Good. In addition, those guys had a much more stable and longer training interval before the 2002 WC. This year has been a mess with respect to prolonged training for the same group of guys.
I'll remember that Josh Sargent didn't score, and Haji Wright only did after downing a gallon of unfiltered, concentrated Gyasi Zardes Juice.
No, you're not. He's been my (other) soccer boyfriend since before Aaronson and I started going steady mid-to-late last year. Dike and I have had a cooling off period, but I think it's about to get hot and heavy again.
Another nonsensical post denigrating one of our players. First Pulisic, then Reyna, now Haji. Haji is one of the players who will likely get a post-WC career bump. He ran more than Kane in the England match and led both sides in defensive pressures in that match. He made the right striker run against VVD who is a world class defender, beat VVD to the near post and attempted to get off a cheeky back heel which popped up and ended in the goal. He has a deserved WC goal and is only 24 and improving his game.
Looks like a back heel attempt to me. Now he was lucky it popped up! https://www.foxsports.com/watch/play-611088b01001519
I watched it right before I posted. Your link sends me to a Harry Kane video that when I click on it fails
Nah, that's ludicrous. Wales is utter ----, was before the tournament (what, no wins in like 6 games other than the win over Ukraine, a team that couldn't practice because of a freaking war, and still took them to the cleaners but couldn't find a winner and lost on a fluke set piece) and was in the tournament. Netherlands: Nations League: 4-1 @ Belgium 2-1 @ Wales 2-2 Vs Poland 3-2 Vs Wales 2-0 @ Poland 1-0 vs Belgium In terms of qualifying, they had a joke of it. After losing their opener in a shocker to Turkey, they went undefeated in their last 9, tying twice, winning the rest. In the group stage, they were solid enough but not great. But Wales man, Wales sucked, and hell, they beat Wales home and away in Nations League 5-3 on aggregate. I like Iran well enough, but Iran's not the Netherlands in any universe. I actually think if the Dutch show up, they'll beat Argentina, this Argentina is a mess.
I wish he could take 6 or 9 months off to just get his body right. From '15-'19 or thereabouts he was so insanely fast, so quick, you watch him in the Dortmund shirt, it's ridiculous. He's been kicked and beaten up mercilessly in the years since and been injured repeatedly w/bad luck and it seems like it's taken out some of the burst and explosion he once had as a teen. I'm hopeful he can get it back w/proper rest and rehab, hell maybe this year of not a lot of minutes will help. As for Donovan and him, we'll see, Donovan can't touch his career, but Donovan had the benefit of an ideal debut World Cup in a lot of ways, Pulisic's was more complicated, the performance a bit more like Donovan '10 than Donovan '02. Hopefully he can skip the '06 lesson. Donovan's spoken about it, and basically said he used therapy and a bunch of other things to help him confront the stressors and sense of obligation he put on himself that overwhelmed him in that tourney. I always felt it was most odd because his worst performance came w/o Reyna, and I often felt that whole cycle, when Reyna came back to play, Donovan was worse because we had our baby version of the Lampard/Gerrard issue where we couldn't figure out how the two of them could play together in MF and still be great. They were each made lesser by the experience. Then Reyna got hurt, Donovan had a great game against Italy according to posters here (I can't remember it and havent watched it since), but an absolute horror against Ghana, such a shocker that it was stunning.
This is what I'm real curious about. We heard some silly excuses from Arena for why we couldn't participate in the '06 cycle. Bradley made a point of doing it in '10 but prioritized the '07 Gold Cup which i bitched about at the time, but that lead to the greatest performance of the USMNT ever in a lot of ways (the 1.5 halves of football where we outscored Spain and Brazil 4-0, and were 45 minutes away from winning a major international tourney at the senior level for the first itme ever (after a ludicrously bad group stage and miraculous back door entry into the knockouts). We got Copa America Centenario under Klinsy, but supposedly the fed or whatever ran it were screwy about paying them all their $$$. No such luck this past cycle.The '19 and '21 editions matched up with the crappy Gold Cup and Nations League tourneys, but supposedly the Copa people have decided to match their tourney w/the euro's, kind of compete with it, maybe make it a once a cycle thing...but the Copa America linked with the Olympics that summer is really our only shot at reliable competition at a major tournament other than the U20 kids getting a run out in '23 and '25 (worth noting that the '19 edition of that gave us Richards, Dest, McKenzie, and Weah (and some other guys coming along), and the '21 edition had Reyna, Scally and Pepi as options to name a few if it had been played, so we could have some guys bubbling up to join. I will definitely be watching those tourney's w/excitement, especially considering the potential off the charts talent that might be there this summer for us (but again, no strikers lol, just wing forwards). Most important competitions for us will be: 1. Copa America '24 2. Olympics '24 Any other open invite we might get for a tournament (doubtful there are other options beyond Copa America, seems like the Americas are the only tourney's that open up to outside confeds, right?)? 3. Nations League Tier drop: 4. '23 U20 WC 5. '25 U20 WC Pipe Dream of a Nations League Champions League competition tournament that was rumored 5 years ago would be nice too. With UEFA and Conmebol set to merge theirs, that seems unlikely now.
