re my supposedly "strained" arguments, compare the following form lines between 1998-2014: 16 8 8 16 G M 4th 16 G 16 M 16 16 M M 16 16 16 16 16 G M M M 8 G 8 G 16 16 16 = round of 16 8 = quarters G = group M = miss qualifying those are, in order: England (tied us at '10) Portugal (beat at '02 and tied '14) Sweden Mexico (beat at '02) Colombia (beat at '94) USA do we really compare that poorly? of that group, Mexico, England, and us were the only ones consistently qualifying every time. the problem is confused, subjective fanboyism clouding objective comparison of results. or people who confuse one good cycle with consistent results. the suggestion we needed GB because of how 2018 went neglects that JK was hired in part to try a version of the same transformation in 2011. in fact, while the average player may be slightly more technical since 2011, what has in fact disappeared in that time is many of the donovan, reyna, mathis types. the special ones. we claim we are making this better. it is in fact worse now. forward is better. midfield is worse. i also think the "technique" people seem to confuse formations with having technical players. what we all would like is brilliant ball handlers. you hand us a 433 and some tactics instead. they are not even close to the same and anyone who watches GB could explain to you how they aren't. he can run people out in a formation. he can't select to save his life. nor can he wave a wand and create technical players USSF didn't make in the last 15 years. what you need to do is start with 5-10 year olds now and revisit this at age 20 for them. not pretend like we did work that we didn't do. pro-system people tend to have alarmingly abstracted notions of how soccer works. teams do not just show up and let you play your way and back off and let you do it. previous ideas considered concacaf. the current tactics seem under a naive idea the opposition will just let us do our thing. and they fall apart when mexico, canada, venezuela press. last, i find the fact we adopted a system from a team that missed the same world cup we did, and who has never won themselves (holland), to be discrediting. this is not we sat down and worked out what wins and implemented it. this is aesthetic fanboy bs posing as that. this is if you told the fans we were going to start missing world cups to play pretty they would get cranky. because if this was really a response to the perceived plateauing of performance or desire to win it all, you would adopt the more balanced and often physical styles of germany, italy, france, argentina, none of whom shy from a tackle or believe passive passing solves their problems, but all of whom have first place trophies as proof of concept. and their balanced and athletic styles fit with our pool and don't require us to just blow up everything and start over.
y'all seem deeply confused about how the klinsmann core was doing before arena arrived. arena was not hired because of some pro MLS coup. he was hired because JK clanged out of gold cup, lost the regional playoff, finished meh in copa america, lost in guatemala and barely survived semi round qualifying, and then started off hex with two losses. a lot of the dual nationals offered as answers to our problems now were the architects of those losses under klinsmann.
re the Olympics, the reason we "suck" at that now is it is a small field tournament without the U20 generosity of places, and as our YNT program professionalized, we lost the easy access to long camps with lesser college players in favor of less accessible but better trained professionals. the professionalization denies us players who graduate out of YNT, and denies us players whose pro teams won't release them. but it should over time result in better senior players. i mean, how many U23s do we "graduate" and "pretend" are no longer age group players? you won't see mckennie and pulisic anywhere near the qualifying team... now, before they could camp for 2 months straight to prepare, and that's what you'd see getting us in the Olympics, is a drilled team. and i have argued on another thread if you wanted the Olympics what you would do is go get leading NCAA and marginal professionals teams will gladly release, and camp them for 2 months. that team would be a well oiled machine and get you to Tokyo. that team might also have little or no one you wanted for Qatar or beyond on the senior NT. so to me it's do you want to emphasize winning with the U23s we can get easily, or are we using the team to get games for younger pipeline players we see as having more senior age group upside. i see the U23 obsession as an ego issue. people want a deliverable. people do not want to actually pop the hood up and determine why things happen. if you really wanted to deal with the issue you might consider the conundrum that we will not see pulisic at all, might not get sargent out of an international date, and could probably only get some smaller name MLS guy, age group player abroad, college kid. is it really that we lack talent, or is it the way the talent we do have interacts with it not being an international date. the question then becoming, do i use the age group to look at sargents who may not be released, or to play some college kid who will be released but would be the zillionth option at their position for the senior NT? to me the U20s are more indicative of where we are going. at U20 worlds you get most of the first choice players, release issues are rare, more teams, it's a constantly playing age group and not something we manifest for one year and then forget.
