Jones was not the greatest, in terms of ability or technical skill, but I will always give him credit for absolutely running his ass off when called upon in the 2002 World Cup. He wasn’t directly involved in a bunch of goals or anything, but his willingness to run definitely played a part in some of our results.
I like Cobi fine, but that's honestly pretty pathetic. An attacker scoring a goal once every 10 games. I mean, no one has to think Claudio was the greatest, but beneath Cobi Jones is a joke.
This take is reminiscent of the current one where some lifelong MLS player (never a best XI candidate) is equivalent to a multi-year B1 starter. I guess “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”
I didn’t say he is above claudio, clearly that’s ridiculous lol, but cobi fit a need for our national team, even if he wasn’t dazzling or showing up on the score sheet
Beasley just told Herc that Claudio was in his top three of all time. @Maximum Optimal couldnt have been more correct on his performance in 2002. This was an all time great performance and why he ended up in the tournaments best XI...
Lost count of how many times in that game he took absolutely nothing and turned it into something. He was was absolutely world class. Could have fit in with any club or national team, anywhere.
That video is pretty cool. I'm curious if there are any more USMNT all-touch videos from that era out there, especially since some of my favorite players from the 90's are starting to fade from memory. Granted, I think that's probably one of the best ones I'll see featuring an opponent of that quality.
I thought this thread was about Giovanni? Lol Just thinking Giovanni running the US midfield in a few years, with Adams and McKenzie behind him got me really pumped.
Consider yourself lucky if the worst this thread ever gets sidetracked is by a discussion about his dad's USMNT career.
I couldn't agree more. Is @Gioreyna10 ready for @USMNT? “It’s not based off of age. It can’t be. It’s based off of getting your best players into the pool as quickly as possible, getting them experience”. @ESPNFC #USMNT Full interview w/ @tyler_adams14 drops on Tuesday! https://t.co/lIUaV6zjpp pic.twitter.com/P4beOUuSfw— herculez gomez (@herculezg) March 29, 2020
Just speculating, because that's all we have right now: Claudio had three years at UVa. When he was 18, he played his first season there. I don't know precisely when the Barca offer was made (tbh, I never knew about this), but he may have already completed his second year by the time the offer was made. So maybe he spent one year longer at Virginia than he might have. His UVa coach was Bruce. They had a pretty good thing going. Hard to leave when you're piling up trophies, in the pre-MLS era when the NCAA trophy was a relatively big deal. But he did leave for Leverkusen after winning 3 in a row at UVa. Pretty cool when you think of the era.
It is a conspiracy created and driven by the MLS/SUM heads to keep YA away from the USMNT roster. If a guy can play in the top leagues in the world against the top elite players in the world, he's more can capable of playing in CONCACAF games. Ask yourself, how many CONCACF guys has what it takes to start or play in Champions Leagues games or Premier League or Bundesliga games? It's horseshit. I'll take 11 guys playing in CL, EPL, or BL over 11 CONCACAF guys any day of the week. Klinsi was right about this.
Sounds like smoke to me. He was about to get called up. I can see him get worked in and being a starter by the time it counts.
A little off topic for this thread, but cut me some slack. The world is a little off topic at the moment. OK, first off, great all touches video of one of Reyna's elite performances for the US. I hadn't seen this one, and it's fantastic. Second, for the newer fans, they may not realize that this 2002 World Cup for Reyna was in many ways his redemption the 1998 World Cup. And this match against Germany in particular was. In 1998, within the first minutes of the game against Germany, their #6 Jens Jeremies went in with a hard tackle on Reyna, and it really took him out of the game. Germany tried it again in the 2002 match, but he rode the tackles, and he had a stellar performance. There's a parallel to Donovan as well. Landon in 2006 had an underwhelming World Cup. Set aside the Italy match after it was 9v10 and Landon was on fire with the space and time to execute, the rest of the World Cup Landon failed to make the kind of impact we had come to expect. 2010 was Landon's redemption. And interesting when you think about it that the two players are exactly 8 years of age apart. Cheers to my BigSoccer brothers and sisters. Stay healthy and stay sane. We'll get through it.
Little known fact, this reply is ostensibly connected to a slightly stilted interview between Herculez Gomez and Tyler Adams.
The argument can be made that Claudio is the TOP U.S. player of all time. He captained the top US team (2002) and played at a higher level for longer than anyone has before or since as a field player in Europe. He made a FIFA world cup best 11. Captain America indeed. The guy was a fantastic footballer for a long time.
At the time, I remember being surprised at just how much control the US had of the midfield and the flow of the game. The US looked superior and it looked like a goal was eventually going to come. As you can see in that video, Claudio is creating chances and putting the team in space with numbers repeatedly only to have guys flub their opportunities. Claudio's performance in that game rivals any USMNT field performance ever. Jermaine Jones had a great performance against Portugal in 2014, and both Donovan and Dempsey have had their moments. But with the scale of the match and the ease at which Reyna dictated play...I think that I take Claudio's performance over the others.
Here’s my look at how Gio would slot into Berhalter’s deal: http://positionalplayscholar.com/index.php/2020/03/23/building-for-the-near-future/