The 2002 World Cup run really made the USMNT fan base believe that we were on the verge of greatness. A 17 year old named Landon Donovan impressed the soccer world. Damarcus Beasley was driving opponents crazy with his speed. Claudio "Captain America" Reyna was on top of his game. Eddie Lewis was on top of his game. John O'Brien managed to stay healthy for a spell. Air McBride was drawing defenders with his high flying headers. We gave Germany a hell of a game, but they got away with a handball that deflected our shot on goal. That was our peak. 2006 was a major disappointment, but then the 2009 Confederations Cup teaser came along followed by two others: we won our group in 2010 and we made it out of our group in 2014 when no one thought we had a chance. We were always a second tier program, but we did have our moments where we beat the soccer world's giants. Throughout that run, we had enough talented new blood cycling onto the team to keep us competitive. With the departure of Donovan & Dempsey and company and the rise of Pulisic, McKinnie, Sargent, Steffen, etc., we are in a transition period with a coach who is also transitioning (into a new role as a national team coach). After the debacle from the last qualifiers, most posters here seem to agree that that's where we need to be - in transition. With that, we need to be patient. Maybe we ought to just sit back a little, give GB/3G time to do his thing and see what happens? If we can tell that the team's performance stunk, he can, too. Don't be delusional. Don't drink the Kool-Aid. Just give GB/3G a little time.
I don't even know what this means. The program will go forward whether they have patience or not. It will go forward whether they are onboard or not. The issue is that these fans have no skin in the game. In other words, there's no scoreboard where we could evaluated the success of their suggestions. Whether on coaching hires or roster selection. Isn't is interesting how everybody on BS ans Twitter have a 100% track record? They're always right.
And is it not amazing how easy it is to spot a troll no matter how much he/she/it tries to mask their trolling behind so called facts and such.
If he didn’t have a bias why did he say all the things that he said (which you’ve said that you disagree with)? In particular, why did he say about not even bringing a b1 player into camp: “we have MLS players who play that position?”
you are going to think whatever you want to think why try to just argue. Also do you have the video/article for these quotes.
Nagbe, Omar, Bradley, Ream, Zusi, McCarty, and all 3 keepers from the T&T game shouldn't be called in anymore. Villafana is still young enough that he could get a little better but right now he shouldn't be called in either. Cameron Feilhaber and Beasley aged out. Dempsey retired. Acosta, Bedoya and Arriola are all fringe players, Id probably take Bedoya right now if I had to pick one of them. Acosta and Arriola have to show more to come back in, but they are both young enough to do that. Altidore needs to show he can stay healthy and actually show he has enough stamina to make the runs that our newer players need. He fits more with Bradley and he isn't someone who can run the channels and be a ball chaser, so he may not come back in and do well but he is one of the best 20 right now. Wood has fallen far, I like his game but he hasn't shown a complete game in a while so he probably should sort his club team out first. Bradley is old, slow, turns the ball over way too much, can't recover when he does turn it over, and is out of position, no way he should be near the team in any way. Especially given the locker room reports of him being a less than stellar teammate. Pulisic is the only player who should be regularly used from that group. Why? Because he is young enough to contribute and can make a difference in any game he plays. My standard of calling in players is simple, who is getting better and will be better come WCQ time, who needs to be evaluated as fringe 40 guys, and who is past their usefulness. My current starting 40 in no order but I think most rosters should be mostly these guys plus surprises or breakouts: Steffen Horvath (rotating keeper) Yedlin Hines-Ike Lima Cannon Brooks Zimmerman Robinson Long CCV Miazga Richards Garza Robinson Gloster Sief McKinnie Mendez Adams Hyndman Holmes Pomykal Pulisic Weah Reyna Lletget Amon Sabbi Gall Canouse Boyd Soto Sargent Novakovich Wooton Altidore Johannson Ebobisse Ideally lined up like so: Steffen Yedlin-Brooks-Miazga-Garza --------Adams-------McKinnie Amon---------------------------------Sabbi ----------------Pulisic -------Novakovich-------Sargent Rotate the other 40 to mix and match as we get closer to 2021 but this would be the starting point. Some may play their way on or off.
I want MLS players to get an opportunity in the Gold Cup. The Gold Cup is not my priority. WC Qualifying and the World Cup are my priority. Playing MLS talent at the Gold Cup gives them tournament experience. I am not a member of the annoying eurosnob faction of US Soccer fans. I want the Euro based players and the MLS players to improve in parallel. Trashing MLS or wanting to do away with MLS serves no purpose. I am old enough to remember the collapse of the NASL and the years that we had no league. I guess some of these eurosnobs want to go back to the situation where we had no league and players had to try to latch on with a Euro team or go flip burgers. That is asinine. The best team that we ever fielded was the WC 2002 squad. That team was a mixture of home and abroad talent with quite a few MLS players. In the fallout from the WC 1998 debacle, Coach Arena cast the net abroad and at home looking for players. In the lead up to WC 2002 many of us asked 'who the ---- is Eddie Lewis or Clint Mathis or Tony Sennah etc'. MLS was a proving ground for these players. I'm glad that they had the opportunity. I think that the bigger problem is an overall lack of talent. We are delusional to think that US Soccer has improved since 2002. Our talent pool is not better now than it was then. We only have one player on our roster who could start for the 2002 team and make an impact. The lack of player development through the 2010, 2014 and 2018 WC cycles have left our program as a barren wasteland of veteran talent. When you objectively look at the talent in our player pool, it really shouldn't be shocking that we didn't qualify for the WC. So if our coach wants to cast the net into MLS to try and find a diamond in the rough for a cupcake tournament, PLEASE DO. If US Soccer wants to throw money into the US U-17 and U-20 teams...PLEASE DO. Hopefully we have some players down there that can have an impact like the '97 and '99 U-17 teams did. But please be realistic. Our USMNT pre-game photo is basically CP sitting in a pile of $#!+ right now. I want our coach to cast the net out as far as possible at this stage. This is the worst team that we have had since the injury riddled 1998 squad. We need all the help that we can get.
