If you believe that then you have not followed the USMNT. When the women fail they at least come close but when the men fail they... Well there is little else they have done in recent history. In most cases when you watch the women the question is: How will they squeeze out a win? But with the men it is: Will they manage to avoid humiliation. Friday night is the first real test of the new guard for the men against Brazil then next Tuesday they face Mexico in a "friendly" that is sure to be less than friendly. If this were the US women playing in similar matches I would expect wins but with the men they will be doing good to lose by less than three. If you want real torture watch the men. For mild torture that does not even need a "safe" word, watch the women.
I'm back (from the beach, not the games) and have watched the tapes; and I'm kind of amazed at the amount of negativity here. Chile's a much better team than I expected-- three or four people who can really play, a fair amount of speed, size, and strength. Not surprised they beat Argentina and not surprised they beat Colombia in their current disarray. No real threat to beat us, but a couple of 4-0 scorelines is no shame at all. We played pretty well, got burned a couple times which is par for the course in this overcommitting system Ellis likes-- but nothing came of them--, got Pugh back, saw flashes of the real O'Hara, even more flashes of what Lavelle might be in a year or two. The only real negative I saw was that Casey Short is still an offensive black hole-- doesn't hit her passes and just doesn't read the intent of those passing to her-- if they are going to go in, she either breaks out or is unsure and doesn't break at all. But guys. Chile is not a bad team-- or rather that's what a bad team looks like nowadays. As the Dream Tean coaching staff found out the second time around, the period between when the other guys get better and when they get really good is pretty thankless for the great teams-- the fans still expect them to beat people by fifty points, and never really being contested just isn't good enough for them. I thought we looked great, right where we should be at this point. And I thought the Chileans just need to maximize their fitness and stay sharp and they'll beat Colombia sometimes even when they're not in disarray.
The negative is that two players got hurt in games that were needless. Players missed NWSL games for this. Nothing can be learned playing Chile. Whether the USWNT qualifies for the WC would happen regardless if they played these games or not. If anything, playing inferior opponents can instill overconfidence and reinforce bad habits. Now, if we did it as a favor to Chile, so they could grow their program and maybe vote for us for the 2026 and 2027 WCs, fine. If we did it for money, of course we did.
Ordinarily, there's pretty basic rule sports teams follow when it comes to scheduling discretionary opponents: schedule up, schedule equal, schedule down. The US can't schedule up. So, they're left with scheduling as equal as possible and scheduling down.
I disagree that the games were needless. We have something of a history of playing down to lesser teams after a diet of England/Germany/France and this was an appropriate time to practice not doing that. As for the injuries, they can happen anywhere; you cannot wrap all your players in bubble wrap and expect to prosper. And it is really only one injury isn't it? I'm crushed for Zerboni-- I'm a big fan-- but she wasn't going to be a core part of this team. Her number just came up is all, and it isn't like Abby's broken leg team-wise. Short's knock appears to be minor-- or was there another I don't know about?
Short's is an ankle sprain. It will keep her out of Chicago's game tomorrow. Beyond that, I haven't seen anything on how bad a sprain it is.
It did look low, which is usually week to week and not too many. High is a whole different math tho' and diagnosing off the tv not ideal...
Match Day +3 and I'm already mired in the depths of serious withdrawal. The discussion of Opponents Strength peaked my curiosity. Because of hosting our 2 Annual Tournaments, we automatically play 6 of the next top 10 teams. And I know recently, we had played (in 1 year) 9 out of the next 10 top teams. Yes, virtually all the matches were on home soil though. If you remember, our two Matches last year in Scandinavia netted attendance of 4 and 10K. I did a little research, and used the you know them, you love them and you can not possibly live without them - - - FIFA World Rankings Over the last year: USA - 19 matches, 15 Avg. Opp. Ranking (2 recent Chile #39 matches increased AOR by 3) FRA - 12 matches, 14 Avg. Opp. Ranking TAN - 10 matches, 9 Avg. Opp. Ranking GER - 13 matches, 30 Avg. Opp. Ranking ENG - 11 matches, 35 Avg. Opp. Ranking Look at the Fightin Tancredi's, playing #1 twice helps the ol average. Most of the Germany and England matches were WWC Qualifiers and they played some awful teams. Don't know if this proves anything besides that I can still add and divide. 646 hours and 39 minutes to the beginning of the defense of OUR Cup.
For those who are interested, there's a thread in the referee forum on the disallowed PK in the first game. There the consensus seems to be that encroachment was the call, but the restart was screwed up. Also because I missed the first half of the second game, I didn't even notice something that comes up in the thread: Unkel and Abt switched places (R and 4O) after the first half of the second game. Any idea why?
I have no idea either, but I can suppose that the central ref could have picked some little injury in 1st half: not something preventing her to play the 4O, but probably something that would have made less comfortable for her to keep directing the game. Just a theory.
At the end of qualifying, we will have played double the number of games. Our players would have played a whole club season too. No wonder we come out of every camp with injuries and probably have had our best 11 for zero minutes in half a year. But the two games against #39 were entirely necessary!
Zerboni's injury a bit more complicated than just a fracture: Thank you💙 pic.twitter.com/0DxKtBnKSb— McCall Zerboni (@McCaLL2) September 10, 2018
The center ref switched with the 4th ref because she had an injury during the first half and did not feel she could continue.
Thanks, so my theory was correct. And, after all, that's the real point of having another ref by the side-line.