Lol. I’m assuming at this point you’re simply not going to answer the multiple requests asking whether you have more than one account here at BS.
Bump as I’m still waiting to see evidence that this occurred after he chose to join the USMNT or acknowledgment that the issues were that he was waiting to see if he could play for Germany. I’ll take the L if there’s reliable sources but I simply don’t recall it.
100% european base players. We can have some of the top MLS players. Our national team success will come from our players playing abroad.
This is about as short and sweet as you can get. I would like to see the percentage of distribution flipped... about 75-80% International. I don't know whether that would be attainable at this point though based on the talent pool, age of players and injuries. If healthy, Adams, Brooks and Yedlin would all be part of the team. That is 3 more. I would rather see Sargent than Zardes. That is closer to 50/50. But in WC qualifying, GB will have the chance to consider all the guys on the U20 WC squad... if the proportion doesn't at least even up at that point then I am going to be an even larger hater than I am right now.
So Berhalter needed a tournament to get to the best line up with that roster. The top 6 players of that line up were Steffen, Long, Miazga, Mckennie, Pulisic, and Altidore. The weak links were Ream, Cannon, Bradley, Arriola, and Morris. The bench consisted of Tyler Boyd and bunch of average MLS players. When we needed a sub against Mexico, the only player I wanted to come on was Boyd. I dont think any of the MLS players should make a roster of our best 23 players. We have played 12 games this year. That makes 11,880 minutes in total. Approximately one third of those minutes went to those 9 field players who even Berhalter didnt want to play by the end of that tournament. Here are the nine players that we wasted a ton of minutes on this year... Name.................. G/Min/% of possible minutes Zardes.............. 11/697/65% Roldan.............. 10/609/56% Lima................... 7/565/52% Zimmerman....... 6/495/46% Trapp.................. 8/477/44% Lovitz.................. 8/335/31% Mihailovic........... 5/321/30% Gonzo................. 4/271/25% Lewis.................. 5/128/12% Which ones are the most egregious? I cant choose. Zardes and Lewis make me the least angry.
Couldn't sleep last night so did some basic math on the percentage of minutes by game going to MLS players (excluding Cupcake) under Berhalter: Equador........59% Chile.............57% Jamaica........57% Venezuela....86% Guyana........57% TNT..............55% Panama.......55% curacao.......49% Jamaica.......69% Mexico 1......55% Mexico 2......49% Uruguay.......69% Total.............59% The consistency and high level of the number is startling to me and it beggars belief that Berhalter doesn't have a preference toward MLS / away from other leagues. I'm guessing that this number is very much in line with Arena's last GC and end of Hex lineups but didn't do the math. Of course, one could believe that ~60% of our best players really are based in MLS - if so, we're going backwards and won't be likely to make the knock-out rounds of the World Cup for a decade. By comparison, our first game vs. England in the 2010 World Cup had 18% of the minutes going to MLS players. If you assume that Brooks, Adams and Yedlin are normal starters who have been mostly absent and that they would only replace MLS players, that obviously represents a change of 27% and a 30% MLS representation feels about right to me (it's not based on a quota system but just gut feel on our pool). I'm not sure that if they were available the number would change that much though as each of them did play under Berhalter and the number remains consistent.
I wonder how those people who dont think there I'd a bias or that it is deserved explain Alfredo Morales. Here is a guy that walked into the team and to be clear significant upgrade to the MLS midfielders. Yet he was ignored for the first 10 games of the year he could have been selected. I dont believe the January camp should be excluded. They are still games in the team where Berhalter can assess their talent. The camp in itself gives MLS players an advantage over the foreign based players. I've always thought the March window should be euro based and played overseas. Then every year is a chance for fringe players to show they deserve a shot. Then it would make sense to exclude the first two camps, but since the January camp has been the basis for the team all year, why exclude it?
I agree that it would have been great to have a European camp to look at a broad range of players in Berhalter's new system but i'm interested in looking at Gregg's potential preference for MLS players and he cannot bring in most European for Camp Cupcake so it's just not a fair analysis to include as a benchmark. What I listed is what he does when he has the ability to call everyone.
