Nations League A, Camp 1, Cuba/Canada, Oct. 11/15

david and davies combining and playing well could easily mean canada beats the us

 

Looks like Aaronson with the full team:

Brenden Aaronson is set to be called up to the US national team for Nations Leagues games next week, sources tell https://t.co/QqWAi38GbI. The 18-year-old has enjoyed a breakout season for the Philadelphia Union in 2019. This is his first senior call-up.https://t.co/W7yguTuTsU

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) October 1, 2019

 

Yup. With UEFA also doing NL, and CONMEBOL's extended WCQing campaign starting up......................................those opponents aren't available to us in most windows.

I actually think the US does a much better job trying to schedule elite competition when they can. The US used to schedule windows against China and Guatemala. We'd win both games 4-0 and feel great about ourselves. Now we schedule Uruguay/Mexico (like this last window) and feel terrible about ourselves.

I mean.............we've played Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia since the start of 2018. We've just about got CONMEBOL covered We've also played France, England, and Italy during that time.

Saying that...................yes, I think the League of Nations is a waste of time. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut! Buuuuuuuuuuuuut. It will give us a chance to test our players (particularly young players) out in games that actually matter prior to WCQing. We will learn something.

 

ot, but i cant WAIT til us soccer writers stop finding klinsmann (or vice versa) every few months for completely irrelevant commentary.

move on with your freaking lives already.

 

I agree. JK would have a point if we could somehow play competitive games against the better UEFA teams. But Friendlies are just not taken seriously by the best UEFA teams. We have beaten Germany, Holland, Italy in Friendlies. But usually late, when we are really trying and they are not.

Going to NYC and bunkering and countering against Brazil and hoping to win 1 of 10 games is not preparation for anything in the Hex; I totally agree about that.

 

Notice Jurgen pulled Tata's Mexico out of the hat, citing the 4-0 loss to Argentina.

We all saw what you did there, Jurgen.

Now tell us how you really feel.

The way I feel is that we haven't figured out how to beat Mexico and CR and Trinidad yet. Let's concentrate on that. My sense is that when we make the big discovery, we will go on to bigger things.

 

You (or anyone) have any more info on this kid? I've read a bit here about how he's had a decent year, but haven't seen him at all. A winger only? Does he play in the middle? Figured he was a decent prospect, but didn't seem like anyone here was pushing hard for him to be with the senior team?

 

I like Aaronsen; but I can't see Aaronsen getting called and not Pomykal, Ledezma, and Mendez. Maybe somebody is confused about the U23 camp?

Or maybe Gregg is finally moving on from the mid-twenties MLS meh guys he has been repeatedly calling?

Or maybe this is another instance of rewarding a guy for playing well (not great) in MLS over guys outside of MLS. Unless Ramos was completely wrong, he cut Aaronsen just a few months ago in favor or Pomykal, Ledezma, Mendez. I think Cappis was ahead of him and Servania too.

Again, excited to see Aaronsen if he is replacing Trapp or Roldan. If he is being rewarded for starting in MLS, rather than starring for Jong PSV, that is not as exciting.

 

Of the 2 I like the latter formation.

 

As I understand it, we were invited to Copa America and declined. We could have accepted and fielded 2 teams, one for GC and one for CA. The Chinese accepted in our place and are buying a lot of soybeans from Brazil, to boot.

I don't think objective #1 is to get "better" at USSF. Sunil used to say that the only thing that mattered was qualifying for WC - as a way of brushing off the concern of the day. He probably should have set other objectives because he didn't qualify.

 

Jong PSV is not that much higher a level than the Dallas Cup Super Group, if its even at Dallas Cup Super Group level.

MLS is a completely different level, played against full grown men. There really is no comparison.

These Dutch league youth players need to be earning first team minutes at some point to get a call in to the full mens team. If you can't get on the field for PSV or NAC Breda or whomever, then you don't have any business being put on the field with the US National Team.

 

Does trapp get called in?

 

well, his story never changes even when our situation does. i think he’s on his own special planet. we can’t beat Mexico so the traditional “we’re better than our region” arrogance rings hollow. right now we need to beat our region first before getting all uppity. and if scheduling the best made us better then the buzzsaw sarachan was put through last year should have made us awesome. it didn’t. i think JK confuses what might be good for a veteran team with a stable corps of players who know their roles in a tailored system, eg, USA in 2009-10, with the stripped-to-the-studs do-over we have, playing with less than their best players in a forced formation.

part of me wants to chest thump and act like canada and cuba are beneath us but i think BMO away will actually be a contest we will have to earn. at which point in practical terms JK’s abstracted theory evaporates………..i also think his blind spot that there are plenty of teams worth playing from africa and asia is odd from a guy with an asian wife. ghana was a rival for a while. we used to play korea and japan.

 

sorry but this is just picking mls for the sake of doing so. he has played a lot of minutes professionally and produced very moderately, for someone being brought in as an AM. he poses no "flight risk" as a dual national, during a set of games when we can cap tie players. you are reaching down past your recent YNT graduates, some of whom showed well, to select someone not in your system for 3 years. that alone is an odd precedent because of what has been invested in Mendez and Pomykal. pomykal would have more assists at an attacking position.

