I would like to give a shout-out to our German-American brothers who always gave it there hardest. Even if they had poor games, they never quit. They always fought hard with dignity and pride. After watching Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley walk/jog in our most crucial hour, and have seen Jones play in a snow-storm with a broken knee, Boyd always going 200% when called upon, Chandler flying over the Atlantic with his flying phobia to play in horrible conditions, Williams never stop caring and showing great leadership vs Portugal, Morales choosing US over Peru, Brooks putting a tattoo on his elbow to show where his American dad was from, Green having to deal with the backlash of taking Donovan's spot when it was actually Brad Davis who took Landon's spot, Dooley setting the trail, and Fabian Johnson always showing such class to play LB, when he wanted to play midfield. I say thank you, and just want you to know that their many US fans that do in fact appreciate your time and effort to the American soccer cause.
They've been a solid group. -Jones has generally been a top 10 player for the US, as has Johnson. -Brooks was great in 2016, it's a shame that injuries struck in 2017. -Chandler... well, based on club performance, he's always been Best XI for the US since 2011, it's a shame that Klinsmann and Arena rarely felt comfortable enough to play him in official competitions. -Williams was solid in 2012 at his actual position, but then fell out of favor with Klinsmann. -It's clear Green was gifted a World Cup spot in order to get him to switch to the US, when it was clear then and now with hindsight that doing so was not necessary. I'm glad Green is salvaging his career at 23 in the lower divisions, as you can't blame him for Klinsmann's stupidity. -I hope Boyd can find consistent health and goalscorer form. And I think it's worth praising the 1 player that Klinsmann actually "recruited" from another competitive national team, Aron Johannsson. Although it hurt the team to hide and carry an injury in 2014, he's been a professional with the US.
add Wooten along with Boyd that need to seriously avoid injuries. It's a shame that Jones is done from the recent German-American group, he's done a lot for the US massive player whenever he played. FJ who is already 30 is likely the next one to be done. Won't last beyond 2022 WC, where he'll be turning 35. still they've contributed a lot, I still don't think the US would have made the R16 in 2014WC if it wasn't for the German Americans. Between goals and assists, the German Americans contributed to 4 out 5 goals overall and 3/4 in the GS. That's a massive contribution. well as the current crop are aging and getting closer and closer to go 30+ as most of them are already in the late 20s range. I'm sure a new crop will come out that will end up playing for the US.
I agree, and never really got all the hate. Most are children of service members anyways, and better believe no matter where my kids grow up...they’ll love the red, white, and blue. Jermaine Jones might not go down as the greatest ever USMNT player, but an argument for top 5 is definitely a reality. And, he ALWAYS had the most heart on the field. Fabian just strikes me as a more reserve personality anyways. I don’t see that as anti-American... I see that as he doesn’t like the spotlight on him. Granted, he started to fade when age caught up with him but for a player reliant on speed, that’s to be expected. Much of the same could be said about John Brooks and Danny Williams. Never once did I look at them and said they standout for not giving a damn.
Except for Jones, they've been a very mediocre group. Fabian had his moments in the '14 cycle, but after that he was happy crossing it the the rival keeper. Brooks has always been inconsistent, Chandler useless, Williams sub-par, Boyd injured, and Green is on his way to become a 2.BuLi lifer. Not impressed, sorry.
Fabian and Brooks have both been hampered by injuries but both have a positive impact on the national team.... in truth, same with Chandler. People forget, when Fabian was in the pool, for awhile there, we felt good about our left back situation. I get it. Chandler was really bad against Honduras a 1000 years ago, but damn, can the man get a second chance? I didn’t realize the USMNT was so good that a player couldn’t be redeemed after a bad showing. Boyd can’t do anything about knee problems... it’s not like he’s the first player ever to suffer from this. Holden? Williams is a solid but not spectacular but still offered solid depth. Not every player is going to be the second coming of Jesus. He still made the USMNT pool deeper. I’ll concede Green has been a dud, minus his goal against Belgium. But damn, he’s the German-American version of Freddy Adu, and at least he’s still playing. Ultimately, I just think it’s distasteful to dismiss these guys when for the most part, they had as much heart as any native soul born player and yet while a lot struggled with injury concerns, it was nice to once think we had at least some international quality depth out there. It’s not like these players where keeping the American Messi from seeing the field. With Fabian, we replaced Suckstein. With Brooks, we were able to not place Calamity Gonzalez so much. With Williams, we had a rival for old man Dreads. With Boyd, we were hopeful to not have to rely on couldn’t hit water falling out of a boat Wondolowski. Point being, maybe none of these players were “world class” but they were still massive improvements from the vanilla alternative.
