Post-match: USA v Colombia

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by Susaeta, Oct 11, 2018.

  1. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Did not Anderlecht bench Saief recently? At what point do American soccer fans/media confront managers who play guys who are playing badly for club? Are we there to give them a chance - against Colombiao_O? Saief's frustrations, whatever they may be, should be a matter for treatment at Anderlecht, not a matter that determines the outcome of a USMNT FIFA match against Colombia. I"m not saying there are not exceptions to the rule. I'm just wondering, what was the exception in this case?
     
  2. SteelyTom

    SteelyTom Member

    Mar 21, 2007
    Boston, MA USA
    Club:
    Pumas UNAM
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    As one of our more technically polished players, Green can play an important role in linking up with younger attacking talent like Nova and Sargent, should either or both see the field versus Peru.
     
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  3. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    I dont remember him costing us any goals against Colombia.
     
  4. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    #304 Suyuntuy, Oct 15, 2018
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
    Sure, the central midfield didn't do its defensive duties.

    But, beyond that, I'm not impressed with Robinson and Yedlin. Since I started following Newcastle (because I was impressed by how much their fans hate Yedlin, so I felt a need to evaluate things myself), I've noted indeed RB is a big problem with them, and Deandre is starting because they got no one else --which is a mistake.

    Can't have as fullback someone who, even though he helps in attack, is an open door to all crosses and is caught off position half of the time. In short, the guy is not that good in the position, the fans were right, and the Mags (with Huddersfield and Fulham) are faves to go down for a reason.

    I haven't followed Robinson in the Championship because it's hard getting those games here, but what I've seen of him with the NT is not just the sort of stuff that can be blamed on the other defenders or the midfield: the kid just cannot follow someone who can dribble, he gets his ankles "broken" time and again, and he's easily tricked.

    Like Yedlin he can also help the attack, and that's good. But defensively those two are liabilities and we're lucky to be in the weakest confederation after Oceania because, otherwise, I could see our qualification going down the drain in great part due to the poor defending of our fullbacks.
     
  5. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #305 juvechelsea, Oct 15, 2018
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
    I think people need to realize something. People who just aged out this last cycle, far as I am concerned:
    Howard (probably Guzan as well as far as I am concerned).
    Cameron, Omar, Villafana, Beasley, Ream, Opara, Morrow, Zusi.
    Bradley (should be), Corona, Nagbe, Bedoya, Williams.
    Sapong, Dwyer, Dempsey.

    So there is no veteran cavalry coming to save us. If many of these veterans get used they either already are over 30 or will be soon.

    Nor do I think most of us believe that the mid-career players now trickling back, eg, Acosta, Hamid, Johnson, Yedlin, Saief, Lletget, Wood, Zardes, are locks for anything, or the equivalent of what players like Bradley once were.

    So to me if there is help coming, it’s probably going to be youthful surprises, not returning veterans. To me your hope is to keep trying out early career players and find someone, not to bring back Acosta and Bradley and Guzan and pretend. And the one thing we have coming in is prospects in bulk, so keep trying them.

    A core problem is Americans are so used to repeatedly qualifying and sneaking the odd new player into a set and drilled XI, they don’t know what to do when you get the perfect storm of a non-qualifier team that probably deserves no incumbency rights, and a core of players ageing out of the team. OK, this is the Astros a few years back. Who do you like in the minors. And then it turns out one of your #1 picks actually sucks. And only after a few iterations of trying new crops do you start to accumulate a truly good team. Good news, they're young enough to do an iterative process.

    People don’t realize that guys like Weah, Adams, Green, that’s not the trialists, people that age are going to be the new foundation, and so you have to keep looking because you need a bench and a pool too. It feels like farting around relative to how we have run the team, but the team just blew one and besides Pulisic there is no core left at all. I think USSF fans right now are missing that these are core tryouts, not us playing around with the U23s while we wait to re-integrate the veterans. I think it feels as experimental as we're even used to, so people don't even realize that this is starting lineup tryouts and that you have to do the same thing with even more obscure prospects and young players, vs the veterans, to figure out the full 23.

    Some of this rookie-critical beefing needs to be "relative to what." And if the cavalry is coming it's from the YNT not Acosta/Nagbe/etc., ie, the older ones. And I'd say part of the problem with Sarachan is he actually thinks some of the fixes are turning the clock back. This to me is the true tension of the moment, once we get past screwball stuff like Bradley, is do we go back to Acosta or forward to Adams, those kinds of decisions. That Sarachan has dug Guzan and Bradley back up just tells you Halloween is coming, ie, how nostalgia driven he is at this transition phase.
     
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  6. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    We will keep continuously qualifying after 2026, because we're lucky FIFA is expanding the World Cup (when I said that a couple of years back, people got mad at me --funny how time proved me right).

    The big problem is that the Central American countries, for all their corruption troubles, seem to have a better development plan for their soccer national teams: they have gained ground with respect to us, and if we don't start improving somehow, by 2034 we'll be behind not just Mexico and Costa Rica, but also Panama and Honduras, basically fighting with a bunch of others for the last two direct tickets.
     
  7. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...fuses-play-Jamaica-brother-not-called-up.html
     
  8. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    As a fan of the Houston Hondurynamo, I'm going to say at least one issue is that while we are hung up on the role of MLS vs going abroad, the smaller countries are happily using MLS as a quasi-Europe for their best players to play in, but where they have a good chance of starting. Our MLS teams then start majority foreign squads.

    I think MLS used to be a solid foundation for the NT, hundreds of potential domestic players, who could stick with the sport at a solid salary, make a living at it. This professionalized the pool and gave us many options. But the international slot rules have made the league more like the EPL and less of a baseline for the NT roster.