In reality, JK was going to be fired after the loss to Mexico. All the rest, he was only around for because Flynn left his job unexpectedly. Bradley knew it, I'm sure everyone knew it.
As I understood it, Flynn was hospitalized re heart issues -- I want to say he was a transplant -- and rather than re-delegating the task it just sat there. That sounds like a power play. As I understood it, Klinsi was already lined up in principle before Gold Cup 2011, and Arena was lined up before Klinsi went. This is the way things were done before. No year long searches. We know your successor before you know you're fired. The GM idea, my sense, was to respond to this sort of executive fiat problem, both ways. That when we needed to fire it would be done promptly. That we would be more deliberative with replacements. So what you have now is we take a year to hire and since the GM/HC are joined at the hip professionally and personal friends, are also glacial to take termination action. I get the concern about executive intrigue and such but feel like the old way was more of a sports response, err on the side of fast and preserving the chance to qualify. Arena may not have gotten the end-goal but we didn't get stuck doing nothing while Klinsi imploded, no more than Bradley got to just go bad. It's also laughable to have a year long search, like we are being more deliberate, then hire complete average trash. You were better off having some smug USSF exec pick the name he wanted and make it happen with the agent tomorrow. None of this is at odds with "change." Klinsi was picked to be change from Bradley. You can cook up a change name but do it with speed and seriousness. I don't know how it took more than a night to sign GB if that was the idea, other than we have to sell it was deliberate and not nepotism. In retrospect it's telling we waited all year for him to get released from his Crew contract. They were doing bad and he wasn't really needed, either there or here. It should have been unqualified. It should have been stuck in his job. When you reach down to pluck someone like this, and wait forever til the Crew let him go, you are obsessed. No surprise he is then given much leash this year.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2015/07/22/usa-1-jamaica-2-concacaf-gold-cup-match-recap [July 2015] https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2015/07/25/usa-1-panama-1-2-3-penalties-concacaf-gold-cup-match-recap [July] https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...derations-cup-as-mexico-pull-off-stunning-win [October] https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-2-0-loss-to-guatemala-in-world-cup-qualifier [March 2016] https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016...undergoes-successful-heart-transplant-surgery [April] https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/06/21/usa-0-argentina-4-copa-america-centenario-match-recap [June] https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/soccer/1-0-loss-colombia-us-finishes-4th-copa-america [June] https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2016-11-11-us-mens-national-team-vs-mexico/recap {November] https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/11/15/costa-rica-4-usa-0-2018-world-cup-qualifying-recap [November] U.S. Soccer planned to fire Juergen Klinsmann as coach and replace him with Arena in April 2016, the coach writes, months before the start of the final phase of World Cup qualifying. On the day contract details were to be ironed out, Dan Flynn, U.S. Soccer’s chief executive, was rushed to the hospital for heart-transplant surgery and the negotiations never took place. “It was a done deal until Dan left,” said Arena, who finished the MLS season with the Galaxy while Klinsmann remained coach of the U.S. team. https://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-bruce-arena-20180507-story.html [side note: i agree with him that, contrary to snob theories, MLS is part of the problem, but because it has become so liberal to including foreign players, not because it's not even more rich and exclusive. he points out if Mexico starts to suffer MX will adjust its roster rules. we instead have bought into xeroxing england whose laissez faire approach many times leaves them advancing no further than we do......kind of like we're adopting dutch tactics and they never win the big one...details, people, details.] my personal theory is given all 10 games arena qualifies with 14-15 points, klinsi misses. CR beats us but Arena gets at least a point from Mexico at home. The other games were played on the field under Arena with known results. Conversely, I think Klinsi ties TnT as he did the prior round, but drops Mexico away, which is a points wash. This is generous because I am not real confident in a coach who couldn't beat Guatemala away to go get the road ties (Mexico, Honduras, Panama) Arena managed. [His wild card would have been the CR home game.]
