What I just don't get, among the many points of ineptitude in US Soccer, is how they continue to run out players who are evidently just not athletic enough to hack it at the international level. It's obvious that De La Torre doesn't have the needed extra gear, just as Villafana and Trapp are clearly in above their heads on the athletic level. Rubin seems borderline. I'm so tired of seeing guys just literally get run off the ball because they don't have the pace or strength to protect it. I get that US players aren't going to be Messi skill-wise, but at least put out players who can compete on the athletic level. I think we're capable of that. People become enamored of certain players' skillsets, but when it gets to this level, the brutal truth is either they are fast/quick enough or they are not. The rest at that point doesn't matter.
To be fair, his club actually gave him a fair chance with 3 important games ... the Danish Cup Quarter-finals 12. April ... in the Superliga Championship round 22. April and in the Danish Cup Semi-Finals against Brøndby 26, April ... his debut in the Danish cup was good, but then it all went downhill from there, and so they did not want to risk using him in the last highly important games, with the Danish Championship being at stake ... https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/bill-hamid-midtjylland.1842021/page-24#post-36541066 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/bill-hamid-midtjylland.1842021/page-25#post-36556454
“4th keeper for the Danish NT” is not some high bar to beat. And Hamid has always made horrid errors, rust or not.
great idea...now you just need ideas that will fix the fed. its easy to say burn it down thats what wynalda offered...but his plan to 'fix' it was literally to replace mls will nasl and bankrupt the fed within 2 years. thats not a good plan.
Friendlies don’t matter. France is going to spank us. They are going to play a some of the best players in the world in their last match before the World Cup and we are going to play a bunch of inexperienced kids. It will be 3-0 or 4-0, if not more. Hopefully, at some point, we will have the talent to match up with them. Even if some of these kids turn out to be that talented, they are still going to get an education. Friendlies still don’t matter.
I figured this would happen. Playing Hamid was a horrible idea. He isnt good enough and isn't playing regularly, which is a slight exaggeration. This game just set him up to fail and makes the hurdle bigger if he is able to improve his game. He doesnt look like a top 3 GK for us now and hard to bank on a guy who turns 28 in November and I'd struggling in the Superligen. Myself and others have been pointing out the flaws in his game that were evident in MLS since 2014. These flaws are magnified in Denmark and will be regularly exploited in the international game. The guy needs to finally address the issues, win a starting spot, and forget about the national team for a year. The last thing he needs is more mistakes and goals at this level. Hamid is more like Agudelo or Flores in guys you defend/support to no end. It is a shame you dont get to coach all these players you think are great and they have to be mistreated by actual coaches. Hamid has shown he isnt the best goalkeeper on that team. He has made mistakes that have cost the team points. This occurred in April so a bit much claim the issue is completely due to not playing. Games on April 12, 22, and 26 and then a reserve game on may 7th. I'm sure what this means "he had been one of the best keepers in MLS (at minimum) for years." and not sure why it matters as there aren't many international goalkeepers in MLS. Hamid had his best year in 2014 and then dropped off partly due to injuries. It is hard for me to get excited about the goalkeeper who let in 4 goals against Ireland and then his game dropped off. He went from gk of the year to 3rd to 4th to not in the top 5. That doesnt sound like a guy who is going places.
I don't understand the excuse for Hamid, in the past, a good player wasn't selected because...A) he doesn't play in a strong enough league; B) Because he doesn't get enough playing time with his team. Is Hamid a special case?
Talents is half of the equation. Desire, hunger, and the ability to play together as a collective unit is the key. Argentina, Netherlands, Belgium, etc. are loaded with talents yet they are unable to win anything of recent. Whereas Sweden, Iceland, Greece, etc. have been able to win lots of games because they fought together as a team. The USMNT have been able punch above our weights in many occasions, because of our collective spirit and our strong mental desire to fight and win. We beat Portugal, went toes to toes with Germany and Italy in past WCs. Somehow along the way, we simply lost our will to play and our strength as 'one' unit. And a lot of that has to do with the coach and the leadership on the field.
Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of having keepers starting in the EPLs. We were spoiled by Keller, Friedel, and Howard for decades. In the past, this has been our main strength on the roster, now it has become our weakest link.
MLS is finally starting to act like the rest of the world. Hey, I know it's a international window and you could force the issue but if you want us to release players when it's not a window you might want to pass right now.
If Weah goes anywhere near the English Championship, I will scream. That league is a tactical hackfest. No, no, no, no, no.
Yes, he was. Gave up three goals a good keeper would have stopped (I know one was called back but he still should have stopped that). One of his competitors (Gonzalez) was injured for a couple of months and in his first game back stood on his head with nine saves (too bad the next game wasn't as good). Keepers practice those very things every day so maybe if he'd had one goof I 'd let him off the hook but not three.
Wiktionary uses my definition: blooded (not comparable) Experienced. I'll let a rookie march behind me with a loaded weapon once he's been blooded in combat, until then he stays in front where I can see which way he's pointing His unit gets casualties. He sees people injured or killed in battle for the first time. The tomahawk thing may be where it originated. Maybe it was before that. But, my understanding, confirmed by wiktionary, whatever that is, is that is was used to describe whether guys had some experience in battle or not.
I have no idea why we would schedule France at this point in time. We are just not good. Aside from Puli, I don't know that there are players that dramatically improve what we put out there. We should be scheduling teams at our level, not setting ourselves up to be sacrificed. Garber must be making more money off it, somehow.