    Maybe over time this improves the level of domestic soccer, but near term I think it's harder for Americans to start in MLS, and there's more pressure on each player either here or abroad and how they turn out. If US YNT and MLS have a rotten few years of development like this Nagbe/Acosta bunch, we're screwed. There is no bulk assembly line for Americans anymore.

    Meanwhile, we aren't going to CR, Honduras, Jamaica, to play in their leagues. Occasionally to Mexico. So it kind of works out where we are like Europe to their most in demand players, but it doesn't work in reverse. We're like England NT where some of our club teams could care less than barely start domestics. Does that raise the level over time or just force out your own prospects.
     
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  9. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    They're a practical people, so instead of pushing their kids to ride pine in some European backwoods due to romantic ideations, they send them to leagues that are decent enough and where they can start and become vital to the team.

    Meanwhile, we foolishly live chasing the European Dream, which of course ends with 49 out of 50 of our prospects becoming refuse. It happened to Canada too.

    Of course, no one can change such things. It's like Cassandra: you see what is going to happen, but the other half of your gift as a seer is that no one will believe you.
     
  10. RalleeMonkey

    RalleeMonkey Member+

    Aug 30, 2004
    here
    That development plan is MLS, right?
     
  11. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    It's mostly Honduras. The other teams got players in MX, Panama in South America (Colombia, Venezuela, Peru).

    But the bulk of their youth is emerging from U-19 programs led by CONMEBOL coaching.
     
  12. butters59

    butters59 Member+

    Feb 22, 2013
    At 18 Green was playing at WC, Benny at 18 wasn't able to get a scholarship to a decent college program. Of course Benny kept on improving. Obviously Green isn't. BTW both Feilhaber and Nguyen are playing better now than Green and on a better team.
     
  13. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    I like how Green has looked with the NT. In particular, I've liked the interaction in attack with Robinson and Weah (although Robinson is deficient in other, more important for his role, aspects).

    But in the 2BuLi, playing as a forward, after seven starts and one sub, having a single goal and zero assists is not exactly screaming "top 2.BuLi player."
     
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  14. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    From this thread and BS posting in general, post-Colombia, I can see it was a good thing Pulisic, Wes and Adams didn't show for this series of friendlies. Had they appeared, we would have been talking about all the fantastic "depth" without any objective evidence for the hypothesis.
     
  15. smokarz

    smokarz Member+

    Aug 9, 2006
    Hartford, CT

    Disagree.

    We have a large numbers of players in MLS as well as Mexico, yet their contributions to the USMNT has been average at best.

    Our most productive and accomplished USMNT players had been those that spent the majority of their careers in Europe, including Bradley. So yeah, I say keep on chasing the Euro dreams.

    Who's the best USMNT players right now?

    Pulisic, McKennie, Yedlin, Miazga, Brooks. And guys like Weah, Sargent, and Adams are on their way to getting really good with that Euro pixie dusts.

    Bottom line is, Euro had gave us the best USMNT players in the past, current, and future. You can't ignore the facts.
     
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  16. chad

    chad Member+

    Jun 24, 1999
    Manhattan Beach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yeah, but WTF90 is a-comin'.
     
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  17. An Unpaved Road

    An Unpaved Road Member+

    Mar 22, 2006
    Club:
    --other--
    Euro had gave them to us? Quite nice of Euro.
     
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  18. smokarz

    smokarz Member+

    Aug 9, 2006
    Hartford, CT

    In his prime, yes. It's sad what age and a return to MLS has done to him.
     
  19. smokarz

    smokarz Member+

    Aug 9, 2006
    Hartford, CT
    They earned it, but Euro made them a lot better.

    Pulisic probably can't get off the bench in MLS.
     
  20. Susaeta

    Susaeta BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 3, 2009
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Following up on the point I made about how bad Saief was defensively, here is a twitter who breaks him down in detail, with video.

     
  21. bharreld

    bharreld Member

    Jan 26, 2008
    Westlake, OH
    Saw this too. It’s very good. This guy and scuffed do the best usmnt analysis available.
     
  22. smokarz

    smokarz Member+

    Aug 9, 2006
    Hartford, CT

    I was never impressed with Saief, but when you break it down like this, even a kindergartner can see his flaws and weaknesses.

    Btw, did he learn to play this lazy defense from watching Bradley?
     
  23. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    You don't get the point.

    The rational thing is:

    Top US Player ---> Go to Europe, earn your place there (Pulisic, Wes, Miazga, Yedlin)

    Middle US Player ---> Stay in MLS, earn the starting spot, try to move to Europe after and for a price, not on a free.

    Mediocre US Player ---> Become a sub/bench guy in MLS.


    What we do:

    Top US Player ---> Go to Europe, earn your place there.

    Middle US Player ---> Go to Europe, rot in some bench there or playing with the reserves.

    Mediocre US Player ---> Become a sub/bench guy in MLS.


    People's complaint about our US players not starting in MLS is the same complaint about so many of our guys stuck not playing in Europe: they are the ones who should be here, and here they'd be starting, improving, instead of stagnant.

    We won't go far with three or four players in Top Leagues backed up by 20 Euro failures and MLS benchers. That's my prediction.
     
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  24. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    Also, that a player plays in a Top League doesn't mean he's a top player.

    I've watched enough of the likes of Yedlin, Williams, Morales, Wood, and they're not top players. There's a reason why they are in relegation fodder teams, and even there are considered part of the problem (except Williams, who doesn't play enough to be considered part of anything).
     
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  25. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    he meant will trapp not mb
     

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