last thought: is there going to be VAR for qualifying? i understand the public pillorying of the team for what happened but Panama doesn't make the tournament without a certain phantom goal. our loss sends us off on some vague spiritual vision quest and yet we don't fix at minimum the basic -- much more objective, controllable, technological -- fact you can get a deciding goal that never crosses the line....... if that is properly called, all our suckage aside, game ends 1-1, panama ends with 11 points, we end with 12 points and get 4th. home and away with australia for the world cup spot. so rather than protect our concrete interests on something objective we are off on a vague subjective rumspringa trying to figure out who we really are down deep. there are a zillion cameras watching this game shown here. how are they not equipped? "we will pay to equip each hex stadium." on what legitimate honest basis could you possibly want goal/no-goal open to abuse?
I think an optimistic take is easy: The game is about goals and we have goal scoring: Pulisic up for player of the month in EPL, Morris at the height of his game and in form in spite of one year out with ACL surgery, Sargent patently improving at Bremen, Brooks' aerial game, donkey kickin' it, Jozy great in spots when healthy but we have depth now. Hard to recall the days when we pinned our hopes on Robbie Finley and Eddie Johnson. Goal keeping ability was a question going in but Horvath, at the end of last year, had great games, after a bad start the year before, and Steffen headed off to Fortuna where he is starting. Defenders make up in numbers and youth for what we lack in top-top line quality. Brooks got healthy and is in form which may solve our lack of left foot out of the back, considering we have no left back. U20's WC was successful in pinpointing where the 20's were gifted or not, as the case may be. Pomykal was a special player and a good showing from Dest v. strong competition probably had a lot to do with Ajax investing him with starting job at rb for Ajax, where he also shows he is a special player. Another round of applause for Tab Ramos, please So, (leaving injured Adams aside) optimistic this year on -----------------------Morris---Sarge/Jozy/Donkey -------------------------------Pulisic ----------------------x------------x-----------x -----------x----------Brooks---------x-----------Dest ------------------------GK: Steffen/Horvath I'm actually only pessimistic on 3 things: Left back (Ream's age), central midfield and Egg/Stewart management. I think the midfield solves itself when Egg and Stewart leave and the defenders should sort themselves out with reps. We will not qualify with an EGG/Stewart midfield. They look utterly aimless.
You're a funny, hilarious guy who obviously hasnot got any clue about soccer at top level. You're comparing yourselve in style with Germany, Argentina, Italy in the sense of being physical etc. However in the days before your lot had that physical style your lot wasnot able to see our rear lights and we didnot see your lot in our mirrors in results. So your master plan is to do more of what didnot work in the last 50 years for you and piss on our achievements in that same period. Seems like you graduated from the University of Analytic Voodoo. One of your favourite mantras in dissing the Orange team is that we did miss the WC 2018 and therefore were on the same (shit) level like your lot. Got a surprise for you. Those players that missed the 2018 tournement were the same pklayers that reached the 2014 semi finals and were just 1 penalty away from a consecutive final place. Those were the same players that blasted the defending World Champions 2010 from the pitch. It wasnot the players but the coaching that got us into trouble. To think your lot missing the WC2018 were of the same level as ours is proof of a lack of real understanding what is quality and what isnot. Your lot missed the WC2018 because of lack of quality, our lot missed it despite the presence of quality. Our miss was far more painful as it was unnecesary. I also find it quite funny you keep on comparing yourself with WC winners, while your lot isnot capable to manage to match even one of our semi final places. Care to count how many that were? If you can't even come close to such achievements, your rants about us not winning a WC becomes a bit silly, or should I say pathetic. Remember since the WC 2018 miss we produced in those two years new superstars for our next glorious Orange squad. Tell me, how many did your lot in those two years since the WC miss produce to aim for glory? And what did you miss about France and Germany you're so keen on copying (which is an idiotic aim to begin with without the players they have) in relation to the Orange squad? Oh wait...since that missed WC 2018 we did beat the former WC2014 and current WC2018 in the Nations League group to progress to the NL semi Final where we beat the WC 2018 semi finalist England to reach the final. And in the current EC2020 qualifying group we blasted your role model Germany in Germany from the pitch in a 4-1 victory. Comparing the European qualifying groups with the ones your lot has to "compete" in as a token of the Orange squad being on the same slevel as your lot is another sign you really have no grasp with reality. To have a chance to win titles you have to be in the finals. Dissing a team that has done that as the only little country among the big ones is plain ignorant. You can't match us, so your chance of winning anything is nill, because you're incapable of reaching the semi- let alone the finals. There's a reason why we as the only little country run with the big ones and why those countries look at us as equals and not to the States. Also you're so keen on mimicking France and Germany and shit on us. It's so funny that you obviously have no clue that both France and Germany came to the Netherlands to learn from us how to develop (like the Belgians too) in 2000 to raise the quality of their players, which they managed to do. So your examples did what you are pissing on. Do you really read about soccer in serious sources or what?
