It was really interesting listening to Carrick (spelling) on Pepi, and basically stating that even w/his explosion in production, he's still super raw in his aerial and box game etc. No doubt, he's super young, but it's interesting to see that he viewed him as a combination guy that works best through his teammates (which wasn't surprising) but that in general, he's just nowhere close to complete, he's just utterly fearless and filled with self-belief. But right now, for me, the hot hands are Hoppe, Pepi, and Pefok, and I'm waiting on Dike, I worry that the Gold Cup really hurt him because he was unproductive while exhausted, and then injured, and the fact that Egg still wouldn't put him in the top rotation for the Gold Cup, just for the Costa Rica game, made me feel that he saw him as Striker #4 or #5 pre-Hoppe and Pepi. I fear he's not even in the loop at this point after the Gold Cup which is a shame because I think he's legit, at least when healthy, but at this point, he's probably irrelevant at least until the early '23 windows barring a litany of injuries.
I don't think there is many wrong opinions available for the guys in general to be fair with you. I think the high floor argument with Zardes has some reason to it, I just picture him blowing tons of chances, but I could also see him knocking rare chances in. Friendlies: @ Netherlands Vs Ecuador Tournaments: Vs Cuba 2 vs Bolivia 1 vs Ecuador vs Guyana 2 vs T&T 2 vs Canada vs Martinique vs Qatar Qualifying: vs St. Vincent When I just look at the trend lines, I don't see too much relevance because what you see is a half dozen goals against Caribbean sides, none of whom are in the Ocho, a couple of goals against South American teams primarily five years ago, and then a couple of others. Zero goals against the big dogs of Concacaf for this cycle other than Canada, so not sure, I know the argument for Zardes boils down to: High Floor, great runs off the ball/spatial awareness. So there's that, especially with the paucity of goals the others have scored. My final thoughts on it are that I'm not married to Wright coming (as you've already guessed), just more of a mind of blooding him with the group now rather than never or in the summer, but I fully acknowledge that chances of that happening are zero. With that not happening my interest is primarily in guys that can either score, or can combine well and help others score, which then leads to how many wing forwards/strikers will we take? Is the # combined 7 or 8? I think I'm taking Pepi, Sargent, and Pefok, w/Hoppe allowing for 5 total wingers. I get the Zardes idea.
Dest played one of the best games for Barca I’ve ever seen him play today. (Don’t tell the “GB playing Dest out of position [@lb] crowd because he played the majority of the game on the left) he got down the wing over and over whipping in crosses. So throw that narrative that if he’s on the left he only cuts in too.
That’s his current form coming back from an injury. If he’s going to continue to play so poorly, you keep him there till he cleans his game up. You don’t want him in the center of the field making touches like he did yesterday during WCQ.
Wright is anti Sargent. He scores due to his athletism and pretty useless otherwise. Whether his athletism allows him to score in decent leagues is a major question. I'd quess no. There is nothing that he is doing better than healthy Dike.
I can't imagine how Zardes might go below #2. Sargent, Hoppe, Pefok, Dike are 3-6. And that's too many already. Sargent, Hoppe can play as wingers in the emergency. I, personally, want to see Hoppe more than anyone else as he is a wild card that needs to be tried.
1. Pepi 2. Zardes 3. Hoppe Those are your cf options. They have proven a sufficient amount for a start if need be, complement each other well, and on paper do enough things to be of value for the US as a CF. Sargent does not. He cannot score, make smart runs, nor be a physical target. That's not a CF. Until he scores, he's a wing option/emergency cf, if he's anything. He's in the same category as Weah, only probably lower on the depth than him, because he has less natural wing skills, and you'd trust him less as a pseudo ss.
I only tuned in to the last 30, after I heard he was playing well. And I have no reason to have doubted it, but wow, was I bad luck. Or it was coincidentally around the time he started gassing hard, because he was as bad as it gets. He was just walking around, his only offensive contribution was the occasional dribble into a TO, and on the game-losing goal he put zero pressure on the crosser even though he was right in position to do so. The 30 minutes I watched, I would have rated him a rare zero. The current cardio status is something that needs to be taken account for this window, in addition to the abstract heart issue he displayed. I think I'd still bring him, but he supplies an ability to link d in attack that's in shorter supply among our healthy options, but you'd have to be ready to yank him after 60, and definitely not start him more than 2 games, if that. I think LDLT's stock is going up just thru steady play and virtue of attrition by alternatives. He would provide a more reliable linking option in cm, next to a guy like Lletget, that Green wouldn't. The more I think about it, the less of a role Green would have on this team, either in cm and wing. He doesn't provide us creativity or linking, in conjunction w/ work-rate and ball-winning in cm. At wing he's been less successful there and isn't a top 5 or maybe even 10 option.
