Pre-match: 2018 World Cup Qualifying: USA vs Honduras; March 24th in San Jose

That's probably my XI, too. I've always liked the Y-mid for the US, especially with the overlapping ability of FJ and DY. Might flip CP and DN sides, although they should be free to do so within the match on their own. Fingers crossed that GC is fit and ready.

Would not be surprised to see Kljestan or even Lletget start over Benny, with Benny coming off the bench in the 2nd half.

 

Listening to interviews with Arena, I really don't get the sense that he knows what he's doing. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

I am preparing myself for the worst. Not just because of Arena, but the whole situation is setup for a failure. I am very concerned about the Honduras game. It is not hard to imagine Honduras bunkering the entire game and frustrating the US and then sneaking a goal.

While this could happen in any game, because of the poor start qualifying had, we won't be able to absorb it.

I am super scared and I don't tend to be overly pessimistic.

 

Completely agree. Arena is no miracle worker, in fact I think he's a pretty bad coach at this point.

I don't even think LAG would've had him back had he not took the NT job.

Is he better the utter disaster that we were under Klinsmann? Sure, but I'm still not sure that he's going to make the needed changes, and will actually do a good job with coaching. I hope I'm wrong.

 

Don't be scared, guys - Arena's not Trump, he knows what he's doing.

 

Arena could be the best coach in the world (he isn't) with multiple friendlies under his belt with the full team (he will have zero) and have the entire squad healthy (he likely won't) and still run into the fact that we could lose to Honduras putting qualification in serious jeopardy.

 

^ Understood, as I was about to explain.

Just because Arena knows what he's doing doesn't mean he'll be successful, so we have to be prepared for the worst.

Should the unthinkable happen and we fail to qualify for WC Russia 2018, we'll be trolled unmercifully on our own board for four years, unless we take proper preemptive precautions now.

If we fail to qualify, we need to immediately re-position our failure as a success, by claiming our intention all along was to boycott Russia (doping, election-rigging, Ukraine sanctions, whatever's handy).

 

Its going to be a hard task. Arena has to integrate his plan and the Euros into the squad with not a lot of time to prep.

 

Bruce needs to come up with a simple plan of attack and a simple philosophy of defending and communicate it clearly to the squad. If he does that, the squad will be successful. That was the biggest problem of Klinsmann, the lack of clarity and unsound instructions the players seemed to have.

 

If successful is making the World Cup then yea that's enough. But if we want to do something we need more than that. I'm still not happy about Bruce. I mean I get it. I understand the reasoning. Just still think we could have done better with the time we had.

 

Some names, please?

 

I have a list I want but that means nothing. No one on this site has a clue to the full list of people talked to or their interest in our position.

I'd have loved to bring in marcelo bielsa but for all we know they talked to him and he said no. My point was more to the fact that Bruce was the safe bet. He's held the position before and worked in the MLS with a lot of pool. But with a couple of months, a camp, and two friendies before qualifiers I think we could have gone a different route than that of the safe bet. Yes Jk was a joke and left us in a bad spot but those two loses weren't to bottom feeders of our region. It was Mexico and Costa Rica on the road where we've never won. Our next coach still has a fairly simple road to the World Cup though it will have less room for error.

I think we need a true tactician and that's not
Bruce.

 

This. All we have to do is be better than one of Honduras or Panama (ideally both) to qualify for Russia. We have more talent than both of those teams. If our players play at their average level and are given some sensible, cohesive strategy, we should come out in at least 4th by the end of the Hex. I don't think Arena is going to lead the USMNT into a new golden era of anything, but he should be up to that more modest task.

 

A little faith guys is now required

 

You are absolutely entitled to that opinion, and you may in fact be absolutely correct.

But for the sake of your own sanity as a fan, I urge you not to base too much of your opinion on the comments he makes publicly available. We've known for decades that Bruce disdains the show biz aspect of the job; he's not a Doc Rivers type coach (for NBA followers) who is willing to wear his heart on his sleeve when he talks about his team in public.

 

I believe that the most important part to any successful team, but definitions of success differ and are relative. The downfall of Jurgen was an unclear plan for his vision. I think Jurgen had the ideas and foresight to take us to the level you seem to think we must reach in 2018, but he was not a good tactical coach.

And yes, in this particular situation, qualifying for the World Cup is a success. That is imperative to the continued growth of soccer in this country. Bruce was hired to get this team to qualify.

 

It is not that I do not have faith in BA, it is more a case of him being a rerun. Lets face it, he was becoming stale as coach of the NT and should have been replaced after his first WC. It does not appear that he has any new ideas. I am glad he has called in Benny and some of the other potential players. I do, however, realize that this harks back to his previous days as coach...he can not recapture them. He needs to be bold. He needs to consider Bradley's role...if he is not cutting it he has to be pulled or not, at least, started automatically. He may have already warned MB, as he did not start in the last friendly. I think he will get us qualified for WC2018, but I hope there is a coach already lined up to take up the reins as soon as we have qualified. And, please, whoever this is...one cycle only!

 

I'm withholding judgement on the "new ideas" at this point. Arena himself indicated that there will be very few changes initially. Right now I think his job is to organize and unify the team in a very short time. He had the January camp but won't have the full squad until a week before qualifiers. It simply isn't the time for any drastic changes. we shouldn't need a complex game plan regardless. We have enough good players so that if we execute and keep things simple, we should get at least 4 points. That doesn't mean you aren't right but I don't think we will know until after Honduras and Panama.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say if Clint has started a Sounders game by the time the roster is announced he'll be at least on the bench for the qualifiers

 

While I tend towards this attitude as well - I call BA "old skool" - I think Bruce is emphasizing the importance of players playing together and passing well in midfield and if he does just that , with the pool available to him, he should qualify and that's what we are looking for at this stage. If we are looking for somebody open to change and experimenting with lineups and honing the style of play, we are probably looking at somebody like Vanney in the next cycle. Or Vieira or Puavonic or somebody like that. For this Hex I think Arena was the right choice. There's just too much hangover from Klinsmann to clean up for now. You could see things beginning to organize themselves against Serbia and Jamaica.

 

How on earth can you say that given the level of competition and the lack of our foreign based players?

We won't know any of that until we face actual competition, unfortunately. Hopefully he is able to get everything integrated and organized in the short period he has to do so before Honduras.

 

One of the criticisms of Klinsmann, I think I was one of the first to bring it up, was that he would play freindlies or have camps and when the results came in one would ask in wonderment "did we learn anything at all?" and the answer would be "no".

 

Well, I "wood" disagree with that.