Another hint: check the number of Dutch players in the top 30 of the Ballon d'Or nomination list and calculate that in relation to our population size and then compare that with the big countries.
Best midfielder of the CL 2018-2019, which means best in the world: Frenkie de Jong werd gekozen tot beste middenvelder. Beeld REUTERS Best defender of the CL 2018-2019: Virgil van Dijk werd uitgeroepen tot beste verdediger. Beeld REUTERS Best talent of the year under 21: De Ligt. Etcetera. etcetera..... Just try to match us in achievements. Hot air isnot going to get you anywhere. The world is again bracing themselves for the next epic Orange team to awe them. We donot mimic anyone, we do our thing and that has us now already 60 years in the top of the world in soccer.
top of the world? You’ve won the same amount of World Cups as we have. You can tell is how great you after you’ve won at least one. Sheesh.
Yeah, the world is talking about us in the same way they discuss the USA as a soccer force So in fact you claim to be as good as Iceland, as they never won it too. Trying to be on the Orange level by virtue of not having won it yet is pathetic. Just try to get at least one result as we did in modern soccer. You know that already is far fetched for the coming decade, let alone match us consistently for 50 years on end. A lot of American fans were sure they had seen the last of us after the EC2016 and WC2018 missing out. Read a lot about how the USA was going to burst onto the world stage too. Tadaaa....look who's back with another bunch of superstars.....No, it's not the States. We donot need to tell how great we are. We do it by performing on the pitch and others do it by putting our players on merit lists and prizes. I simply tell you those things as from comments, more like frustrated dissing of the Orange players, you obviously arenot aware of how the real soccer world preceives us. Instead of learning from us like sensible persons do, you and a couple of other posters indulge in the mantra "they didnot win it ...". It's just another form of dissing like for years on end the constant US fans mantra was Dutch can't defend . That the real soccer world were buying Dutch defenders by the bus loads escaped the attention of those anti Dutch/Orange Myopistic fans, but it was fun for US fans until it became ridiculous and a sign of being ignorant of the real soccer world. During those yearsI saw Dutch defenders go for enormous fees and reach top status, while those same US fans hyped Us defenders to the hilt. Just watch a list of the prices of Dutch defenders at top and sub top clubs and try to find one USA defender who's being valued like one of our defenders at one of the lesser clubs. Dissing the really valued, while hyping the unwanted is now turning into dissing the Orange achievements and by some hyping the US achievements. The whole ridiculization of Dutch achievements and standing in the world of soccer is just a symptom of jealousy and envy and for sure of a minority complex towards a country that tiny and yet unapproachable in status. Of course I've no clue in what way and how deep this pathetic feeling is rooted in US soccer, but as long as this is the leading attitude you're not going to make an impression on the world stage. Soccer has improved the last two decades and what I read from people dissing the Orange team is to revert to the old physical style that for decades didnot get you anywhere. So doing that more is the solution to finally get a round further? The rest of the world moves forward and the US solution to soccer glory is more of the same medicine that didnot help? Simply, if you can't see the reality, you're not going to solve the problem. Just look at us. Two years ago we were laughed at. Now we made clear you better take notice of us again. What did you do in those two years? You've got a star spangled banner, we got a star spangled pitch.
and yet here you are in the US forum doing exactly that. pls come back after you’ve actually won a World Cup.
I get all of you saying the Dutch haven't won a WC so we're on their level but that also means we are on the level of Gibraltar, Belize and New Guinea.