"thin air". How was your math in high school. Did you pass? I heard others remark on the situation as well. I don't remember exactly who. Does it matter so much? The point situation speaks for itself. Remember when Berhalter signaled the team to let the clock run out and take the draw? Well, England looked at the situation and said to themselves "as long as we don't lose we're good for qualification". Agree?
If you listened to Cowherd last week, you had the pleasure of hearing one of these dolts that ignores soccer entirely for every single radio appearance for 3 years and 11 months, then deigns to comment, making exactly the same moronic takes that were made 30, 25, and 15 years ago by the Deford types, the Boston Globe idiots etc. His genius take was the same. That we'd never win it big until we brought in our best athletes and we don't so we won't, as if that was some great, ingenious insight that none of us had heard the previous 30+ years as soccer slowly began to get a grip on the sporting landscape after a near 15 year dormancy. That's what pisses people off. We don't want to be ---hole gatekeepers shutting people out, but we also don't want halfwitted idiots w/tired regurgitated takes, literally decades old, slung at us by idiots that have no interest nor knowledge of the sport, but can vaguely recall this old saw, and so pick it up to use it again. Everyone and their mother knows that if the very best athletes in this country had soccer as the #1 sport on their list, our international mens team would be much better. We also know, however, that athleticism alone is not enough. The greatest players who ever played the game: Pele: 5 foot 8 Maradona: 5 foot 5 Cruyff: 5 foot 9 Messi: 5 foot 7 C.R. 6 foot 1 We know the trend right? They're freaking short, and generally speaking, other than centerbacks, the best players tend to be average height to 6 foot, and have physiques and athleticism more akin to swimmers, or track stars, than to basketball players or NFL players. Its a sport that simply requires different things of its athletes than other sports, which is why the stupid arguments made by these hacks is so mindnumbingly painful to listen to. Do they ever consider that the best MLB pitchers over their years often generally looked more like insurance agents than athletes? That the best power hitters usually at first or second base, looked like guys that worked in a deli, rather than an athlete? Did they ever notice that in Basketball, you can't be 5 foot something and relevant, the same way you can in the NFL? That the demands of the NFL sport are unbelievably specifc and highly differentiated depending upon position. WR's, CB's, RB's have similar but not identical needs, some LB's too. Lineman have nothing of the kind. Mac Jones can be the least physically imposing QB in the class in years and yet have a better rookie year than any save Burrow and that Chargers guy. I could go on and on. Soccer requires a lot of things, and these days, much of that tends to hinge on a mix of athleticism, stamina, pace, acceleration, and ridiculous very specific technical skills, kind of like baseball players "tools" and basketball players "handle" and "shot making". It's a unique sport, like all sports, and it requires of its athletes an incredibly specific collection of traits and habits to be successful. It is not a sport you can pick up, like pro football as a high schooler for the first time, and actually make it as a pro. If you didn't pick up soccer until you were a sophmore in high school, but you still want to be a first class reincarnation of Riquelme or Modric, or Pirlo etc, it aint happening, period. In any universe. This isn't the kind of sport where you can play catch up, and still figure out how to be an edge rusher, or a corner, or WR, because your athletic, have the requisite size and are interesting. That's why, for me anyway, the takes from the soccer haters are infuriating. They know the sports where you can pick it up quick, and the sports where you can't. They know the positions where the same applies in different sports etc. But suddenly they forget themselves when it comes to ----ing on soccer. Its just really aggravating, I'd rather have no take from these yokels than a ----ty one. We don't need their take, their interest anymore. Its not 1994, and its not 2002 or 2006. Soccer is here to stay and slowly but surely breaking through to ever more sizable relevance and in many ways its about 10x as powerful as it was during Donovan's last Cup. These guys can like it or not, take it or leave it, they don't have to be on the ride the rest of us our enjoying, I'd just prefer they leave their ---- takes to their idiot buddies at the bar or their office of their news station rather than on the air etc. It's beyond tired.