Ajax U21 plays in a full men's league. I get the insinuation you're making but it's basically a II team in the senior second division, akin to where Sargent and Pulisic were splitting time for their first caps. he is not playing sunday league. he is playing pros in europe.

I am also concerned at the recent trend that seems precisely backwards of favoring second rate players who are smart about their club choices over more talented players who take ambitious risks. i would point out the former to players who are like why has my career stalled. there is wisdom in it. freddy adu sounded off a few months back about don't do what i did and sign the biggest contract with the biggest team every time.

but that leads to perverse outcomes as a talent evaluation scheme. we are now developing a pattern of favoring MLS workhorses over the talent our own YNT pipeline identified. in which case why bother with U20 if we're going to ignore our most prized prospects in favor of MLS players with more adult playing time.

i can't begin to say how odd it would be to pick some 18 year old your YNT scouts omitted from U19/20 progression, over the ones U20 went with, and then the big clubs from europe signed. it's kind of comes off as a strained attempt to show how smart you are in spite of tepid stats. at least when JK reached down past adults for a kid at stanford that kid was winning titles and scoring bushels. just strange.

 

i am not sure CFC asked for a thing. i would rest him anyway. we don't need him in every game. landon is a crap template. landon quit early.

to be real, he was sarri's guy. sarri is now at juve. he wasn't lampard's purchase. lampard brought mount with him. just like he wasn't favre's choice at BD.

this is the danger of trying to fix a playing time problem at an elite club with a merely lateral move.

lucky for him he is above the line where we care if he plays professionally.

 

half the problem is MLS' roster and cap rules have decimated interest in domestic players. i had the idea of working my way down the MLS standings looking for potential missed players. not as many as one would hope. hyndman. parks. so many teams based around imports. why develop a 9 or 10 when you can buy full price? and now we seem to specialize in two way hustle mids. where are the 10s and 6s?

the other half is that somehow in the process of supposedly changing the domestic player into more a technician we went from churning out reynas and mathises -- or armases and bradleys -- to producing nagbes not particularly gifted at offense or defense. the quality of the forwards has improved. but this has gone from a good midfield team in search of forwards to a good forward team in search of service and midfield defense. but anyhow my point was for a team pushing a technical system we seem to have almost backslid on growing the players for that. all while talking big that we would change the domestic player.

 

i don't understand the reticence to call in dual national players on the fence if but to sub them against cuba. you do that and they are locked in and you can wait until the result is fairly secure to limit the risk.

they also have to plan in that canada is playing just one game and sitting there resting and waiting for us at home. it has a couva trap game potential if mishandled.

 

Canada has one game this set. We have two, the second of which is Canada away. As such I would field a fairly experimental side with some experience for Cuba first, and then an overlapping but distinct first team for Canada. This avoids the TnT trap of first team players tired for the more important second game. It also allows you to learn about some new players in a game where a short handed Cuba is easily beatable. Roughly 40 players total, my count.

Canada

GK
Steffen 1
Horvath 2
Gonzo 3

DF
Lima 4
Cannon 5
Miazga 6
Long 7
Lichaj 8
Ream 9
Zimmerman 22
Brooks 23

MF
Arriola 10
McKennie 11
Adams 12
Lletget 13
Holmes 14
Gall 15

FW
Pulisic 16
Sargent 17
Altidore 18
Morris 19
Boyd 20
Green 21

Cuba

GK
Horvath –
Gonzo 24
Frei 25

DF
Payne 26
Lima –
M. Robinson –
CCV 27
Zimmerman –
Richards 28
Moore 29
Laursen 30

MF
Pomykal 31
Morales 32
Sabandzovic 33
Holmes –
Gall –
Mendez 34
(call E. Alvarez and offer him a call)

FW

Wood 35
Soto 36
Green –
Amon 37
Toye 38
Sabbi 39

For the second pair of LoN games, we begin with Canada at home, first team game, then Cuba in the Caymans, which if we have clinched, experiments/cap-tying again.

i understand some of the people on this list may be hurt, but you get the basic idea here.

 

i have heard people argue call the 23 and rotate like a tournament. the problem with that theory is 23 guarantees you will use game 1 people in game 2. if we need to chase a result late in game 2 the ideal situation is not with tired players from game 1 as the subs. you want your subs fresh as well. so i say call 30-40 and maybe even send the first 15-20 straight to toronto.

the rules only require 23 man lists 2 days before the game. this is implicitly reflected in how we call 25 or so and then "cut" people. there is nothing that says your internal camp has to stop at 25, or that you have to have the same 23 both games. keeping numbers down corrals costs and promotes continuity but i think with the disparity of opposition i wouldn't spend any of the first rate talent on cuba.

i'd say do something like what italy did with us last year.

taken a different direction, you could rest the starters but reward the last few no-hoper spots on the canada dress list for players who excel against cuba.

games 3 and 4 then set up where with the right results you could literally run out a full experiment for game 4 in the caymans.

i have felt some trepidation in response to the idea but i don't think people realize how we have handled semi round WCQ before. or what we used to do for GC 2013 and before. or what the swapping out for GC knockouts implied. there is some risk in running out experiments and second teamers but a good coach can calibrate it.

 

Some people should really watch Aaronson play soccer. The kid is really talented.