It’s so easy I just don’t get why it’s not happening. Put one of Pulisic, Reyna and Aaronson in front of them and done.
I could have sworn that Landon was born in 1981, so I went back to look it up, and yeah, he was an '82. Crap, that makes his exclusion in 2014 even more unforgivable
There were plans to have CONMEBOL countries competing in UEFA nations league starting in 2024: https://www.marca.com/en/football/nations-league/2021/12/17/61bcec43ca4741a9078b45e8.html
Yup we use Jedi as a LW and try to have Pulisic initiate our attack centrally. Dest frequently gets into advanced positions as well. Which is why Adams and Musah generally don't get too far forward. Pulling our CBs out wide on the counter and attacking the space they leave behind makes a lot of sense.
Hey. I’m always willing to be wrong. And I definitely am receptive to people telling me differently. Again, this is where I’m coming from on this. If that was Costa Rica, Wales, Iran, etc. 3-1, and that was the exact same game, we would give them credit for their win, as we should, but I think we would still be kicking ourselves because we know that if we had played our best, we would have won. For example, I imagine that Spain feels pretty similarly to Japan. Now, I don’t need someone thinking that I’m insinuating that we are on the talent level of Spain. I’m not saying that. I’m saying there are just some games where you come away feeling that if you could have that one back, you could have got a different result. Speaking of Japan. That’s an example of a completely different feeling after a loss. I came away from that game feeling that we got thumped by a better team. Of course, I think on our best night we could have done better in that friendly. But this felt to me that the win was in our hands, and we blew it.
Where I would disagree is on the bright future; I think this is about where we will be. We will continue to be also rans, because we just don't have the players. Too many siphoned off for other sports. I worked in schools all my career and can't tell you how many kids who might have made good soccer players insisted on football, baseball, and basketball even though they didn't have the physical presence to get far in any of those sports. My students who played soccer ( NJ ) were all the kids from immigrant families. Look at basketball, the only American sport that has somewhat of an international imprint, moreso than baseball, and its not close. While a few countries are very good and can challenge the US, the dominance remains lopsided, in both the mens and womens games. They don't have the talent pool we have, and their athletes who aren't freakishly tall aren't wasting time trying to make the basketball team. Just my opinion based on observations over 3 decades and it isn't gospel. But I've seen nothing to change my mind.
I think we are generally even in talent, but I think they were able to utilize their strengths to expose our flaws more effectively. I don’t think that’s overhyping them given their reputation. I see things differently. I think it’s a huge credit to our guys that they can overrun a Dutch midfield. This isn’t one of their best teams, but it’s still a very solid team, and we played them pretty evenly.
CONMEBOL threw a wrench into their own plan when they voted to keep the round-robin style WCQ tournament, which makes their participation in NL difficult because UEFA are folding NL into WCQ starting in 2024: https://www.conmebol.com/noticias/p...ifa-mantener-el-formato-de-las-eliminatorias/ For the time being, the only inter-continental competition will be a match played between the winners of the Euros and the winners of the Copa, however, I think CONMEBOL is hoping to expand their participation in UEFA as they opened an office in London, apparently...
Second and third runners thru the box that come in higher. US always had a line of players in the box, no real distribution in space or in arrival time.
They’ll need to be better than they were tonight, or Lady Luck isn’t going to be on their side in the quarter finals.
And Tyler Adams did on the first goal. I was screaming at him when he was at midfield to catch up to his mark, who went on to score an easy, unmarked goal. I was also screaming for Berhalter to sub out Antonee Robinson when he went down with his injury in the 66th and put in Scally. Robinson looked tired the whole game, and I told the guys sitting next to me that he needed to come out before making a major error. And then he did. Dest with the ball-watching on the 2nd. Really too bad, because other than those 3 ball-watching plays, the Dutch created f*ck all.
Our federation has made it clear over the years they are not interested in the Copa America, and further, we mostly stink up the pitch with 2nd rate players when we do show up.
I think we can quibble on the exact definition of the word "sitter," but our finishing was iffy all tournament long. But that's always been the case this cycle. My kingdom for a 9 this cycle... which just might still be Pepi. We know it won't be Wright, but a 23 year-old Pepi might have another level in him.
Whoever our next coach is, they need to work on EVERY FORWARD AND MIDFIELDER covering trailing runners into the box!
Those are the things the elite teams do naturally… I’ve been watching Brazil and the one touch passing, positional awareness, and consistent level of execution is on another level from us. Love our players and team, but we are simply not there yet. I am still in the camp that is celebrating for making it out of the group. Many didn’t expect us to…
Well, our federation manages for us to only play Guatemala, Mexico, and Canada for the next four years, we’re not going to go far in 2026.
This is really the reality of it. I've pushed back against the narrative that our players are a bunch selfish dribblers partly because I don't think that this is the case and partly because I think we truly do have the most talented generation as a whole we have ever seen. But there is no denying that we have a lot of players whose main skill set is to dribble under pressure (and sometimes not under pressure). That is their default, they look to dribble first and pass second. We will not get to the next level until that changes IMO. We have more technical players now but not enough. As great as Jedi has been this cycle, it should be apparent after watching this WC that his technical limitations are holding the team back. At the moment, we do not have a replacement for him, and his strengths outweigh his limitations, but to get to the next level we need an upgrade there. I don't mean to single him out as he has been a warrior for us, and his isn't the only position where this is a problem, but it is what it is. Tactically, we are really not there yet either. This includes not only the job that Gregg has done but the players to a degree also IMO. We are getting better though and I think will eventually get there.
But we can't force Chelsea and AC Milan and Juventus and Leeds to release our players to it. That's why we don't emphasize the CA.
He should not have been cut from the team. He was having some mental health issues. Juergen didn't like that. Because Klinsmann's a narcissist and they don't understand that they themselves have a personality disorder. I was watching the documentary Good Rivals and it just pissed me off all over again, watching Klinsmann tell the team Landon was cut. It wasn't his age; he'd played with Beckermen since they were 16, and Beckerman, who I was never impressed with, made the team.