Hindsight is kinda 20/20 when we think about this issue. Let's not forget that in the calendar year 2017 under Arena the US played 19 games..................and only lost 2. They also won the Gold Cup. Based on those results Arena was presumably confident that despite some issues with the existing squad, they were more than good enough to qualify with those veterans. Then when qualification occurred he'd give some opportunities to youngsters to win roles. [For an example see how he worked Beasley into the squad in 2001-2.] But then a bizarre set of circumstances led to his downfall. After demolishing a much better team in Panama (that game wasn't close)...............we lost to a T&T "B" team. [In fact we beat Panama and Honduras at home by a combined 10-0...............and drew with them both on the road. We also drew at the Azteca lest we forget.] We still could have qualified automatically, but two other results inexplicably went against us. Honduras beat Mexico and Panama beat Costa Rica. Basically we needed all three results to go against us, and they did. Arena's inability to accept any of the responsibility makes him look delusional, however. If he said what I've said above, and then said "but we didn't get the job done in T&T. It was my job to get the squad ready for that game, and they weren't. I accept the responsibility." if he'd done that, maybe in fact there'd be less anger directed at some of the players. I don't think that anger is actually helpful moving forward.
Inexplicable and bizarre are wrong adjectives. Sorry. Lower ranked teams beat higher ones all the time when only the lower ranked ones have something on the line. Happens in all sports. Especially at home, like with the match ups on CONCACAF WCQ Matchday 10.
This would mean we didn’t learn anything fro 2004/05. We didn’t play anybody in 2017 outside of the game at Azteca. We never looked like a quality team in that time period and focusing just on the Tirinidad game misses the full picture. They played incredibly poorly in 3 of the last 4 games. Arena to a team that was in a bad spot going into 2017 and made it worse. He eliminated useful players and refused to integrate new players that could help. We seemed to luck out getting a draw late in the Honduras game that we looked dreadful in, but probably would have been better off losing that game. The plan against Trinidad should have been to bury them in the first 15 mins and never let them build any confidence to think they belonged on the field with us. We looked as crappy in the 2017 GC as the 2015 one, except Arena called in the Calvary to ensure we win a tournament that doesn’t mean a thing in the grand scheme of things.
I think reasonable people can honor how Arena handled the, "Emergency, Release," lever in the first seven months of the year. The performance of the team in those games wasn't fantastic, but it was nearly the best one could have expected for, going undefeated including a trip to Azteca. The problem in the end, may have been that Gold Cup, which caused perhaps the staff and the players to relax far too much for their own good. A 3-2 win against Martinique at home? Seriously? Needing to call in the stud reserves for knockout games when we never even had to play Mexico? But the key element is what happened in the last 4 games with the US turning in 3 horrifically bad performances. In all the coverage of T&T and the hideous disaster at home against Costa Rica there's been a lack of attention to the atrocity at Honduras, in which a team that we played off the field 6-0, spend 85 minutes making us look like dog mess on their home grounds. Historically we struggle with Honduras on the road. It's not exactly a fun, nor friendly place to play, but it isn't Azteca either, and the road situation doesn't justify us playing about 10000x inferior to a performance we put together six months earlier. The team that got played off the field in Honduras, humiliated in T&T and pounded at home against Costa Rica was a total embarrassment to the good new of USMNT soccer. That team had no business playing in a losers bracket in June, let alone a World Cup, but there they were, just two months after hauling in another meaningless (almost) off year Gold Cup title. What the hell happened? How much was on Arena? How much was on the veterans? How much was on the Euro's Arena keeps throwing under the bus? How much was on the captain who gets no blame EVER for captaining a squad to three of the most embarrassing Hexagonal performances any of us have ever seen, not including the two humiliations in late 2016?
This is what really bothers me about this article: Bruce had months and months to identify and remove the 'bad eggs.' Howard in his interview said "I don't know what he's talking about" If you can't name them or identify them, then guess who it is: It's You! The old adage that if you can't identify the A-hole in the group, it's you. For me, the connection is crystal clear. Sunil, Bruce, Michael Bradley. Leader of the organization. Steps down. Manager of the team Steps down. Captain of the team. Goes silent. Yedlin. Pulisic. Everyone else: thanks.
Although you are right that Arena's refusal to accept any responsibility makes him delusional, the rest of this post is just a bunch of meaningless Klinsmann style word salad. He had ample time and opportunity to drop players and pick new ones, he wasted his chances and made the wrong calls, not because of circumstances, because of his own failings. No one gives a flying F about the meaningless Gold Cup he screwed it up, in actuality winning it is a mark against Bruce, because we wasted time on known quantity vets who could have been getting much needed rest at the expense of breaking in new players. Bruce had one godamn job, one. He knows it, you know and it we all know it. He failed comprehensively and is now blaming everyone else for his own personal failure, period.
