Adams is being hailed of course but is there any love given to Weah or Ream or what about Turner. Just curious what soccer papers/magazines across the world is thinking about our boys this time around.
FFC boards are basically congratulatory (especially over the decision to start Ream!). They think Dest is overrated, Adams is a beast and Musah is pure class.
Musah is your best player. Reyna has the highest potential. Pulisic has stepped it up. What you lack is a good target forward.
And lacking one, it is up to the manager to figure a way of scoring without one. Leeds don't have a 9 (Bamford injury problems and all that) and score in buckets because they use Aaronson. There were beating Tottenham's all star World Cup level lineup 3-2 before losing, for instance. The American Ted Lasso attitude of 'energy off the bench' role for Aaronson doesn't make much sense when the default lineup todate has scored 1 goal in 200 minutes.
What is the rest of the world making of the US so far at the WC? Probably "For so much Meh, they think pretty highly of themselves"
Well I know very little about what other countries are thinking except for Japan, where my granddaughters are currently living, and Iran that wants the US kicked out of the World Cup altogether. https://thehill.com/international/w...us-ban-from-world-cup-over-social-media-post/ We have an inflated view about what most countries think or don't think about our play. For the most part most people living elsewhere in the world don't care one way or the other about US Soccer's performance, or lack thereof, in this world cup. We just are not important or threatening enough to matter. Now, if we were to win a match or two...
In the past - we’ve had a lot of fans from other countries because of how we play. Not sure important or threatening came into it. Plucky underdog isn’t just an American thing.
Nobody thinks anything about any team during the group stage unless it's lights out dominant performance or an abysmal performance. If we arrive to QFs then we can ask.
While most of us do get what you are looking to communicate, I will remind you that for a while, any Colombian footy die hard just had a tough time watching on TV our U.S. Men's National Team. The events surrounding World Cup USA 1994 and losing to the U.S. in soccer was unthinkable. Did they care if we won or lost, meh, it was more they probably were of the mindset of can those kicking burros not exist. Can their culture go back to often not even fielding a team for years there in the 80's when their Fed didn't even play or host some sort of international fixture in anger. Then there is always Mexico and their folks, who really have it in for us pinche gringos knocking them out of major international tournaments over and over. This began in Copa America Uruguay 1995 and continued with Gold Cup Finals and of course the World Cup.
Here is an award winning English Podcast's perspective. Heavily skewed towards Leeds United, the guys have a few favorable things to say about our other players as well. At one point Michael Normanton said, " They just need a striker to be good." https://www.thesquareball.net/leeds-united/world-cup-diary-tyler-the-titan/
My family in Argentina sent me a screenshot of their local TYT sports coverage with the highlight bar in the bottom saying “Estados Unidos la sorpresa de mundial?”
The Italian TV commentators gush over Adams & Pulisic the most. Ream, McKennie, Musah, and Weah also get a lot of positive mentions.
It will. I say bring it on. This country is getting more multicultural whether the FOX News folks like it or not.
Yeah, like 7 hours of baseball, ya'll know how exciting that is, or watching 7 foot tall behemoths dunking baskets....people like sports for cultural reasons as much as anything else ( this has been studied ) and if you've ever worked with folks who love cricket you already know this....cricket is so slow it took India to come up with the idea of the 3 hour game....sheesh. Stephen Fry said, the Americans looked at cricket and said, smacks of colonialism, and we're not gonna play...
In the old days when I was working in public schools in NJ, the old timers, who were all former coaches and whatnot, reflexively called it a communist sport, which never made any sense to me, since Cuba was communist and loved baseball...and no communist country ever produced a champion. In fact, soccer was more associated with right wing regimes than anything else....Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Uruguay....FFS Argentina hosted in 78 with an actual military junta in charge.
Far more important than what the rest of the world is thinking about the USMNT performance is what kids right here in America are thinking... This was so cool and what we’ve all been talking about with the power of the World Cup!!We know some are casual fans and will remain so. But there are a LOT of people who just got hooked on USMNT like us because of this World Cup. Important we welcome them to the club!! pic.twitter.com/Iof6bpZzJo— USMNT_STAN (@StanUsmnt) November 30, 2022
It always has been. It’s a game that foreigners play and the US doesn’t dominate. That’s waaaay too threatening for the eggshell egos of American conservatives.
On that note: https://www.majorleaguecricket.com/news/major-league-cricket-set-for-history-making-launch-in-2023/ will be starting in the USA on July 13th, 2023 and will be the T20 format of the sport. https://www.youtube.com/c/MLCNetwork_ is their official youtube channel. That channel has also streamed Minor League Cricket's matches, which have taken place in the U.S. over the last two summers. Getting back to Soccer, I imagine this World Cup is starting to open other countries' eyes to the fact the USA is no longer a pushover in Men's soccer.