I have to agree. We must have turned on the game around the same point, and I was not impressed. Actually, it was the least impressed I’ve been from him... so that’s a good sign, I suppose. On Luca, I agree too. He should be considered a legit option. And I would like to see him considered before Yuiell.
Personally, I'm done with Sargent. He had a shot to show he could play on the wing to help us out, since he's been pretty lousy at the 9, and failed miserably. I unquestionably put a healthy Zardes ahead of him...
Are you f__cking kidding me??!! Dest was one of the worst players on the field yesterday. What game were you watching??!! I'm glad you Americans took him off our hands, Dumfries is MILES better!!
I think Dike's stock has fallen waaaaaaaaay too far. He didn't have any break. Rookie MLS season with Orlando to half a year plus playoffs with Barnsley to the Gold Cup squad. It was a lot for a first year professional.......................and he was highly impactful all along with those clubs. He just looked spent with the USMNT. I have faith that with a little break now, and regaining some health, we're going to see what had us all so excited about Dike in the first place. He has the potential to be totally dominant at the CONCACAF level, and we'll see from there. Do people think he can be that dominant in the rough-and-tumble English championship, but not be able to perform against El Salvador? Pepi is great because he's still pretty raw and already really impactful. I do worry a little bit that people have expectations running a little too wild with him. He will inevitably have a down phase here like Dike has had, and we need to have some patience. I think Sargent is also downgraded a little too much. The guy is playing in the Bundesliga and Premier League. Put some of these other forwards people are talking about at that level, and how do they do? How would Zardes do in the Premier League? We want our players reaching for the stars and challenging themselves at that kind of level. So my top three are still Pepi, Sargent, and Pefok. But I also have some wingers in the next group that can serve as forwards. Two of Weah, Gioacchini, and Hoppe make the October window for me. That depends on performance and fitness.
Generally, players like Wright and Luca and the rest of the players who havent played for USMNT but are eligible...are way undervalued/underranked compared to those who have imo... there's way too much weight given to prior experience in terms of how players are ranked. Pepi can come in with zero experience in a crucial match and deliver...should be evidence that experience isnt needed...and more players should be invited in from the cold....especially if the players who feature at their positions are not delivering the goods.
I think the opposite is true. People very much overvalue players who we haven't seen on the national team compared to players who we do see. Fans always are calling for the unknown when they feel like the status quo isn't good enough. That doesn't mean the unknown is necessarily better. It of course can be but each of those cases is going to require independent evaluation and it's not really related from player to player. Just because Pepi did great with his chance doesn't mean that Wright would. Wright has got to be evaluated on his own individual merit. And I say this as someone who is all for players getting a look. We're just in a place in the cycle where its much tougher and the bar has been significantly raised, especially for players who haven't ever been in camp. There's not really room on the roster for more than 1 or 2 new faces per window and someone like Scally is at the top of that list. I think LDLT will get called in at some point if he keeps playing well with his club as he's already been in camp, but Wright probably needs to be playing at Cyle Larin level to get called in. Otherwise he's probably going to have to wait till the Nations League. Its also just harder for the fringe Euro guys because the fringe MLS guys have January camp which is an easy place for Berhalter to get a look.
Berhalter's not going to lock in any player to a position in the depth chart. These are young players and they are expected to change a lot. It will be a window by window approach of reevaluation. Nothing I have seen shows me anything different.
Pepi has what was and perhaps still is missing from Wright and that is just want to. McBride had it in spades and the busted head and eyelid to prove it. Wright is more of that Kenny Cooper, Jozy Altidore big body that wants to be a winger. Now if that lightbulb has gone off with Wright then he will be in the program soon as he always had tons of ability. Most players just don't love banging and mixing it up and those that do feast on those that don't. I remember watching the Euros and enjoying how much Chiellini would laugh when someone knocked the crap out of him. Like he appreciated those that play that hard.
Our forward pool isn't so deep that we can dismiss anybody. Wright should be under consideration. Not just for what he's done this season, but for what he did last year in Denmark as well. I just think its unlikely that Wright is called in for October when we have Pepi, Sargent, Pefok, Hoppe, Gioacchini, Weah, etc. to choose from. Maybe I'm confused, but Hoppe, Gioacchini, and Weah played this past weekend in leagues much better than the Turkish League. We've not really integrated those three guys yet. And of course I'm a fan of Dike, who I think is a better version of Wright. Perhaps the staff will take a look at him during the next Euro based friendly. If they want to call up guys like Sabbi, etc. that will be the time too.
