This team gets my vote. One reason the USMNT is not only losing important matches, but losing ground with supporters is the genuine lack of interesting players, interesting play and most importantly, personality. I wrote in 2008 that I had hoped the US would find some identity in its style of play and I looked for ideas on the pitch. I now realize, this is a mistake. The real way to bring identity to the team is have players with identity. Just a lot of PC robots out there, lead my the current captain. There are any number ways to be a leader, to show character, to rise above the moment and control matches. I can't think of one solitary player since Clint and maybe Howard that accomplishes these things. Cameron is a vital player, but he is a supporting player. Brek Shea had his opportunities, but was obviously too immature to find his footing. Besler has some definite strength, but has been publicly castrated by the coach. The only guy I see coming down the pipe with any fire is Miazga. Let's see how long it takes for it to be washed away by the current coach. I am ranting! I know it. But I miss wynalda, I miss the reckless endurance of Frankie Hairdoo, I miss the cultured left foot of Mrs. Eddie Lewis, even gooch's manufactured anger was something. I will save my last rambling for JJ. I thought his WC performances were brilliant. He managed to keep himself in check, rise to the occassion and show his worth. He is as close to a personality as we have on our team, but if you look at his antics, they are almost entirely self-serving. When I think of a personality that rises above the match I think Carles Puyol scoring important goals and saving his team time and again. I think of Lilian Thurman timely runs and steely defense or Effenberg's fire and determination.
Yes, the team is completely boring, the only star allowed is the coach. There's nothing interesting about the team and as a result I haven't seen a match since the Gold Cup.
If you want entertaining media personalities, watch Oprah. This is football, dude. You don't have to have a creative mind to see that there are a lot of personalities and a lot of growth in the sport. It seems a bit weird to make a thread to rant about your inability to discover personalities that interest you personally. There are several guys I look forward to seeing: Nagbe, Zardes, Morris, Wood, Bradley, Brooks, Shea, Miazga, on and on. There are more who I'd like to see soon including Villafana and others. Maybe you just don't want to look past the coach to see the players.
Whatever the case may be, there's palpably less enthusiasm around the USMNT. Blame me on whatever you want, but more people just aren't that into the USMNT these days.
Lack of results in crucial games during 2015 has killed a lot of the interest. Very hard to get casual fans to watch friendlies or follow the team. I too get bored when watching them play. Last two qualifiers were pretty crap. Beat St. Vincent but conceded a goal first, embarrassing to even let a team like that score on you. Game down in T&T we were outplayed. Of course Gold Cup disaster and lame duck friendly against Costa Rica. Gulati came out of hiding to say congrats to Wambach then vanished again. Terrible leader and a coward.
Looks like the Men's Program is in serious trouble, yet the leadership in Chicago either can't or won't acknowledge it. Why can't Gulati admit he is simply not up to the task as a leader and resign?
This is it... 2015 was a horrible year, and as the diehard fan of the team i am, I was bored. How could anyone convince someone to watch this if they weren't already a fan? At least with Bradley, the team played like they had some heart. It seems like Klinsmann has absolutely no vision for the future, the more in his tenure, the more unsure I am of the program. To this day, can anyone tell me a time where they felt they could come close to knowing what he was going to do with the line-up? Seriously, what the hell is Brandon Vincent doing in camp? When guys like Hedges and Lletget aren't? Moreover, we have sucked at every single level, to where it is impossible to feel optimistic about this team. It is a leadership-less organization with zero direction....and ultimately, this falls on Gulati for showing a complete lack of initiative. He's as ball-less as he looks.... Mickey Mouse.
I find it comforting when a coach is unpredictable. That means that the fans, who really know very little in comparison, aren't pressuring them into making poor but popular choices. I could appreciate Bradley's vision when he played his son, which was an incredibly unpopular move among droning non-cognitive fans who had neither the understanding or the vision to figure out why Mike was on the field. My advice to the whining masses would be to get over yourselves and enjoy the game for what it is rather than what you wished it was. If you don't enjoy it, don't watch. Plain and simple. Save yourself the trouble and do something that you enjoy. You make this forum worse with the incessant droning on and on...we get it. It's all emo all the time in here. I'll be enjoying the games. However if you cannot, for your own sake find something to do that you enjoy.
