An interesting read here, even if I disagree with the conclusion: http://www.northyardanalytics.com/b...he-worst-u-s-mens-national-team-for-a-decade/ Altman looks at the ELO ratings of the US National team over the past 4 World Cup cycles. He then looks at the average ELO of the club teams for the starting lineups in each World Cup cycle as a proxy for our squad strength. I like the methodological approach as a first pass, but think it could be taken a step further and weight a player's contribution to the club team by minutes played. Where it falls short is measuring all MLS clubs at the same ELO level. For example, by that measure, Landon Donovan and Ben Olsen had the same scores in 2006. Along those lines, this approach doesn't account for roster depth. Looking at the total minutes played in the WC by club ELO would be more helpful. However, even at a first pass, this does lead me to believe that the 2010 team - even with the Davies and Holden injuries - probably underachieved slightly. The landmark Donovan goal overshadows the point that a team with our talent shouldn't have been in the spot.
I have been saying this for over fives years. It doesn't matter whether Bradley, JK, or Bilbo Baggins is coaching the UMSNT. We aren't producing the players at high enough level. We are a plateau. The focus and money needs to be on technical development.
This is interesting, but ELO ranking clubs and leagues is just so problematic, particularly in different confederations. We have fewer players playing in Europe now, and more MLSers than we'd had in 2010, but how much of that is due to fewer players now being "below European standard" and how much of that is "being paid well by MLS?" Whatever the answer, it's not surprising that the average ELO ranking of the roster's clubs would dip a bit just by virtue of having more MLS-based players, without necessarily determining that those players were not as good as those of the previous cycle simply because of which league/club in which they were plying their trade. It's interesting, but it is problematic.
Our team wouldn't have needed that Donovan goal if Koman Coulibaly hadn't contrived a way to disallow the winning goal against Slovenia. One problem with World Cups is that there are too few games to say a team statistically overachieved or underachieved; a single moment can change a team's entire tournament dramatically.
Its sort of an odd premise considering we have never been deeper in filling out a roster. Used to be ANY injury was a major injury.
Yep, and frankly we were excellent against Algeria, outside the scoreline. We were inventively creating chance after chance, but the last touch just failed us. Overall we played them better than England and Slovenia. So exceeded reasonable expectation against them. Got off to a horrible start against Slovenia, but with the comeback, and should have been 3-2 scoreline, so about met expectation against them. Were somewhat below expectation I'd say against England. We drew 1-1, but our goal was fluky if we're honest, and even though they should usually out-play us there was too big of a gap in quality chances created. They created a good amount, us very few. And then against Ghana, in spite of losing, I'd say we met expectation there too. The quality chances created were pretty close. If we got the normal performance from Howard, we were 50/50 or better to win. He was letting in near post goals. Frankly, in spite of the score being opposite, we played worse against them in '14 because that was 2 quality chances sandwiching getting virtually dominated. So 2010 was a standard tourney for us. You break down the 2014, it's sub-standard, ignoring scores. The Portugal performance was outstanding. But I mentioned the Ghana performance, and against Belgium and Germany we never had a real chance to get a result. We just played 1 attacker, absorbed pressure pretty much all game, hoped for Howard to bail us out and score in the off-chance.
Deepest player pool, worst usage of it, resulting in arguably the worst team. Seems ironic, but expanding the pool by recruiting dual nationals comes at a significant cost to talent actually on the field for a side like the U.S. Maybe it'd be different if we were Germany or Haiti.
You're forgetting an important part of the equation. Players are largely the same and we don't have an in their prime Landon or Dempsey to lean on. We're essentially producing the same level of player we always have, minus the 2-4 stars we can lean on each cycle, Landon/Clint/Chero/Reyna/Wynalda/Boca/McBride/DMB/Ramos types. Our top players developed stateside 27 or under are who? Yedlin, Zardes, Finlay? Jordan Morris? Shipp? Mike/Jozy split development between here and overseas as they left at 18 but outside those two, is there an improvement in those players mentioned compared to 10-15 years ago? No. The 87 class and later has three guys who can put their hat in the ring as star talent for us. Mike, Jozy and Fabian. Fab is obviously a product of Germany. All three a good part of their development was overseas. The bare cupboard behind them is something Landon/Clint have covered up for years. That won't happen much longer obviously. Another Clint/Landon would be nice but hell, at this point I'd settle for just another 23/24 yr old version of Holden. Our pool is deeper than ever. Some are conflating that with production of top talent though. Two different issues. And in sports it's generally what your top players can do which largely impacts success. Anyone who liked Landon or likes Clint should recognize how important that top level difference maker is.
