From what few highlights I've seen, he seems to have a good left foot, maybe even favors it (saw him score from a RW position by cutting in like an inverted winger and shooting with his left). That would give him an advantage over a lot of the competition.
From my time embedded with the Kiwis in Afghanistan, they did support their All-Whites, but rugby is at a whole different level. My time there also did force me to learn the rules of cricket, a decent enough sport if you like built in time for tea.
In Turkey, Ankaragucu's Tyler Boyd, who is now eligible to play for #usmnt, scored in the 34th minute of a 3-1 victory over Sivasspor. Six goals in past 11 matches.— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) May 20, 2019
Well, NZ's Black Caps are just a piddling 26% win percentage in test matches throughout their history, and have been wallopped for six by the Matildas throughout their history. And their sticky wickets in the Twenty20 are bowling for a wide long-on at the century mark in a roundarm over the slog spin for the tail-ender maiden over Yorker for the dibbly dobbly in the cow corner howzzat diamond duck Googly. I know nothing about cricket.
Well, if nothing else, the article confirms who it was that made the first move to contact and ask Boyd to make the switch. I know there was a lot of speculation...
To add clarity, a few passages from the article: But shortly into his breakout season in Turkey, he received a call from new U.S. national team manager Gregg Berhalter where he discussed his eligibility and international interests. From there, Boyd made the decision to use his one-time switch with FIFA to make himself eligible to only play for the United States internationally. “It was the coach, Gregg Berhalter, who contacted me,” Boyd said. “We sort of started the process of seeing if I was eligible...It surprised me. It's been my dream for the last few years to represent the U.S. and I believed that with hard work and good performances that it could be a possibility. Now it is a possibility - if I'm chosen. So, I was playing pretty well in Turkey and I was scoring goals. I'm very happy that FIFA accepted it and now I'm looking forward to making that dream come true, if that's possible. I've made the one-time switch and now I'm an American soccer player.” Clearly, Berhalter and staff are doing their due diligence regarding scouting.
T20 cricket is actually a lot of fun once you can figure out the basics of what's going on. Like baseball, but with more shit talking.
All Whites coach Fritz Schmid wishes Tyler Boyd well after his United States switch When you read this, it is pretty obvious why he switched. Even New Zealand's manager (who is frustrated with the team's inactivity) admits it was a no-brainer. Look at these snippets.
It's a good explanation why he would choose to switch now, but it remains unclear why he spent 4 years in the wilderness. New Zealand, being part of OFC, has rotating on-off periods of activity - 2018, 2019 are mostly inactive, but in 2016 and 2017, NZ had 16 competitive matches, with the OFC Nations Cup, the Confederations Cup, and the World Cup Qualifiers. Yet the All-Whites never called up Boyd during that entire period. And from his end, Boyd never made efforts to switch his affiliation until just this year. My wild speculation remains that Boyd and Anthony Hudson had some beef between them. Boyd won't talk about it - but maybe we can ask Hudson, now that he's unemployed. He might need the money.
It would seem Oceania needs to merge with Asia like Australia did. That would make it easier to sell a North / South American merger. I think also with the Euro's trying to cut off access to their teams the other confederations will need to fight back and mergers making the Asian and American federations bigger and more powerful while they both all ready have a lot of money could press Europe a bit. Don't want to play friendlies with us anymore? How about we make ourselves better and start ignoring you and giving you lots of eyeballs and cash. Would take a while to change habits but there are starting to be some breakout teams that aren't from Europe.
Not sure the AFC would want OFC, and the ideal that adding New Zealand plus the islands would make the AFC more powerful seems dubious. Plus, politically, there was already a lot of gnashing of teeth from Middle Eastern federations when Australia was allowed to join.
Yeah, it would never happen. From the AFC side, there's nothing that the OFC nations bring that they might want; they're not competitive, they don't bring in major revenue or include a large media market, they don't really have viable professional club leagues. And they'd have make efforts to accommodate the OFC nations, giving them a cut of the profits, help support their national federations, fly out their own teams all the way out to the South Pacific for qualifier matches. Theoretically, they might be interested in adding the OFC members to gain the additional votes in the FIFA Congress. But practically, there's no guarantee they could keep the OFC nations in line. The Middle Eastern and West Asian federations especially would feel uncomfortable about it, and suspect that the OFC countries would be more likely to side with the East and South Asian countries (they would still vote to kick out Australia if they could). If anything, it would be Australia, as the only AFC member with any significant relations with the OFC countries, who might reliably count on their support - so it would be like giving Australia more voting power. Which wouldn't make anyone else in the AFC happy. From the OFC side, it's also not a welcome prospect. Joining the AFC would mean facing a higher level of competition and having to meet a higher level of standards - like in stadium capacity. It would also mean promotion of any of their own interests would be completely squelched by the more numerous and wealthier Asian countries. And, it would mean practical elimination of any faint dreams of ever, ever making the World Cup. New Zealand is the odd one out here, as the lone competitive nation in the OFC since Australia left. Playing in a more competitive, wealthier confederation has benefits - and New Zealand does have the resources to keep up. But it also means being cast into a larger pond, and playing against bigger opponents. In OFC, they will always dominate. With the impending 48-team Cup in 2026 - and the full berth that will be given to the OFC winner - New Zealand probably likes the idea of getting a near-automatic bid to the World Cup every four years. I did read an interesting proposal by a pundit, suggesting that the AFC should split up into two different confederations, West and East, since they're practically like that anyway - and the East would take in the OFC. Probably not something that'll happen in the near future, though.
All the good teams are in the east... Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Plus, New Zealand would be like our Honduras, Panama, etc. Like Canada, it’s only a matter of time before China gets hot. Saudi Arabia and Iran are meh... if Turkey ever joined AFC then they would be the powerhouse. Everyone else is a joke. Maybe eventually India could be a competitor in years and years to come.
1. What ever happened to the narrative that, "...until someone comes along to challenge MB, he is still the is the best that we have"? 2. Boyd is a welcome addition, if he makes 3G's roster, compared to the list of 3G favorite wingers to date
Has Tyler joined the group at camp yet? I've not seen anything on social media about him being there.