Morales and Williams weren't excluded; they weren't in the NT picture at the time to begin with. The more the goalposts shift (now Omar counts as an MLS player?) the less coherent this argument is. So let's recap: Supposedly, MLS/SUM is manipulating the NT to ensure MLS players get called up, except: 1) MLS owners choose to play through FIFA dates, blunting any cross-marketing benefit there would be for them 2) MLS owners increasingly refuse to release players for intl duty 3) Bruce Arena only brought in MLS players that were already in Jurgen's WCQ squad. Besides that, he brought in relatively new players like Villafana and Ream, who are not MLS players. The other player excluded by Arena in the latter rounds was Jones, an MLS player So again -- how did Arena's choices reflect the will of MLS owners or show a specifically MLS-oriented bias?
again, the numbers went for 40% to 2/3 from MLS. It’s math. Here’s the 23 for the TNT game On the field: Wood 1 non Altidore 1 MLS Pulisic 2 non Nagbe - 2 MLS Arriola- 3 MLS Bradley- 4 MLS Villafana- 3 Non Omar- I consider him an MLS player but we can count him as 4 non Besler- 5 MLS Yedlin - 5 non Timmy - 6 MLS Dempsey - 7 MLS Acosta - 8 MLS Benny - 9 MLS 9/14 active players from MLS (64%) out of the other 9 players on the roster who didn’t play, 7 from MLS so overall roster was 16/23 or 70%. Both percentages are with Omar as non-MLS although we all saw his return coming (like Ream). How did the easiest game in the Hex (already eliminated C-team playing in front of a sparse crowd where we only needed a point) turn out? I hope you have the decency to admit that losing at home to Mexico (while immensely disappointing) is nowhere near the same thing as losing to a C-team away at TNT when all we needed was a point. players who could have made a difference: Fabian Chandler Williams Morales Cameron (glued to bench) McKennie Brooks (injured I believe) Alvarado but hey, there are players in your beloved MLS that play in those positions.
Garber quotes on MLS and USMNT “We need to be a league of choice for the top players in the world and that starts with being the league of choice for top American players.” “Jurgen’s comments [that it’s harder to keep elite form in MLS vs big 5] are very, very detrimental to the league. They are detrimental to the sport of soccer in America. To think that we are not aligned with our national team coach is disappointing and personally infuriating and frankly I don’t think it’s in line with the shared vision the league has with the Federation." "And I think when Benny and Robles and Finlay are performing really well in our league and have done the work to be performing at that level, I'd love for them to get into the [national team] player pool.“ "We will do whatever we need to do to ensure that we have the best possible American players here, because we have to be a league of choice for everyone that cares about the game, that's players and fans," Bottom line, Garber said, was that the time had come for Klinsmann to "embrace the vision" that US Soccer and MLS remain "inextricably linked" in order to grow the game in the US. "We need deep alignment with everyone who is an influencer in the sport. I not only ask this but I insist that everyone who is paid to work in this sport that they align with the vision… And I don't think the comments from Klinsmann did this. . . . I believe his comments are at odds with what we collectively believe what we're trying to achieve together." Portland Timbers owner: “For this sport to be successful in this country, for the national team to be successful, the national team and our domestic league need to be pointing in the same direction more often than not and that just hasn't been the case under Jurgen Klinsmann." yeah, maybe you’re right and MLS doesn’t want representation on the USMNT. Sure.
The funniest part about that particular alternative fact is that in reality Omar not only played in Mexico at the time, he's also a dual-international. Sounds exactly like the type of player Arena should've automatically excluded according to many theorists around these parts.
Ah, another MLS rah-rah poster chimes in with a nit while ignoring the main point. even if we exclude Omar as an MLS guy, the numbers are striking as I’ve shown. Furthermore, “some of my friends are Jewish” doesn’t preclude you from being an anti-Semite although you really really want it to in this case. So yeah, having only 1/3 or the roster be outside of MLS is actually part of the evidence of bias not an excuse that it’s not 100%. I’ll go back to the premise of this tangent - Arena said what he thought the coach should do (favor MLS because it’s more “American” and better for marketing) and then clearly followed his words with action as coach. We thereafter didn’t qualify for Russia. It’s amazing to me that MLS fans refuse to acknowledge the point and at the most say things like “well every coach has his biases”.
