thats fair. my thinking is we have so few wingers in the pool who have been first team players at any point hes as safe a pick as any. i want to see him, amon, gall and wouldnt mind giving gyau another look but for now i think he would be fine as our fourth wing.
I'd be ok with most of this. I'd drop Bono for Horvath. I think he bounces back and has a great year and as a 3rd keeper I'm taking potential. Parker I'm meh on. He had a good good game but i want to see more first. I'm not too worried about the depth at CB tho. Morrow at LB is a no. I'd move Lichaj to LB and bring Chandler or Moore at RB. Not enough bite in the midfield. Not sure who I'd bring just yet. Tho I'd likely include Nagbe because of his versatility. At LW I'd bring Weah. The kid is raw but he looks like he has the tools. I'd also drop a CM for Fabian Johnson if healthy. I just don't think we can ignore his depth at RB/LB/RM/LM in a tournament situation. He wouldn't be in my 11 if he isn't on form. I'd be ok with the 11 but I'm just not sure the 3 have enough bite and might drop one of them, not Wes, for a more attacking option against weaker sides.
Mueller is making a move right now. Pretty quick, well put together, plays hard, plus moves, pretty creative range of passes, knows when to play simple. I think it goes Pulisic, then Saief, then Weah, then Mueller right now. Plenty to prove internationally for that final 3 however. Lletget, Rowe, and Green are decent hybrid options. We have to be innovative because it is pretty slim pickings in that spot. But unlike the previous 2 managers often determined, we do need to have a minimum amount of creativity on the roster, even if the players aren't optimal.
This is close to my 11. Trapp is intelligent, has grit and passes well but gets burned too often over 90' due to his subpar athleticism. He and Green are made to be subs. So at the 6 I'd put Adams, then Hyndman at an 8. Once Hyndman gets consistent minutes and regains his rhythm, he'll prove to be one of our top, if not unquestionably our top 8. I think he's good enough to play there now. Saief probably should start opposite Pulisic if he's fit & healthy. Unfortunately that's been too difficult for him, thus hasn't built any chemistry with our national teamers. I don't know who I'd put in his place when he's out. Weah I guess. Our wide mid depth is utterly pathetic. I expect Sargent to supplant Wood by the end of 2019. So in my view, Pulisic, Sargent and Weah with Hyndman, Mckennie and Adams is primarily our future, something we might see regularly by 2020. Hopefully guys like Parks, Akale, de la Fuente, Carleton, Taitague make it challenging. Siebatcheu and Tillman if they opt for us. It's a no-brainer to now move on from Bradley, Altidore, Johnson, Cameron for multiple reasons.
We seem to forget about Emo and ArJo, I know I do too often. Both are more skilled than many names constantly bantered about for forward focused players. Health is a concern with both but both need to be front and center for then next 18 months to see if we have to move on or not wrt to them.
I think people are forgetting that some young MLS players weren’t released so don’t forget that they might have been in these friendlies too. One I know a lot about is Cannon. Others have mentioned other right backs. Acosta at RSL is a left back candidate. I hope over the next year all potential players get at least a camp shot. No need to limit players like last cycle.
I've seen enough of Acosta to not get fired up about him. Lichaj maybe, Chandler maybe. But in 4 years I hope someone else is pushing Robinson on the left.
im not going to multi-quote here, so just a few replies... im a big fan of horvath, but im not bringing a keeper (more than any other position) to a real comp that isnt playing. id have him in any set of friendlies. as for morrow im not crazy about him, but he a solid pro who could do a job in a pinch. i trust him to be more consistently fine than villafana. im a hard no to chandlers involvement. i want to move on from our qualifying team as much as possible- i see the value of experience, but what i see is a lot of baggage. on paper chandler should be our starting lb, but weve all seen the reality of chandler and the national team. i see brilliance in weah but we have to solidfy our wing spots with guys who are ready now. if saief had a dozen caps and was completely integrated in our team id be comfortable with arriola as a solid bench option and weah as a HIGH upside sub late, but other than pulisic we have so many questions in those spots. ive only seen meuller once, so i dont have any insight other than sure, give him a look or two (especially given our forward situation), but not in this scenario. i love hyndman, and adams behind him and mckennie is probably my ideal/potential/theoretical middle 3, but hes got to get out of bournemouth. or in- either way. but hes got to games and i mean now. theres obviously a lot of guys we need to see, or see more of, or hopefully upgrade (i really, really want roldan to get a couple of matches in the deepest mid role for example). thats just my thoughts on a team for games that matter now.
O I completely agree. The premise of the 23 was if we had a Gold Cup next week and Mexico won the last and this was a must win.
I just have to ask why we 'have to' have known experience almost anywhere on the roster in 2018 when we're sitting at home watching the WC and the next one is over 4 yrs away? And when the majority of that experience is over the hill in 4 years if not now. It's not how I see it at all. We don't want an integrated team in June 2018 if it means more of the same. At least I don't. The whole next 2-3 years is to find exactly who is of value to integrate and who should be sent packing IMO. Patience is a virtue here for sure. And experimentation should be the order of the day for the time being. To me, winning friendlies and the Gold Cup mean nothing if you miss on the WC.
