Why bother when he's got Zardes to depend on for 89' of incessant running and balls caroming off him randomly?
It's not an easy job when your local league is at best about #23 in the world and you only got three or four international quality players in Europe. At that point you need to have faith the "prospects" pan out, or start elaborating some serious magic based on team chemistry to plan for survival. Let's not forget right now the only tested & true young guy we got is Puli. Wes, Weah, Sargent, Adams, Horvath, are still to play games that matter.
I see this more and more, but it seems people are trying to degrade or underestimate the talent currently available. I'll assume you mean "games that matter" as in Natl Team games, but what does that matter? We have 4-5 guys playing key roles in the Bundesliga (more really, if you include Fabian, Morales, etc.). Horvath has battled through a tough time and is/was playing in European competition. Most of these guys succeeding are under 25, and yet to hit their peak. Weah might even be the most impressive considering some of the recent highlights I've seen (granted, in a less competitive league). When have we ever had this kind of young talent before? Compare this to our last qualifying cycle where we had Pulisic and a bunch of MLS stiffs who a. were too old, or b. never had it in the first place. Am I overreacting to say we have by far the most talent now in CONCACAF? Sure, we are "young", but if you're playing 90 mins every week in the BL, i really don't think age matters. Our best players in the past were guys who did well in Holland, or played a decent amount in Germany, or rode pine in Italy/England, or played well for a middling EPL team. And these are USMNT legends. We have guys surpassing that level right now, and are 20 years old.
People here are living under the illusion that their favorite player at 20 is somebody who will not be 1)moved to another position 2) sustain an injury 3) not be available for every game in the hex for any number of reasons. They also live under the illusion that we have all these great players playing at "elite" level when there might be one or two at the most. Expect more of this silliness as the deadline for collective bargaining agreement draws closer. Fact is, we don't have an elite team like Germany
Agreed on the last part but we do have a bunch of CMs who are all better than WT/MB and prove it each week at a higher level than those two. I know you want to create this narrative that they are elite long passers and passable defenders vs good teams.* It fits with your concept of building the team around MLS and then only substituting major league players if they are demonstrably better. I’m saying there are enough players who are demonstrably better than your favorites. My guess is that you don’t think they reach that threshold but perhaps you’ll surprise me. * I think brooks is a better long ball distributor than both so we don’t have a pressing need for that particular skill...
I think we do have more and better young talent than ever before. But, I don't think this necessarily translates into a better than ever team because usually when you introduce a batch of young guns, you still have a solid old guard to mix them in with. If the generation ahead of the young guys was even a typically talented US generation, the addition of the young kids would make for a formidable team, think adding Donovan and Beasley to an already solid squad in 2002. Unfortunately, we are likely to have to rely on the youth with little help from the old guard. The kids are good enough that it may work out well in the end, but when all your top players are 20 years old, it is less than ideal for sure.
Do you have proof of this, or is it similar to pre-WC qualifying when we couldn't call in WM or Gonzalez bc we "needed experience", which turned out to be 100% wrong? I look at France's WC winning roster, and seemingly everyone there is 25 or under.
France's average age was 26, making them the third youngest in the whole tournament and the youngest World Cup winning team ever. So no, not even a team that was extremely notable for its youth was as young as our guys will be.The average age of all World Cup winning teams is 27.5.
I think you play as many of them as possible, as much as possible. This cycle is a learning cycle and then you have an entire squad of 23-27 year olds, in their prime, for the big show in 2026. The bar is so low, that we only need to qualify for 2022. But we need to do it with a core (at least) of players that will be there in 2026.
Not sure we were talking average age of the roster, but mixing in YOUNG GUNS with the old guard. France didn't mix in anything, they just threw out their best players, regardless of age, which were primarily under-25 outside of GK and bit piece Giroud. Anyhow, I guess if we're switching to average age discussion, I don't have much to add.
You're the one claiming France was all under 25... kind of hard to be the case when they average 26. I'm not at all saying don't play the young kids or that they aren't good or anything of the sort. I'm just saying that historically, our guys are significantly younger than teams that are usually successful. And that's basically easily provable with hard numbers. Here are the France starters... Hugo Lloris - 31 Lucas Hernandez - 22 Samuel Umtiti - 24 Raphael Varane - 24 Benjamin Pavard - 22 Paul Pogba - 25 N'Golo Kante - 26 Blaise Matuidi - 30 Antoine Griezmann, - 27 Kylian Mbappe - 19 Olivier Giroud - 31 So, they had 6 of 11 starters age 25 or older. I'd say guys like Giroud, Greizeman, Lloris, etc constituted their old guard. They revamped the defense with young guys and played Mbappe. If that doesn't show they were not in fact all under 25 I don't know what does. Mostly, they were a bunch of prime age guys, older than most of our projected team overall yet still considered extremely young so much so that it was constantly mentioned. I agree our young, promising players are most likely to be at their peak in 2026. And that is no slight on them at all, just the nature of the beast. I'm still looking forward to seeing what our young guys can do and fully expect them to qualify.