Terrible effort. If anything, Omar is the one guy normal fans (like me) and Brucie sycophants (like you, apparently) all agreed shouldn't be anywhere near the team for years before the T&T disaster. Just another one of the good ole boys who earned little, but received much. Be better. At least the other guy posts goal differentials and other misleading stats.
Omar was not an MLS player in 2017. Normal fans should be able to accept that fact, instead of being urged into a fit by it.
I didn't say he was an MLS player, but to try to compare him (former MLS player, terrible, nobody wanted him anywhere near the field outside of his former coach) to the status of the German-Americans/Euro based players is tenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
You claimed Arena's 2018 team had better results and performances than the 2014 team and the only supporting data you use is goals.... of course the +10 GD was from two home games. I am pretty sure the most important thing in qualification is points and Arena's numbers were much worse than the previous cycles. He didnt owe Chandler a chance? He owed the team to put the best team out there that he could. I have no idea if he would have been in that team, but he wasnt given a shot. To make it a bit more questionable, zusi played some minutes at right back and was pretty awful. Why is that the foreign based players were the only ones that could play themselves off the field for poor play? The worst things about the play against Costa Rica was how the team was lined up and th central midfield play of Bradley and Nagbe. Johnson didnt have a good game isolated out wide and not seeing much of the ball. If you are going to get rid of a player(s), Nagbe and Bradley would seem like better choices as they were the ones who couldnt get the ball to FJ, CP and other attackers. Cameron is an interesting one. He didnt play poorly against CR. He made a mistake to force a pass late in the game when his midfield was playing with no urgency. Who was the worst central defender in the next game and what sub sured up a defense that was struggling mightily. Gonzo was his usual mess and Cameron was the one that settled things down such that our late goal got us a point. Yet, Gonzo kept playing and Cameron went back to the bench. It appears that you want to select a single fact about a player to make a point while ignoring other characteristics of the player and that people are arguing that Arena did multiple things to reduce the pool. Jones was a foreign born dual national that some have suggested that he was the "leader" of that group. Jones also got shorter deals for less money than the other USMNT players (of course he was older) and teams still wouldnt resign him when his contracts were up. Didnt he help help turn NE around and improve Colorado substantially. You also know that MLS will take credit for anything that they can and having the smallest relationship with league is enough for them to claim they were critical to their career. Of the 14 players that played at T&T, only Pulisic and Wood were the only players with no association with MLS. Of the other 12, Feilhaber was the only one that didnt play in an academy or start his career in MLS. So those group of player sure fit the Arena comments to put out players that were developed in the american MLS system.
Not really. Arena was against foreign born and developed players. Besides being more american than the other dual nationals, Gonzo played for Arena with the Galaxy. Playing abroad is fine as long as MLS can claim credit for developing them.
LOL - just think it's amusing that you're trying so hard with the Chewbacca defense while ignoring the main point.
No idea, and not sure how it's relevant to the discussion. But feel free to die on the "Omar is/was good" hill, you'll have it all to yourself.
Here's the 23 for Klinnsman's game vs. Mexico Wood 1 non Altidore 1 MLS Pulisic 2 non Jones - 2 MLS Bradley - 3 MLS Chandler - 3 Non Fabian - 4 non Omar - I consider him an MLS player but we can count him as 5 non as above Besler- 4 MLS Brooks - 6 non Howard - 5 MLS Guzan - 7 non yedlin - 8 non Orozco - 9 non 5/14 active players from MLS (36%) and of the remaining bench players 5/9 were from MLS so that's 10 out of 23 or 43% of the total roster, which is consistent with Bob Bradley and even Arena 1.0 when he wasn't trying to market MLS. Btw, we lost a game to Mexico in the 89th minute. Should we ask the Mexican board which team is harder to play against: the team they fielded with Reyes, Héctor Moreno, Rafael Márquez, Andrés Guardado, Carlos Vela, Héctor Herrera, Jesús Manuel Corona, Miguel Layún, Chicharito and Giovani dos Santos as compared to the C-team that already eliminated TnT fielded at their home?
