Adu has been an absolute flop at club level. But for the USMNT? He always seems to play so much better there.
As a matter of fact, Moor and Corrales were the fullback pairing in the 2008 Mexico friendly which we tied 2-2 in Houston. Moor actually assisted Jozy Altidore's first national team goal in that game with a good cross. There's been a few worse than them. Michael Orozco is lucky he somehow ended up in the box to scuff in that goal at Azteca, or else he'd be an even more infamous name than he already is.
I was in San Diego during that whole debacle. If there is a category for "flop" there has to be a different category altogether for what became of Leaf. Just goes to show, you can't fix crazy.
Orozco is infamous because Klinsmann started him ahead of more popular choices, but Orozco's play in those games hasn't been bad. In those four appearances, the US has allowed a total of two goals, one of which was an outrageously good finish by Mexico.
Brek actually has had a very good season as a professional, not to mention playing all of his professional career with a single club. To a certain extent, injuries have been his problem. http://www.mlssoccer.com/players/brek-shea 2011: A finalist for the Volkswagen MLS MVP award, Shea was named to the MLS All-Star team and MLS Best XI. He led FC Dallas in goals with 11. Five of his goals were game-winners, which tied for the league lead. Shea also added four assists. He ranked fourth on the team in minutes played across all competitions (3,446MP/41GP) in addition to playing eight games with the U.S. National Team.
Bornstein probably hands down the most hated. I mean even Clark can say he played pretty well in the 2009 Confed Cup and was a starter in the Bundesliga for a while. Bornstein hasn't done anything in 2 years down SOUTH
And he has had what one (disasterous) appearance in that same time? JB was playing all the time when he was getting capped. That is a lot of the reason why he played
Cronin's career got cornholed by Ruud Gullit's "Defense? What's defense?" approach to coaching. Hard to bounce back from a confidence perspective when your first season as a full time starter your defense is one of the worst in the history of MLS.
In reality, I suppose we were holding out hope that he would be the next Ashley Cole to come through Arsenal. There was a time an Arsenal reserve would have been royalty around here. Edit: The Union Jack clearly would then indicate Scotland as well and therefore would be incorrect.
I guess I have a different perspective of the situation. Interviewed Frankie years ago when he was with Wednesday. It was right before Mooch passed away because I remember he was in camp then in LA when they renamed the practice field at the Home Depot Center after him. You never really got the same feeling talking to him about soccer that you did with guys like Jozy or Clint. It was something he did, but never seemed to come across as something he was passionate about.
1) Steve Sampson 2) Fredua Koranteng "Freddy" Adu 3) Charlie Davies 4) Brek Shea 5) Jovan Kirovski 6) Jeff Cunningham
Charlie Davies is more of a crash, than a flop or bust. Sorry had to. It's got to be Adu, but he's still so relatively young that he could possibly redeem himself. JOB and Mathis are two I'd categorize as biggest enigmas. At their best, they were as good as any player we've ever had. If not for injuries, JOB may have made WC98, although he was pretty young at the time. He barely factored into qualifying for 2002 as he was often injured. He was healthy for Korea and was a revelation. He was linked with a transfer move from Ajax to several major clubs. However, he kept getting injured, and it also didn't help that he's a hippie oddball. Mathis looked like he was going to become a potential world class player in the buildup to 2002. He scored a great goal vs Korea, but attitude and injuries kept him from achieving his potential. I've often felt our flop in Germany in 2006 stemmed from the lack of JOB and Mathis. Post-2002, I expected the team to be built around those two. Bruce forced JOB onto the roster, and he more or less never played competitively after that. Wasn't too long until Mathis retired too.
Hey, would you happen to know the coach that produced the USMNT's most successful year based off winning percentage?
No, that doesn't compute. Charlie recovered from that accident 3 years ago. He couldn't stick with Sochaux, for whatever reason. Then he went to DC United for a season and showed some promise, leading the league in scoring for half a season, then fizzling out. While at DC, he showed as much proficiency for diving as he did goal scoring. Then he went to Randers and has only a few appearances and no goals to show for it this season. He has definitely lost a step since the accident, and we can't blame him for that, but it's clear that there are other issues holding him back from success. Before the accident, Charlie was the most promising American player since Clint Mathis, but he's done little of note the past 3 years, and is off the radar screen of the National Team. His National Team career is probably over, although it's still premature to make a definitive call. His sizzling goal against Mexico is now only a distant memory. Has he been a flop? You bet he has. And there are no signs he will turn it around.
Ah man, in the course of 24? or 42 hours we lost Davies and Gooch. I wonder how much better (possibly worse) we wouldve done in WC2010.
I'm surprised I haven't seen Justin Mapp's name yet. If memory serves, he was the youngest signing in MLS at the time, had a good amount of hype on him, and was an exciting young product early on. Unfortunately, accusations of laziness and an overall lack of motivation seem to be true. He could be very exciting when he wanted to be. He got a few caps, even assisted on Bornstein's first Nats goal. Never was the offensive force people thought he could be.
True! I'm assuming and hoping he doesn't get addicted to pain killers. I don't see it happening, but who knows? I hope he can become a mainstay on the US roster.