If he comes back to MLS it won't be back with us so long as certain folks in management are around. Wholesale change would need to happen first which is a shame cause the fans would love to have him back home.
I was going to say exactly that but didn't want to get the hordes of Jozy fans to lam-baste me with how I'm such a hater and how come he's the highest scorer blah blah blah. He's just not at the McBride level, end of story. But then again, it's not his fault that the US hasn't been able to produce even one top quality striker in 10+ years since he's been out of the picture. Nuff said, back to GCam.
We haven't been able to produce a top quality anything in a long time, and Pulisic is our best hope the jinx may break. One thing about Cameron is his resilience, Guy's injury history is short for someone playing so many games in a very physical league.
What's said is even now at 28, he still could go to Europe and accomplish something even if he was only scoring in Belgium or Turkey or Switzerland. Dude could have easily scored 100 league goals in a mid-tier league. But you're right. Not all his fault. Just a shame he never had a tournament to make his own which McBride or others had.
He's had more games in a top division beyond any of our other top defenders. More than Gooch or Boca for sure. More than Brooks (but I'm sure Brooks will soon surpass that). I've a feeling Cameron is gonna be super overlooked ala Cherundolo.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/geoff-cameron-what-must-change-in-u-s-soccer/ A pretty damning write up from Geoff calling out Arena and his tactics. Plus the cronyism within US soccer we all know is happening and he just validated it. And the "divide" between MLS and euro usmnt players.
I don't think they'd offer him a contract even if he inquired. I don't think he'd think for a second about looking at any offer as long as the current team president (and some others) are there, no matter how many 0s in the deal. His outspokenness over SM is just 1 of many reasons why. I don't think his thoughts on Arena factor much in that. But it probably doesn't help.
Ah, you ain't seen hate till you lived through the days of McHead... lol. "The older I get, the faster I ran as a child..." (and I was a huge McHead defender back in the day, for the same reason I'm a huge Jozy defender today: some folks like to "misremember" how the game is played, just 'cause their "guy" is not helping them win bar fights with German national team supporters...)
I think most of the threads/posts were "pre crash" but McBride (disparagingly known as "McHead" by one poster in particular) got a lot of stick from USMNT fans for not scoring enough for the national team. That same poster went so far as to wager his screen name on McBride's failure, but there was a lot of criticism of Brian for playing too far away from the goal, not scoring enough etc. etc by other US fans, esp going in to 1998 and 2002. Fans rarely questioned his heart, but he was very roundly attacked alot for not being that good a football player... While he was almost always really admired at the clubs he played - particularly because he was a battler, and in the end a fairly consistent scorer - the USMNT/Big Soccer crowd was less universally enamored and there was a pretty loud USMNT anti-McBride contingent.
But his goal-scoring rate is 1 goal every 3 NT matches. Were fans so spoiled back then? Not too mention scoring in actual tournaments called World Cup
McBride goal per cap rate is 0.32, a bit under 1 goal every 3 games. By comparison, Altidore's is 41/110, that is 0.37 --better than Brian's. And you see how people hate Altidore around here...
Yep. It's never enough for some folks... Critics were he wasn't a "true" 9. He played too far back. The biggest criticism - and with some truth to it, is he was not always as effective as a single-striker as he was in 2 and we tried to play 4-5-1 (and 4-6-0) a lot during McHead's time. But really the critics were mostly just because he played an "ugly" game - lots of heart, head, lay-offs, flick-ons. He wasn't "footbally" enough for some.
That's kind of naive man. If you read his article you realize that the problems is systemic. If I'm a top euro coach, or recruiter, why am I going to bust my butt to get a US player when I have to fight his coaches, parents, immigration, MLS, etc when I can go to any team in EU or Africa or Latin America where they are far more cooperative and the kids are coached the right way from day one? Geoff spells that out very clearly.
I don't know if Geoff reads these boards but I'm extremely proud of him for writing this. He will be buried, vilified, and ostracized from US soccer and he knew it and he did it anyway. Why? Because he told the truth.
It's not just that. To be blunt, the majority of Yank players have the touch of a drunk giraffe compared to what you can get from Western Africa & Eastern Europe, not even mentioning South America. Why would you buy a guy who traps a ball in such a way that it rolls 3 feet off his feet, when you can get a Ghanaian or a Czech who keeps it within 10 inches, or a South American who keeps it glued to his boot? That's important. Ball control/reception need to improve radically to make our players interesting to Euro clubs. If your first touch is mediocre, everything that follows comes with a handicap.
Whatever we think, the divide and perception of some in the locker room clearly agree. Pulisic retweeted the article after already saying some of the same himself in his article. It would be interesting if he was vilified and ostracized for his opinions as our best player with many years in front of him appears to largely agree and I expect will become more and more outspoken as he gets older. I don't see a 22/23 yr old Pulisic biting his tongue. Man, not to get too off topic but if our next coach brings any of the same anti-foreigner/Euro sentiments, I expect a mini-war to break out in the locker room. Pulisic won't stand for it. He just missed out on a WC because of it.
Not to get into the details of what nation/continent is blessed with the best touch, I'd just point out there have been plenty of "Euro clubs" who find US and/or MLS players interesting. A simple look at any internet list pulls up loads of US/MLS players who have actually gone to "Euro clubs." There are just as many, if not more, who have had offers and not gone or had interest but the club or player realized the move was not worth pursuing. Like players from many countries, US or non-European MLS players have a some serious structural problems that complicate their transfers and could easily make a Euro team feel their scouting resources are not best spent there. Top among these are: 1) Legal barriers to work: WP in England/Wales. Minimum fees in Netherlands, Foreign player limits in other leagues. 2) MLS barriers to transfers/MLS being competitive on the salary level for higher level players. So sure, a Colombian or Honduran player has the same barriers. But it's clear when you look at who does transfer often having a Euro passport is a big part of the math. (And it would be interesting to look at how the US compares to other non-Euro nations on a transfer # and fee basis. Some countries clearly crush the US without even bothering to count, but after the top 10 or so, I wonder how the US fares?) While I don't doubt US and/or MLS players would benefit from improving their touch (who wouldn't) it is also true that other factors affect the market for US players mor than, for example, a Czech player (euro passport) or Ghanian player (Ghanian league, in general cannot offer competitive pay for upper-tier players the way MLS can.)
And all those are things I've remarked in other posts. However, the lack of actual interest --not just "rumors" usually initiated by the US pundits anyway-- is, IMO, based first and foremost by the lack of ball control. Add to that the lack of passports, the high price, and the reputation of MLS to make things hard, and you get the worst possible scenario.
I agree with this from the first instance. If you cant control yourself, you cant control the ball. If you cant control the ball, you cant control the game. The end. Latin kids, I've said this before and was ridiculed, they are taught from day one to dribble, soccer is dribbling. Once they have that skill, the rest kind of falls in place, the touch on passes, spin, trapping, then you work on doing everything at speed and there it is. With the US players I am genuinely astounded by how guys like Joe Gyau and others can be such god awful soccer players. What were they doing all that time?