Because of my initial point that if he had a full selection of first team choices he would've had a roster that was split roughly 60/40. A quote like that makes me believe that he rates the players from MLS and Europe, at that position, the same.
Yes, on Bradley (for now) and no on Trapp. I'm agnostic on him for the most part but I'm not arrogant enough to think that I know better than Berhalter.
Yeah, it's confirmation bias. If you believe a theory enough to be as frenetic on this guy is about it then you can turn practically any quote into evidence of bias.
The conspiracy theory obviously doesn't extend to the US U20s, who gave the lowest number of minutes to domestic players of any team that made the knockout rounds of the World Cup. But please, let's not facts get in the way of some sort of pro-MLS bias argument at the USSF. Its fun to wear a tin foil hat. The horrible truth is this. We have a lot of good young players in Europe. We have very few "in their primes" USMNTers in Europe. Certainly very few that one can make a vociferous argument about. The idea that folks would forward Alfredo Morales as evidence for the bias, should in fact demonstrate that the argument doesn't have a ton of merit. But anyway...………………... #U20WorldCup data - % of total minutes to domestic-based players (knockout stage teams): Japan 100% #jleague ITA 97% #SerieAUKR 84%ARG 83%ECU 76%S. Korea 74% #kleagueNigeria 66%FRA 65.9% #ligue1COL 61.9%NZ 61%SEN 60.7%POL 59.7%URU 59%PAN 54%Mali 52%USA 33% #MLS— Terence D. Brennan (@terryblaw) June 7, 2019
The problem is of course that B1 players are better than non Best XI MLS one and arena (and Berhalter) not recognizing this simple fact is a major contributor to why we’ve suffer two historic losses. If B1 and MLS were the same btw, you’d call them all in and not just MLS over B1 because of “league”.
Did you have the same blase attitude toward Klinsmann’s regime? Im assuming that you had no comment on the LD cut
Apparently when you say “cast the net out as far as possible”, that mean rely heavily on MLS and not other equivalent or even lower leagues. Btw, if our talent is so crappy, why in the world are we shifting to a possession strategy dependent upon having a talent advantage across the board?
I’m not familiar enough with the u20 team - who are the MLS players who could have started but didn’t because there was a non-MLS player instead?
Oh my! A bunch of very "interesting" takes. What posters on here do you think is euro snob? I know I have been called one. I openly want players to move to the highest level, but am more than happy to have MLS players on the USMNT if they help us improve. I too remember the times of the NASL, only minor leagues, and MLS starting up. I just dont see how MLS has helped our national team. Everyone talks about that dark period from the mid 80s to the mid 90s, but that is the period where the USMNT improved the most. You talk about 2002 being the pinnacle, but who on that team couldn't have found a team abroad just like Cherundolo did? I am pretty sure most if not all of them could. How much better was the 2002 team than the 1995 team that went to the copa america? So the national team was on a high trajectory when MLS starts, it immediately drops off in 1998, makes it back to 1995 level or slightly higher in 2002 and then stagnates or even falls off. That isnt a great advertisement for the league and doesnt provide a reason that we should be filling our roster with those players. I also think you got a little nostalgic in thinking about 2002 when you stated only one player today would start on theat team. At least 3 are no brainers and the number is more likely 5 to 6. Pulisic, Adam's, and Brooks are too obvious. Looks like Beasley, Maestroeni, and Agoos arent playing. I think that we likely find a spot for mckennie and miazga takes the other CB spot. This thread is about not casting a big net but focusing on MLS players. We have been doing this for two and a half years with exception of Sarachan actually looking at the whole pool. In that time of scouring for players, what have we found? Not much. Arena's new MLS players were worse than who they replaced. The only quality players now are Steffen and maybe Long. That is an pretty poor rate of success. Meanwhile many euro based guys are being ignored or apparently held to a higher standard, yet we saw that Holmes a real potential and hopefully we get a look at Boyd in a few hours. When those types of players are out there, I have no idea why we are fishing in MLS for guys like Lima, Lovitz, etc.
I’m happy to discuss Morales. Yes - I think that a guy who get 1700 minutes at DM for a mid table B1 player absolutely deserves the right to get called into a squad where the competition is 2019 Bradley Will Trapp Jackson Yueill Do you think that any of them get time in the B1? If so, let’s make a friendly bet on if Bradley and Trapp end up next year on a Big 4 team as they are both available on a free IIRC. I can’t recall a worse performance by a DM than Trapp’s most recent one and yet he’s probably going to start again vs. Ven. That dreadful performance doesn’t earn him bench time? It wouldnt be nice to have a guy good enough to earn B1 playing time for this situation? Yikes. Finally, I’m sure a likely excuse for not having Chandler, Johnson and Wood will be that they’re all returning from injury and may not be fully fit - why does this not apply to Jozy, Morris and Long?
This is the kind of dishonesty I'm talking about. I'm agnostic on Trapp because I just haven't cared to watch him play enough and you take that as a blase attitude towards the Berhalter regime. I thought the Donovan exclusion was stupid and it was a petty personal grudge but I don't think it ended up having any impact on our placement at the World Cup.
Your statement was that you didn’t have the arrogance to question a coach’s decision wrt a player. I then asked if you felt the same way about another coach’s decision wrt a player. You think that’s dishonest. I have no idea what’s wrong with you unless I didn’t word the question well enough when I mentioned klinsmann’s regime.