Expectations for the Hex

Simply not true. Given our resources, it wasn't the least bit unrealistic to expect we could have hired a manager better qualified than Roberto Martinez.

 

It was totally unrealistic. I'll let you argue with FanOfFutbowl: "Given the top layers of US soccer I do not think we had much of a chance to end up with a good coach."

I'll ask again. Knowing that we ended up with Berhalter, would you have hired Martinez?

 

those mls players dont face bundesliga comp, though. thats the value. much less so for forwards- i dont think sarge getting 3 of his 12 real touches any given game even being in actual attacking positions does a lot towards developing him as a forward (leaving it primarily to training, where being on a garbage team IS a negative), but on the other hand defenders and keepers constantly being attacked does improve a player/separates the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

mids is just simply playing better comp either raises your level or shows youve reached (or exceeded) your level.

i appreciate the idea that being on a bottom-dwelling euro team isnt inherently "better" than being in mls/a lower level- but i think, in terms of players developing, its less who youre with than who youre going against.

 

The two coaches? are "bad" in different ways and at different levels. It does appear that Martinez is the "better" of the two BUT that does not make him "good" any more than any politician can be said to be a good person.

What I was trying to say was that we had zero chance of ending up with a good manager and THAT is what is needed.We need a manager not a coach. Coaches are often good for club teams but a manager, and a good one, is what is needed for national teams. Not a manager that is broken up into a lot of little bureaucrats like we have in the US, but one that actually has a vision and the personality and strength of character to put it through. I do not think that US soccer has the people that can ever put a proper structure in place so, no matter how good the players get we will always struggle to even do well in CONCACAF.

 

ill make my case for a martinez- two of our last three hires were ambitious in the sense that they were to make us more attacking, or possesive, or just "different", somehow "more" than weve been in the past.

i think what can make us "more" is better talent- and i think we have that. im not trying to open a "pulisic/adams/mckennie vs donovan/dempsey/bradley" can of worms, my point is weve got younger players playing at higher levels than we have before.

so rather than trying to have us play out of the back, or be a possession team, or whatever style klinsmann or berhalter say they can instill in players- that doesnt fit our player pool in any way- how does that make any more sense than becoming a better and better version of hard defending, hitting on counters, outworking and outfighting teams in the same vein as every team that had us on an upward trajectory until the early 200s?

we qualified regularly, became the top team in concacaf (not this "soild second best" nonsense that is seemingly the goal now)...and decided hey, lets play like anything but ourselves?

our evolution and growth comes from cobi jones begetting landon donovan begetting christian pulisic, claudio reyna to michael bradley to tyler adams.

where its not gonna come from is taking adams and making him an inverted rb hybrid. its not gonna come from playing bradley as a 10.

so to get to my point- martinez identifies the best players at his disposal and plays to their strengths. he doesnt try to reinvent the wheel, or keep up with whatever pep is doing this season. oh, he doesnt win the prem, or the world cup? neither do 95% of the managers in the world. but he makes everton and belgium a lot better than other managers with big ideas do.

the so-called "ambition" to make us anything other than the best possible american team has led us to where we are now. a national team sum far less than its parts, more "how can we best compliment bradley in the system" than "how do we maximize adams'/mckennies impact".

 

Are you at all familiar with his tenure at Everton? They had their two worst league finishes in a decade while under his management. As for Belgium, he got one of the two most talented squads in the 2018 WC to the semis. Forgive me if I'm not blown away by that accomplishment.

And of course you fail to mention presiding over relegation at Wigan while never managing a league finish better than 15th (where his predecessors, Steve Bruce and Paul Jewell had led Wigan to finishes of 11th and 10th, respectively).

 

Ok, to recap

Iad was saying Martinez wasn't good enough, and defends that statement, even though we ended up with Jay's Brother.

You are saying, it was clear our Fed would never hire a good manager (despite Iad's hopes) and that Martinez also would have been a bad hire, and you still think he shouldn't have been hired, even knowing Bertalter was hired.

In sum, 2 guys in the thread who say Martinez is a bad manager and shouldn't have been hired, even knowing that Berhalter was hired.

And, instead of responding to my assertion that he'd have picked Berhalter over Martinez, Iad accused me of "slaying strawmen."

 

i also didnt mention winning the fa cup with wigan, or finishing 5th in the prem with everton or that belgium have had a lot of talented teams but none got as far, mostly cause im not a biographer.

im not trying to convince you, or anyone, that hes "the" guy, just (again) making the case that hes a) not in any way a ridiculous choice and b) is a good fit for our national team in particular, moreso than he would be for some other national teams.

i was very clear that he/his teams have outperformed their talent levels far more than underachieved. a better or worse wigan, or everton, team 20 years before his tenure doesnt have anything to do with the players he had.

a manager for a club, or country, gets the players they have. you think someone who wants to change the identity and style regardless of the actual players is the way to go? ok, thats valid. i think you pick a guy who maximizes what he has (and believe martinez has in his career).

 

I wouldn't have picked either of them, you numpty.

 

That's simply not true, though. I can't think of a single time he's taken a team and gotten them to outperform their talent level. I mean the FA Cup was nice, but of course they got relegated that same season.

 

ok then.

 

But they did. And, the one you were ridiculing would have been a much better pick than the present manager.

Also - name calling: the white flag of internet discussions.

 

I should have ceased engaging with you once you rolled out that terribly faulty logic in post #93. That was a clear sign that a productive discussion with you would not possible.

 

It was a clear sign that you were dumping on a manager that would have been much better than the guy we ended up with, and you didn't want to say that. It's really easy, did we end up with someone worse than Martinez or not?

