2021 or 2022 makes more sense anyway. not sure why we would acclimate camp cupcake level players -- many of whom won't make any tournament team, assuming -- or make this trip so far ahead of the tournament. and the "assuming" underlines the whole trip is a tad arrogant at this stage. be like making a trip to moscow before 2018. oops.
Looks like the USA vs El Salvador game is listed on: http://www.eurosport.co.uk/football/international-friendlies/calendar-result.shtml They are a pretty serious sports new site so I would say that that game is 95% a go. It seems likely that they will announce something before Friday. If I were US Soccer, I would put the game at Toyota Field in San Antonio TX. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Field 1) The team has gotten under 14 000 in markets that have historically been much stronger. If you put the team in a 8500 seat stadium, it will sell out and look much better than half empty Alamodome. 2) There will be the #USWNT game the day before in Houston. Fans will be able to travel to see both teams. At the same time putting the #USMNT in a smaller stadium when the the women are actually playing a qualifying tournament doesn't run the risk of any bad optics of the #USMNT trying to "steal the limelight" from the #USWNT especially considering the ongoing court action... ...but you know, Toyota Stadium in Frisco TX or even Avaya Stadium in San José CA would work well too.
Kosovo is 115th in the FIFA Rankings. We should play better teams to prepare for the Nations League Final Four and Hexagonal.
Water tends to find its own level. Might it be time for @ 2020 MNT schedule thread? This {edited} post sets a general framework ... ... and specific games/dates could be filled in as known. @TheFalseNine or @bungadiri could then sticky. Happy Holidays!
The US Soccer schedule page lists matches vs. Iceland and El Salvador with "Invalid Date Undefined" and TBD. Someone probably hit the switch too soon. It looks like the Iceland match is before January 28th and the El Salvador match is between January 28th and February 3rd.
This is an interesting thought. January/February camp cupcake. Out top players won’t be around. March. Two Europe games. Will have top players for that. Then in summer we will have Nations League. (Which is basically worthless but whatever). Will have our top players for that? Will Mexico even use their top players if we reach finals? Then it’s time time for really serious games. The hex. this is another example or reason why not qualify for the World Cup really sucks. We have hardly played in any important matches since that Trinidad and Tobago game. Basically going to go three years in between World Cup qualifier games and only play a few important matches. Hopefully we open up with like Jamaica and El Salvador in the first Hex games.
based on ES + ISL and the short turn around theory (which lines up with MLS moving their season ever forward), these would be games here in warm destinations, FL, CA. the rumors are then 2 march friendlies against european teams, presumably away. then LoN then qualifying. i don't think qatar is happening this year. i could see the second game in early february because MLS has moved its own opening day back to the end of february. so you camp for a few weeks then play two games around the end of the month then release the players to MLS, couple weeks of camp there then CCL and the season. you would probably have a call sheet next week.
outside of the box idea. the USMNT always calls more people than it can play, and so some campers don't see game action. there is also the cliche that part of the evaluation process is simply the practices. and the USMNT has occasionally spoken like it would like to get in some of the winter break and age group kids from europe, for january camp. i would assume a leading reason they don't participate is not that the front end of their schedule in winter break doesn't mesh, but rather they may be expected back before the games at the end of camp (and that they can't play games). but we're already calling some aaronsons who get cut anyway. the fact we cannot dress everyone for games is somehow not a dealbreaker for calling them. so why not call a few more -- winter breakers -- and just release them when they are due back from winter break, before the games? you can take a sneak peek and if they are interesting bring them back for march, in an informed way.
Ideally, if you brought in enough players, you could have an intra-squad scrimmage, which almost certainly would go better than the (pre-Olympic) one in 2008.
for the hex, Each month, did they play one Home and one away or can they play two road games in one month?
i know for this coming year 2020 the windows for games will be labor day, october, november. we will get in 6 of the 10 games very rapidly. then i believe a single spring 2021 and then fall window to close it out. this is why, to me, it's critical to have the coach and selection right going in. in fact with LoN as early as this summer we will be playing for real with consequences, and any changes will be under those conditions. i'm not sure what happens in terms of home/road. in 2018 we alternated home and away each window, in the same order ie home then road. in 2010 we alternated but sometimes home and away were in different order. in 2014 there was no rhyme or reason. the meaning of the first part is march is basically the only scheduled friendly window for the first team this coming year. in theory we could hold a summer camp and friendly ahead of LoN, but it wouldn't be in a window. LoN and thereafter are games that count rest of the year.
