LOL - it's framed to sound impressive, but a 29 year old destroyer making a career of relegation level clubs? It's hard to argue some agenda when JK, Arena and GB have all passed on bringing him back.
Hope springs eternal. I have no objections to calling him in, but my expectations are um modest. Btw was Tim Ream a starting player for a Premier League team?
Please. His club was decidedly mid table and he received 50% of minutes as a central midfielder. The fact that he was behind Bradley, Jones and Williams when they were at their peak has nothing to do with today when he’s competing with worn-tires Bradley and Will Trapp FFS.
Hardly. His team got relegated immediately and had by far the worst goals against average of any PL team. It was basically a Championship team allowed in the PL for one year. And yet, he's an autostarter. How many starters/squad rotation guys in the Big 4 leagues did Egg ignore?
Let's list our Big 4 regulars/semi-regulars and their positions on the USNT - Brooks - starter Yedlin - starter when healthy (unless Egg decides to bench him for Adams) Ream - (being generous here as he's more of a Championship player) starter Adams - starter Pulisic - starter McKennie - starter Morales - doesn't get called in, because we have an average MLS 31 year old. In what world does this make sense?
It isn't hard for me to distinguish Brooks, Adams, Pulisic and McKennie on the one hand and Morales on the other. But as I indicated I'm fine with giving Morales a look. I rate Danny Williams higher than both him and Bradley, but Williams has been injured. Btw where does Timothy Chandler fit in? Is he a BL starter?
I get it, and happy you're ok with giving a BL starter/rotation player a look. I'd also be happy with Williams, though he always seems to be injured. I simply don't get how every other Big 4 starter/rotation guy is a surefire starter for the US, but nobody bats an eye when the final one can't even get a call up, and seem to think MB and Trapp are about the same player as him. I think Chandler and Fabian likely would be starters, but both seemed to have major injuries this year (I think Chandler hardly played). If either one of them plays starters minutes, I'd absolutely bring them in ahead of middling MLS old guys.
yes I intersperse chicken ********ing with analysis. It's like coaching kids...tell them when they do it wrong, then show them the right way.
This is true. Bradley's time is clearly limited, to the delight of BS, but the difference between now and 2 years ago, or 5 years ago, or 8 years ago (how long have we been doing this garbage?) is that now there's finally a really good reason for him to be gone. His mobility is shot, and the emergence of Cannon will really, I'd imagine very quickly, place Adams in his natural position. I'd still have Bradley on the bench as a locker room leader, personally, I think his experience is valuable and I wouldn't be surprised to see him involved in coaching when all is said and done, but that's neither here nor there. With the Gold Cup over, I'd expect this to happen pretty quickly. Even as someone that likes Bradley and thinks, apart from the Final, he had a good cup.
actually what is better here is Yedlin at RB and Adams in the midfield (helping to displace MB) .... since Adams is at RB Leipzig which I would argue is superior to where Morales is playing - but both of them are in better situations than Toronto.
How quickly is pretty quickly? Bradley (150) is 15 caps away from passing Cobi Jones (164). Are you willing to play Bradley 15 more times? I'm not.
... what on earth do you mean by elite? These decisions aren't made in a vacuum, or based on 1 single criterion.
I don't know how important this is to Bradley, I don't really think on these terms and I'm not sure an international coach dealing with essentially a huge rebuild should be all that concerned about it either.
Have you watched him play for his club team as as winger? He is a difference maker for his UCL bound team. He's never played that position for the USMNT.
If you don't think Bradley should be starting anymore, that equates to everything in Europe being perfect, and everything American sucks. Good argument.
I imagine you're a big MB90 supporter based on your game day posts, which is fine. So this likely won't go anywhere. Your answer seems to lead to an opaque version of "well, Arena didn't want him, neither does Egg, they know more than we do yada yada yada". My counter to that, or whatever similar nebulous set of reasons you provide, is - German teams have better coaches, management, and talent evaluators than Egg and Arena. They have chosen to play Morales. MB90 hasn't been wanted in Europe for what, 5 years now? I don't care how Morales looked 5 years ago during his last few caps. He played 1600 minutes in the BL, something MB90 did at his peak, which is not now. It's weird that the only "facts" opponents of Morales have is that our awful coaches prefer Bradley leading their teams of losers.
One of the best of the GC! Presenting the #GoldCup2019 Best XI! 🤩Who else would you add to the team? Read More 👉 https://t.co/6AkAHJSt6d#ThisIsOurs #EstoEsNuestro #GoldCupFinal pic.twitter.com/Fzggvs1Rzd— W Gold Cup (@GoldCup) July 8, 2019
None of this has anything to do with my point, that these kinds of decisions aren't about one, or two, or even five things. The decline of Bradley has been apparent for a long time, but frankly I consider myself much less a Bradley supporter (anyone that has even been lukewarm on the player has to be considered a "Bradley supporter" when directly contrasted with the discussion of Bradley on this board) and more someone that finds the overblown (and very selective) negativity, which has surrounded any discussion of the player since at least 2007, pretty ridiculous. This is not to say he's the same guy he was as a younger player. But this overblown negativity and selectivity has always ignored what he brings to the table, for the most part. And if you think a coach finds it easy to drop a guy with Bradley's experience, you might not know that much about coaching with regard to a results-oriented business. That's not even touching the tactics Gregg is going for -- which I've had my problems with -- but he's clearly GOING for something. You don't play Ream at "left back" in a withdrawn distribution role unless you're going for something specific, you don't push Adams out of position unless you're trying a unique tactical approach, which frankly in many ways is dictated by the limitations of the pool. Is it overthinking things? With Adams, I'd say quite clearly it is, with Ream, perhaps less so, and with Bradley, even less so. But either way, the guy's decisions have at least been partially justified. Meanwhile much of US Men was moaning about this team not making it past 1 knockout round in this cup or whatever. Right... so he hasn't been a part of the US setup for years. And presumably you don't think this might be a valid reason a coach wouldn't call him in to prepare for and then compete in this tournament? This is what I'm talking about... in a vacuum, ignoring the fuller picture, sure, it's easy to make the case for lots of people. But this team isn't being selected in a vacuum.
Yeah, we'll see. I think it would be a nice nod to Bradley for his career, but from my perspective it would require a lot for him to get there from here.
That's obviously not true. I'm not even going to get into the "The Finnish 3rd division is in Europe too" game. He left Roma and got a really big pay raise. Surely for much of these last 5 years he could have played at Morales' level, if he was willing to take a pay cut and raise his children in a non-English speaking country. It just slays me how often the factual underpinnings of a certain faction's posts have to be corrected. He would be a very, very unusual person if it didn't matter to him. I don't see why Berhalter would care very much, but hey, it's possible. Same with the USSF. But Michael himself? C'mon.
That is completely, 100% true. Nobody has wanted him. Is his salary too high to justify it? Sure, I wouldn't argue that. That doesn't make my statement untrue. And as far as him being able to play at Morales' level the last 5 years? Sure, I guess, Morales was in 2nd division a few times. I'm talking about the last 6-12 months. Morales was a key squad player for a 10th place BL team. Bradley couldn't lead his team over the past 24 months to A. 4th place in CONCACAF, B. the playoffs despite MLS' highest payroll, and C. likely the playoffs for a 2nd straight year. I simply don't even understand how this is an argument. Sheesh, if Morales played every single minute of every single game, despite being in the German 2nd division, I'd be calling for other players to be given a chance to challenge him too (much less Bundesliga starters!)