I think the answer to the title of this three is no. The only past players that could make a difference with this team right now are the very top guys like donovan and McBride. Our ELO rating over the last 15 years has been pretty volatile, but mostly within a range of 1700 to 1900 which currently is 9th to 35th. Which seems about right and is how we could perform on any given day over the past ten years. As @QuakeAttack pointed out, we have plateaued, except in the area that @cleansheetbsc pointed out... Depth. The positive to me is that this has always been my hypothesis of what would push us through this plateau. We are going to start seeing more and more players that we think should make the team not even get a look and there are going to be fewer players penciled in as starters. This competition is going push players to a higher level and/or form can become a larger decider of inclusion in the team
And we had a perfectly good goal wrongfully taken away from us for offside in the Algeria game as well. Though the Algerians did hit the woodwork early on...
Interesting analysis. I'd think even the most proactive coach would sit on a lead against a team we've struggled to beat with our starting attacker down. Not sure we never had chances for results against Belgium. We also used more than one attacker for more than a third of the 120 minutes. We put up decent fight that day given our talent difference.
You have to give Klinsmann partial blame for the way he didn't make use of Landon's last effective years. He could still be an asset for the team. He still had life in his legs. But he got his WC and other international dreams ended, and that put the nail in the coffin probably. People always argue with me on this too, but proof is somewhat in the pudding. I foresaw Holden's aggravation that would lead to his ultimate downfall and I shared it on the YA board at the time. I'd have gotten him a 2nd opinion from an independent doctor and I think that would have avoided the catastrophe. Gyau I wasn't as invested in because I don't follow Bundesliga as much as EPL, and he wasn't nearly as big of a player for the national team at the time. But in retrospect his situation was very similar to Holden's. They moved up his timetable significantly after a knee injury. So I think his aggravation was foreseeable too. An aware manager can be on top of those type of (important) details. Jurgen has always gotten criticized for that. He's got a few wonky philosophies that he pretty much sticks to, not an attention to details guy. I think he could have or even should have done better with those situations so he maybe has more standouts now. Then I think he's just got to give up and coming MLS standouts real chances finally. We won't know if they can be international standouts and in turn player in major European leagues until they get significant cap. I see real intrigue in Finlay and a lot of parallels to a healthy Holden. Their movement and touch are similar, and Holden didn't really come on to the international scene until 23-24, in spite of getting a much earlier start, and then his ascent was a rapid one.
It's an intellectually honest analysis. You should try it. Instead of spinning in saying we used a 2nd attacker for 1/3 of the 120, ignoring most of that was after going down, and almost completely into ET. That game created the idea there was a huge gulf between the U.S. and Belgium. They were better, but nothing special in the tournament. We should have counter-attacked, not bunkered. That would have been the pragmatic thing to do. We do it well. As far as the Ghana game - we were trying to protect a lead we gained in the 1st minute, for 90 minutes? Yeah, that would be foolishly negative and unrealistic. The dam eventually broke. Odds were it happened even sooner. But the actual reason for no 2nd attacker is he brought no alternative to Jozy (his own fault), nor anybody he viewed as a true A-mid, although Mix could have served as one in any of the games the team was just absorbing pressure. But he insanely wants to make Mix into a d-mid or box-to-box for some reason. He's often trying to make players something they're not, rather than accepting them for what they are.
I'll ponder my honesty later. No, we put on an attacker around the 70 minute mark that the relieved the pressure that was caused by Belgium putting on Mirralles 10 to 15 minutes earlier. We only had one forward but were also willing to send numbers forward that we weren't in 2010. Your comments about Belgium are ridiculous. We were the first team to score on them in the tournament. They have one of the best goalkeepers in the world and the same for central defenders. Our central defenders struggled with Origi and then Lukaku. Hazard and De Bruyne are the type of attacking players we have? Beckerman vs Faliani is a toss up? Oh wait, we made the mistake of playing Cameron instead of The Great Kyle Beckerman. Us gifting Ghana a goal early in 2010 didn't impact how they played us at all. Smart move by Bradley to go with the early goals like against England, Slovenia and almost Algeria. The games were pretty much the opposite and it had more to do with goals being scored than performance. The rest of this is complaints about how the coach set the team up, how he selects players and what positions they play.
