Definitely. The performance today was great, and we have an unprecedentedly talented 23. I expect to go far in Brazil.
I am now hopefully optimistic about how we'll do. I wasn't one week ago. Make no mistake, these last two wins are HUGELY important to the team psyche and confidence. I can't believe I'm about to say this but I think we have a good chance to WIN the group. Outright win it. And no, I'm not drunk or high right now.
I want some of what you are smoking on. No seriously I really do. It sounds like you are smoking on optimism and a healthy sense of preparedness. I wish everyone would hit this pipe.
I have low expectations for the amount of success we'll have getting results, and high expectations for how impressed I'll be with our play.
I am going to stay consistent and say what I have been saying for months. This team can beat anyone. Crazy things can happen in South America. I will also add that our back line still bothers me, so there is the reality check.
I can see good things happening, I can see bad things happening. I cant really pin this team down, we've had alot of turnovers that neither Turkey or Nigeria has taken advantage of. There were eve a few vs Azer....I can see Ghana or Portugal taking advantage of those. Our offense is going to have to be precise and efficient, we probably wont have many chances to waste. We dont have any impact subs, in fact our subs will prob make the team worse not better, although we havent seen alot of AJ, maybe he can come on. Zusi is great against CONCACAF but dont see him making any kind of impact in the WC. An injury or suspension in our back 4 and we have to go with plan , and there is no reasonable plan B All that negative stuff said, and I still think they play 180 strong minutes and they can do some good things down there!
I think you're about to be pleasantly surprised with what happens over the next few weeks. LD was great, and is a legend - but maybe the thing this team most needed was a change in attitude. Let's not forget that at the last WC, LD was dealing w/some lady problems and he seemed to be a little self-absorbed if we're being totally honest. Maybe explains some of the slow starts? I don't know. But this team seems like it's solely focused on playing soccer.
I was being sarcastic and am poking fun at all of the tools who took Klinsmann to task for cutting Donovan.
I refuse to be stupidly optimistic. Ghana, Portugal and Germany are just too imposing for me to have strong belief right now. We are on great form so I think we have a better chance than we did 6 months ago.
UNLESS . . . They give Julian Green as many minutes as possible! Since he's already a superstar and can terrorize 4th division defenses at will. Based on the first-ever 2 matches he played against senior national teams in the past couple of weeks, I think, more than any other player in the roster of 23, he's ready for the Big Show. In fact, if "Prime Time" gets, minimum, 70 minutes per match, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he could be hoisting this little piece of hardware after the USMNT's last match of the tourney . . .
I'm saying I don't think we'll have anything in the middle. I think the results will either be as bad as '98 or as great as '02. With the late roster turnover and youth movement it could blow up like '98, but we have much more talent and a better coach. But we are in the group of death. So, I go back and forth between the 2.
Don't need DONOVAN. We have Jozy and he's finally ready for Prime Time. Hard to believe it but we will get out of the group stage.
Because we just won three friendlies? Are you joking? Did you not see how Bedoya and Zusi totally mangled at least four crosses between them that Landon would have easily nailed? It's not at all a stretch to say that with Landon we get at least one of those in. No matter how well we do in Brazil (and I hope we go all the way!), nothing will ever justify Klinsmann's decision. It's just that inexplicably stupid. To the topic of this thread, our performance today showed a lot of promise. It looks like we have our back line and Altidore finally looks ready, which is huge. I think we have a really good chance to advance.
It would absolutely justify it and what Klinsmann wanted from a performance and mindset perspective. But make sure you have those built-in excuses ready when we advance out of the group. Totally gutless b.s from your whole crowd.
Don't worry. Klinsmann selected the best available 23, and I hope Klinsmann is able to reach the high expectations he has created. Hopefully we don't see any of the pathetic whiny downgrading of expectations that has been going on the last 3 weeks. With a 23 this talented, escaping the group alone isn't a success.