Largely against utterly mediocre competition. And I remember a number of people pointing that out and the apparent issues we saw yet that was ignored because "results", despite the actual results not being all that impressive. 0-0 vs Serbia's C team 1-0 vs Jamaica's B/C team 1-1 at Panama where we were awful and it was a brief moment of magic from Pulisic which even got us a point 1-1 vs Venezuala's B team, only due to a Pulisic goal Another 1-1 draw vs Panama 3-2 vs Martinique where our midfield was thoroughly outplayed We in fact were so poor to start the GC that Arena tossed his plan to play youth aside and brought in the vets, the only coach in the entire tournament to do so. What we can take from this is that the GC is such a poor level of play that it's not a barometer for WCQing or non-CONCACAF success. But there were warnings all over the place in 2017. During the spring Pulisic played a hand in 8 straight goals, suggesting he literally, at 18, was our entire key to success and without him we had little to nothing. What 2017 showed is we were largely on the level of T&T and Panama. We could not beat Panama in either match. We played T&T twice. Beat them 2-0 at home and lost 1-2 away. Pulisic scored all three goals. Our entire player pool outside Pulisic could not muster a single goal vs T&T over 180+ mins. An 18 yr old was the only reason we even finished 5th in the Hex. Take him out and that 2-0 win at home vs T&T is likely a lifeless 0-0 draw and an 0-2 loss away.
The team that understood our weakness best was Costa Rica. They were set up perfectly to exploit Arena's foolish vertically stretched formation. Honduras was always a team which played down our sides so putting Zusi in at rb was idiotic. Just look at the goals they have scored on us over the last few years (U23's included). Remember Chandler @ SPS? Edit: b.t.w., Colombia must have watched those Honduras films because they beat our u23's the same way, victimizing K.Acosta then Payne for crosses into the box. Of course, playing wide is also meant to defend because it gives a team more time to get back on defense when the ball is lost on the sides in the attacking end.
Maybe Bshredder can help me out on this one but I believe our midfield consistently received highest grades from the media. Dioktef used to publish a consensus media rating on these boards but I don't know where we would find them.
Arena likes to blame them foreigners and them Euros. Here's what I see when looking thru the Hex results. Vs Panama in the 1-1 draw, it was a Pulisic solo effort which produced Clint's goal. Without Pulisic this is a 0-1 loss. Vs T&T at home, Pulisic scored both in the 2-0 win. Without Pulisic that's a 0-0 draw. Vs Honduras away, it was a late Wood goal which rescued a point after all Euros were benched outside Pulisic. Without Wood it's a 0-1 loss. The above suggests without them foreigners and without them Euros, we'd have finished the Hex on 8 points instead of 12. And with the above it would mean Panama would have finished with 15 points, T&T with 7 and Honduras with 15. So a revised Hex table without them foreigners and Euros would have been Mex 21 Cor 16 Pan 15 Hon 15 USA 8 T&T 7 with a -1 goal difference instead of +4 as Wood scored the lone goal vs Mex in Columbus. Actually a -4 goal difference given Pulisic's performance in that thrashing of Honduras. So without two players with zero connection to our domestic league our player pool in results is basically T&T but nothing has to change.
When I hear people say nothing needs to change, I just want to scream! The USA has been underperforming for many years! With the resources the USA has, we should be a top 10 side every year! We should cakewalk through CONCACAF. Not qualifying for the World Cup is the ultimate failure. The current people in power are clueless. We need fresh blood and new ideas. We need organization. We need to minimize pay to play. We need a street soccer culture. We need a viable alternative to college soccer.
And yet we have the 'how much can Bruce be held accountable?' and 'was it just the old guys fault?'. Bruce Arena wrapped himself up with old chums he was comfortable with. He didn't have to play a bunch of washups. But he did. It was his call.
That's something that does need to change, but I agree that that particular point is not for the USSF. Although, thinking outside of the box, there are things the USSF could do to help this, as well.
People seem to be projecting their fantasies of how soccer should exist in this country on the election of this nonprofit organization that has no control over the vast majority of what goes on in this country, soccer-wise.
Did I say anything remotely close to that? No. First, my original post was not just about the USSF. It was about what needs to change for the USMNT to achieve greater success. Second, one initiative the USSF could do is to encourage more "free play" pickup games and broadcast that message down to the youth leagues. There already exists a National Curriculum and a Player Development Model. There are already many guidelines for youth coaches. I hold several USSF coaching licenses. I know this. This could be one more initiative. But it's going to take more than this to raise the play level of our youth.
What struck me about this cycle was how Beasley thought it was time to retire and did announce his retirement but both Klinsmann and Arena kept calling him in, over and over again.
Maybe we should move past this argument and give people credit for understanding some of the basic facts of life. I know there are interests who want to keep USSF under their thumb and the way to do that is to say it doesn't matter, "nothing to see here, we've got this, mind the yellow tape..."
sweet lord, the double. italian from philly. just joined. I suppose you really have nothing to do this summer, buddy except ask for more sauce in your pasta.
What Bob Doyle does not address in that article is that MB as a DM cannot sit in a 4 man midfield. It has to be 5. Which means you have to either go 5-5, 3-5-2, or 4-5-1. We gave up early goals under Bob with MB in midfield as quasi DM, under JK with Beckerman and Cameron as DM we did not. Then under Bruce it was back to goals down the middle. The one bright spot was the away match to Mexico, when Bruce actually played with courage (of course the goal did, was, shot from top of the box centerish of the pitch.) Those who say nothing has to change are almost right. Just one thing needs to change.
You would think so, but then you here people say USSF NEEDS TO END PAY TO PLAY, like US Soccer can subsidize the entire youth soccer economy.