I'd look at it like this: - FJ was a monster for us in the WC and we wouldn't have made it out of the group without his very strong performance. - Brook's high end (Copa) was as good as, if not better than, any CB that i've seen put on the shirt for the past 25 years - Chandler is clearly one of our best players in the pool and it's more of an indictment on our last two coaches that we couldn't get top-notch performances out of him. - Williams has the type of game that the US needed but was ignored in our rush to play an attractive/attacking style. - Green being a 2.BuLi lifer is about equivalent to the MLS portion of our pool. It's confusing to me that we pan German American players for being inconsistent and even uncaring but then when we sideline them for 2 games where we needed 4 points, our presumably consistent / big-hearted team laid the biggest inconsistent and unpassionate egg I've ever witnessed. Are these guys infallible? Nope - no one in the history of our pool has ever been consistently good. If we're going to be inconsistent, we should be inconsistent with players with the highest potential for high-level play (e.g., major leaguers).
I'm not talking about Chandler a long time ago; I'm talking about Chandler vs. Mexico & @ Costa Rica, the games that cost Klinsmann the job. And I'm not talking about Brooks being injured, but Brooks getting nutmegged like a dork. A false narrative is being crafted where all the blame for our not qualifying is being put on MLS players. It's unfair. Also, note how no one has ever made a thread to praise the Mexican-American players in the NT. I wouldn't, because most of them have been poor. Same with these German-Americans.
If Chandler is getting mad props for bothering to fly over for a game there's any number of dual internationals (or non-dual internationals for that matter) deserving of their own tribute thread.
Who's blaming the MLS players (well, other than MB/JA)? It's the coach who left a bunch of major league players at home. Also, the reason people are talking about German-Americans is because of the comments that Wambach, LD and Arena made slurring them.
As @Suyuntuy mentioned, most of the German dual-nats from the Klinsmann Era (I assume we're not talking about Tom Dooley, who I'd rank ahead of a lot of these guys, actually) were pretty marginal players for us. Nothing wrong with that -- most of the guys who get capped, regardless of where they come from, end up not panning out but we don't celebrate them or their good attitutudes either. Dealing with "backlash" or getting a tattoo aren't actual accomplishments. Jones and (to a lesser extent) Johnson are the only guys from that group that have had long-term impact on the NT and exceptional performances worth celebrating (though I think Brooks can and should be a good player for us for some time going forward).
As I expected some of the status-qou would sneak their way into this, anyway the point here is that not so much how good they were as players but the old boy network had us believe that they were not needed and a problem behind our flaws. But once Arena outcasted them we began to sink to new-levels and watched our american-soccer bred homer-boys walk/jog around the pitch. the false narrative was in-fact that this group was a "reason" when it fact after the collapse you begin to realize they were a major Band-Aid to our problems and were a massive factor to 2014 WC group stage Success. As far as the Mexican-American angle; its a whole different scenario. Most of if not all of the Mexican-American players were born here in the US, not in a different country across the world. The only American player who was born in Mexico recently that I can think of is William Yarborough. The first true potential great Mexican-American player just bolted the moment Mexico called. Gedion Zelalem, a youth German-American, turned down Germany when they called again to play for the US for the rest of his life. I would like to see the next potential Mexican-Americans stick to the US. That means Efrain Alvarez, Ulysses Llanez, etc.
Costa Rica destroyed us 4-0 with the lot of them on the field. Mexico beat us at home 2-1 also with all of them on the field. We managed a tie away in Azteca with none of them on the field, though. Your narrative is bogus, sir.
Frankly I think you and Eleven both have a point. I'll say this: the German-Americans salvaged our 2014 cycle. They also contributed very little positively to our 2018 cycle after Brooks had his outstanding Copa, and are every bit as culpable for our failure in 2017 as the MLSers.
One could argue that Rongen didn't adequately court him, that Sarachan should've called him for the Portugal friendly, and whatnot, but the simple fact of the matter is that here was a Mexican-American who was a regular in the national youth system, considered a star of that system, and yet jumped at the very first opportunity to play for Mexico. I think it's kind of silly to lay the blame for that one solely on USSF's shoulders. Sure, some of the blame, yeah, but all of it?
I wish we would stop blaming the players from either side unless the assertion is that one side didn't put effort out there (which I don't think is our problem.) It's the coach's job to put together the team and, for now, we need a blend of top-tier major league players plus a bunch of MLS/minor league players. That's our pool: we don't have the luxury of picking only major leaguers and we certainly have proved that a bunch of minor leaguers aren't going to get it done either.
From the first post this thread was full of asservation. Thats a word I invented. It means an assertion pretending to be a neutral observation of something obviously true
Who is blaming USSF for Jonathan Gonzalez switching? where does it this say this? In fact I was a core proponent that it was Jonathan Gonzalez himself through his own decision to switch and not USSF's. If you re-read the paragraph correctly (mean this with respect), you would see I am using Jonathan Gonzalez and Gedion Zelalem as polar opposites as an example of commitment to the program, something the German-Born Americans have shown to do.
Costa Rica and Mexico were the top teams and we played them against their full-squads. Without the German-Americans a year later we lost to a T&T "B" team in one of the most despicable displays a US soccer fan can witness. John Brooks got nut-megged by Joel Campbell but he "tried". He was bad, but he "tried". Jozy Altidore after losing the ball, walked, and his turnover led to a T&T goal. the point again is that; the German-American's never walked in a moment like that.