Typical head in the sand excuse. When the athletes fail, it has to be the coaching. I've finally come round to the grim reality. We just don't consistently produce any world-class soccer athletes. The coaching whether Bradley, Klinsmann, Arena or this guy can only do so much. Without the raw material we're just treading water and possibly even devolving.
So true, and what is the solution...bring back MB, Zusi, Howard and other old timers so they can delay the inevitable? That would not solve anything IMHO. We need to keep playing the youth in different combinations (and hopefully different coach) until someone steps up. It will happen, we just need to be patient. Playing one or two friendlies does not tell us the future. I believe in most of these young men and do not want to see us panic and go for the old. I though Weah was active and has a lot of potential. Hopefully, the France game will be the last under the current coach, and we can start rebuilding the team. On another note CCV reminds me of Gooch, at least in body type and movement.
We looked like a team that was young, had players lacking match fitness/sharpness, and was inexperienced.
No, I think you've misconstrued tactics and experience as "will to play" and "one unit". We did well in 1994 because we were at home, and our team of lowly players was almost a club team, with how much experience they had. In 1998, aging players and internal strife blew us up. We weren't particularly talented that cycle either. That certainly doesn't help. 2002 was an excellent confluence of young talent emerging at key positions, mixing with experienced and talented internationals, which allowed an American team with an effective counterattacking style to perform extremely well. Our knowledge and experience playing Mexico was clearly helpful in the knockout stages as well. 2006, everyone was too old, and Bruce never adjusted his team to mitigate that. 2010, Bob Bradley installs a pulley 4-4-2 system that maximizes in-prime talents like Dempsey and Donovan. Our group is quite easy, with under-performers England as the top team. Key players in key positions weren't quite up to snuff against Ghana (e.g Edu, Robbie Findley), and we lose on a counterattack. In 2014, for all his absurdities and stupid experiments, Jurgen Klinsmann relies on basically the same group of players all cycle long. Michael Bradley, Tim Howard, Jermaine Jones, Clint Dempsey, and Jozy Altidore. Everyone else was thrown around to try to make sure those guys were going to succeed. His teams, while emphasizing playing out of the back and attacking fullbacks, are defensive 4-5-1 variations. This worked well for one cycle. The US does well to get an early goal before injuries destroy key parts of the squad against Ghana, and we're fortunate that CR7 is limited. Howard's excellent goalkeeping keeps us in the game, while Wondo's finishing exposes JK's obvious lack of depth. In 2018, nobody adequately replaces the aging core of JK stalwarts, and the developmental gap of 20-something players is exposed for its paucity of talent. Arena's vision for a by-the-numbers, old-school, 4-4-2 team is dashed when he bakes his players in the tropics of Central America, and fails to relieve them before a game in a Trinidadian swamp. Particularly painful is a reliance on an awful Timmy Howard. It's pretty obvious by the Carlisle article and the Strauss article that there have been some locker room problems with this team, and the fact that this problem has been allowed to fester for most of a decade, was certainly a factor in why we failed. But mainly, the American player still wants to win. We just can't bully our Central American and Caribbean neighbors anymore when we're coached by a moron, relying on their lack of talent to allow us to grind out the necessary results. All the USSF needs to do this cycle is throw the sink at a manager who isn't a moron and don't interfere too much with him.
I think Adams and McKennie would look a lot better together in a 4-2-3-1 as the two with a 10 in front of them. Not enough offense to be the two in a 4-3-3/4-1-4-1 with another defensive mid behind them. Against the grain on here apparently I thought Sargent looked great in his cameo. Super silky on the ball, made nice passes in spots all over, won the ball and held it off which was absent from everyone else. He didn't score but seems more likely to score or assist if given the same minutes as any other forward.
I hope you do understand that the Danish 1st and 3rd keeper (Schmeichel and Jonas Lössl) are both key players for their clubs in the English PL ? ... and the Danish 2nd keeper has just moved to Frankfurt in the Bundesliga to be their 1st choice ... so being 4th keeper for the Danish NT is not really a sign of weakness ...
We played 7 guys 21 and younger. It was 1-1, we brought on 5 new players, 3 of which made their debut. We lost 2-1. If Rubin wasn’t an idiot on one play, we would’ve drew 2-2. If Hamid wasn’t so... Hamid, we might have won. Of those 7 guys, it’s possible 3-5 or more never become regulars or even get another cap. We don’t even know if guys like McKennie, Weah, Adams, Miazga, CCV are even going to be regulars. I won’t say it was pretty, but it wasn’t as bad as it’s being made out. I’ll agree that we seem to have lost some grit, but let’s tell the whole story and say that we were bunkering and countering most of those big wins in the past. But I will say that I don’t doubt the heart and desire of guys like McKennie and Parker. Any time there’s a physical play, they are right in the middle of it. I just wish Parker was a little better.
That's what I think, too--and with an interim manager, no less--but given where we are at this point in the cycle (the very end of the previous cycle, that is) I'm actually ok with that. To me this was simply a building block, not a litmus test nor a referendum.
Agreed..... except as a proving ground for players and as training to craft a genuine team for the USMNT. Unfortunately, we have a USSF that seems to think they do matter. When Jurgen Klinsmann said: "Am I not the King of Friendly? Look upon my works, ye Mighty, in wonder!" , did not Gulati, lo those many years, do just that? When Dave Sarachan says: "Am I not the King of Friendly? Listen to me, O Mighty, and drop the Interim from my title!", do not we fear that those mighty will in fact listen?
Makes sense. Would’ve been nice to have seen Parks in there...Keaton not being on the bench was a coaching decision? FFS. Parks ahead of Adams and Mckennie, with Pulisic on one wing and Amon/Weah on the other with the Sarge up top. We might actually be on to something.