you more than a honduran does not strictly correlate to world cup success. it merely reflects americans are esteemed differently, not that our millionaires are obviously better than their guys. the point being you can get ahead of us in the standings without generating world class players who command elite salaries. it would help any team in the region but i think only mexico has them and that's why right now only they have a separate track. but it's pointless other than explaining that because some of the teams with less paper talent, cheaper market values, etc., finish ahead, which means that discussing how the rest of us are composed doesn't have a ton of predictive value. it appears to me that if you can field players above USL level you can compete with us right now. and a largely USL team took a game from us last time and knocked us out. who does CR have but kaylor navas?? i also think your argument ignores that a lot of this pricing discussion is more structural than like some inherent objective value. english players have always been expensive and arguably past a point downwards, overpriced. this is one reason americans used to be in demand. we were underpriced. i am sure you have noticed that few of us now go to england or scotland, and that's because within their work permit scheme, the quality required to earn the right to play there usually correlates to an expensive price that limits who can pay. thus many of the players there are dual nationals on eu passports that allow them to be there without being our star players. pulisic's expense reflects we are no longer a bargain. this has implications because spots lower in the EPL or down into the championship might be friendlier homes for playing time, but if we cost more like what english players do, the cheap player attraction is gone and it becomes a straight quality analysis. the best team in the world, lest we forget, is actually france. that was almost an afterthought in your list because the league is not as fashionable outside psg with their checkbook, and that's not domestic ownership. and brazil and argentina function despite teams that are financial messes. one reason their players ramp up in value is they are happy to travel -- so that paychecks don't bounce -- and everyone imagines they are all good. in my experience the two brazilians my dynamo could afford were no better than americans. which wanders into how it's really a comparison of cost to quality. the reason we are shopping honduras as a budget team is we can get a better player for the same money than if we bought argentines or brazilians. at which point hmmm were you suggesting such a thing as objective market value?? because $1m seems to buy very different level players from different places. what if pulisic was english?? would he still be in germany if he was german?? and talking up cfc's price for a player is a tad whacked because they just got in trouble with financial fair play hence pulisic only got in because of the sale-loanback thing. they weren't even trying to break even as a self sustaining entity. they apparently signed pulisic for fun only to find sarri was merely approving and lampard could give a crap. it's a checkbook team that loans out a second set of otherwise first team type players, including miazga. are we really holding up their #s? that really reflects something unaddressed in your analysis, that part of the game here is the auction style bidding of certain name brand players into the sky. and while you diss us we did have at least one player worthy of such nonsense. but i am not sure they could tell you why exactly it happened, based on the constituency pulisic actually had there when he showed up.
I am not a fan of Ream and have no idea why he is getting called in but I would say Long was much worse. He was pretty much lost at least 4 plays. All of them ended in shots with two of those shots being goals. In 15th minute, Roldan actually passes to their striker causing Steffen to make a save and ultimately they shoot just wide. Ream got back on the line for cover while Long looked lost and never made it back into the play. There was the time he late his get behind him and got solid toe out of bounds after Steffen bailed him. Marking space and allowing Davies to get on the end of the first goal. Not covering for Ream when he stepped in front of his defender to win a header. These are basic defending.
here’s a question for you. If our talent is poor relative to historic USMNT teams, who’s the genius who decided that now is a good time to institute a complex system that relies on technical superiority despite the aforementioned drop in our talent? I’d be grateful if you could square that circle for me.
give me a break. Our whole strategy should be to starve Davies and David from space with the ball at their feet. Everything flows through them - the rest of the team is non-descript. We should also have put pressure on their back line and forced them to distribute aerially where our defenders have an advantage. setting up mid block while somehow providing enough space for those two to move between the back two lines was stupid but I think that’s a function of Bradley’s limited mobility.
And that team will really want to stick it to the "Gringos" too because there's nothing better for the Western Hemisphere than to see Americans lose.
Talent-wise we're at the usual level. Which reinforces what I'm telling people: this pool is nothing extraordinary. And back then we had players who could elevate those around them. Now we lack that. Donovan and Dempsey were special players. Give us a good coach, give Mexico a guy like Chepo, and we may even have a shot to win another Hex. But with Tata? Not happening. We do need a better coach, at least. To aspire to that #2 spot. But I have no idea who'd take the job at this point. I'm afraid the guys more likely to take it are only a bit better than Egg.
You must not remember Marvel Wynn I’ve never seen a worse player in USMNT game... You could argue Lovitz is now number 1 because this was a game that mattered... funny thing is we never saw Wynn again, I actually liked him and he was a good mls player. they gave him a shot he couldn’t do it they never tried again... Lovitz keeps getting his chances.
our relative talent to Mexico is not much different than usual and we’ve managed to consistently play even with them/beat them away from Mexico City. our players historically (and Donovan specifically) played in a system that accentuated their strengths and mitigated their developmental areas. We have the exact opposite now even when we have younger players with higher ceilings.
Garber looked like an idiot and you apparently dont know the definition of defame (see below). Arena and Berhalter keep making Klinsmann's statements clearly true. The real shame is that MLS nothing close to what it was envisioned to be. That has hurt US soccer in so many ways. F@$$% Garber!!! Definition of defame transitive verb 1law : to harm the reputation of by communicating false statements about : to harm the reputation of by libel (see LIBEL entry 1 sense 2a) or slander (see SLANDER entry 2 sense 2)
As I said, Garber looked like an idiot (id like to use stronger words). This quarter encompasses what is wrong the game in this country.... Garber said. “I not only ask this but I insist that everyone who is paid to work in this sport that they align with the vision… And I don’t think the comments from Klinsmann did this. . . . I believe his comments are at odds with what we collectively believe what we’re trying to achieve together.
who are the good MLSers? I keep hearing about them and when Arena and Berhalter has loaded up on them, they have looked like crap. BTW, this whole post contradicts your opinions about the ridiculous bias for MLS players we are currently suffering through.
I like this definition. I hope you dont mind if I use it when these naive, uneducated MLS ramble on about first team minutes.
The league is crap. The people running it have no clue. They now claim to not care about the usmnt. Klinsmann was 100% correct and trying to hide that fact means that the league continues to be crap. Your theories are ridiculous. If we all act like MLS is fine it is going to get better? Competition is what drives improvement, but the league is afraid of it.