This USMNT team is very good - I watched a lot of their qualifying games and have been saying it for a while. May not make it out of the group in the end but I feel like they're a good team. This tie with England looked different than the last WC tie with England, which consisted of a lucky goal on a GK howler and then trying to hang on for dear life. In this last game I thought the US went toe to toe and looked like the slightly better team. That said, contributions from MLS players is very low - all-time low since MLS started maybe? Zimmerman is about it, even among subs. Matt Turner a recent MLS player but not current. Could Jebo help with the striker problem? Maybe - the broadcast crew was gushing over Sargent’s hold up play on the single US goal; Jebo does that stuff in his sleep. But at this point I think I'd just give up on trying to find a striker and play Gio Reyna there. Not a striker but he's so good technically, and confident and hungry, I think he could help unlock defenses. Don't know why Greg has been playing him so sparingly.
Speaking of which, if you're currently in Hawaii, beware of Pele's Hair. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
I had that privilege twice! First time was in San Jose as others had mentioned and the second time up in Portland for a Soccer Bowl 1977. That was our family trip that summer. I always thought my parents were pretty friggin' cool for that!
Agree that's why I kind of dabble on both sides because I do believe that the big 5 leagues are a better place to play and we should be sending our players there but those players are really the best of MLS anyways. So the MLS contribution is huge. Sadly other countries like Canada will also get better but it is an overall positive for CONCACAF to put us on the radar as teams to watch out for instead of how Europe sees us as teams to just kick around. I think the one thing players from our league add to the USMNT is just physical advantages like strength and speed from our league being very physical. We send so much good talent and we will continue to produce a ton of talent from this league because when the US gets really into a sport we become a hotspot of talent. I think NE Rev just signed a 17-year-old that is 6'5 like that is not normal for this sport. Same for the Cowell brothers since usually strength and speed are not a common combo to have. We just need them to be good technical-wise and some fine turning and they will become monsters. Also too lazy to quote a second post but yeah agree as well Jebo is awesome for us and I would prefer Sargent to not be on the roster but I would think that everyone has Vasquez, Pepi, Pefok hell even a recently healthy Dike above Jebo on the depth chart. Also only been on here for like 8 months what is going on here lmao
Come on now with this personal poster calling out garbage. Clearly you're not fond of Jazzy or any of his takes and that's fine as I don't agree with him on a number of subjects as well but just use the "ignore" feature instead of filling up the thread with this back-and-forth on every post. It just deviates from the topic and makes it hard to read and follow this board....but maybe that's just me. In any case, the notion about Jebo being an option on the US team is definitely far fetched, however, in Jazzy's defense, he did specifically talk about Jebo's hold-up play being on par if not better than Sargent's and I agree with that 100%. However, as far as other intangibles are concerned, he is far away and the US is still lacking a proper CF as all of the options on the current roster as well as Vazquez and Pepi are no where near what this team needs.
Someone posted something about MLS getting better and not getting respect from the intl community and being a retirement league, etc., and while that's true, we're still at the same place we were several years ago where we feel that we need to send players to the "Big 5" to really learn how to play. And that's probably still the right thing to do, but it also shows that MLS is not entirely "there" yet. Nearly all the players who are getting playing time at this Cup are not MLS players, I think even more so than previous years, when our 2 star players were typically Donovan and Dempsey, who spent most or much of their time in MLS. It's also true that many players have MLS "roots" in the academies or in short MLS careers, but the question is when do we feel like we don't need to ship guys off to Europe in order to reach their potential. At that point MLS will have really "made it" as a league.
What intangibles is Jebo lacking? Speed, maybe? He obviously has a great nose for the net and is decent at hold up. Maybe he’s below par, but he never even got a sniff, so we’ll never know. Wondo could still outplay the current crop of Nats forwards, by the way. They’ve got one game to prove me wrong.
Though I would think it is also a tough team to make as a CF I would love for Cameroon to give Jebo a look since 3/4 CFs are 29 or older and Jebo is still pretty young.
We often tend to devalue and even denigrate our own players, even Wondo, which is sad. I'd rather error on the side of being a homer or a "stan", because this is our team. There are exceptions of course, if I don't think a guy is very good (like Gregus), but for the most part I'm going to be a "stan". So sue me!! Jebo had almost the same number of goals as Ferreira and Vasquez last year (17 vs. 18), and if he was on a good team, he'd probably have at least a few more than that. So why would he necessarily be so laughably unworthy?
A few posts have been moved to the recycle bin. A little bit of good-natured teasing, okay, homophobic/racist/etc insults not so much
McKennie to the Quakes confirmed Another Awesome Coach that helped Weston in his journey! We still have work to do! pic.twitter.com/0N5zxAPNcg— john mckennie (@airborne69) November 28, 2022
I really like Robinson (#5 on USMNT) the LB. Good on both defense and offense, good speed and composure.
Eh Dest seems OK as a defender. Going forward he may be our best player. Seriously. He made the goal happen, outside of Pulisic’s brave box crash. He’s one of the few guys who can and will take guys on 1v1 and beat them consistently. Better than Pulisic, better than McKinnie, who looked kind of slow today.
have to give the US a lot of credit, they’re playing some lights out defense. Only allowing one goal in the group stage off a PK, not a single run of play goal given up…impressive. And Zimmerman more than makes up for conceding that PK with his late game heroics today.