It's not controversial to prefer Wood. It's controversial to state that Jozy is just out there killing grass or the many worse things that are being said about his play and abilities.
Have not beaten them at home in four competitive games in four years. Could only get a tie away to them in the qualifier. They sit above us on the Hex table. Bottom line: we have no reason to believe ourselves better than they are at the moment.
It's possible. Their players may be better than ours on average. I say NOT too, but we're far from impartial observers.
Yeah, only 3 decades of better results against common opponents, beating them consistently over a longer time horizon than 4 years, and better players. But sure, they're just as good. Let's see if they can qualify for a World Cup first...
He really should shoot more. His goals per shot is too high. He also hits it so hard that it will create more rebounds.
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I think you mean three, all of them draws. Which involve some combination of US B teams and our worst Gold Cup performance ever in the current iteration of the tournament. Which is not unusual in CONCACAF. We just tied Honduras away after beating them 6-0 at home. Which is in part because they have two of their toughest matches remaining, while we have --on paper --two of our easier matches remaining. We have better talent by almost any measure I can think of. The arguments above don't really overcome that fact in my mind.
Yes, three times at home, once away. I'm just saying thinking we're better is not exactly supported by recent results, even if we used to beat them 6-0 back when Saddam Hussein was alive.
Are you really serious? A blind squirrel can see that we have better talents. The problem is the guys in charge of utilizing the talents we have.
Sure. Maybe he is the only one keeping the US together. Otherwise we would not have made the Hex at all. Or be in last place currently. In other words, things could be worse without him on the pitch. But only just. In the game of trade-offs, the second he decided he needed to play the 6, he was a categorical failure for the team.
In these last two games, Michael Bradley was far from the worst player on the field. I have no idea at what point the narrative was to blame him.
you didn't demonstrate anything. There was always a rotating door around him. Bob played Torres, Edu, Rico, Jones, Feilhaber, Adu among others around him. And none stuck, just him. JK found a good balance with DM behind him, but then you heard this constant never ending droning form the media and MB and even Arena...'he needs to play further back.' Great. How's that working out? He basically refuses to play the 8 now.
Sam, your revisionist history becomes tiresome, sometimes. Klinsmann did not even start Bradley at the beginning of his tenure, and when he did start he played an outside midfield position. Hoping you can provide some sort of link to this weird bullshit.
Each case is different but I've got no problem with any of them coming to the USA; if they did stay in Europe, they would have been bench players in better leagues or starters in leagues roughly equivalent to MLS. For example, MB's recent level of play is certainly MLS-level and not Big 4 IMO. While I don't think he was a key problem for us in this game, my expectation is that he should clearly among the best players on the pitch given that it was a roughly MLS playoff level game. He wasn't (but wasn't the worst, to be clear).
I agree with this (and furthermore, don't understand the personal vitriol that MB has always received here). That being said, this was an MLS playoff level game IMO and we should expect MB to be one of the best players on the pitch given that he's our captain and that we've built this team around him. I think it's fair to say that he didn't rise to the occasion. I'd be interested to hear what MB's biggest fans (a non-pejorative term btw) think.
I may have, at first, not cared for MB because I thought he was in every game due to being the coach's son. However, he won me over due to his apparent work ethic. He worked really hard in the European leagues and made a name for himself. I also have no quarrel with him coming back here and receiving a nice salary. What I objected to, and still do, is the fact that our team for the last 10 or so years has been built entirely around him. At this point, I do not think that is appropriate. I am not saying he should not play in the next two games, only that the phasing out of MB should begin. Maybe he should be regarded, as Demps, as a super sub. But we will never find the right midfield for us at this stage, if we do not stop relying on MB. BS is as much at fault as the coaches. Almost every post for lineups include MB and someone else. Of course, that could be because we know old timer BA will play him no matter what.
I agree with this - we've made a mistake building our team around him this cycle. It's hard for me to say this as I admire the young man's integrity and poise but his play hasn't been consistently good/great which is what we expect out of our "key" player. We need to find situations where we can maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses: I personally think he'd be very good as an outside midfielder vs strong teams (i.e., a much better Bedoya at last WC or a lesser version of Reyna in WC2002 vs Mexico) but I think I'm alone in that. Along that same path, I think we should use Jozy when we expect our other attacking players to play give and go through passes with him as the fulcrum. IMO, he does that exceedingly well. Conversely, we should use wood when we want a forward who is constantly making runs across the front, shifting the shape of the defense and creating gaps. Perhaps jozy is better vs. teams where we think that we'll have possession while BW is best when we are counter-attacking. YMMV
I wish we had someone better than Bradley and maybe if the coaches had worked harder at other pairings they would be ready but Arena tried new combos in the GC and they weren't ready. Perhaps had Williams, Dax, Acosta, Cameron, Roldan etc had more time together earlier some of them could be that great midfield we all want. Unfortunately we're all stuck with Bradley for the rest of this cycle unless he's injured.