Dempsey and Bedoya were a bit older than Bradley and Altidore when the four had left Europe for MLS. The feud had a number of dimensions. 1. JK had been advising young US players to avoid signing with MLS. 2. JK had been very vocal about Europe being a much better place for young players to go to for development. 3. He had been very vocal about the need for US National Teamers to play at the highest level, in other words, not in MLS. 4. He helped foster the impression that players from the diaspora were favored over their MLS counterparts.
Javier Hernandez would seem like a prime target by the summer of 2020. A little past his prime at the age of 32. He probably wants to hang around for Qatar, but December 2022 is still far in the future. For an American player, Bobby Wood seemed like the most likely possibility to me until he fell off a cliff.
That was pretty great when a Mexican MLS player stepped up to beat us in the Gold Cup final. For Mexico fans.
im sure MLS-more-than-USMNT fans were thrilled too. Maybe we would have done better if we didn’t build around Bradley. let’s see if Mexico can get to the semis with MLS players in their spine.
That never happened. Even Garber and the other MLS owners admitted that all Klinsmann's staff was doing was helping the young players understand all their options. In a smart move, Gulati created and hired MLS Veteran Nelson Rodriquez to do that role. https://sbisoccer.com/2014/11/us-soccer-nelson-rodriguez-managing-director The so called players from the diaspora were better than their MLS counterparts. It was not even close.
USSF is a federation with the purpose of building the game in the United States. They represent USMNT, the women’s team, the futsal team, beach volleyball team, they host tournaments, they have youth teams, etc. and with all that to worry about it seems one of its biggest priorities is getting Mikey his actual, literal, participation trophy. We hired a coach, that has implemented a terrible system, just so that Mikey has a position in it. What a world. And boy has the rhetoric changed, I do remember @yurch10 talking about the caps record long ago. People that now defend Bradley were saying that he’s out of the national teams big picture for sure, and that if he played at all it would be limited and sparingly. Those were the days.
there is absolutely nothing wrong with this from a USMNT perspective. It’s not for every prospect but for our best players who are starters for our national youth teams, this is exactly what the ussf should be doing: giving our players options to train with the best
This whole MB thing has been going of for a decade! Good player? Sure. Auto starter forever? mebbe not. When he washed out of the EPL unceremoniously (what year was that?), it was clear the emporer had no clothes. That this stupid shit is still going on is mind boggleing.
I'd say that it's pretty clear looking over his career that Dempsey's peak occurred in the 2011-2015 period. He found his goalscoring formula with Fulham and the U.S., his success with Fulham was recognized and he made a big move to Tottenham, and he was at his most effective with Seattle when combining with Martins in 2014 and 2015. Similar to Bradley, Dempsey easily could have stayed at his club or found another spot instead of transferring to MLS.
So, where do posters think Michael will end up next year and for how much? What are the chances he goes to the Big 4?
What do you think, High 6 figures? For how long? I'm guessing that Trapp leaves the Crew in this scenario?
I'm ok with the roster for these glorified friendlies for several reasons I detailed in another post (injuries, U-23 camp, player situations with their clubs). Even Bradley, who for my money is better than Trapp and with Adams injured, Morales recovering, and Dani Williams playing in one of the worst teams in the Cypriot league, may be our best DM right now, scary as it sounds. Well, Canouse should be given his shot, but I wouldn't riot over it. What grinds my gears is that, even when the roster is fine and the starting lineup is as ok as we can expect with our current non-injured more-or-less in-form pool, the tactics on the field are poor. Sarachan was doing better IMO, and so far what I've seen from Egg laisse à désirer, as the French say. It's hard to tell much when the coach is mediocre, since he can make perfectly decent players look poor. Ah well.
Well, his dad has had no problem displacing more talented players for MB90 in the past. I'm guessing he'll end up there making $1-1.5 million. And LAFC will be worse for it.
I enjoy your posts and respect your opinion so I won't relitigate the whole thing here but he became MB90 with a worse resume than Novakovic (MB had 6 starts and 825' for a mid-tier Eredevisie team the season he became a USMNT auto-starter) which happened to coincide with his dad becoming coach. Not saying he never belonged on the team, he had some good years, but the beginning and end of his USMNT career are both suspicious. I'm being slightly facetious with the LAFC thing. I do think he'll end up back in MLS because there's zero chance he goes to a better league or makes more money than someone in MLS will pay him. I think it will be a big market too. Chicago would make a lot of sense if they weren't so bad but maybe he wants to help them build with less pressure to win? He doesn't seem the Galaxy type and I doubt Red Bulls or NYCFC would mess with what they have going to bring him in. Maybe New England to reunite with Arena? They're decent and a big market team. New England, Chicago, and LAFC are my top guesses.
I would rather see Danny Szetela out there for New England, after a bender in Brooklyn, than see them burn money and their future on the "least bang for the buck" Yankee out there.