If you really drill down on it, I think the bias is against certain leagues and MLS players simply benefit. As Dest shows, and even Morales and Horvath a bit, if you get into the first team in a UCL contending team (any in the Top 5 and those bigger clubs in the Top 10) you can start for the USMNT. It is the second divisions of the Big 4, and smaller clubs in the smaller leagues in Europe, that are viewed more as U23 talent. I would put MLS in that same basket, U23 players to start. But O23 MLS players have been used to fill out the rosters for lack of Top 5 players. In other words, if they need 12 guys to go with 11 Top 5 players, they are all coming from MLS. Championship and 2.Bund players are not really given a chance outside of the youth teams. Long term, the Dest v Pomykal treatment in this window shows the same pattern and as the Trapps and Lovitz's are phased out (hopefully), we will see it more. That is a player at a UCL club being immediately ready, in Berhalter's eyes, for starts and a break out MLS guy as someone to integrate slowly. For instance, if Ledezma is starting for PSV, I'd expect him to immediately get major Friendly/NL minutes with the USMNT. But a guy like Toye or Aaronsen would start at the U23, then like Robinson and Pomykal, get cameos, and (if they don't move from MLS) have to prove it. What is dumb is the legacy MLS players currently being used are not demonstably better than all these other players being left out or not integrated quickly.
I don't think there's a MLS bias. A Columbus Crew bias, yes. But Berhalter's numbers are not really unexpected considering that the MLS contribution has swung back and forth between about 40% and 60% in meaningful matches over the last 15 years or so. At the moment, I would expect more MLS players simply because our players in Europe are much younger than before. This reflects the lost generation we had. The number of minutes going to players in Europe peaked around 2009 or 2010. The next generation of players after that had few standouts, and as a result, fewer players going to Europe; the result today is a lack of Europe-based players in the prime of their careers.
60% seem quite high to me - where are you getting this figure? The interesting thing is with Bradley, Dempsey and Altidore - three elite players who willingly stepped down their club play (maybe not Jozy) for crazy money. This is where the Klinsmann vs Garber stuff originated (and 2018 seemed to prove Klinsmann right on this particular point). There are no players like that now. Also, we have strong euro players who are not young. In fact, they may be too old but right now, they’re contributing at a level above MLS.
Sure. Maybe a Crew bias. But then again, Gyasi Zardes was the leading domestic goalscorer in MLS for most of the season. Top 3 right now are Wondo, Gyasi, and Jozy. So you call up a player like Sargent, but it's not really bias to then select guys actually scoring like Gyasi and Jozy. And its surprising how thin our #6 depth is. Trapp may not be my choice, but its not like we have N'Golo Kante out there waiting for a callup. You are absolutely correct.There are very few "in their prime" players based in Europe. Yedlin and Brooks are two and they've been injured. People bleat and whine for Morales, and then Berhalter calls him up. And starts him! Most of our players in Europe are on the younger side just breaking thru. Dest has 2 USMNT appearances and 3 Eredevisie appearances. Berhalter was really aggressive bringing him up. I have no reason to believe that he won't be the same for Mendez, Ledesma, Richards, Gloster, etc. when they break thru. People say Berhalter isn't aggressive enough with Sargent? He has 12 appearances for Bremen, and 9 USMNT caps. For Pete's sake...………!!! Tim Weah has been incorporated aggressively (he's hurt at the moment.). We've called up Jonathan Amon, who's also just returned from injury. EEEEFFUS! 20 players still eligible for USYNTs now have full USMNT caps. A great number of them in Europe. Foks will always, always, always have an issue with the incorporation of 1 or 2 players. Spanish, Argentine, German, etc. fans do the exact same thing. If we're continuing to develop as a soccer nation, our pool will grow and grow. There will always be decisions that folks don't agree with. I really don't see much of a bias for MLS players over Euro players. And that is best exemplified by the types of players folks are saying that he's excluding. Not much there. Don't tell me about Romain Gall in Sweden or frickin' Bobby Wood (who Hamburg couldn't give away this past off-season) and then tell me that's an example of bias.
It’s interesting that people use Morales as an example of how the coach isn’t biased. Why wasn’t he brought in earlier and instead was excluded from the 40 man Gold Cup roster? What did he do this summer that was so different from March?
Sure. Case number two might be Josh Sargent this summer. You're going to have to give me more than one or two players (who we have now called in) in order for me to believe there's a bias.