You can also say they had 7 players 26 or under or 8 players 27 or under. Their first sub off the bench, in many games, was 20 (Dembele). Three other much used players were 25 or under (Fekir, Tolisso, Lemar). All the most important players, except Griezman were 25 or under. Griezman is in his prime at 27. The final 10 outfield players on the pitch when the World Cup was won were all 27 or under except for Nzonzi (30). Pulisic will be 26 in 2026. Going by the France model, most of the starting lineup should be as old or younger then him. They had a incredibly young core (24 is very young for a CB) to which they added two in prime players, and two older role players. GK's are usually older. Germany in 2014 was basically the same with all but one of their WC goals scored by someone under 25. If you look at who will be Pogba/Griezman's age in 2026, you get Pulisic, Adams, McKennie. We will have room for 5-6 younger players that haven't even been capped yet probably. Ceretainly France shows that you don't need a large amount of past prime, "experienced" players. The USA had 18 players older than Griezman on the roster in Couva.
Not worth the argument really (average age doesn't relate to the youth in key positions/never said France was "all under 25"), but I could also take the other guys who were expected to start/got minutes off the bench like Mendy, Fekir, Dembele, Tolisso. All 25 or under. So 6 of their 10 field players were 25 or under, plus three key subs/roll players. Regardless of which way you want to argue it, France was a young team. I hope we qualify (we should without forcing ourselves into using worse/experienced players anymore). My point was that having old guys doesn't mean much after seeing what France did with their big time/influential players all young, compared to what we did with our BIG GUNS/old guard.
Yes, France was young, the guys we have just emerging are even younger. Altering expectations for what are essentially under 23 players is not unreasonable. All I'm saying. And I am in complete agreement that the guys emerging now will be nearing their peaks in 2026.
The real fact is we probably never will have. Soccer in the US has to compete with any number of more popular sports and those sports get the "elite" players. I think we should always keep that in mind and consider it a wonderful thing when we make the world cup and, especially when we do well, as in 2002. All things have to come together at the right time...players and coaches...for us to repeat some of our prior successes. I would like it to happen in my lifetime...so it had better hurry up!
How do i get to opta stats for a match? Their website appears to require payment for access behind the wall. thanks.
Go to MLS site (mls dot com), click on the boxes on the home page that show results of games (you can scroll horizontally), on the next page click on boxscore, scroll to bottom of page and wait for it to load, if necessary - you'll see a green soccer pitch diagram when it has loaded. For individual stats you unclick all the blue boxes except the ones you want.
GB was on B/R pre-game and said he saw McKennie as an 8 on defense, next to the 6 and a 10 on offense. Basically, the role Roldan played in the recent games. That would mean that Adams is playing the 6 or RB. Maybe the other 8/10, but that one didn't defend deep.
Roldan is better than McKennie at that role (8-10), all things considered. I had McKennie in the 2 line of a 4321 wedge but I've seen enough to know that he just can't press high and leaves too much space defensively. If I move him to the 3 man midfield line I've got bad passing and a guy who is hesitant to get stuck in because he gets injured. Essentially, Wes is a guy who can be great for club but not so great for country which isn't a brilliant prediction on my part since we've already seen exactly that.
Just to add to the above: An 8 next to the 6 on defense who cant pass would be a disaster. This is the whole problem with Berhalter's understanding of the game. He always failed to give Trapp the right 8 next to him. It's why Portland beat him for the MLS cup in the final. Not only can't McKennie pass, but he doesn't have positional sense to close the angles for the 6.(this is partially why you see Tedesco pushing McKennie forward) When you watch Trapp fail for Berhalter you are actually watching Berhalter fail.
So McKennie can’t - press high - understand defensive spacing - pass - win balls b/c he’s scared of injury And despite being a rising starter for a UCL big 4 team, he should be sat so that your favorite MLS/B2/Championdhip ceiling players can play? I bet he’d couldn’t even make a college team given how bad he is. Maybe Co-Ed intramurals would suit him better. TL;DR: USMNT is better than B1.
We aren't playing a christmas tree formation. We are playing the thing we saw two weeks ago. McKennie and Roldan are competing for that 8/10 spot that drops back next to the 6 in defense. Where that leaves Adams, I don't know. I think McKennie is superior to Roldan, but I know you can't be convinced. I'd like to see Roldan tried in the RB spot. Most likely, Roldan is not invited to the camp in either case. So, we won't know until June whether GB rates McKennie or Roldan.