1. What does this have to do with anything? Even in Little League, where everyone gets to play (which is a good thing) not everyone gets to start (Also a good thing.) 2. The objective is not to win the cup with our second-best players, even if we could (which I doubt very, very much.) It is to win the cup, period. And even if you play everyone an equal amount AND you somehow win the Cup, you haven't actually given your players the real experience-- you have just shown them that their own contributions don't particularly matter, they wasted their time showing up. We have just seen at the hoops world championship the end game there-- eventually the best players don't show up, and the second best players don't show up, and most of the third and fourth best players don't and your above average players wind up getting their butts kicked by Estonia and Qatar...
We were one penalty save away from being tied in the 81st minute of the semifinal, with the momentum going the other team's way, but you think winning the World Cup was a predestined piece of cake.
but if you look at Argentina; they did quite well competing in arguably the toughest group in the WC. They lost just 0-1 to England and tied both Scotland & the former world champs, Japan but just a couple of months prior, in a visit to the states, the Argentinians lost 0-1 to NCAA 170th ranked, UNLV/ Which begets the question; if they would of beenallowed to compete)how well would of the Running Rebs do if they played at the WC? Or better yet, since UNLV recently lost to North Carolina, 0-8, how well the Tar Heels would of done at the WC?(please check those scorelines once again before answering) is this the men's side.....??? I used to watch the international scene until ESPN3 decided as well to charge money to watch them. I'm pretty sure the NBA scrubs only lost to France in the quarters & got 6th place overall. Apparently there's no honor for NBA stars to show up anymore as they won the last two major tourney finals (previous WC & Olympics) by near identical 38 point blowouts vs Serbia. the FIBA led WC has pretty much lost it;s luster as even foreign NBA based players didn't show up for it( FIBA #2 world ranked Slovenia's back court of Doncic/Dragic never wandered across the Atlantic for their qualifiers). Didn't the 39 year old Luis Scola won the MVP this time around?(conveniently since he plays in China) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'' guess it all comes down too; what philsophical side your on; there's no 'honor' in continueing to beating sides that are vastly inferior to you(which Ellis got wide spread condemnation with her Thailand win) or for the loosing end; there's no 'honor' unless you get between beaten by the best, playing their best
Of course, I completely agree with you, since friendly matches' scorelines are an exact science, that's also based on the rigorous application of the transitive property. In fact, if you remember, USA lost a friendly match vs France by 3-1, in preparation for the World Cup, in January 2019. But France subsequently lost to Germany by 0-1 in February! The same Germany that had previously been ignominiously beaten at home by Iceland by 2-3 in their qualifier group for the World Cup. But Iceland lost to Scotland by a whopping 4-1 in the Algarve Cup 2019! That's incredible, when you think that at the same tournament Scotland lost to Canada by 1-0. And what can we say, then, about Japan, who have beaten Scotland by 2-1 at the World Cup and recently defeated Canada by 4-0 (check out this scoreline: 4-0!)? Well, I'd say that if Japan has beaten Canada who won vs Scotland (and has beaten Scotland itself to boot), and Scotland had made short work of Iceland, who on the other hand had squarely beaten mighty Germany at their home, and if Germany had beaten France, who had given USA their worse loss in recent history... well, this means that Japan is much stronger than USA. And since USA are World Champions, I declare Japan Champions of the Universe!
You make my expectations of Olympic Gold for the Orange Lionesses jump like a frog that accidentaly landed on a hot platter
good debating points as I've previously mentioned, France is the best 'friendlies' in the world, based that they usually start 6-8 players from the same club, Lyon., whereas Holland doesn't look that good during these weekend friendlies or qualifiers due that their players are spread around in pro clubs, but you can see the difference when push comes to shove (in this case, winning a major tournaments)with the extra training & conditioning alloted, the Dutch(players plus soccer philosophy) jelled & proved to be once again masters of Europe. but I sitll think that even the Dutch look very lean ~~~ making Martens play the WC final with a broken toe(from which she's yet to recover) cuz they had nobody to replace her/coach Wiegman as well deferred from her successful, 'hell from broke' attacking style into a defensive mindset, obviously showed that she really knew in her heart she didn't have the firepower to beat the US and I do think that's the problem with Europe, as a whole their great(except for the US, the rest of the world under performed aka Australia, Brazil, Canada Japan), but as individual nations, they just don't got the depth to compete with the US. Even our cave dweller from Germany admitted that nothing compares to the mamoth giant that TITLE IX created, where the athletic facilities often dawrf even the richest pro soccer clubs & talking to college coaches, thousands of foreigners are trying to break down the doors, trying to get into it & away from their dreary own country's dreary club scene(where woso is treated as 2nd class) PS blissett, I noticed that coach K did retire from his basketball duties, does this mean I got to learn to spell players names correctly?