First, we're talking about minutes played and not roster spots but they're correlated. I think that Sargent should have been included this summer but also feel that Altidore definitely and to a lesser extent Zardes deserve to be on the roster. I think it's far better to look at the overall numbers: if you look at the USMNT available pool and think that "hey, 60% of our best players play in MLS" then I can see that one wouldn't think that's there's an issue. I don't think that's the case at all as I think our best players (but currently and future potential) play or train for major league European teams. Let's look specifically at the 6/8 positions after CC. Here's the minutes distribution that show ~70% of minutes to MLS in our most central position. Pomykal.................5 Morales................88 Yueill..................151 Trapp.................430 Roldan...............518 Bradley..............571 McKennie..........653 I guess you can look at this and say "there's no bias" but I cannot. I hold out hope that when (not if, dammit) Adams returns, he'll be an auto-starter as a 6 but I'm also the dope who bet on the US to beat Mexico and then Berhalter started Trapp as our central player. I certainly believe that Bradley will start the Nations League games as well.
I meant write this yesterday. Morales was available in March and June, but was ignored for the first 10 games he was available. He steps on the field and shows to be a clear and significant upgrade to Trapp, Roldan and Mihailovic. I guess somebody could try to argue that Berhalter is just absolutely horrible at player evaluation, which might be true, but ignores the fact that there are no euro guys on the bench. They either start or are ignored. The criteria is obviously higher for euro based guys than MLS guys. Berhalter started with 27 man January camp and only trimmed it slightly. There are many in that group that are never going to contribute at this level, but then made the GC roster. The euro based "stars" got a look in march and then some fringe guys got a short camp and were put out with poor MLS players in their one shot to impress vs Jamaica. Given how bad some of the players that Berhalter keeps calling up makes it it a joke that the MLS fans want dismiss Wood and Gall. These are the same people that dismissed Morales. These are same people who constantly complained about MLS players being excluded in 2016, but dont see one now. We all saw what happened in 2017 when all those excluded MLS players cost us a trip to the WC. Wood's club situation is a mess, but he has shown he is significantly better than Zardes. in addition just off the top of my head... Green, Gall > Roldan, Mihailovic Robinson > Lovitiz Alvarado, CCV > Long, Zimmerman Horvath > Gonzalez
If I was generous, I would say that Berhalter's roster/lineup methodology relies upon first team starting minutes as the most important factor. Therefore, if Morales, Sargent, Weah, Horvath, Gall, Dest, Fabian and Chandler* don't always start for teams even if those teams are better than almost all MLS/B2/Championship teams, they don't get a real look. I'd note that it does appear that MLS minutes seem equal to Big 4 but are more valued than Championship/B2 minutes. In other words, you better be starting almost every game or you're not in consideration. It also sends a very MLS friendly message to our players: if you want to play for the USMNT, stay in MLS unless you're sure that you're going to start at the major leagues. In other words,"we don't value you competing vs. equally strong players for starting minutes, we'd rather have you play every week at a slower, less savvy level as that's what is best for the USMNT." It would be a savvy Garber-esque chess move as I'm sure he's watching the deluge of young talent bypassing MLS as they turn 18 (or 16 if they have a European passport) and is using every tool in his box to offset this (instituting TC/S payments, potentially removing geographic restrictions on DA, etc.). *Fabian and Chandler may be deemed too old even though we still have Omar and Bradley kicking around
At this stage of the cycle, if MLS players aren’t over represented, the coach is making a mistake. Why? Because USMNT level players in MLS are MLS lock starters with short travel. Euros are neither of those things. If bias is an issue, why was he called in now??? Your argument is self refuting. And now that we’ve seen him, meh. He’s a nice player, but not technical enough to be a must have in our system.* He’s a terrific ball winner, but he also was most at fault for Mexico’s last. *it isn’t MY preferred system; this 6 as deep playmaker crap is stupid with our pool. But once you accept that’s what 3G wants to do, it’s inevitable that Morales isn’t first XI. Your whole argument, once acknowledging Adams’ injury, comes down to Morales. See what i wrote above. You just have IMO an objectively wrong view of Morales’ level. That’s a you problem.
Nah, it is wasting time on players who will be pushed aside. They arent good enough and dont have the potential to be.