I think the tricky thing is I don't think there will be a Euro based friendly for a long time as every window between now and next September is taken up by qualifying or Nations League. It's also going to be a weird dynamic because with the World Cup happening midseason, clubs are going to release the players to national teams for at most a week before games begin. Now Nations League does allow some more room for experimentation, especially since the games happen after the World Cup draw and so the impact on our ranking is irrelevant. I think the only time for friendlies is going to be on either end of the June 2022 window.
Thank God we have objective metrics now to counteract biased fans, like who may be displaying sour grapes in your case, because he didn't join your program. Supposedly one of the worst players on the field happened to have one of the highest ratings in the metrics at 7.4. But I'm sure you'll be dismissive of the statistical check on your bias so it can carry on unchecked, and the measure remains exclusively eyewitness testimony, which is subjective, notoriously unreliable, & in this case far from even the consensus.
Perhaps (hopefully?) we'll have some WCQers at the end of the cycle that are dead games. Then we can really experiment. There isn't exactly a huge need to look at a forward for one of the worst teams in Turkey. Tyler Boyd plays on a similar team. Are people demanding his inclusion? No. The Turkish League is at a real low point. The UEFA coefficients have them rated lower than the leagues in Cyprus and the Czech Republic. The Swiss League where Pefok plays is ranked much higher than the Turkish league, and his own team is a big reason for that. I understand that we should take the UEFA coefficients with a grain of salt, but come on................................. Don't tell me we shouldn't call up Sargent, who started in the best league in Europe this past weekend......................and then say we should call up Wright instead. It makes no sense. We haven't fully integrated Hoppe, who played this week in the 2nd best league in Europe. We didn't use Weah and Gioacchini in the last window, from the 5th best league in Europe. I think folks are overthinking it.
This is reiterating what was already pointed out, but what you're claiming is the opposite what's been shown. There's more a grass is always greener on the other side & absence makes the heart grow fonder effect, leading to guys like Zardes, Lletget, and even arguably our best nat'l team player pre-injury, Jordan Morris, getting underrated for new faces, who on average aren't good enough now, if they'll ever be. You brought up a singular case of Pepi. I think he was the first player to ever debut with a start in wcq'ing. And by the end of the window, even though under normal circumstances I'm averse to such unknown commodities when it counts the most, I was advocating for it myself, because nobody else in that group was doing the job. It's different when they are - then a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Which is how every actual manager has operated for a reason. They know there's going to be a lot more failures than successes. Pepi was a pretty special case, not only because the circumstance I mentioned, but his unique mentality that was spoken about beforehand. Even a brash guy like Gio Reyna showed some nerves for a couple games in friendlies before settling in. Going back to Wright himself, he pretty much has the opposite mentality as those players. He's sheepish. Showed a lot of nerves in new situations. And his trajectory is levels below those aforementioned talents. I'd be much more inclined to gamble on a new, swaggy left back like Paredes or Tolkin, given their mentality, and the dearth of alternatives, especially at Panama.
I f we are to be totally honest, then the Danish Superliga is vastly more tactically sound and difficult to score goals than in Turkey, which also reflect the results between Danish and Turkish teams in Europe and how players from the two leagues are doing for their NT when they have moved to the top-5 leagues of Europe.
Berhalter's going to have a big roster comparatively to last time, but that doesn't mean he's necessarily learned. It could be a mirage, due to the travel restrictions for Panama. He's going to need, at minimum, 4 gk's, for example, to have an MLS backup to Turner, and if he becomes unavailable a backup (Guzan, probably) to his backup (Sean Johnson). This may well mean Horvath is left off the roster. Getting re-benched at Forest means he was borderline to begin with. This roster and the lineup for the Panama game could look pretty whacky. It wouldn't shock me to see the nuclear option of Daniel Lovitz make a re-appearance. FTR, I'm averse to it, but am giving a forewarning. Antonee Robinson, the #1, and Ream the top vet lb, will be out of the equation. Vines may well not be ready due to the broken collarbone. That leaves us with Bello, who just struggled on the road. Dest switching back over to lb, on the road, where he also struggled. Then it's uncapped talents such as Paredes, Scally, and Tolkin. For me, that may be a game to gamble on Paredes or Scally. It would be a tough choice. I may lean Paredes since we have no lefty wingers in front. It could end up being Lovitz. If so, may the soccer gods have mercy on us. Pulisic being excluded creates another conundrum. It's not that we can't live without him. But he has a lot of utility against the weaker opposition in the hex/ocho. And he could be limited or out the first game due to the knock/fitness. He won't play at all the next game. So he could wind up with one start this window, if he's even deemed match fit enough because we won't be able to ramp up his cardio in games. And who'd he play a factor against the most is a nation, in Costa Rica, who he's struggled against, although they are shells of their former selves. Then Josh Sargent will also be unavailable...let's face it who reasonably gives a s**t about that at this point.