I'm not exactly bursting with optimism but I'm not doom and gloom either. Gold Cup was pretty good aside from the final, which wasn't a totally awful performance considering Mexico owns us in that game historically. CP broke out at Chelsea and I expect him to start putting monster shifts in for the U.S. on a more regular basis. Morris emerged as vaguely Donovanesque and figured in on a lot of goals. I like Berhalter's core for the most part (which does not include Trapp, who has barely played in competitive games for the NT). I still think we qualify in a relatively comfortable manner. Also we have the same amount of World Cup titles as the Netherlands and Canada, the two greatest soccer nations of all time, so there's that.
i never said we're on their level - they're a much better team than we are. However, coming into our forum and repeatedly stating they're the "top of the world" that has taught Germany and France how to play is just too much for a team that has underperformed its talent and never won a World Cup. There are many things you can say about the USMNT but historically we've been better than the sum of our parts: I guess it's real progress that we've recently matched the Dutch ability to underperform our talent level. Hurray.
People are entitled to their opinions of course. However, there's little to be optimistic about IMO. we've had no stand-out victories against equal or better teams we've deservedly lost to teams that we should never lose to (other than a game that goes completely against the run of play) our best players are dramatically under-performing their ceiling we've ignored a sizable portion of the pool and appear to have the same dividing mentality between MLS and other leagues that was evident starting under Klinsmann (although the preference has flip-flopped) our players don't appear to be enjoying themselves People are happy that we incorporated a series of movements vs. lesser teams and for up to 25 minutes vs. Mexico. These same posters are lowering the standard for the USMNT to "we should qualify" and that we should expect to lose to Mexico. C'mon, it was only five years ago that many posters believed that we should expect to make the knock-out rounds of the WC even if we faced Germany, Ghana and Portugal (I thought that was a bit too ambitious myself). Finally, the concept that we can't move forward unless we change our style of play is completely wrong. We have the makings of an elite team (disruptive athletic defense, speedy counter-attacks and elite dead ball attacks) - we just need to continually raise the level of our players - when we do, the improvement in our technical skills will be self-evident.
This conversation is getting silly and is off topic. The Dutch won the Euros. That is not equivalent in any way to the Gold Cup. The Dutch have been to three WC Finals, won 3 Olympic Gold Medals. All with a fraction of the population of Germany and France or England. Just silly. The USA is no where near The Netherlands in soccer. Maybe this is sarcasm and an overly optimistic take? Then it is less silly and more on topic.
Nope. I've never compared the USMNT to the Orange or the Euros to the Gold Cup. I've simply mentioned that they haven't won the World Cup, just like the USMNT. I'm just tired of a guy coming into our forum telling us how great they are when they've underperformed their talent.
I can only imagine what we could accomplish if we had the success rate on our player development that Holland or Uruguay have percentage wise of populations. Being 10 to 50 times bigger we would be incredible.
I agree that it is unnecessary. The equivalent of you or I going into the Nicaragua forum (if there is one) and telling them they haven't won a Gold Cup.
I'm not coming to do that, I'm responding to mantra's like this: So it's not coming to big up the Orange team, but to educate some that live in LaLa land about the real world. I donot consider you as one of the fans that have an unrealistic view on US soccer and it's place in the world. I understand your reaction as a US fan to my harsh opinion about their state at the moment and what's being done. It however isnot dissing the USMNT, as it contains suggestions to what could be done, realistic or not, but with a positive input. Some however do and Juve is an outspoken one that firmly disses us as an example not worth following their footprint and bigs up the same countries that came to the Netherlands to learn from us as they felt falling back in relation to other countries. In fact many Dutch were mad we allowed them to take a look in our kitchen as they felt it was strengthening our main rivals. Just keep in mind the French came to us while they just won titles, but still felt they were on a downward path, so intervention was needed. That's called forsight and self criticism. So Juves role models did exactly what he and some others diss as a path to basically suck. With this in mind he and his like minded ignored/missed the events in the last two decades, which explains the urge to reach back (time before 2000) and go in that mode in higher gear. The Germans, Belgians and French did the opposite, not only reaching back to physicality, but to in part replacing it with what we Dutch taught them, while we now do the same by adding to our toolbox what is good in the German/French toolbox.