superdave, if you think that 60% MLS representation is about the right number for the USMNT in 2019, I think that's a you rather than a me problem. That's a team that scrapes through the Hex, not one that truly competes at a World Cup. There are other Hex teams with that level of MLS representation and it's not like our MLS guys are stars in our league. you asked why was morales called in now. I dunno - maybe because once Bradley wasn't available, Berhalter couldn't find someone else with even a straight face..... Let's switch it around, if a player doing the exact same thing over a calendar year gets ignored at first (literally not even on the top 40 man roster) and then finally gets called and show better than his competition (he doesn't have to be a "must have" just "better than" his competition, which he clearly was), that's self-refuting? I'll ask again, why was he not even included in the 40 man roster? Why was Sargent not included in the Gold Cup? I'll add some more data, if you're into that sort of thing. Here a list of players and minutes that I think are utterly useless as we know these players are not at the appropriate level - they are cupcake players. Bradley.......571 Trapp..........430 Gonzalez....272 Lovitz..........197 Mihailovic...180 Johnson.....180 Guzan..........90 Lewis...........84 Baird............81 That's ~ 20% of all of our minutes going to players that are just not good enough. Note that this doesn't include Zardes and Roldan whose minutes, which represented almost 10% of all minutes played, were way above what they actually should have been (I think both can be useful) so there's some give and take here. I think that given our pool, somewhere around a third of all minutes to MLS players feels about right and certainly none in CM (I'm assuming that if Pomykal raises his game, he's on to greener pastures). That's not 0% as some truly anti-MLS posters may hope for today but it's a far cry from where Berhalter and Arena have them. If we ever want to really compete for a World Cup, that number will be likely be in the single digits at most but we don't have the players for that yet.
Right, our MLS players can’t win a World Cup. Neither can Julian Green and Jonathan Klinsman. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door. Evaluate, don’t advocate. It makes for better discussion.
It’s a pithy slogan, better than dolls and chickens for sure. Of course, it has very little credibility as you failed to comment substantively to the data that I’ve compiled and provided in multiple posts. The irony/hypocrisy is unbecoming for a poster who joined when you did.
1. Better than dolls, sure. But not better than chickens! 2. I kind of did. You narrowly spoke of one position, central midfield. We can ignore Euros like Ian Harkes and players of that caliber, right? So it comes down to Adams, who has been hurt, McKennie, who has played a ton, and Morales. GB doesn’t play with a destroyer, and once that choice is baked into the cake, Morales just isn’t that good. Am I missing someone? I have this nagging feeling you’re going to mention someone and I’m going to be totally embarrassed. I thought of Duane Holmes, but IIRC he’s too much of an attacking player for this fairly narrow discussion. My larger point is this...y’all can’t just say Trapp sucks.* You have to name a better alternative. *He does kind of suck. My assessment of him is that he’s a squad/situational player in the B Team Gold Cup, or for the end of the Hex or League of Nations if we’ve already achieved what we need. And don’t get me started on Mihailovic...whatever it is other people see, I flat out do not see it.
I’ve already addressed the “lock starter” issue and why I think it’s detrimental to our squad. The travel issue is completely stupid IMO. Are we not calling in west coast players for east coast matches and vice versa? I’d also argue that it’s the cumulative travel that’s most harmful for athletes; therefore, the damage from the 18th to the 23rd hour on a plane in a month is more harmful than the first six hours.
I think this an incredibly bad move for the league for many reasons. I'm also not surprised as most of their decisions appear to be focused on the short term and little awareness of the long term implications. So far, there are more kids succeeding while MLS really hasnt developed any. They have hyped Pomykal to the point that he is one of the best prospects out there. What happens if his development stalls like often happens in MLS while Ledezma and Mendez go on to develop into international quality players? Or what happens if he keeps developing and FCD slap a $20M price tag such that he is stuck in the league. The league has gone out and signed a bunch of 16 yos, but not sure they have a clue what to do with them. If they dont succeed, it is only going to get harder to sign them. I dont see how this national team experiment ends well for the league. I basically see two outcomes. They either stick with MLS players and the team continues to suck or they will slowly be replaced and very few MLS players will be on the roster by 2022 and the ones that are will likely be role players off the bench. Being generous, the only MLS players that have been called in this year that look like they have the potential to be in the squad in a few years are Altidore, Arriola, Morris, Pomykal, cannon and Long. Of those players, Altidore is the only one I'd consider a starter today. If I am thinking towards WCQ, my starting XI today is Steffen, Brooks, Miazga, two of (Yedlin, FJ, Dest), Adam's, Mckemie, Pulsic, Weah, Sargent, Altidore. The players I would be looking at to fill out the pool would be.... GK - Horvath, whoever for a #3 R/LB - Cannon, Robinson, Gloster CB - Alvarado, CCV, Long, Robinson, Richard's M - Morales, Holmes, Green, Pomykal, Mendez, Ledezma, Hyndman*, Servania W - Ariola, Morris, Gooch, Gall, Sabi, Amon, Llanez F - Wood, Novakovic, Soto * Hyndman is the best American to play non defensive deep playmaker role ** Gloster, Richard's, Servania, Llanez, Soto are a bit speculative Edited to add players