Post-Match USMNT vs. Uruguay 9/10

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by largegarlic, Sep 10, 2019.

  1. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Pele, upon finishing his career here in the U.S. told anyone wanting the beautiful game to grow in this land, grow to what Pele could envision the sport being in a nation he came to love, he told anyone listening that the sport must be urban at its core for the U.S. to successfully reach the potential it could exist at with pro soccer.
    This at face value often gets a straight line drawn between urban and black youth in SW Houston or South Chicago. In 1980 that could be accepted. Now that our nation is so incredibly diverse, the urban talent pool really means youth that are either new to the land and already have roots with the sport or their classmates that are Americans but have no one in their family that ever played the most dominate sport on the planet, much less drops a ball in their laps and tells them to go out in to the streets and play. One would like to think that here in 2019 every major city in our nation could be producing at least one or two very talented soccer products from their urban environment just on shear numbers available to play the damn game. This every school year. But alas, our Fed has not gone all in on Pele's advise from 40 years ago.
     
  2. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Sure. Desperate? Heck, Hitler used 14 yr olds.
     
    SteelyTom repped this.
  3. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    I'm all for diversity but let's not make the lack of it an excuse for the establishment. We are a country of 350M ffs.
     
  4. NietzscheIsDead

    NietzscheIsDead Member+

    NO WAR
    United States
    May 31, 2019
    NO WAR
    Public High School soccer is a joke in Texas.

    Rural and inner-city areas are hotbeds for athletic talent in Texas, they just mostly aren't playing soccer. They're playing football and basketball.
     
  5. NietzscheIsDead

    NietzscheIsDead Member+

    NO WAR
    United States
    May 31, 2019
    NO WAR
    Terminal cynicism.

    ...evidence of the need for a different hobby.
     
  6. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree.
    If you notice at the end of my post, I specifically mentioned "One would like to think that here in 2019 every major city in our nation could be producing at least one or two very talented soccer products from their urban environment just on shear numbers available to play the damn game."
     
  7. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hold up partner. Public High School varsity soccer is killing it here in Texas! I know, I have witnessed this growth since I started coaching varsity ball before 9/11. Just two seasons ago, Elsik H.S. from SW Houston got named by USA Today as the #1 varsity boys team in the land! One of my school's old rivals. Elsik is a Biggio base hit West of my school.
    I agree. That is why I always went long on casting a wide net to the boys that were athletes. Boys that wanted to play something for their school. Wanted to get dirty and get hit, dish out some hits. I would tell my inner city boys that if they liked the free movement of basketball and as well liked to play football then soccer is basketball with your head, chest and legs on a 100 yard football field. Cap it off telling them that they were probably to slow and too uncoordinated to play soccer though. Boy would that light a fire under them kids! Then next day I would have line of boys outside the locker room wanting to just get a chance to see what soccer was all about for themselves. The other coaches, the gridiron coaches for sure, shook their heads and wondered what was said to get these cast offs and cut from the roster boys to re lace their cleats and have a go.
     
  8. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Terminal objectivity. Same remedy.
     
  9. neems

    neems Member+

    Liverpool FC
    United States
    Apr 14, 2009
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Maybe
     
  10. neems

    neems Member+

    Liverpool FC
    United States
    Apr 14, 2009
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What is this? The Wire? We promoting guys to downtown now?
     
  11. KALM

    KALM Member+

    Oct 6, 2006
    Boston/Providence
    I actually used to watch almost every game back then, starting shortly after the '94 World Cup (although I was a bit too young to have a very nuanced understanding of what I was watching). I even tried to follow USMNT players in Europe when ESPN2 and FoxSports (or whatever it was called in the 90's) would show their weekly Premier League or La Liga game.

    And I also used to whine about anti-American bias, like everyone else, when our players couldn't get off the bench in Europe. Yes, I do think that Eddie Lewis deserved to play more than one game at Fulham, and I do think Hejduk was better than a Bundesliga reserves player or whatever his role was at that midtable Swiss club leading up to the '02 World Cup. But I think they both also had serious limitations in their game that would still probably prevent them from nailing down a starting spot at the highest level in this day and age as well. Notice in my post, I didn't include guys like Landon Donovan who I think definitely would have gotten a fairer shake today than he did back and then, and whose career may very well have turned out completely different.

    I also saw enough to know that a lot of the mythologizing these days about those players lines up pretty poorly with the narratives at the time. And that goes in both directions. Agoos is remembered as a clown because of what he did at the age of 34 in a World Cup, rather than for how he generally played for the USMNT prior. Conversely, McBride is remembered as a legend and as a much more consistent player than he was as a result of his accomplishments late in his career, rather than his play at the time. And pretty much everything people remember about Sanneh and JOB now comes from that one tournament alone.