Maybe the team has lost a couple of steps among the older followers, people who have followed the progression since the early 90s, and who are very familiar with soccer in the USA. But it's gained five steps among youngsters, people who are at best casual fans. I see all the time comments on YouTube or Reddit or US Soccer praising this team for making the semi-finals of the Gold Cup or taking Mexico to extra time. So, yeah, for us who watched in the past, I can see the interest diminishing because the product is just not there. But now more than ever the media is putting soccer on display, and Klinsmann for all his faults is the sort of guy who generates a following, hip & new-agey & 'sophisticated' because he won a WC. So, overall, it's a change in focus: the time of the serious fan is over, this is the time of soccer as a luxury interest, a topic of conversation for college kids, like talking about organic coffee or Russian techno. It's more hip than ever.
And Klinsmann successfully convinces those fans to lower their expectations, disrespecting the teams and players of the past. Never is it his fault, it's always a player who didn't listen or perform. Remember, us fans don't understand the game or the full picture like he said. Losing to a USL keeper in the Gold Cup semis at home. But yes, we fans don't understand and it was all the refs fault.
I'm becoming a bit bored as well with the team. Partly because of the dire 2015, and also because I'm at the point now where almost all of the national team players are considerably younger than me. Donovan retiring was weird enough, but when Howard and Dempsey are done with the team I'm not sure I'll ever be able to re-cultivate that same type of extreme interest I had in the national team from about '02-'14. Which might be a good thing. I felt crushed after the 2011 Gold Cup Final. After the CONCACAF Cup loss, I was more like "yeah, saw that coming."
I haven't missed a game since the late 90's but had to be reminded this past Thursday that there is a game Sunday. Even more wild, I called my AO president to see what they have planned and his response was "you're the first to even mention getting together". We were close 80 strong just over a year ago. Now, we can't even get 2 of us to care enough to show up. I've said it before and I'll say it again. JK isn't just ruining us on the field.
I'm as fired up as I have ever been for this team. I think a lot of folks memories arent quite as great as they remember. I can't remember which of these two games at Foxboro I was at, but I wouldn't call either teams we put out or the games that exciting (the crowds of 12k and 25k in Foxboro weren't great atmospheres either). If people still disagree, I'll take any 11 that are in camp over what got thrown out in the same camp that year. June 2, 2004 vs. Honduras (4-0 W)at Foxboro, Mass. Howard, Cherundolo, Sanneh-1, Bocanegra (Gibbs), Vanney (Convey), Reyna (c), Armas (Mastroeni), Donovan, Beasley (Lewis-1), McBride-2, Casey (Stewart) September 4, 2004 vs. El Salvador* (2-0 W) at Foxboro, Mass. Howard, Cherundolo (Jones), Bocanegra, Gibbs, Convey, Zavagnin (Mathis), Reyna (c), Donovan-1, Beasley, Ching-1, Casey (McBride) January 18, 2004 vs. Denmark (1-1 T) at Carson, Calif. Walker, Albright (Hejduk), Pope (c), Garcia, Convey, Ralston (Klein), Mulrooney (Zavagnin), Armas (Wolyniec), Beasley, Razov (Wolff), Donovan
It's boring to some because they can't see the gap in talent production and that our current prime players are largely mediocre. I would think, aside from the casual observer, there would be some excitement about the talent which could break thru over the next couple years. Could see our most talented CB combo ever in CCV/Miazga. Could see, as soon as this summer, a Pulisic---Nagbe---Fabian trio across our midfield. Over the next 1-2 years could see the likes of Zelalem, Manneh, Akale break thru. Might see a Seibatcheu break thru and play for us and Morris, now finally a pro, also take his next step. We have a high ceiling RB in Payne getting his feet wet in the Ered and some other highly rated prospects like a De La Torre or a Perez who is highly rated at Fiorentina not too far off. Seems some are in some post-Landon depression and the gap in talent production caught them off guard. Or they simply fail to see the fluctuation in our development and aren't aware of some of the talent we have coming thru.
