He looks more interesting as a kick taker and potential front liner than as the mid he is probably seen as. The dribbles and turns get closed down fast at senior level. The long lofted passes to me are a bit slow and junior level stuff. The free kicks and setup balls look more senior useful. Brad Davis, with the praise and shade that implies.
LOL. 2018 cycle was Nagbe/Brooks and DY’s team? There are points that you can reasonably make but several of your arguments are embarrassing.
I cant follow his posts. They are long and often the second half contradicts the first half. i dont trust anyone that constantly tells me about their playing experience who never played at a high level and discards players worth 10s of millions for an MLS player making $75k and a player to be named in the future.
Lol. I actually agree with many of his takes. Even some of his crazy ones could be stated in a way that few would disagree. For example, he could say,”I’m concerned about Brook’s inconsistency and wish there was someone who could surpass him as he’s not a world class player. I’d be particularly interested in a defense first CB. Too bad we don’t have any of those.”
Who isnt concerned with Brook's lapses? Putting unproven players ahead of him is where his ideas dont make sense.
Well, Yedlin and Nagbe were fixtures in the hex and failed. Certain people here are quick to blame Bradley (as they should) while skipping over other players.....
Well, it is perfectly reasonable to question Brooks' standing when you look at his contribution last cycle. Personally I have him penciled in because I think passing out of the back is a must but I also have him in a 3cb back line because I think he has lapses in defense. If you don't put un-proven players ahead of Brooks at some point, how can they prove themselves? Better now than when he gets injured and can't play in the final game of the hex away in Trinidad...…….
He was invisible. It's so important to have an MLS guy ready to go because you cant always count on the Euro guy to show. Agree?
The concept that MLS players are more available than players in better leagues is a fallacy. More importantly, don’t hide your desire for your favorite MLS players behind the need for depth unless you admit that if our better European players are available, they are called in and play as much their bodies can handle. I am specifically speaking about JB, DY/TC, FJ and WM instead of whatever low/mid ceiling MLS player you prefer (Roldan, WT, Delgado - if we need them for depth, that’s what we have Camp Cupcake for)
For all his limitations, Yedlin was our second best player in Couva behind Pulisic. He saved us from two goals.
I'd move nagbe and zusi higher up the list. The first four should have never been on the field unless absolutely needed for cover and poor Gonzo was just atrocious through the whole Hex. Bradley and Howard just past it. Altidore was Altidore. Omar Nagbe Villafana Zusi Bradley Howard Altidore
One big reason to have MLS players on your Rolodex for CONCACAF games especially qualifying games is the temperature and humidity difference between winter Euro leagues and hot, steamy Central American and Caribbean countries. Some players are better at it than others but I'm sure we all struggle those first few hot muggy days when true summer arrives and without time to acclimate in some cases it makes sense to go with a player who is better in those conditions while not a better player overall. A lot of those types will help qualify the team and then get dropped if the team qualifies for the WC.
Yes it was. Guzan Yedlin Cameron-1 (Miazga, 64) Besler Ream Zardes-1 Jones Bradley (capt.) Johnson-1 (Nagbe, 64) Wood-1 (Morris, 68) Altidore-2 Was the lineup for the first qualifier in SV&G in 2015. I assume your overwrought response is based on some naive telescoping of the side into its singular captain, who then takes all the grief for failure like in some third world banana republic. No, this is 11 man soccer. It was as much Yedlin's team from day 1 as Bradley's. Or Guzan's. Brooks played in quite a few qualifiers and had a notable implosion in CR away. They all own it equally. I think it's embarrassing to treat soccer like a one man sport where one of the better players on the team, as captain, takes crap for not just his personal ageing process and failures, but also the lacklusterness of the rest of them. I think it dense to suggest reverting to more elements of the 2018 core like it had much success at all. Instead I think we should refashion this into an uodated 2022 team and they should earn their way back into the squad by outplaying all other options, like a rookie cap.
