http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2017/03/07/2017-gold-cup-groups-usa-mexico-honduras-canada The U.S. men's national team will have to navigate through a group featuring Panama, Martinique and either Haiti or Nicaragua in the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Three seeds were pre-set, with Honduras (Group A), USA (Group B) and Mexico (Group C) being spread across the three groups. Honduras will play against Costa Rica, French Guiana and Canada, while Mexico will go up against Jamaica, El Salvador and Curacao.
That wouldn't require too much navigation, although Panama and Haiti certainly gave us enough trouble the last time. I wish our prospects could have gotten a stiffer test of their abilities.
Here is a list of the venues, with the respective matches . . . https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017...es-complete-groups-and-schedule-2017-gold-cup Date Location Matches Tickets Fri, July 7 NY / NJ - Red Bull Arena French Guiana vs. Canada Honduras vs. Costa Rica Tickets Sat, July 8 Nashville - Nissan Stadium USA vs. Panama Martinique vs. Haiti/Nicaragua Tickets Sun, July 9 San Diego - Qualcomm Stadium Curacao vs. Jamaica Mexico vs. El Salvador Tickets Tue, July 11 Houston - BBVA Compass Stadium Costa Rica vs. Canada Honduras vs. French Guiana Tickets Wed, July 12 Tampa - Raymond James Stadium Panama vs. Haiti/Nicaragua USA vs. Martinique Tickets Thu, July 13 Denver - Sports Authority Field El Salvador vs. Curacao Mexico vs. Jamaica Tickets Fri, July 14 Frisco - Toyota Stadium Costa Rica vs. French Guiana Canada vs. Honduras Tickets Sat, July 15 Cleveland - FirstEnergy Stadium Panama vs. Martinique Haiti/Nicaragua vs. USA Tickets Sun, July 16 San Antonio - Alamodome Jamaica vs. El Salvador Curacao vs. Mexico Tickets
Yes! Did this years ago and remember running out of limes for the caiparinhas and substituting gatorade for gatorinhas! Refreshing and keeps you hydrated.
I don't mind it, we have plenty of venues that can host games, it's nice to see them spread out to as many places as possible. Only questionable thing IMO is they're no longer making the semi final a double header. Our side of the bracket is likely headed to Dallas, while Mexico's is headed to Pasadena. If we get Honduras, it might draw a decent crowd, but US/Costa Rica in a 80,000 seat stadium is probably going to leave a lot of empty sections.
It's about as tough of a group as we could have asked for, with French Guiana, Martinique, and Curacao qualifying we were guaranteed to get one Caribbean pastie. Martinique is the best of the 3 and actually didn't fair that badly 4 years ago when they beat Canada, lost to Panama on an 85th minute penalty, and spent most of their Mexico game down 2-1 until Mexico added an insurance goal in the 90th minute. They were about 60 seconds from the knockout stage. Panama has pretty good track record in this tourney with 3 straight semi final trips, and Haiti is one of the best teams in The Caribbean.
I know, I know. But it's mickeymouse. That and the double headers makes it look as if all they cared about were the money.
This is where we make the transition to the Bruce era 2.0, if it's going to be majorly different from the previous manager's. Our next wc qualifiers are ahead of this event, unfortunately. And as of right now there are no friendlies scheduled. There are also no FIFA match dates. So even if we have a friendly or two, it's going to be tough logistically to give trials to who we want. It would be largely MLS-based again, you'd figure. Although that's not a huge problem. There are only a couple guys from Europe still who Klinsmann didn't integrate. A disproportionate amount of our work in the integration process still needs to happen from MLS. But that will still be one limitation, and some players from MLS may also have trouble being released. It would behoove them to work with us though because it's in their interest we make the World Cup and feature many of their players for marketing purposes. Back to the Gold Cup though. I'm really looking forward to this tourney. It's going to be a low stress exercise where we may see a lot of the players we've been clamoring about for a while and were curious to get answers about. I think Bruce will have no shortage of experiments given his past comments and tendencies, valuing so heavily the World Cup, and calling it a young man's game. I expect to see plenty of young men then in a b-team integration comp such as this. One of them I was looking most fw to seeing integrated finally was Lletget, but unfortunately now he and we won't get the chance. Clears the way for Hyndman, although I trust advocates of him and critics of Lletget, in spite of him performing well in each of his first 3 USNT appearances, didn't want Emerson to get the opportunity if it was going to happen this way. For fw's, I guess we'll see Morris, Agudelo, and Green. If there's 1 or 2 between the likes of Mullins, Wright, Sapong, Dwyer, Manneh, Finlay, etc.; it should come down to form and/or emergence at a bigger club. Zardes we don't need to see, but it wouldn't surprise me if he's there too. Acosta has solidified a spot on the roster. Roldan IMO is a must. He's been a top 20 or so player in MLS since he's been starting, a key to Seattle's title run last year, and translates well with his decent athleticism, tenacity, quickness of thought, and technical ability. This is where we have to really try to move on from Jones and possibly Bradley as well. McCarty would help us cultivate a depth option in case the a-team starting cm's went down. We could learn to trust him more during this event. What happened at rb/fb was really a freak occurrence, but still we need to cultivate more depth there. Long been a problem spot, and we don't want to be compelled to pull away players who have more use elsewhere such as Cameron, Johnson, and Acosta. Rosenberry should be one of the first names on the team sheet. And Lichaj probably should be there to be re-integrated, although