Not going to do all the work but the game against Costa Rica, there were 5 MLS players out of 14 (36%) and 8 out of 23 total roster (35%, which seems slightly low)
Well he was...he had also been playing in Liga MX for over two years at that point as well. Liga MX is BETTER than MLS. A very large portion of Concacaf players play in Liga MX. That's all I'm pointing out. I'm not dying on any hill. Offering facts and counterpoints is not dying on a hill. Personally I could give two shits what teams or leagues the players for the USMNT play for as long as the USMNT plays well. Thanks to Covid, you lot might want to get used to the fact that more USMNT players are going to come from MLS going forward. The transfer market is not going to be what it was. Teams aren't going to have the funds to spend on transfers that they've had in recent years. Hell this is going to be a good thing for young American players as well, as MLS teams likely won't spend as much on transfers either and will need to depend more on academy players.
It just has very little to do with the argument. People were arguing here that Euros were excluded by Arena. That is true. Another poster grabbed onto "dual nationals" to include Omar, which wasn't really the point (to make it clear - point was Euros/German dual nats were excluded by Arena). The inclusion of Omar was meant to try and obfuscate the crux of the argument, which whatever. Nobody with a brain wanted Omar anywhere near the NT, for basically his entire career. He has always been a train wreck, whether in MLS or Mexico. And just so everyone doesn't get too sensitive, I think he was the only guy who came out of the T&T game with any respect, simply because of his post-game interviews. Poor guy, he really felt bad and put him on himself, unlike some other Lions who dusted themselves off and said "too bad". I also don't care much about Euro vs. MLS slapfest. Euro players are generally going to be better because they get paid more, there is better competition, and that's that's the way the free market works. Thus, I tend to prefer more Euro players (like Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Reyna - no surprise our best players). Others here want to pretend they are scouting experts, and are better at talent identification than people paid millions to do so. Fine, it's a message board, run with it. But to the original point - Omar was effectively an MLS player, as he played for Bruce and in the league for his entire career outside of 2 seasons. He was not one of the "dual nats" the argument is about, and everyone knows it.
I was going to rep this comment but in no way shape or form is Gonzo "more american than the other dual nationals"
They narrowly evaded each other. But it does raise the question as to how the Galaxy owners would've benefited from the whole deal. They gave up their coach and GM and didn't even have a player called up in WCQ in return!
you can fact check this if youre a big nerd, but i im pretty sure omar has won more club titles than any other american player. just to make this part of the thread more interesting, why dont you guys replace omar with tim howard? omar was what he always was- howard was the primary reason we dropped that match (and im only referring to that one match being the only problem cause thats the perspective these arguments always take).
Welp, that must mean he's a great player! Howard was indeed one of the old Lions that I said at the time had no business being in the team, but were there because Brucie kept picking quite a few players based on career accomplishments rather than current performance (Omar/Bradley being the others I remember off the top of my head). Howard primary reason? Sure, he was certainly a reason, but Omar literally kicked the ball into his own net, not sure how that's not a huge part of it... And no - that one match wasn't the only problem (despite Bruce semi-supporters saying it was). The team was pathetic all Hex, under Klinsy and Bruce, and needed squad rotation, if for nothing else than to keep the Lions working hard, rather than sitting in their dens complacent, knowing they would be penned into the starting 11. The Gold Cup, the illustrious 2017 championship, for instance, was a perfect time to rotate some younger/other options, but Bruce wasn't interested in younger options (Jon Gonzalez, Wes McKennie), wasn't interested in better options (Miazga got 45 minutes, scored a goal, never seen again), all because he wanted to beat might Jamaica to win a tourney that meant nothing. So basically, your entire post is wrong, and may gawd have mercy on your soul. In seriousness, though, while it is wrong, the counters that I just went over have all been made clear many times (though it's still funny to write out, knowing so many still blame "the lost generation").