The only good thing I find about missing the World Cup is that now I am no longer upset about missing the Confederations Cup.
youre making real world arguments to a hypothetical discussion. my roster for the friendlies in sept would be a very different group of players. but ill add that lichaj and morrow are the only two players i have listed who will likely be "over the hill" by '22 (i fully expect guzan to fill the rimando role as 3rd keeper)- but more importantly no- we dont have 2-3 years to experiment anymore. weve had 1, we have 1 more. because the gold cup does matter- we have exactly 3 official competitions we can play in: the gold cup, confederations cup and world cup (qualifying and finals). thats it. so if you want to use one, next summer to keep experimenting- especially seeing as how we are overhauling the majority of our pool- then i wouldnt be completely against that (though you are raising the stakes and possibility of missing one of those 3 competitions). so i do think it needs to be at least the beginning of "integrating", finding out who our first team is actually going to be. and qualifying starts real soon after that. thats where i would take a lot harder stance against this "hey, lets throw out this kid who has almost 100 professional minutes so we dont have to see boring old wil trapp again" mentality.
I'm not singling you out for the over the hill gang. It's all too common around here to pencil in their MLS favs like Bradley and Guzan and Altidore. I hope Guzan is not a part of the '22 roster. He peaked years ago and it wasn't enough then. I wouldn't panic in one year either. again because I'm not sold on the old guard. And if they roll out the same roster they did in France we'd see a better product than the group that didn't qualify so I think we'll all like what we see in a year with the caveat being the coaching situation. To me, the GC matters if you can get all your top 23 to camp and play them but less so to win it.
The convo isn't about 22 it's about best 11 now. We have a bunch of young GK and none have proven or done it consistently. Steffen is looking like the n1 for now. Bono is in a good run but I think he is what he is. Jesse Gonzalez and Horvath both have high potential. Having Guzan as the older statesman of the bunch isn't a bad idea. He's a vet who played at a high level for a long time. He's still a very good keeper by MLS standard and seems to be a good locker room guy. There shouldn't be much of an issue with him as a n3 or even n2 with a young n3.
there are maybe 5 of the "old guard" who i think could have a role going forward (not counting the few players who had just broken in over the last few years- brooks, yedlin, pulisic etc.), but none i hope arent pushed out by mckennie, sargent, etc. over the next couple of years, hopefully sooner. but i completely disagree on the the gold cup. its easy to dismiss as a lower quality competition in a vacuum, but its vital to improving our national team. in the same way everyone agrees you have to move on from mls and prove yourself at higher club if youre going to continue to improve as a player we need the strongest possible international competition. we need our youth teams in the u-17 and u20 wc, we need to qualify our teams for the olympics. we need to win gold cups to have our team in the confederations cup. weve seen that play out both ways. weve seen our national team fight to winning gold cups, fight to consistently qualifying for the world cup, compete in a confed cup in growing to our peak. and since then weve seen youth teams failing to qualify for world cups, for olympics. weve sent b-teams to gold cups, weve finished fourth (FOURTH!) in a one, all while losing an entire generation of players and undoing so much of the progress in climbing the hill as far as we had. a friendly against france means nothing. beating italy in italy means nothing. gold cups do. drawing guatemala to win our gc group does. a confederations cup is wholly and objectively more important than any 6 friendlies. and the gold cup is the only way to get there.
I'm so happy we didn't have to watch Howard, Bradly, Besler, Gonzo, Chandler vs. France on the week end. What a crushing bore.
I agree with just about everything you wrote. Normally a GC is worthy of winning for the US. Nothing is normal in USMNT soccer right now. This cycle to me is all about rebuilding a dead program and making the WC next time. Hopefully the roster gels much sooner and the GC is winnable.
the mentality of the world cup being the only thing that matters has been part of our downfall. we have to start from the ground up, starting with the gold cup. im not looking at anything past that.
Really? I think Arena leaned on his 'big' GC results as if it was his focus. If you mean some fan mentality, then sure but then again we don't dictate anything on the field. My position is simple; every competition is important but one dominates all the others combined for national pride.
That’s where I wish Copa America could be a regular occurrence for us. It breaks up the monotony of good cups and never ending friendlies, and gives US Soccer a platform to capture the attention of the nation more than once every 4 years.
Copa America would have been the platform to go deep into the pool vs. high level competition in a tournament setting which would have been the ideal preparation for Qatar. There is always a question about how high an MLS player's level is when it comes to playing against top 16 FIFA teams. How well would Trapp, Zardes, Delgado, Parker, Adams, Carleton, Glad, Lletget, for instance (just to name a few), do when they come up against Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia. A test like that would have made picking a Qatar squad much easier. There's data and then there's better data.
To be fair to BA, one would think that winning the CONCACAF championship would be a pretty good indicator of qualifying out of CONCACAF. The gold cup team absolutely should have made third place in the Hex. TLDR: A team good enough to win gold cup absolutely should be good enough to be top 3 in the Hex.
We no longer need to guess, we have a best 11 from NBC for WC 2026 https://soccer.nbcsports.com/2018/06/13/eight-years-on-who-starts-for-usmnt-at-the-2026-world-cup/ And here's ESPN starting 11 for WC2026. http://scores.espn.com/soccer/club/...othy-weah-among-usa-key-men-at-2026-world-cup
Honestly would take them today and I bet it's close to 2022's roster. (yedlin for Lindsey at least) 2026 could be a pretty polished and technical team which would establish a new standard, forget how far they go in the WC. Play this youth now and watch the dividends in 4+ years. Loads of skill and athleticism in that bunch. Just need experience.