Yes no maybe. Yes due to the GC disaster. No because I don't think the coach is in charge anymore. Maybe because I will decide on Oct. 9th.
That is the problem. Our overall pool is deeper than ever before, but our top players are no better than 10 years ago, we have yet to develop a true, international star. Until we do, we will be on the outside looking in...
I think that a lot of this shows that Landon Donovan was a better player then he was ever given credit for. Without him on the field we have been unable to threaten good teams offensively.
The incredible thing is that he's taking multiple players and making them swap positions and play each other's club roles. Mix has played more advanced roles than Bradley in his club career, and Klinsmann wants to play Bradley in front of Mix. And the Gold Cup experiment with Joe Corona as a d-mid behind Bradley was an absolute disaster. As for Landon, his last season was statistically the most effective of his entire career -- even during his early season "slump" Opta had him leading the league in chances created per 90 minutes. If the Galaxy's other players weren't running cold at the time, we wouldn't have been talking about him having a slow start to the season.
What does this mean? Is the implication that one needs to get caps to make it in a top league? Players need NT caps to get a UK WP if they don't have an EU passport but that doesn't effect playing in any of the other leagues. Our landscape is heavily scouted too, youth NTers getting more opportunities than ever so it's not like Europe isn't aware of players here. If you have the talent, clubs will come calling whether you're a full NTer or not. Cameron had 3-4 caps before getting an EPL offer. But then there's a guy like Zardes who's played almost every NT match this year and in the middle of the transfer window there hasn't been any rumored interest in him. Manneh has big clubs keeping tabs on him. Not an international. You're essentially implying a country which currently is being scouted heavily and has our youth ranks raided by foreign clubs, has potential international level standouts which both the USSF/Jurgen and the world market are ignoring, as well as MLS itself with only two Americans 24 and under taking up two of the 31 slots/players named to that game. Does that seem realistic, or does a few diehard MLS fans overrating some of our talent seem more realistic? Maybe a guy like Finlay can help in some capacity. Maybe eventually a Trapp becomes an international level player but a 23 yr old Clint/Landon/DMB/Bradley/Jozy were clear international level players and the world market recognized that too. Maybe there's a player or two who could succeed in top leagues and haven't gotten the chance for whatever the reason but I see no one who could do what Clint did at Fulham, Landon at Everton, Stu at Bolton, Mike at Chievo/Roma, Chero at Hannover, Boca at Fulham/Rennes, Gooch at Liege, DMB at PSV, etc, who just haven't gotten the chance. Is the idea that if Finlay had a few caps he'd turn that into manning the RW for Fiorentina or Everton and if Zardes gets just a few more caps so Europe notices, he'll end up at Southampton or Dortmund? One other issue is Finlay turns 25 next week, Zardes 24 in about a month. Some here are considering them prospects. Overseas that's very close to the "you are what you are territory". Jozy is 25. Does anyone talk about him as a prospect or like he's going to jump to another level? BTW, there's no problem with developing a Yedlin, Zardes, Shea, Finlay, Shipp level players. That's good for MLS. It does strengthen our potential player pool. The problem stems from there's not really anything better coming through.....and previously there was. In the 90's, in the early 00's. Maybe it's Novakovick. Or De La Torre. Or Pulisic. Or Zelalem. Or Miazga. Or CCV. But they're all years away. Simply potential at this point.
Our talent 20 is good. Our talent over 30 is good. Our talent around 25 isn't good. Bradley, Altidore, Shea, etc. flamed out in the EPL. Sebastian Lletget couldn't get a game at West Ham. he comes to MLS and rips things up. The talent isn't there right now.
Funny that people are complaining about our talent. Do we have less players in top leagues? Are we performing worse at the youth levels? What players besides Donovan are not replaceable? The only argument that our talent is worse is that the talent pool is mostly stagnant, and Donovan being retired is what puts it in the "worse than before" category. Even that probably isn't true, given we have a lot more NT caliber players now. Maybe the top end talent isn't improving yet, but I think the depth has. I also think the top end talent will improve once the 95's and later get more professional experience.
Who replaced Donovan? Who will replace Dempsey? The pool has gotten deeper, but the top line talent is not as good.