as is you could already use him in a pinch. Villafana on the other side it would probably behoove us to get more caps under his belt. Somehow, centrally along the back-line, we're still having issues even though this is seemingly the strength of the pool. Might need a vet or two in there to steady the prospects, but the likes of Zimmerman, Miazga, and Hedges need to be seen at this event. Voila, we'd have cb depth afterward, and be in position to meet any challenge there head on. Thankfully Howard was able to comeback for these last qualifiers, otherwise our situation in net would have been dicey. But he's not getting any younger. This is a great opportunity for the likes of Hamid + Horvath to get a ton of needed game experience, and maybe appear our successor after Howard, a transition which would hopefully occur a significant time before the World Cup. Bingham indicates with his gaffes in MLS he's probably not on this level. Horvath taking the starting spot on Belgian giants Club Brugge would make us more comfortable about starting him. Our (a)wing options for this competition aren't great. Again, it's going to depend heavily on form. Only obvious names here are for Arriola to have his role expanded, and Nagbe see his entrenched. Otherwise it's who has made a move between Manneh, Green, Finlay, Gooch, etc. Depending on need and if they tremendously stand out, we could see 1 or 2 of the u-20's here as well, i.e.: EPB, Wright, CCV, Perez, etc. I'm particularly interested in moving on EPB quickly because I see him as a possibly required and ready d-mid for the WC, plus he has the argument of being versatile, but he has to show us enough between SKC and the u-20 ships to warrant the promotion. Otherwise they could back door a trip to the WC in the lead-up friendlies. Given the clubs they are or could be associated with, they could move up the ladder fast if they become regs there.
Arena said this... “The rosters will certainly have some changes along the way,” said Arena. “What they are right now, I couldn’t tell you. Certainly in July, we would like to bring in some new faces as well to complement our team. We haven’t made any decisions yet as to what we will do at the Gold Cup, but we’re going to bring as strong a team as we can.” Make of that what you wish, but good chance Bradley, Altidore, et. al. are there unless they ask out.
Update on this list.... GK: Hamid, Horvath, Bingham... Steffens FB: Chandler, Lichaj, Garza, Ream... Rosenberry CB: Miazga, Carter-Vickers, Hedges, Zimmerman.... Birnbaum C/DM: Morales, Acosta, Hyndman, Kitchen... McCarty W/AT: Arriola, Manneh, Gooch,... Finlay FW: Green, Dwyer, Johansson, Morris, Boyd/Sapong/Agudelo/Zardes (whoever is in most form) ----Dwyer---Morris---- Manneh------------Arriola ---Acosta----Morales--- Garza--------------Chandler --Hedges--Zimmerman--- -----------Hamid-------------
I think an impediment when comprising this roster may be that we don't want to neuter teams too badly that are still playing football. Ideally BOTH Zimmerman and Hedges would be included, but then we've just excised Dallas' CB pairing for a month, or however long the tourney goes. Diplomatically, we may just have to pick one or the other. I think Hedges would take priority because he's been waiting longer and is more accomplished at this point. His opportunity with the national team is long overdue. Zimmerman being forced to be a leader as a cb and at a decent level in MLS could be a positive thing for his long-term development. Often times MLS competition is going to be tougher than we'd see in a secondary Gold Cup. But I could see a situation where taking multiple players from a club could benefit us in the long run. Besler and Opara would be candidates. I think people have forgotten how much of a rock Besler has been for us at cb, so this tournament could be a way to remind them. While Opara presumably always would have been a national teamer if healthy and given the shots on merit. Then the byproduct of taking those two away from SKC would be it would force Vermes' hand to play EPB finally. He's one of the players who is most important to our future because of his potential, versatility, and ability to be a stay at home 6. He'd in all likelihood play cb for them, but he just needs 1st team pro experience finally. I don't know that he could qualify for the Gold Cup/USNT just off youth internationals and reserve play. If he proves himself when the vets are away then Vermes finally needs to find a place for him on the field somewhere. I have also heard people suggest a reticence of pulling players from Europe away from their preseasons. But as aforementioned, pulling them away from midseasons in MLS has a cost too, and we need to make up a roster. So I think it would behoove us for this roster to be a healthy mixture of MLS players from a diversity of clubs and European 1st teamers. Playing with the national team, even Gold Cup, letting those individuals increase their caps and be on that stage, does improve the outlook of a transfer for those looking to get into a better situation. For example, Matt Miazga isn't realistically going to be part of Chelsea's cb pairing next season, so I think it would be more advantageous for him to play in the Gold Cup to catapult him into a higher quality loan or transfer. These are all things that Bruce may and should think about, which sometime lead him to invites for players who may not be part of the roster in a perfect world, or exclusions of players who would. Timing and situation does matter. I'm still expecting enough viable experiments on the roster all things considered, putting the priorities on key ones, where if they don't appear it will have been a misuse of the tool. Bruce says it will be the strongest team possible. I don't read much into that, given the fact he in part needs to be a salesman for USS. He can't exactly come out and say he's going to put out an experimental roster far from our strongest, but then argue fans should fill 60k stadiums anyway.
