UEFA Matchday 5 results: Friday, March 24 Turkey 2-0 Finland Georgia 1-3 Serbia Ireland 0-0 Wales Austria 2-0 Moldova Kosovo 1-2 Iceland Croatia 1-0 Ukraine Liechtenstein 0-3 Macedonia Spain 4-1 Israel Italy 2-0 Albania Saturday, March 25 Bosnia & Herzegovina 5-0 Gibraltar Sweden 4-0 Belarus Andorra 0-0 Faroe Islands Switzerland 1-0 Latvia Cyprus 0-0 Estonia Belgium 1-1 Greece Portugal 3-0 Hungary Bulgaria 2-0 Netherlands Luxembourg 1-3 France Sunday, March 26 Azerbaijan 1-4 Germany San Marino 0-6 Czech Republic England 2-0 Lithuania Armenia 2-0 Kazakhstan Scotland 1-0 Slovenia Romania 0-0 Denmark Montenegro 1-2 Poland Malta 1-3 Slovakia Northern Ireland 2-0 Norway Group Leaders A: France B: Switzerland C: Germany D: Serbia E: Poland F: England G: Spain H: Belgium I: Croatia 2nd place teams G: Italy B: Portugal H: Greece D: Ireland A: Sweden C: Northern Ireland I: Iceland F: Slovakia ----------- E: Montenegro
Personally I'd rather be gunning for a country's first string -- even if we lose them occasionally to callups -- than trying to find just the right still-expensive Argie tweener, good enough to be worth it but not so good the albicelestes get too interested. That strikes me as a dicier proposition than admitted, purposefully aiming for second tier. We've had a few Argies and Brazilians and Alex is still the high water mark. FWIW, I see the injury thing as a BS risk to blame on country. A callup is a specific unique risk to NT involvement. An injury risk is not unique to NT duty. He could have gotten hurt here. Beasley is an international who gets hurt plenty without even leaving town. Also, as I detailed before, we have off weekends for qualifying every time, it's really only a "conflict" for Gold Cup if called in. My two cents if an attacker goes down we maybe slide a little but cope. Defender or two drops and we're screwed.
Tuesday results: ASIA Round 3 Matchdays 6 & 7: Thursday, March 23 China 1-0 South Korea Syria 1-0 Uzbekistan Thailand 0-3 Saudi Arabia Iraq 1-1 Australia @ Tehran, Iran United Arab Emirates 0-2 Japan Qatar 0-1 Iran Tuesday, March 28 Australia 2-0 United Arab Emirates Japan 4-0 Thailand South Korea 1-0 Syria Iran 1-0 China Uzbekistan 1-0 Qatar Saudi Arabia 1-0 Iraq Standings after 7 matches: Group A 1. IRN 17 pts +6 2. KOR 13 pts +2 ------------------ 3. UZB 12 pts +2 ------------------ 4. SYR 8 pts -1 5. CHI 5 pts -4 6. QAT 4 pts -5 Group B 1. JPN 16 pts +9 2. KSA 16 pts +8 ------------------- 3. AUS 13 pts +5 ------------------- 4. UAE 9 pts -3 5. IRQ 4 pts -3 6. THA 1 pts -16
Tuesday results: CONMEBOL Matchdays 13 & 14: Thursday, March 23 Colombia 1-0 Bolivia Paraguay 2-1 Ecuador Uruguay 1-4 Brazil Venezuela 2-2 Peru Argentina 1-0 Chile Tuesday, March 28 Bolivia 2-0 Argentina Ecuador 0-2 Colombia Chile 3-1 Venezuela Brazil 3-0 Paraguay Peru 2-1 Uruguay Standings after 14 of 18 games: 1. Brazil 33 pts +25 2. Colombia 24 pts +3 3. Uruguay 23 pts +9 4. Chile 23 pts +5 ------------------------ 5. Argentina 22 pts +1 ------------------------ 6. Ecuador 20 pts +3 7. Peru 18 pts -1 8. Paraguay 18 pts -8 9. Bolivia 10 pts -20 10. Venezuela 6 pts -17
Tuesday results: CONCACAF Round 5 Matchdays 3 & 4. Friday, March 24 Trinidad & Tobago 1-0 Panama Mexico 2-0 Costa Rica USA 6-0 Honduras Tuesday, March 28 Honduras 1-1 Costa Rica Trinidad & Tobago 0-1 Mexico Panama 1-1 USA Standings after 2 games: 1. Mexico 10 pts +4 2. Costa Rica 7 pts +4 3. Panama 5 pts +0 ----------------------- 4. USA 4 pts +1 ----------------------- 5. Honduras 4 pts -5 6. Trinidad and Tobago 3 pts -4