What are the international dates for September, October, November? You said Labor Day. But that’s a Monday. Don’t they normally play on Friday, Tuesdays?
I would expect Thurs/Fri then Mon/Tues like you're saying. The first window is "31 August – 8 September" which goes to the Tuesday right after Labor Day. I was saying Labor Day because you'll have games bracketing the holiday. Then "5-13 October" and "9-17 November." 2021 the windows are March May Gold Cup Labor Day October November. Concacaf is going to play the last 4 quali games March and then Labor Day. Playoff if necessary is October 2021. World Cup if qualified is roughly Thanksgiving to a week before Xmas 2022. https://resources.fifa.com/image/up...ar-2018-2024.pdf?cloudid=vypxfhb9frfxwu25v23z
i hadn't thought of it before but it will be interesting how "camp" would get handled if we qualify. Historically it's been a summer event so the Euros are "off" and MLS plays along on release and we can camp for weeks. This will be a November fall world cup during the European season. Strictly speaking FIFA is only giving a week window of release and then into the tournament. I'd be curious if some of the Euro leagues give a longer practical break than that, or if it will in fact be play the last league weekend, released Monday, games start the following Monday. Like a quali window. No time for intense fitness work or chemistry. No pre-tournament friendlies. And you would also have the same MLS schedule issues we had with the last pair of LoN group games this season. Many of the teams will be eliminated mid-October. The tournament is November. You would have to come up with a way to keep the MLS people camped and in shape. And as it is you're going to have them in end-of-season state, dinged, tired. So they will kind of get them coming and going. The Euros may only have a week off and MLS will be in mixed-bag post-season mode. My two cents you would want your European players to be the ones getting playing time because there will be no time to knock rust off and get fit. And Mike Bradley's omission from this year's November team underlines the questionable value of older falling apart players in MLS for this particular timing. You're going to be asking MLS players at the end of 40+ game seasons (counting all the competitions) to dig deep and play world class ball for 3+ games. That would favor young, healthy, fitness freaks, or players for whom running and being in shape isn't part of their game. This strikes me as a particularly dumb world cup to depend on 30+ y/o veterans currently plying their trade in MLS. Counter-intuitively, their best play would be transfer to Europe, have the summer break, rest, play 3 months of soccer and then the world cup.
my guess is the hex schedule will be released before August. Last time they had it announced before teams were announced. Teams were predetermined on how they finished.
As stated earlier in this thread, the El Savador game was always rumoured to be on February 1st. The latest from their tabloids confirms that. http://www.elgrafico.com/futbol/El-Clausura-2020-se-pospondra-una-semana-asegura-la-Primera-Division-20191227-0002.html The latest CONCACAFing BS from EL Salvador is that they want the game to be a training match and not an "A level" international friendly because they don't want to lose any FIFA ranking points - they fear Canada could catch them by the end of the June FIFA window. Their match against Iceland has already been changed from an official friendly to a training match according to the article. So it remains to be seen if this will be an actually friendly or not. The Iceland game could be in southern California but that is unlikely because that is where El Salvador wants to play them + Women's Olympic Qualifying. I wonder if Papa Murphy's Park in Sacramento could be an option? Avaya stadium could easily host for one of the two games. Florida looks unlikely because the rebuilding of Lockhart Stadium is not done and the last #USMNT game was in Orlando. Texas (outside of the Houston area) is also possible. (Women's Olympic Qualifying).
Think it’s complete garbage that El Salvador can do that. That’s the problem with allowing rankings to determine the Hex. FIFA should have a rule that you have to play so many Friendlies a year. Canada is better than El Salvador. Canada should schedule as many matches as possible before June
Now the US Soccer schedule page lists only Costa Rica on February 1st. Iceland and El Salvador have vanished. Apparently, the match is in Carson: The @USMNT will open 2020 with a Feb. 1 game vs Costa Rica at Dignity Health Sports Park. Ticket details and the winter camp roster announcement is expected tomorrow— Kevin Baxter 🇺🇦🏳️🌈 (@kbaxter11) December 30, 2019
they will be going to qatar 1/5-25 for a training camp then coming back here for the game(s), like that makes much sense. we have warm weather venues here, the a team needs to be acclimated not the b team, and i don't see the point to calling it acclimation without a full dress game. feels like a junket.
those are just the windows for release and not the dates themselves. i would expect Thurs/Fri then Mon/Tue as before. i think we once played Sat but there was a weather issue.