World Cup qualifying failure marks end of US Soccer’s ‘golden generation’

Michael Bradley killed the USMNT. That's his ********ing legacy.

 

The golden generation was a young Donovan, Beasley along with vets like McBride, Pope, etc.

 

IMO, the downward descent for the US commenced the day that Landon Donovan was cut from the World Cup team in May 2014 and the team leaders (Dempsey, Bradley, Jones, Howard, Altidore etc.) were too chickenshit to stand up to Klinsmann.

If there are politics in the locker room, then they exploded into life at that moment.

 

There just seems to be this sense of disunity that goes back at least to That Article in our 2013 qualifying campaign. There's plenty of blame to share, but that's what bothers me.

The next coach, I believe, needs to be smart and charismatic. In the short term, we need healing more than anything.

 

There was no "Golden Generation." There was Donovan and Dempsey.

 

I don't think that writer knows what "golden generation" means.

 

Exactly. That was the golden generation. And it officially ended in 2010, and the some remnants of it carried over to 2014. What remains, are just the left overs.

 

The first Bradenton class included Kyle Beckerman, Demarcus Beasley, Bobby Convey, Landon Donovan, and Oguchi Onyewu. (I think those are the highlights.)

I'll bet that right when those guys graduated, Chicago House was like, if we do this every 2 years we'll be quarter/semifinalists in no time. And they were right; if every 2 years we were cranking out that kind of talent, with the understanding that some of the Landons would be better than Landon and some worse, we'd be a true world power.

The thing is, it was a fluke. It took over a decade before people realized that.

Here's my point...that was the Golden Generation, and because it happened to coincide with the first Bradenton class, it probably sent us several miles down the wrong road before we had to double back and go the right direction.

Life is weird.

 

If you look at it, a LOT of USMNT players have come through Bradenton through the years, including our current Wunderkind.

So of course Don Garber and MLS owners worked to kill it off. And they succeeded.

The only real development program in the US that has ever produced real results over time.

 

Huh?

 

This has been such a disastrous qualifying campaign that US soccer fans are complaining about Bradenton being killed off? Now I've seen everything.

This is a counter-intuitive take that is worthy of a full post and thread of its own. I'm skeptical but also intrigued.

 

If you put one Wonder boy surrending him with 10 Hedjuks, we will win. Hearts are the part missing in this group.