Pre-match: US - Mexico Nations League Final Sunday 6/6/2021

My question is, if he wasn't going to start Musah when the games counted, why did he start every single friendly he was available up until Switzerland?

The Musah, Adams, McKinnie midfield was the best we looked in midfield in a half decade.

 

perhaps fair enough....club pedigree is so hard to translate in terms of international football....BUT the clubs these US players are playing for are the very highest in the world. very young world class players should still be able to offer more than they have under GB....these guys are all playing not on the bench for their clubs and generally showing well out there....

It does go to show that age and experience still matter a lot in world soccer, though.

 

When you are playing on a cricket pitch that is waterlogged in the center and the grass is cut so high and uneven that the ball bobbles and stops getting a W2-1 is all that matters. Laying an egg would be a L1-2. Perhaps the best coaching decision over the last 15 years was dropping Jozy and bringing back an exiled GAM into the squad based on EJ's heading prowess!

 

What are the chances that Horvath will get to start in the Costa Rica friendly? Dude needs to get a move to a new club and a few NT matches will certainly help in some way.

 

To see that turd polished and call our performance Thursday inexcusable is interesting

 

I 100% agree with this. Me and my son just sat there grinning watching them play together as we had never seen the US play at that speed and skill level before as an entire midfield group

 

Haven't we had pro-US crowds for qualifiers in Columbus?

 

No doubt, but he'll always have the Copa America 4th place finish and that victory in a legit tournament against Argentina, one of the best US performances ever. He also qualified for WC '98 w/room to spare with a team that in retrospect was aging out. He also was saddled with a nightmare situation re: Wynalda and Harkes, which kinda broke the locker room at the time. The players seem to think that he got a bit of an ego towards the end and lost the plot which was also part of the problem, I think it's equal parts bad luck, and self-inflicted mistakes, but he has some legit plusses on the ledger that it would take a ton for Egg to equal. Is egg gonna do anything as impressive as what Sampson's team USA did while on strike basically at the Copa America in '95? It's hard to see it happening. The personal he has at his disposal are just so so so so much better, that to equal that performance you'd have to beat a murderers row at the WC of opponents and reach the semifinals in the process, at the very least. Sampson's team USA beating Argentina, and finishing top 4 is that impressive for me as was beating Brazil in '98. Granted it was mostly downhill after that.

 

Of course. Columbus and Seattle are two off the top of my head. And I went to a qualifier in SLC a few years back against Honduras and it was like 40K us and 2K Honduras. Now not Mexico but it game me hope SLC could be a home venue.

 

Can anybody share some game preview podcasts? I'm up to date on scuffed, totalsoccershow and extratime.

 

True enough. I think he didn't start Musah and went for Yueill instead because he noticed some problems with the CB pair he found the best to face Honduras.

With Dest and Robinson going forward a lot, he needed support on the sides and that was the job given to the MLSer. Brooks is not fast enough to provide such support, and McKenzie still had question marks.

Against Mexico he's going to be more conservative on the bands, so it's more likely we see Musah. All this assuming Berhalter is at least somewhat decent and is following the thought process that Honduras is weaker than Mexico.

 

Where are these 3-5-2 rumors coming from? Did someone get into a practice or something?

 

Roger Gonzalez

 

Thanks. I actually just found an article on it published an hour ago: https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/ne...ions-league-final-against-mexico-source-says/

 

And yet I can only remember 1 red card he ever got for the U.S. and it was a soft one.

 

It was his only one. He had 22 yellows though. Averaged a card every 3 caps.

 

That was the location for the Dos a Cero results in World Cup Qualifying for both 2002 and 2006.

That dynamic may have changed by now as I think Midwestern cities might have been one of the final locations where immigrants from Mexico moved to in larger numbers. I don't expect there is any city in the U.S. where it is likely that U.S. fans would outnumber El Tri supporters.

 

I know people are down on his reporting, but it seems very possible that he could have caught wind of what formation the team was working on this week. That's probably not the most closely guarded secret given the number of people who take part in or observe those training sessions.

 

I mean...whether or not his source is accurate is a very different thing from his editorializing ability and speculation.

 

IOW *never* got red carded at a quali, let alone "every four or five..."

 

Yep, JJ was a pro enforcer. The type who knows where and how and when to hit.

 

El Tri fans will be supporting the USMNT, once we dominate Mexico a few times.

 

Lol Costa Rica already scored against Honduras 8 mins in

 

Time for Ca-Tico-naccio.