I was like you. I thought if I filled one out, I could see a results page so I pretty much just plugged in 23. Mine was amazingly similar to your, though. I didn't have Gall but they are pretty close.
With Bobby Wood scoring a brace today, its probably a good day to point out that if 3-5 young strikers emerge who can outproduce Wood at the BL level or better - by age 22 or younger, no less - it would be a big, pleasant surprise. That's my way of saying that even with so many promising young players, you have to expect some veterans to make the 2022 squad.
Honestly Striker has not been our biggest problem in the national team. Winger and attacking mid have. We had a pathetic amount of chances created due to the lack of chances created by our mids. But it’s seems as those problems maybe solved by the new generation
Even with our talented youth, we lack chance creators. Pulisic is the kind of guy who benefits from a chance creator more than he is a chance creator himself, at least at this point in his career. I still believe our best national team possible with the players we have in our stable for this cycle is one that presses on the front foot with energy (and what we definitely have a lot of right now is youthful energy) and lets the pressure create the chances for us. Our back line is more talented and more mobile than it was last cycle, and should be able to hold their own while being somewhat exposed to the threat of counterattack by the press.
Too lazy to check all but scanning through, this seems like the most prescient BS prediction with 10(Horvath, CCV, Yedlin, A. Robinson, McKennie, Adams, Pulisic, Weah, Reyna, Sargent), tied with the others listed below. Some really good call outs in the cuts section, too (Zimmerman, Long, Scally, Acosta, Roldan). Doug McIntyre got 11(Turner, Yedlin, A. Robinson, CCV, McKennie, Adams, K. Acosta, Pulisic, Weah, Sargent, Morris).
Looks like no one predicted Sean Johnson, Ream, Aaronson, Musah, LDLT, and Ferreira. 97531 giving us 2 on his own by predicting Wright and Scally.
Whew! Was worried I posted in this and humiliated myself. Instead I just went 0 for 2 for Durkin and Steffen references. From what I can recall, the only guys I would've hit on would've been: Striker: Sargent, Morris and Wright (Hahahaha), Weah, MF: Adams, McKennie Defense: Jedi, CCV,, Yedlin Keeper: Horvath I guess those would be them? Interesting to note how accurate a lot of predictions would have been by January 2021. But yeah, a lot of misses, as always, I wonder how much of it will change this time considering most of these guys are kiddos and so would be predicted to make it back again for '26.
There's this thread that is mainly from April 2020. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2022-world-cup-qualifying-rosters.2109665/ I got correct (13): Sargent, Pulisic, Reyna, Morris, McKennie, Adams, ARobinson, Dest, Weah, Roldan, Zimmerman, Yedlin, Turner Incorrect (10): Brooks, MRobinson, Steffen, Altidore, Llanez, Holmes, Pomykal, Duncan, Miazga, Hamid
Nobody being able to predict more than roughly 38 percent of the final roster at the beginning of the cycle is fairly astounding. (And keep in mind it would probably be even less than that if Miles Robinson and Chris Richards hadn't gotten injured recently.) I'm guessing we've never had a cycle like that before.
Also major props to Doug McIntyre being the only one to pick Matt Turner when he was in his first year as a starter. Interesting to go back and look at these as there are some real hits and some real misses. Also surprised at how many people picked CCV given that he was out of the picture for so much of the cycle. Also some great takes here and
So easy to monday morning quarterback now. Remember the USA was on the ropes early in World Cup qualifying and people were justifiably upset at how Gregg was managing the team, not to mention also very paranoid that US Soccer was going to miss Qatar entirely.
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/23-tickets-to-brazil.1734814/ For shits and giggles here's the thread about Brazil starting in 2011 (so they only had to predict 3 years out compared to 4.5). I'm obviously not gonna go through all those pages, but I didn't see anyone bat above .500 through the first 8 or 9 pages, best I could find was one guy getting 10 right. The Landon omission burned everyone, and guys like Agudelo, Lichaj, and Adu were expected to be much bigger factors.
We were in fact not on the ropes during any period of qualifying, and there wasn’t a window where we didn’t finish the window in the top 3 of qualifying.
Also props to so many people who went Acosta and Roldan, I didn't expect so many to have done so back in '18.
That's fair. I guess I'd forgotten how hard it is to predict a typical WC roster 4 years out. That said, I did find one post in the first few pages that managed to bat just over .500, so credit to Maximum Optimal for getting 12 out of 23 here 3 years out.
My memory is that cycle to cycle predictions have been high comedy every single cycle for different reasons. '98 to '02 because of the '17 U17 team. '02-'06 because of the litany of injuries. '06-'10 generational turnover and litany of injuries. '10-'14: 90-95 disaster combined with unpredictable collection of dual nats. '14-'18: developmental disaster '18-'22 isn't all that bad for predicting, I think around 40% is actually good. Most of us knew that the core would include some combo of Adams, McKennie, and Pulisic, and then be filled in by U17 and U20 stalwarts from 2015-2021, we just didn't know: #1: That ALL of the '15 talent U20's would fail beyond like Acosta. #2 Which stars of those teams would actually be the real deal. #3 that covid and injuries would change things a ton between 2019 and 2022.
This was a fun thread to re-read. 10/23 (or 26, I guess) from 4.5 years ago isn't too bad, I guess. I don't think I had enough appreciation in 2018 for the young kids, particularly the 2019 U-20 crew + kids like Reyna, who in fairness, was just getting going with the U-17s at the time. Shaq Moore looks like a smart pick now, though I don't think I would've predicted his wandering path to the World Cup roster and I remember I slotted him in to this prediction in 2018 mostly because I didn't think we had much RB depth behind Yedlin at the time (ironic given that RB is arguably now our deepest position along with winger), not to mention I kept waiting in vain for a different Dutch-American RB to develop -- who else was on the Desevio Payne hype-train?! Emerson Hyndman never panned out the way I thought he might after the 2015 U-20 World Cup and his early USMNT debut in 2014. And I remember Keaton Parks was very hyped on BigSoccer at the time, so I bought the hype. He's actually a pretty good player for NYCFC and has been deserving of a call-up at the #8 spot IMO, but obviously hasn't been anywhere close to the program since Berhalter took over. Most of us had John Brooks and Matt Miazga written in pen as the CB pairing. I don't think we could have predicted a 29 year old John Brooks getting blackballed from the national team, nor did many of us anticipate how Miazga would stagnate -- he's a solid CB, but hasn't achieved the potential he showed back in 2015. Also, up until 2020, if you would have told me that a 32 year old Jozy Altidore wouldn't be on this squad, I don't think I would have believed you.