Nope. Last cycle the goal scorers in road games included Dempsey -- SEA, NER, FFC (all cool weather) Bradley -- TFC, etc. Wood -- various German locations Pulisic -- Dortmund Kljestan -- currently in warm Orlando, but also NYRB, Belgium I would go with the best players and the cross country runners. Fit players ready to run. And the Couva lesson is rotate your players. Though I think that also opens up into a discussion of faith/quality in your pool. You have to have more than 11 people you trust. You have to develop teams with enough quality where the coach can trust more than a few players and make necessary lineup rotations, subs, and tactical adjustments. I also think something missing from the team last cycle was deliberate comeback capabilities and diversity of use on the bench. Players who can hit a cross. Target players who can get back goals with headers. Wing speed. Diverse tactical options other than keep pressing and trying to build up and hope. My response to the TnT roster once we went down was fear that we simply didn't have the bench attacking punch to counter. I don't know how you do that with 23 man lists. I think the pool now has such players but I will be interested in whether some crossing, height, and speed-oriented names are put on rosters on purpose. The paradigm to me is as much cross country guys as these mission-specific subs. All the times Jozy or Gordon or Ching bailed us out for a point late in a road qualifier with a header off a cross. That is not the pretty soccer the snobs want. But that is sometimes what a result demands. You need Pulisic for if passing it up and knocking it in works. But you also need cruder, more direct options when you just need a goal. Crosses, headers, fast players to flank the endline.
How did he play at CR you mean. Corrected your post. fwiw we managed a scoreless road point in TnT in the semi round (people forget we were grouped twice) with Besler Orozco Cameron Ream. This suggests it is less the absence of Brooks than the presence of Gonzo Villafana Yedlin. To be pointed about this, Brooks started the following regional/CA losses: Jamaica (15 GC semi), Panama (15GC 3rd game), Colombia (16 CA group), Argentina (16 CA semi), Mexico (regional playoff), Mexico (WCQ 16), CR (WCQ 16). The pretense is he wasn't responsible because he wasn't there at the end. The reality is he was a member of most of the extended rough patch and merely absent for the coup d' grace. If he is as great a magical potion as suggested you'd think some of these key games come out the other way. People tend to forget the world cup goal was a sub and his sole appearance those finals. Kind of like Berhalter was a Mexico knockout injury sub who usually just adorned the bench for 3 world cups, including the whole 2002 group round. The last game was a travesty but there were a list of games that led to us being in that precarious spot, when in other cycles we have clinched by that point. Mexico home. CR home. TnT away. And others. And as I have detailed in the past couple months, it's not like they transitioned in the new team into mature selves. Brooks, Yedlin, and others continue to ship goals. And my ultimate point is when we don't qualify incumbency or succession rights should evaporate. I like how Steffen was allowed to compete straight up with Guzan, who was the nominal incumbent. He didn't get to just step up into the 1 shirt by succession rights. The kid outplayed him and he disappeared. I want the rest of the team handled this way. Maybe the next man up wins a fair fight. Or maybe the up and comer runs them off. May the best players on NT game day (as opposed to club affiliations or game logs) make the XI. If you want for this to be treated like a kingdom the next man up inherits, the team needs to all play like kings.
@juvechelsea Agreed on so much of this. The biggest for me. 1 Let the best man win. 2 Rotation is important.
I see the two as connected. I think a team built on abstracted favoritism tends to be shallowly constructed. You don't come up with 23-30 favorites. You come up with your little 11 man lineup and the idea of straying from it frightens you...."because favorites." To swap lineup names or rotate fresh players or sub is to pull favorites off the field for less favorites. If instead of playing favorites in the abstract, you instead identify performers, you know who else can perform. You maybe also look at a bench more composed of tactical varietals as opposed to another pile of stalemate components. Who is useful for sub keeping, defense, crossing, speed, height, passing. Who performs well and reliably but not as much as the next guy. Who is young but reliable. If you look at TnT, we didn't sub til the second half. We won the second half 1-0. We got a goal within 2 minutes of the sub and the second half. That game is about selection and the refusal to rotate. We looked tired until the half. The teams who won that day rotated. I then felt like he further crippled us with the bench selection where his "offensive" options consisted of Dempsey (who should have started), Benny, Bedoya, and Wondo. Once we fell behind I checked the bench and freaked out that I didn't see many game changers. It was like the team was picked to see out a 0-0 tie that was gone 17 minutes in. With 23 man rosters I don't get being bereft of crossers, target men (other than Clint), speed. Some of that may boil down to talent and development failures, ie, the inability to supply enough trustworthy players. But to me it's like how in more than a year did you not find 15-20 guys you trusted based on performance, who you could rotate as a situation demanded? I worry we are barking up the same tree by settling on lineups without any real contests. I mean, for example, how many times does Yedlin get to be beat on the far post before we leave him curbside? That's Peru and Chile draws -- when we had a lead -- in less than a year. Per. Form. Ance. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice.....and this team has people seeing the field who are repeat offenders more than twice. To me the old USNT would have tossed people who cost them games in the rubbish and found some dual national or MLS guy to take your place.