gets my vote. I dont think ive ever been this disinterested in the USMNT. my boycott stands, and I dont think i lose anything of remote value. I havent yet, and looking at the "strategic" picture, I dont think I will either. In a strategic picture, you require a strategy. So i will miss a cycle of us running round like headless chickens, we will finish 4th place in qualifying and win the playoff game by the skin of our teeth, a handful of Klinsy zealots will blame the talent pool, we will improve drastically in 2018, and we can forget this bad dream.
My honest opinion is that football is on a downward trend all over the world, not just in the USA. I'm from Romania (a small country in the Balkans) and, like most Europeans, I grew up with football (playing, watching, and loving it enormously). Not so much lately, and not because there are no quality players anymore (there really are), but... I can't explain, but even my work colleagues, and my childhood friends are not that interested in it anymore, at least not at level we once were. Also, I look at younger kids around me (I'm 36 by the way), and most of them seem to not care about football, they're more interested in smartphones, youtube and other stuff like that. And of the few that watch football regularly most are fans of Barca, Real and lately Bayern (because these are the teams that have the glamour nowadays, and these are the teams that media shove down their throats with the messi / ronaldo hysteria) If I tell them that Dynamo Kiev is a top team (OK, it was a top team some many decades ago, not so much lately), or that AC Milan used to absolutely destroy Barca, Real, Bayern, Man Utd, or Chelsea, home and away for many years you know what they say? They say "AC Milan? Milan is a city or something, right?" As a former AC Milan fan (I only liked 2 football clubs above all others since I can remeber: AC Milan, and Bayern Munchen)... so, as a former Milan fan this hurts me. Not even gonna mention other European Cup winners like Porto, Gladbach, Alaves, or the alikes, cause they'll have to run at wikipedia to see what these words mean So yeah... I digress, but my point is that football (generally speaking) is not what it used to be, and I dare make a prediction that in 50 years (probably sooner) there will be less and less competitions, less and less clubs (probably the biggest ones will die last), and less money to be poured into, and gotten out of football. Football will probably change into a simple hobby, practiced by few people here and there for the fun of it. I hope I'm wrong, but... right now that's how it looks like
I think it all started with Calciopoli. From that point on, more and more people have realized a huge number of games are fixed in advance. Web sites openly sell games, and each new investigation discovers that the corruption runs deep, all the way to Champions League qualifying matches and World Cup quals. After a while, one starts wondering whether the whole thing may be rotten.
Is this because of Klinsmann or as a result of the rise in alternative/social media that society has been experiencing all along? I agree that Klinsmann has been very astute in foreseeing this and jumped on the USMNT bandwagon at the right time to be seen as a savior of sorts, but inroads with younger/casual fans was going to happen regardless due to society being more exposed to the rest of the world overall.
Seriously? I'm not saying they were great games... but Cherundolo, Mathis, Donovan and Mastroeni are on the top shelf of players I've seen in a US jersey. Exciting and creative and skillful and intelligent ballers. I have a lot of love for a lot of that supporting cast too. They weren't world beaters but nobody who saw World Cup 2002 would want to play them. (Ok maybe Italy, they'll always be Old World cocky.) Funny thing is, I see the names above and believe for the most part these lineups show the difference between the Klinsmann regime/era and what came before. Our national team was a source of great pride, a place where chemistry and confidence was built, where guys were polished up for the big stage. Our current coach espouses a lack of belief in the American player and system, puts our players in situations that make them look bad, and takes the heart and meaning out of the program. Not a big surprise that core supporters have turned away - but they'll be back when we have a coach who isn't deliberately defacing the program and insulting our best.