This is the first World Cup where I have found the popular US media takes and general bandwagon support to be a complete nuisance.
im popping my head in here without knowing the full context, i just want to comment on one point- i generally agree (or at least dont strongly disagree) with your take on our cbs, but i do think now is the time to wipe the slate and give ccv, mckenzie, trusty a...well...clean slate. i think richards and robinson are the "incumbants" (while phasing zim out pretty quickly- im not against him as a player or anything but theres really no reason to invest a ton of time in him going forward), we should try to get a better feel for mckenzie (who ive been pretty strongly against until this point) because he does have great tools. i wouldnt say age/experience are magic powers but they do have some effect, and its also hard to show your potential if youre randomly yanked in and out of camps/lineups. epb is a guy i think we need to take a good, hard look at, and while im not nearly familiar enough with trusty since i hated him at youth levels- but hes doing well right now at a decent level so why not take a look? its a little like ream- i dont think anyone was too hard on ream before he miraculously became a fantastic (if limited) player at 53 or whatever it is, thats flukely as hell! i hope it lasts till he hits the forced retirement age in two or three seasons. im super glad we benefitted from it, im happy for him as a dude but every story doesnt have to be retconned. he was a pretty average colaship lifer before he, i can only assume, came across the devil at that dusty, mississipi crossroards before this season. weird things happen, man, and its the beginning of a cycle. i dont think cannon as a legit cb option is the worst idea in the world, though, so what do i know? (well, i know its definitely not the best either...but donovan pines? henry kessler? theres for sure worse...)
Americans watching Soccer: Haha this is so dumb they do ties, real sports have winners and losers.The seats of power of government and industry in America: pic.twitter.com/25CQNzxCyW— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) December 4, 2022 I’ll just put this here. I enjoy good irony
This is a fair criticism. My point was morenthat with the amount of players developing we should be fine
Logic much? I asked you for evidence to back up a claim and you question my math skills? WTF So you heard something from someone you can’t remember (so can I assume you didn’t bother to verify the narrative you ended up parroting?) and now your gonna die on that hill. And then the evidence your using to support your claim that England was playing for a tie, is at the death of the game when we had a free kick, England was happy we didn’t play a ball into their box..... wow
I'm glad to see that you're actively defending Ferreira, Zimmerman, et. al, from being called a "shit player". Oh, wait... You think Haji meant to score that goal? He meant it as much as Gyasi meant for a rebound to incidentally carom off his face into the goal. I'm glad he got in good position. I'm glad it went in. We needed it. But it was probably the luckiest goal I've ever seen the US score.
Good post but I think you have oversimplified the issue of height when it comes to modern soccer. I think you are undervaluing height when it comes to striker. The list you choose is certainly a valid list of some of the best ever. But the list of guys that short who also have the balance and dribbling ability to take on multiple big defenders is a really short list. Lets look at some other top strikers in the world right now: Erling Haaland - 6ft 4 Lewandowski - 6ft 1 Luis Muriel - 5ft 10 Andre Silva - 6ft 0 Karim Benzema - 6ft 0 Gerard Moreno - 5ft 11 Romelu Lukaku - 6ft 3 Harry Kane - 6ft 2 Kylian Mbappe - 5ft 10 Cristiano Ronaldo - 6ft 1 These were the top 10 in the world in 2022 per: https://sportsbrief.com/facts/top-listicles/12137-which-players-top-10-strikers-world-2022/
1 of my points is that 5 guys - 4 probable and 1 maybe - for 2 positions, isn't very many bites at the apple. At striker, which is concern to come, we have like 10 guys who've already established themselves as successful 1st team regulars to some degree, and this is for 1 position. There's where I think the argument applies.
I think GGG's lineup and subs were fine in this match. I propably would have opted to bring Scally in for Jedi, he looked hurt and gassed, as opposed to Yedlin for Dest. I though Dest was our best player in that game. And I'm certainly not suggesting that had that been the case that we win. I think the seeds to this defeat were sewn long before the start of the match. First off, I think our general lack of quality depth is an issue. We go maybe 13 or 14 players deep, get passed that and the quality of sub versus starter really starts to tank. As I can't say I disagree vehiemently with GGG's WC roster selection, I'm not going to blame him for a lack of quality depth. Mr criticism of GGG is more rooted in how he got us to the knockout stages. I think he made some subbing and tactical errors that lead to the second half resurgence against Whales. I think his decision to bunker and go completely defensive for the last 35 minutes against Iran was completely wrong. The bottom line of what I'm getting at is that this team had to fight and scrap for every minute of the 3 group stage matches. Our getting through was in doubt up until the final seconds against Iran. I like to think if we had gotten through this group with more comfort, which definitely could have been done, we're not as mentally and physically exhausted as we were going into the Dutch match. It may be my imagination, but I just felt like the team looked a little flat and haggered even at the start of the match. I think is some of the crucial moments we were just a step slow either physically or mentally to make a play or get into postion. I don't think this Dutch team was just clearly better than the US. I think they caught us at the right time with the right game plan, and they were very clinical with their chances. Having said that, I think the real job here for whoever is the coach for 2026 is to build quality depth for this squad. As far as a starting IX goes, I really believe we can go toe to toe against any team and get a result. The problem is do that over the coarse of a long tournament, you need that quality depth that we just don't have yet.
idk i was just throwing out names.....there are others I likely forgot as well. the point is that playing MMA as the only option other than bunkering in with subs was idiotic. running them into the ground and leaving them with rubber legs for netherlands was a disservice to them and the team. it didnt have to be that way.