Here's my preferred roster for upcoming Euro friendlies in November. Almost all euro players. Others depend on how MLS playoffs shake-out. Big wants in bold. G: Steffen, Guzan, Horvath CB: Brooks, Miazga, Ream, CCV. RB: Yedlin, Chandler (yes, bring him back!) LB: Fabian Johnson, Robinson. Yes, we need Fabian. CM: Mckennie, Morales, Hyndman, Parks, Stanko. W: Pulisic, Weah, Green, Amon, Saief, Manneh F: Wood, Sargent, Novakovich, Theoson-Siebatchu. Please No: Altidore, Bradley, Cameron, Lichaj. Consider: Holmes, de la Torre, Gall, Sabbi
Acosta is a lot like Adams. Bring them both in. Roldan is a lot like Wes. Bring them both in. Delgado and Parks are similar. Bring them both in. sargent and wood are in competition for the 9. Bring the..... Pulisic and Weah are potentially our best non 9 goal scorers. That's our attacking 5. Now for the defending 5: they say Canouse is the guy not Trapp. Bring them both in. They say Yedlin is getting complacent. Cannon (Lima?) is not. Miazga and Brooks not the pair after all? There's always CCV and Parker. Robinson is getting burned too many times. Would Bello ? Steffen is good but they say that Klinsmann guy has great feet. That's all folks!!!!!!!!!!!
They don't really play the same position. Trapp is a true 6, Canouse is a two-way midfield workhorse that probably would come closer to Acosta's role last night. (United starts Junior Moreno in a role more similar to Trapp's.)
I've always felt that Canouse is in the Beckerman role. Everyone can play different roles but he may be the only one in the pool who can be that single defensive mid destroyer. He and McKennie are the two biggest scrappers also. Maybe good to have both in away CONCACAF games as scrappy is an imperative. Leave the technical guys for home games.
We don't do that with him in DC, and if we did play with that line-up, Moreno seems more suited to it than Canouse. Canouse is a lot more mobile over the course of a game than a Beckerman, but on the other side he is usually not as careful with his positioning and/or the ball as peak Kyle (or as Wil Trapp). You could always play with two 8s on the pulley system. Or you could theoretically play them both and have a Tyler Adams sit behind as a true 6. I do think he'd bring a stiffer spine and more presence than someone like Delgado did last night.
I think everyone forgets Beckerman wasn't Beckerman until he was with his third team Utah. He started off as an attacking mid in youth teams and early MLS (Miami) and maybe even his first few years with Colorado. He started transitioning to more defensive player there and Colorado decided they could trade him since they already had Mastroeni. One thing about him that Charlie Davis also had was they both wrestled in their youth. I think this or maybe martial arts would be a worthwhile pursuit for our players for alternate training as it makes them extremely hard to move off the ball. Too many of our guys get rag-dolled around.
Fair. Although Beckerman, even in those days, wasn't at all fast, and you wouldn't have thought of him getting to WC level in that role. Agreed, and agreed that Trapp is one of the guys who fits that description. It wouldn't be bad to find someone with more steel to play that role. And maybe Canouse could do it, but I think there'd be a real transition involved, and you'd have to put some time into it.
Time is the thing the US has the most of. The older players aged out, the peak age players are a missing generation and 21-22 and younger show a lot of potential but have little experience. At least the young ones will keep getting better.
G: Steffen (if he is moving), Horvath, Klinsmann, Scott CB: Brooks, Miazga, Ream, CCV, EPB RB: Yedlin, Hines-Ike, Moore LB: Robinson, Fossey CM: Mckennie, Morales, Hyndman, Adams (if available), Williams, Green, LDLT W: Pulisic, Weah, Amon, Sabbi, Gooch, Dest F: Wood, Sargent, Novakovich, Johanson (If available), Altidore,
Time to give the starting 11, whoever those will be, some reps all the way to the Gold Cup with whatever the system will be. But who am I kidding? We need to have the coach first. No coach, what's the point?
That is a long list at 32, but why not. I think we lose some of these guys to u20 wcq. I think the absolute must on this list is Hyndman. He could use the boost and the team would benefit from him getting the ball to the attackers. The only two other speculative players I would add are Akale and Gall.
total OT but Pickford has become a magnificent keeper from top to bottom' on perfect display against a feisty Crystal Palace squad. Excellent distributor, great shot blocker, very cerebral keeper. Wish we had a keeper half as good.
The three of them were never playing at the same time. Freidel retired before Howard got his first cap. It was really the period from 1995 to 2002 when Keller and Friedel came in their own and still had Sommner and Meola behind them. Be patient... Steffen is special and one of the other young guys will step up at some point.
Howard got his first cap in March 2002. He was in the running for the third spot in Korea, but Arena thought it was better for him to play matches in MLS, rather than be a third keeper and not play. Howard also served as the backup to a Friedel at the 2000 Olympics. Friedel retired in 2005 but I think he only played one match after Japan Korea in 2004.