    To your last point, I'm obviously not denying that those teams did great things at the time, including yes knocking out a German B team from the Confederations Cup in style. My point is that they did not do that with a level of talent they we are "nowhere near," which is the claim I was originally addressing. We did it with a level of talent that it is not at all unreasonable to expect that we may be able to match in 3 years. However, whether we can match the effort, commitment, and coaching in that period is much less certain to me.
     
    Craig P and manq360 repped this.
  12. Pegasus

    Pegasus Member+

    Apr 20, 1999
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think MLS just adding Cincinnatti, Nashville and St. Louis addresses that hole quite a bit. I'd also maybe warn about letting the national team feds get there grubby hands in the middle of MLS player development when it is just starting to go so good.
     
    UncagedGorilla repped this.
  13. yabo

    yabo Member+

    Jun 1, 2000
    Poolesville, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The Bundesliga is also a selling league with a couple of exceptions. The economic viability is based on good investment in developing players. I think the ignorance/arrogance of MLS is keeping them from embracing a potentially important income stream. Invest in youth development infrastructure and sell good American players.
     
    Namdynamo, jnielsen and Patrick167 repped this.
  14. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    it's that good old boy practice of kicking the failure upstairs. Like they used to say, 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"
     
  15. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Stirrings in the media? Planet futbol commented on downside of two games on sod in this window and asked that in the future we play in more soccer appropriate stadiums.

    Now to get the taste of this window out of my mouth I will today watch Toronto @ NYCFC...…….in Yankee stadium.:thumbsdown:
     
  16. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #141 juvechelsea, Sep 11, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2019
    Until recently I competed in another sport which was the successor to soccer. I was solid at the sport and able to compete at some open entry international level events in the pro circuit without making an a$$ of myself. Anyways, a local coach had me mentor an up and coming girl in her 20s. She was ambitious and good at the sport, and because I competed at a high level I had answers to questions for years, even as she long surpassed what I could do. She eventually was invited to apply to the national residency, from which she made the national team. She has since faded in form and won't be on the national team next year due to the drop in her domestic grand prix points. Someone will replace her next year on the national team, either from within or without the residency. She may or may not remain in the residency.

    This is how most Olympic sports work. The whole point of the residencies or teams is that is the main pipeline. The specific people knocking her off the team may or may not be residents themselves. But the pipeline is only working right if the resident outplays the average stiff trying to make it on their own. And if the residents are the ones beating out residents.

    I get the theoretics of handing things over to the academies, dismantling Bradenton, the clubs' ball to carry. However, at least through age 20, even dismantling the residency, the YNT should still be the pick of the litter. This may not be absolutely true -- they can get political, myopic, miss people -- but the whole point is the closer to truth that statement runs, the better the pipeline is working.

    As such, if the Pipeline has a point, if we have made sure it is close to optimal, that should still be my best shopping. My concern is it has kind of become where pro ball is instead the proving ground.

    I am sure some of you are like, well, but isn't that how it is now? Bradenton is gone. Except IMO we handed the clubs the ball and all but about 2 or 3 of them proceeded to trip over the center and fall for a loss of a yard. You can track this to pro rosters, but more importantly, to the NT roster, where for example, FCD's plentiful contribution of HGP and draft picks to its own roster -- as well as academy signings abroad -- shows up in several NT players (McKennie, Pomykal, Cannon). If you look at the MNT roster, in terms of youth teams, it's a few academies doing the heavy lifting, NYRB, FCD.

    I get we want to make a handoff, and that some of you as a result want to act like we should look to pro performance instead of the U20s. But few domestic pro teams have held up their end of the deal. This is kind of like when people wanted to talk down college soccer even as it produced every year's rookie of the year, with one exception, for a couple decades. What you want to be true is not the same as what is true.

    To me the U20 and U23 remain the clearinghouse of sorts where we get together as many of the young player successes as we can find. Personally I think it's perseveration that we keep trying to toss in Baird or Yueill in there with Pomykal and Robinson and the YNT players who the pipeline has handed us.

    To me Pomykal has the same stats as Yueill in 2/3 of the minutes, was within the pipeline more, and performed well there. In terms of what I then saw on the field, the one who should have looked better, did. But he was a backup and the other guy started.

    At least part of what is happening is Yueill, by playing more minutes, gets a preference. Except the better prospect should actually be the one doing the same or better in less time. We do the same thing with Weah and Sargent and other players. We are more concerned with how much time they play than what is done with it. That is a recipe for getting the second choice players a few years older and further down the road in their careers. And doing it that way is having a lot more faith in MLS and a lot less faith in U20 than what makes sense to me. If you are talking up some new player odds are they are from the U20s. It may be Robinson and Pomykal and not Dest like some snobs wanted, but that's the same deck.