Correction on the standings, there have been 4 games played. Standings after 4 games: 1. Mexico 10 pts +4 2. Costa Rica 7 pts +4 3. Panama 5 pts +0 ----------------------- 4. USA 4 pts +1 ----------------------- 5. Honduras 4 pts -5 6. Trinidad and Tobago 3 pts -4 These standings are even more tilted toward Mexico and Costa Rica and against Honduras and T&T than I realized. The schedule has been very unbalanced. Home games so far: TRI 3 HON 3 USA 2 PAN 2 CRC 1 MEX 1 It is basically the standings upside down. Honduras and T&T only have 2 of the last 6 at home while Mexico and Costa Rica still have 4 home games. We'll see what happens but this really looks like a fight between Panama and USA for 3rd and 4th.
This USMNT is going to live and die by Pulisic's performance. It's not going to take long for CONCACAF teams to hack the crap outa him till he is off his game or injured. He is curently the only creative force on the team.
Heads and shoulders above the others. He needs to play either centrally, or as a withdrawn striker. I don't understand the Nagbe hype yet.
Phew. As the resident Mexican fan I didn't want to be the first to say something, but yes. His talents are being wasted with this current crop of USMNTers and there's no one ready to step-up from the U-s to compliment him. He would almost be better on the Mexican team playing with Carlos Salcedo, Guardado, Hector Herrera, Carlos Vela, Jurgen Damm, Tecatito Corona, Gio and Chicharito. Speed and technicality to burn.
I think we factually would tier in with Mexico and CR and not PAN. Granting the point deficit, tier in with CR because we have our crap back together. It depends how the next two games go and what the gap is for the home CR contest in Sept. If we have a 3 point or smaller gap playing CR at home it will be nada or advantage US after. CR then has to close with Mexico, Honduras, PAN. We close Honduras, PAN, TnT. I think Mexico is likely too hard to catch unless we won in Azteca. But that aside, they just got the same tie we did in Panama. If we were talking quality and not table spot I think Arena has narrowed that back down to zero. I think PAN, HON, and TnT battle for the last "half spot." I think it will likely be PAN and HON for that spot, not so much because of table position per se as because all 3 teams have the same number wins and table position is really about who consistently gets "other points," ie ties. That being said, if a team cans their coach and goes on a run it's a 2 point spread from 3rd to 6th so I wouldn't write off anyone. We just went from last to 4th in a two-game finger snap.
For one thing, PAN isn't getting points from the big boys at home. Mexico, tie. US, tie. When they play CR, tie or loss my bet. I'd see this as the running issue with Panama, as shown when Mexico caught them last day last cycle. They do not grind out home wins. They conversely win some road wins they shouldn't but if you don't hold home court you screw up the basic 3 home 1 away scenario where you breeze forward. Maybe it's a discipline thing. I thought we outplayed them for a big chunk of the first half when we scored and around that, and if they hadn't gotten the equalizer against the run of play that's a different game, no momentum shift.