Whoops... forgot about the 2002 call ups. My recollection was that he picked Meola to help manage the dynamics of the GK role. I dont think any of those three really liked the others and pretty sure at least two of them had periods where the dislike was pretty strong (pretty sure that it was tony and kasey). Either way, Howard was still gaining experience and reaching his peak when Brad retired and Kasey started to decline. I'd take Steffen today over Howard during his period at ManU.
GK: Steffen, Guzan, Bono DF: Brooks, Miazga, Carter-Vickers, Long, Parker, Palmer-Brown RWB: Yedlin, Cannon LWB: Robinson, Saief CM: McKennie, Adams, Canouse, Morales AM: Pulisic, Green FW: Weah, Novakovic, Sargent, Amon ....starting XI GK Steffen RWB Yedlin RCB Carter-Vickers CB Brooks LCB Miazga LWB Robinson CM McKennie CM Adams AM Pulisic FW Weah FW Sargent
What I keep hearing (and I freely admit, not seeing it) is that he's been a key piece in the turn around w/a shaky defense behind him in DC. Two or three years ago he was seen as a key central midfield prospect going forward. He ended up tumbling back to the US and became an afterthought until a spot call up or two since the debacle of '17. The sense I get is that he needs to get a long hard look at Camp Cupcake if for no other reason than being a potential depth piece going forward, but maybe a key asset going forward as well. If DC crashes out early (seems likely considering how low the seed is and how much playing at home helped the turnaround) maybe he can get a call up for England/Italy too. I think he has earned the right for a few looks as the next in a long line of hard men we've used over the years (Armas, Mastro, Jones, Beckerman etc). I haven't seen him remotely enough to argue this point with any skill, I just want to reemphasize what I've heard from people who have been watching in DC. Nothing would please me more than to find a guy we could plug in as the work horse destroyer in matches where we desperately need one. Like many of us, sorting out what the central midfield will look like going forward is confusing mostly due to: #1 Relative similarity/redundancy of the talent currently available. #2 Paucity of playmaking old school #10's within current group and within the top of the developmental system (seems like the handful of potential #10's we have are all at least 2-3 years away). #3 Developmental fits and starts of the kids bubbling up. We have more talented central midfield players than we have EVER had is US Soccer history. Despite that, though, we don't have guys locked in who we would happily start without a second thought going forward. McKennie, Acosta, and Adams, at the top of the pile have been uneven over the past year or 6 months depending upon the guy. Then you've got guys like Nagbe, Trapp, Delgado, and Roldan who seem more MLS than international, but still have a place in the debate (especially in Roldan's case, hard to make a firm and final judgement when you get nothing remotely like the opportunities guys like Nagbe, Trapp, McKennie and Adams in the past. #4 A very interesting group that's still years away: Thinking about kids like Durkin, Nyeman, Parks at various stages of development, of a. Gio Reyna who has played all over the place and could end up in the midfield as well, and those kids that have moved to Europe and are still, like Parks, looking at miles and miles of developmental road before they get first team play. Personally I would love to see Durkin being integrated at some point in the next 18 months. I think he's a very special talent. Ditto Nyeman although the road to the senior team is much, much longer considering his age. Park is stalled out right now, like Carleton, trapped in developmental hell, although Park has a quicker route out than Carleton. Personally, I'm very excited about the future but continue to see the present as something that will be perpetually influx both now and over the next few years, with kids bouncing up or down depending upon how health and their developemental trends move going forward, and also on how the youngest kids try to force their way in as well. I don't think anything at all is locked into place. Right now guys like McKennie, Adams, Acosta, and to a lesser extent Green and Trapp look to be the storyline in 2019, but 2020 and 2021 are owned by no-one. There is simply way too much competition in development to know how this story will play out but it's nice to actually have a story worth watching after nearly 8 years of a plateau in development.
Horvath needs a half. Gotta keep his morale up if he's gonna challenge for the no.1 spot at Club Brugge
Here's my recommendation to Dave, nay, suggestion - I don't have the credentials to "recommend", lol - Forget the 4141. It puts your best hopes of a goal too far out wide defending deep when they aren't really very good defenders to begin with (Weah and Amon?) while leaving your 9 in solitary confinement with nobody to play with. Let's go 3 mids across the back, ideally Delgado, Trapp and Adams. Let's put weah at the true 9, leading the line. Let's put 2 fwds underneath the 9 who can drop back to defend and pick up the ball. @ Wembley v England: -------------------sargent ------------Weston----pulisic ------adams-----trapp---Delgado --parker----brooks----miazga---Yedlin -------------------gk:-steffen subs: Weah, Wood, Amon
Without wanting to go far off tangent, I just want to echo the Charlie Davies sentiments. I remember how some of my first impressions of him were how big he played even though he wasn't that large, how well he could fight off a defender trying to use body position to ride him off of a 50/50 ball. Then it wasn't a surprise at all to find out that he'd wrestled.
Donovan always said he got his lung capacity from running track. Wow, if we could find a soccer player that not only wrestled, but ran track...we would really have something. I would think the problem is that you only have so much time to practice for any one sport. But its fun to think about it.