    And I get you don't have to come from in this to be helpful.. Cameron wasn't a pipeline kid. But he was playing excellent ball for Houston when he got brought in.
     
  17. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Right on.
     
    jnielsen repped this.
  18. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Nailed it.
     
    jnielsen repped this.
  19. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i don't think that's true when you get to the regional finalist level which IMO was basically the same kids i saw in club. you go below that, true, but that is also where the untapped resources would be. when we played regular season and playoff games we'd always see HS players we thought were interesting. the problem is, like i was saying, if that's the level of soccer you get, you tend to be either a drilled machine or really talented but unfit or not soccer savvy.

    basically, they'd either be well coached but never taught to be skilled enough, or skilled but not well coached or fit. i always thought club supplied that. but IMO the kids we would point out to our club coach wouldn't pan out when trialed because they would be years behind in development, or so used to freelancing they couldn't reliably work within a team concept.

    but the fact you'd see someone like that on about every second or third HS team we'd play hints at the degree of the untapped resource.

    i'm also not sure if dallas cup and/or people only playing club has changed since i was there. i know when elsik is winning state titles something is off. that is not where club soccer usually fishes.
     
  20. nbarbour

    nbarbour Member+

    Jun 19, 2006
    Washington DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is me exactly. (Except the Braves...I left my Braves fandom behind (and baseball in general) a while back...but that's another story.) I didn't watch the Uruguay game and only bits and pieces of the Mexico game. I won't watch the Nations Cup or whatever it is. And I'm the type that 10 years ago would pull up crappy streams on sketchy links just to get a glimpse of our YAs playing in second tier leagues. I'm just done now.

    This Federation and specifically Berhalter has lost me. I just can't muster up the energy to care if we're not putting our players in position to succeed. Maybe once WCQ starts up, I'll be more invested. But the baffling coaching hires, rosters, lineups, and "tactics" are setting us back.
     
    Namdynamo and ttrevett repped this.
  21. butters59

    butters59 Member+

    Feb 22, 2013
    Friendlies? Always. They don't care about the friendlies. They are the toughest team in the world when you meet them in the tournaments.
     
    dna77054 repped this.
  22. beamish

    beamish Member+

    Jul 6, 2009
    I count 14 exceptions: https://www.transfermarkt.us/1-bundesliga/transfers/wettbewerb/L1
     
  23. Caulfield

    Caulfield Member

    May 31, 2004
    Club:
    Atlanta
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I tend to look at results and what my eyes tell me. That 2002 team had the best damn midfield I’ve ever seen in a US uniform. O’Brien, Reyna, Beasley & Donovan were absolutely unbelievable in that tournament. McBride was twice the forward we have anywhere on our current roster. Say what you want about guys like Lewis, Sanneh or Mastroeni, but they showed up when it counted. Lewis has the best damn cross ever seen in a US shirt to Donovan in the Mexico game....and he did it on a full run. And finally Mathis was the most exciting US player I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I know he had problems and faded out, but for short time period, he was world class.
     
  24. UncagedGorilla

    Barcelona
    Sep 22, 2009
    East Bay, CA
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    American Samoa
    I won't turn this political but suffice it to say we have a different opinion of the type of people that go to work for Goldman Sachs :)

    So, you totally nailed this one and I agree that it is Earnie's job and what he's trying to do (albeit very slowly since we just filled some of our YNT vacancies). But here is what I was really getting at. When Germany went through their rebuilding program, they didn't hire a coach after the failed Euro 2000's to immediately implement the system they wanted to be playing by 2010. In fact, they did the exact opposite and hired Rudi Voller, a former player who took Germany back to what they had been successful doing in the 90's. That's the problem I have with Gregg. The national team coach is there to win games, not play aspirational soccer. If your pool dictates that you are best served playing total football, tiki-taka, etc, then, by all means, do it. But our pool does not dictate that and this square peg, round hole approach is killing the already very low enthusiasm post-Couva.

    Agreed about the German system being better set up for a reboot. But I do think we have the resources and finally are getting enough clubs stepping up that we should be trending up in terms of professional-level talent coming through. And it seems we are, mostly due to the MLS and other good academies. But USSF has a part to play that I haven't seen much from yet. Our reboot should have started in October of 2017 but like the ancient Chinese proverb says, "the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is right now."
     
    Winoman repped this.
  25. Chesco United

    Chesco United Member+

    DC United
    Jun 24, 2001
    Chester County, PA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    How does the lack of Division I programs affect player development?
     
    deejay repped this.

Share This Page