Possible may be the key word here. This is a good way to state something that you can explain away later.
Arena is delaying his Gold Cup roster considerations until after the next round of qualifying . . . http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/04/13/arena-usa-world-cup-qualifying-state-were-far-out-woods But he also explained his approach to the Gold Cup will likely be dictated by the state of the qualification campaign. "I think things that would come into play would be: how do we do in these two [qualifying] games? What position is the US team in going into the Gold Cup, for World Cup qualifying? If we're in a desperate situation, we may need to go with the team we think is the team we're going to play with in September. If we come out of these games in good shape, we may have a little more flexibility to look at some new players."
The problem with Arena's intended course is that it foresees playing Brooks, say, in Mexico and Denver and adding him to Gold Cup roster because he foresees needing him in September. He also seems fine with the things that didn't work last outing, like our midfield. I have the gnawing suspicion that Bruce is operating on the assumption that America has more talent now so he just has to do what he did last time he managed the team and he will automatically get a better result. The fallacy there is that the we are not the only ones with more talent. Not to mention that whole thing about the replacements for Donovan, Dempsey and Howard, to name three, who aren't going to be any better. We can more likely have a solid player at each position this time around (hasn't been shown in midfield yet) but all teams we will meet in r16 will have that. 2018 will be a learning experience for us. For example, going forward, we can't afford to fall behind the curve with guys like Klinsmann because it puts the next guy in a compromised position, as described by Arena in his recent statements.
The first names that I think of that I want to get on this side during the GC that aren't on it currently are Roldan, Zimmerman, Manneh and probably Dwyer. And of course, don't forget Benny. I'd give Dax the keys in several games and see how he handles driving the bus.
I would leave off people who have a history of physical, mental, psychological problems be it Chandler, Opara, Spector, etc., and concentrate on those who are coming up fast and making a case (Hyndman, e.g.) or guys who are proving super solid over time (McCarty, e.g.). Basically we want the guys who have a higher probability of being valuable in Russia 18. Hyndman here (and I'm not actually a fan but fair is fair - I could always be wrong, I admit it) http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/sto...st-rangers-usmnt-video-goal-highlights-041717
Well Mexico is definitely sending a B team. As for us we're probably going to send a A-/B+ team as 2 whole camps in the summer might be too much for some players. Granted 2 years ago we had the Holland/Germany camp and then The Gold Cup a month later so who knows?
Not really. Since the 2005/6 cycle FIFA started having one Confed Cup per cycle. CONCACF awarded the winner of 1 gold cup to advance to the Confed Cup in the 06, 10 & 14 cycles. This changed in the 2018 cycle. Now each Gold Cup is awarded a half spot into the CONCACAF Cup. Winner of the CONCACAF Cup advances to the Confed Cup. Here is the history... 1997/98 and 2001/02 cycles 2 Confed Cups every 4 years - both GC winners were awarded a Confed Cup spot (because there was 2) 2005/6, 2009/10 & 2013/14 cycles 1 Confed Cup every 4 years - Only the "A Team" GC winner was awarded the Confed Cup spot 2017/18 cycle 1 Confed every 4 years - Both GCs awarded a .5 spot to the CCAF Cup (winner of CCAF Cup goes to the 2017 Confed Cup) Edit: The 2017 GC is awarded a .5 spot for the 2019 CCAF Cup... it is the start of the 2021/22 cycle.
My sense is that the "strongest" team isn't necessarily the one with the best chance of winning anyway. Players who are at an ambitious state in their careers and looking to make an impression may play better when you consider also that it's El Salvador and Guatemala, not Argentina, who play in Gold Cup. Here is a good journalistic piece from Brian Sciaretta (he does that from time to time) on some YA's http://americansoccernow.com/articles/hyndman-pulisic-lead-next-generation-of-midfielders A guy like Hyndman could be ideal in a Gold Cup. Miazga and Ream as well. They would actually pair well altho my feeling is that they should go 3 in the back so add 1 like - gonzo? Yeah, he could bring the Mexican experience into the back line and we could see how he plays with 3 in the back. -------morris---agudelo----Hyndman --zusi-------dax---------Roldan---arriola --------ream----miazga----gonzo ------------------Rimando with 3 subs in the attack like Dwyer or Jozy, etc., that team would certainly have the quality to win the gold cup.