As long as the new coach is not Phil Neville or Gregg Berhalter, it could be worse... I think I might have preferred someone without ties to the existing squad which might have made the post-Oly rebuild easier, but Vlatko is a good coach with a history of team building and winning in knockout competitions which are both important qualifications. I hope he has free reign (no pun intended) to pick his side. I don't think the days are here where a US B team would win knockout games against good opposition. Certainly there are a lot of US sides that could defeat Chile and Thailand to advance from a group.
a fwd line of K Ohaj, L Williams & A-Rod would be stronger than just about any of the top foreign NT's out there. about two dozen Americans(none of them WC squad) went last season to play in the Australian W-League & pretty much dominated. 4 of the 6 goals in the championship game(and thats with AUS 3 best /nearly half of their NT as well, playing). Sydney vs. Perth Glory - 16 February 2019 - Women Soccerway Houston Dash scrub, Latsko, was the league's 2nd leading scorer/Nairm, perhaps the league's best midfielder(from her performance in the semi final for the Victory club) there's tons & tons of Americans who become naturalized foreign citizens/dozens of them played at the recent WC here's the threat with a slew of names Yank Women on Foreign WNT & WYNTs 2019 | BigSoccer Forum in one WC game, Jamaica started 7 Americans FIFA #4th ranked Canada started two Americans, both the main GK's of #3 England & #5 Australia were born & raised in the the states(those FIFA rankings might of changed since) Nigeria & Camaroon(both made it to the knockout stage) started 2-3 Americans. Arguably Thailand & New Zealand's best player were Americans(though both teams didn't make it past group stage)
Sports Illustrated: Vlatko Andonovski is set to be presented as the new USWNT coach on Monday in New York City. Story: https://t.co/vvFoBRX84X— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) October 24, 2019
One small correction -- almost none of the Americans who have played for other national teams are naturalized. Generally, that would mean moving to another country and living there long enough to be eligible for gaining a new citizenship. Only recent American player like that would probably be Jenny Bindon, who married a Kiwi and moved there. All the women at the WWC who were also Yanks were born with both US and another citizenship through their parent(s). We do see Americans become citizens of other countries where they play a sport (mostly basketball), but hasn't happened for American women soccer players. Becky Hammon took Russian citizenship & Allie Quigley naturalized as a Hungarian, both for sport purposes.
thanks for pointing that out. I asked once on an international basketball forum why so many Americans are allowed to play on a foreign team?(as like the entire Lebanon NT were Americans) and the answer they all aplied & got emergency naturalized I do remember ex NBA baskeball player, Shawn Bradley getting to play for Germany based that a great, great grandfather was German, guessing in similar vein why so many American woso got to play on foreign NT squads.
It got so bad that FIBA put in a rule that limits a team to one naturalized player per game. And if they do have a bloodline connection, they need to get the passport before age 16. There are also a lot of kids of American basketball players who go overseas and stay (CCV & Darren Randolph are soccer kids with BB playing fathers). Tony Parker & Ben SImmons are good examples of a basketball player whose American dad stayed overseas Rugby, on the other hand, allows you to represent a country if you've lived there for 3 consecutive years (going up to 5 in 2021), even if you don't have a passport. Once it joined the Olympics, it became a problem because the Olympics have a "passport as a minimum" rule.
Ali Riley got Swedish citizenship (after living here long enough, she has no blood connections), not to play for Sweden but at least partly to make it easier to play anywhere in EU. So it was for sport reason, at least to a large part. But as Soccer player I guess she counts as a Kiwi even if she is born and bred in the US.