I was not trying to evaluate the quality of the teams. I'm just looking at the table and the schedule. I lumped Mexico and Costa Rica together because I think they are both in the best shape to directly qualify. It is hard to see either dropping below 3rd. The USA should be able to jump into that top 3 (and could well finish in 2nd) but we have some work to do which is more similar to Panama even though they are currently in 3rd. I don't think the June games will tell us much. USA v. TRI CRC v. PAN MEX v. HON MEX v. USA PAN v. HON CRC v. TRI I see the US getting a win and a loss. Mexico will likely win both. Costa Rica will also probably win both. The Panama/Honduras game will be pretty big. I think Panama has a good chance of getting a win but a tie is also possible. That leaves the table at: Standings after 6 games: 1. Mexico 16 pts 2. Costa Rica 13 pts 3. Panama 6/8 pts ----------------------- 4. USA 7 pts +1 ----------------------- 5. Honduras 4/5 pts 6. Trinidad and Tobago 3 So, in my opinion, after those June games Mexico and Costa Rica are even closer to locking things up. The US and Panama are still right together. There would still be 4 games to play but the US would have to make up 6 points to catch Costa Rica. Could that happen? Sure. I don't know how likely it would be. Panama would still be in much better shape than Honduras to stay in the top 4. If Honduras can pull the upset in Panama then that would certainly change things. Of course, maybe things will play out differently. We shall see. USA/Costa Rica in September will definitely be a big factor is the final standings but I don't know if it is all that important as far as qualifying or not in Costa Rica's case.
The US under competent management takes 3-4 points from the first two games and the rest skews accordingly. I know that feels subjective but in guessing who takes what points from what games I feel like we should be treated as factually equivalent to CR (who we whooped last summer) and Mexico. We won't catch Mexico in the standings most likely, I will give the table that much. But with most of the schedule left and a 3 point gap to CR and a CR home game left I think we can catch them. I think the tie in Panama flatters them and if you look at how they did Mexico home (tie), ditto. If the best you can do is tie good teams at home I think even if you can erratically get road upsets and beat poor teams at home you're trending 4th place. That 6-0 suggests a healthy US is back to home fortress and then all they need are road points in places like TnT and such. And if they are really as good as Mexico by crippled by two JK games, they may not catch them in the table but games like Mexico away may be in play more than a "well so far they are a point a game" would suggest. I also feel like our finishing run in the schedule is very soft and that even if we only take 3 this June the schedule sets up to get a lot more on the second half. In short, charting doesn't do us justice. We just took 4 emphatic points drained of players by injury. I think we belong where we're headed and not where we've been.
A Texan bags a hat trick in WCQ after sitting out the past 8 months of his career. Then scores on the road in WCQ the very next game. That is 4 goals in two WCQ for U.S.A. No American player has ever done this till Clint Dempsey did this past week.
So you are saying that the MNT are a bunch of Ferraris and the USMNT are a bunch of Yugos and that we don't deserve a very promising young Ferrari? I would say that some of your same players looked like Yugos when they had a different coach. Hopefully el Profe will do what he normally does at the end of most of his coaching stops: outsmarts himself by tinkering so much that everything falls apart. Once he gets more courage from a string of consistent results, the terrible little emperor hiding within him will come out again! Cada perro tendra su dia, mi amigo the American Eagle will rise again!
I fear that the US will miss the next world cup. Losing to Mexico and Costa Rica... and 4-0, that defines the current state of the US team. The 6-0 win against Honduras simply reflects a worse honduran sign. I might as well go back to my young years and root for Brazil or Argentina in 2018.
Argentina and Holland both look like they might not qualify for Russia 2018. The U.S. would be in good company then. HA!
Hex is simple enough that there is no need for the sophistication of super computers The US always loses @CRC yet has finished ontop of the HEX in recent cycles. They won't finish on top this year -- but qualification is clearly not dependent upon points in San Juan.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39571776 Borussia Dortmund football team bus hit by explosion. Player Marc Bartra was injured and has been taken to hospital but is not seriously hurt, reports say. I hope everyone is ok....but specifically Pulisic. WTF?