Redemption? Shouldn't that sort of hero's tale be reserved for people who aren't selfish pricks? McKennie is currently in the process of squandering more opportunities in one year than most of us will have in our lifetimes. I hope one day he is not a selfish prick, but I'll be damned if I get caught up in romanticizing the notion of it happening. There won't be much he can do short of selling his 2026 WC winners' medal on eBay to benefit St. Jude that will get me to cheer for him again.
It is more that he broke the same rule two days in a row to me. It is made worse by COVID, but even if a player just broke curfew two nights in a row that is a bad look
after "spending a night outside of the team's COVID-19 bubble, as well as bringing an unauthorized individual back inside the bubble to his hotel room on a different evening," according to ESPN's Jeff Carlisle That isn’t minor to me.
Many of us have jogged on a crowded city street before. Let's not act like it is totally riskless, that is false. Sometimes there is a red light and you have to stop. Sometimes you jog in place for several seconds while people gather around you, and there is no changing position or haltingly. You round corners and someone is there in front of you. You have to freeze, adjust for a second. You can directly run into someone. You can try to avoid someone and they slow you down and into the path of someone else. You can even get kindof cornered. Impossible for Greg to know if any of these situations were going to occur on that run. It is not near as cut and dry as you and other make it out to be (no risk) The bottom line is he should have worn a mask, and he should have considered the optics as well, especially since we still seem to be learning and re-learning the science of this thing
Its funny watching you bend over backwards to give WM every benefit of the doubt for his poor conduct and at the same time slam GGG so hard for taking a public jog at some point in his day. I can only imagine you’d be so sympathetic if GGG didn’t show up until the team hotel sometime Saturday morning after a night out who knows where and then got caught sneeking someone into the hotel Saturday night.
One in 5,000: The real chances of a breakthrough infection, World News | wionews.com 1 of 5,000 risk of McKennie spreading it. So all this was worth it?
When you’re on National team duty there are rules. The rules, I’m assuming, state you have to be back at the hotel in your room by a certain time. They probably also state all guests have to be gone by a certain time. Even in normal times. You’re being totally irrational. Players aren’t just allowed to swan about like pirates when they are on national tram duty.
He broke the rules, Covid aside, the team had curfew rules and he went against them. I think a 1 game suspension would’ve have been enough, but he definitely needed to be disciplined. Wish we would’ve played him for 1 min vs Canada have him get a yellow then sub him out….. then he’d come back off YC accumulation.
Let’s not pretend it’s unimaginable that someone on the team could get a breakthrough infection. I mean, Pulisic had to miss the first game because of a breakthrough infection. So, ya know…
Forgive me for not going all in on hating him endlessly for moments of stupidity. Again he had the courage to stick up for a social cause on police brutality and efforts to fight against racism. I think too many of you forget this but I get why. I myself value his association with that highly. Everyone makes mistakes. He was punished correctly and will learn from it. Let's move on to something far more important.
I like the dude. He broke COVID policy twice during the same camp after getting in trouble at his club for breaking COVID policy. He got sent home from the USMNT and missed two games. That seems fair. He acted; he suffered consequences. But Berhalter says that he likes McKennie and will call him in again. Doesn’t look like it needs to be a big deal going forward but it did need to be dealt with proportionately at the time, which it was.
That was so brave of him. Nobody else done it. He also had an inspiring speech after ES game. Captain America for life.
he needs to grow up real fast or it will be a really big deal. He is a fine and promising player but NOT irreplaceable for club or country. Most teams avoid players who are unprofessional and this was super unprofessional. Real frat boy stuff.
I don’t think people hate him - these are some of his biggest supporters - but this is now part of his permanent career bio. It’s toward the end of the first paragraph. He let his club down, he let his teammates down and put them at risk, he let his country down, and most importantly he let himself down. McKennie undercut the admirable causes that he chose to publicly support, and has damaged his position at the club where his performances garnered so much acclaim. Weston more than anybody should be aware of the impact of screwing over your teammates and manager through selfish actions. This will stay with him always. He has no else to hold accountable but himself. He can just ask Christian Pulisic whether a handful of points could be the difference between qualifying for the WC or scheduling friendlies against also rans in Nov 2022. It’s going to dominate this thread until the Italian winter transfer window closes, because most decisions Juve and Allegri make going forward with regard to him have to be viewed through the context of his massive f0k up.
He had already been suspended by his club for this kind of crap and even the police were involved at Juventus. So lets not pretend that this was a naive kid who just F'ed up. It is WAY worse than that. I think the punishment he got from Berhalter was the absolute bare minimum for putting the health of the entire team, 26 players, at risk for his moronic actions. And hurt the team right before a critical game. When it is strike 2 for the same offense, he could have been expelled from the team. Weston got off soft IMHO.
This is the height of ignorance. He put the team at risk, health wise and competitively. Berhalter doesn't need to know the medical risk, he has to state, know and enforce the rules for the team. End of story.
It's not even the 1 in 5000 chance of breakthrough infection. If there is another wave of COVID or if infection rates become significant in a country, teams in Europe are not going to release their players if national teams are not taking it seriously or if their players have to come back and miss games due to quarantine.
I doubt anyone here wants anything but the best for WM. Most of us have spent many years or decades closely following YA and the usmnt. We want the best for YA and the national team. You're not a "hater" if you recognize faults in some players. WM has professional issues. It is what it is. I hope he corrects them.
Exactly. Think of it from Juventus' POV. "We have invested a lot of money in you. We released you into an uncertain environment which we cannot control, because we trusted that you will follow the COVID protocols. You betrayed our trust." Think of it from Gregg Berhalter's POV. "You violated our COVID protocol and we talked to you about it. Then you did it again. You risked the health of your teammates and you risked qualification for the World Cup."
But think of it from some of the Bigsoccer member's point of view. "He's one of my heroes." Gotta say, it's a compelling argument.
It's the height of ignorance that we post the latest scientific data? Shouldn't enforcing a rule be in the best interest of the US Men's Nats making it to the World Cup? That case seems pretty shaky to me here (trashing McKennie publicly and sending him home). I don't believe in moral victories and I also know that rules get altered and interpreted differently based on different circumstances by different coaches all the time. The whole exercise is an art and science to manage young men. BTW- If Berhalter can not win the next game, the run of 3 consecutive World Cup Qualifiers will easily be one of the worst 3 game runs of any US Men's Nats coach in the last 30+ years. Perhaps the worst. Closest in memory is under Bruce in which we only took 2 points in 2017 from Mexico, Costa Rica and (I believe) Honduras, but the degree of difficulty of those opponents was much higher. Mexico was on the road. However, I am happily predicting a bounce back game win against Honduras given the putrid nature of these first 2 games. We got the blind squirrels in our favor.
Your logic stream is incomplete. USMNT is NOT incentivized for one of our top players to get in deep sh*t with his club, severely hurt his playing chances with that club, hurt his market value, hurt his reputation, etc. But that's exactly what they did here. USMNT already plays the game of 'we will tell you what we want you to know'. They just played it incorrectly here. Berhalter could have finessed this situation way better. There was a way to adaquately punish the player/set an example for team, keep odds very low for a repeat McKennie COVID breaking rules in the remaining games, but also keep McKinnie in frame to start in Honduras and protect him from feeling the full wrath of his club team and the Italian newspapers... Juve had to release him, so that point is mute. His teammates would have welcomed him on the pitch in Honduras. He would have been an asset. We could have solved this differently. McKennie screwed up, but that didn't mean that USMNT needed to screw up with their reaction as they did.