I'd like to see anyone argue against that. The issue for many here is equating MLS 'success' to international level play. And we should hope for an international level of play from our NT. Talent is talent and club time, whether at MLS or wherever is less important to me because talent isn't always used properly at the club level and there's always the roster in play where experienced guys like the 40+ year old striker for Bremen taking the minutes a very talented Sargent would be getting. Still I take Sargent over Zardes, Morris or Nova.
We still have not found replacements for Dempsey, Jones, Donovan, Beasley, Cameron, Johnson and Howard. The last four still play, but not at the level they used to have. And Pulisic is great in his own right but lacks the experience to lift the team around him. The post-2015 pool is weak. We're going to need good coaching to compensate for that.
Apples to apples in the experimental phase of the cycle is play them for the NT and watch their performance. That short circuits all these heuristics of where do you play club, how often do you play there. It will also capture any real NT game performance effects of a poor club situation, but as a NT performance as opposed to a club performance transmuted to a NT assumption. If Wood or Horvath plays poorly for the Nats because of club, ok, club is hurting them. If Sargent scores anyway, who cares? Like I was arguing, we actually have a long history of promising young players who started in Germany and were in youth or II team situations, being fast tracked like Pulisic. People forget Landon, McBride, and others started there and came back to MLS, then went back as more mature players. You don't even have to agree with the MLS reboot decision to see where maybe you shouldn't harshly judge your leading talents on their first team playing time. The prospects most likely to be in a tough club situation are ones who make the most ambitious early decisions and some of them will be your leading youth players at places like PSG, Dortmund, etc. It strikes me as completely self defeating to slap around your best prospects for not leaping to the first team of PSG like some half baked player on Salt Lake. And my thing is let's avoid the rabbit hole and just judge the apples to apples of play for the NT. Sargent does what he does for club, but it manifests for the senior team. Nova does what he does for club, but it does not manifest for the senior team. If this was anything other than the French philosopher joke of working in practice but will it work in theory, for the ones with USMNT tape, the tape and stats either look worthy or not. To at that point go back to club tape is like, let's start over, let's ignore USMNT play in the bank. To me club tape should be for scouting new players and for double checking whether current players can still kick a ball straight. Some will say, doesn't this sound like big club snobbery? No. Weah has produced at Celtic and PSG; Zelalem has not. Weah has produced for the NT; Zelalem has not. This is not favor every U20 abroad. This is favor productive players even if they don't play club much. Particularly once a player is started contributing to the NT it's absurd to send them back to club purgatory and tell them their return ticket back can only be earned in club ball. I'd think NT goals for a team looking for NT players should be your bona fides right there. The club debates should be a second or third tier player discussion, or a scouting discussion, of who to call around the players who produce. The debate of "what does x goals mean at y club" should really be for people who don't already have 3 or more NT goals a year. If you have those creds I don't need to make abstracted comparisons. Do you produce more NT goals per 90 than Gyasi? Yes. Welcome in. Are we really going back to Crew vs Werder or first team versus bench then? Why do we even play friendlies? Absurd.
To me the club or minutes thing is a sideshow. We didn't use to put ManU's Kenny Cooper right into the lineup based on affiliation. Nor did we run Landon off the team for not taking off for Leverkusen. One worked for us. The other not so much. If a player showed up unfit or rusty I assume a quiet chat was had and maybe they got benched. The logic should be that NT performance drives that quiet chat, not that we just leave you off the team on the assumption club play will affect NT play.
I thought Pomykal was easily the best player. Really liked Rennicks as well. Still would take Pomykal over Mendez and Rennicks over Soto.