 

Good Lord. I doubt Martinez has an expectation for the Hex.

As for mine, it's similar to pretty much all the past ones. I expect to qualify, but it will most likely be a slog.

I doubt we'll finish ahead of Mexico, but it's possible. We'll most likely finish second, hopefully clinching on game 8, but more likely the 9th. There is real danger we fall to the playoff spot. We really shouldn't finish below that, but Couva, so.

I'll be doing my Elo simulations again. Last Hex before the start, I had the USA finishes as follows:

1st = 12%, 2nd = 28%, 3rd = 38%, 4th = 16%, 5th = 5%, 6th = 1%

The Elo ratings going in were:
Mexico = 1902
Costa Rica = 1819
USA = 1773
Panama = 1661
Honduras = 1564
T & T = 1527

(these are updated numbers using the current Elo site. The ratings were slightly different back in 2016 as Elo occasionally updates things. I don't know if it's different tournament weightings or what that changes them. If you want to relive a horrible depressing thread go https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/simulating-the-hex.2036224/#post-34721798 )

It seemed fairly safe with 78% direct qualification, and 16% playoff, but the first few posts there all rightly showed some trepidation. Coming in as third choice was not a great place to be in.

The good part about the 2020 Hex as currently situated is we are back up to the 2nd choice (as of now). Costa Rica has fallen off considerably, sitting more than 50 points below us. Mexico is almost identical, out in front, and the bottom 3 are a reasonable facsimile of the bottom three from four years ago:

Mexico = 1905
USA = 1721
Costa Rica = 1659
Honduras = 1630
Jamaica = 1582
El Salvador = 1484

The net result based on a 10,000 simulation run:

USA place:
1st = 9%, 2nd = 45%, 3rd = 25%, 4th = 13%, 5th = 6%, 6th = 2%

It's ever so slightly more likely that we get the direct spot, 79% to 78%. Coming in as 2nd choice is likely the driver there.

However, since our Elo is actually quite a bit worse now than in Nov. 2016, we sit closer to the bottom teams in rating. That drives a slightly higher likelihood to miss out entirely, 8% vs 6%.

The 4th spot is a real possibility still; we see the USA falling there in 13% of the sims. That spot obviously is a bit more perilous this time around, having to play two games vs. an up and coming CONCACAF side to make the intercontinental playoff. Then if they match us up with CONMEBOL vs AFC/OFC it's big trouble.

 

I do not think we have ever had a first time coach as horrible as Berhalter, at least not in modern times. As unskilled as some of our players has been the coach has been worse. I do wonder if Berhalter sings the Scarecrow song in the locker room, "If I only had a brain."

 

I'll say this.
Overall, scoring goals wasn't our problem in the last Hex.
In fact, we scored the most goals of any nation in the Hex. True story.
Jozy Altidore finished as the 2nd highest scorer in CONCACAF WCQing. Pulisic finished 3rd. Wood and Dempsey finished tied for 5th. On the whole, we scored goals. All of those guys scored more goals than any player from Mexico or Costa Rica. Absolute true story. And before people say "yeah, but we beat up on bad teams,"...........that's what CONCACAF is. We demolished Honduras and Panama at home by a combined 10-0. And drew with them both on the road. And yet somehow we managed to finish behind both in the Hex.

The issue wasn't even a lack of talent compared to our opposition. We had better players than Honduras, Panama, and frankly Costa Rica too. It was a lack of organization and also an enormous amount of hubris. And we never had a settled back 4 and keeper. We chopped and changed, chopped and changed. And that led to some good players not quite knowing their roles. Omar Gonzalez literally started for the CONCACAF Champions League winners and then looked lost against Caribbean minnows when it mattered the most. That wasn't an absence of talent. That was an absence of leadership and organization.

I remember Bob Bradley saying he thought his #1 goal when he became USMNT coach was to identify his starting CB and goalkeeping trio as early as possible. Then he gave them as many opportunities to work together as possible. [In his case that was the Boca-Gooch combo with Howard in goal.]

Right now I don't think Berhalter has that trio. Yes, Steffen is likely our #1 keeper. Anybody notice how many injury problems he's been having? He starts for the worst team in the Bundesliga when he's healthy. WHo's #2? I don't know. Not Ethan Horvath, who never plays. It'll be interesting to see who starts the January camp games. And I have no idea who he views as his "best" CB combination. I guess its Brooks, although he's pretty erratic (either awesome or a disaster against good opporsition), and mystery CB #2. Long maybe. I don't know.

 

I'd have to say that's misleading because we scored a lot of goals in two games that skews the picture. I think in the other games it was around a goal a game which is poor.

 

I'll say that having a mediocre midfield impacted offense and defense.

 

Apparently we're good enough to have a young LB get bought by AC Milan for 13M, who isn't good enough for a callup.

That makes us better than Panama, right?

 

Yes. But making it Hex relevant, are we better than El Salvador?

 

Copying and Pasting from the regista thread-

US goals for and goals against in the Hex.

---------GF-------GA
2002--11(7)----8(3)
2006--16(10)---6(1)
2010--19(13)---13(8)
2014--15(10)---8(3)
2018--17(7)----13(7)

The numbers in parentheses represented the total goals scored when the two games with the highest 'goals for' were removed. Likewise, the two games with the highest 'goals against' were removed to give the value in the parentheses in the GA column.

The 2018 cycle's team was uniquely weak on both sides of the ball.

source - wikipedia

 

The stupidity of Milan to not realize what a gem Lovitz is. Holy crap. Italians.