Unpopular USMNT or US Soccer Opinions

I will never say McBride was our best of all time and I don't think we need to "replace" him but he was and is my favorite US player of all time. (I guess this is off topic because I think he was and is very well liked by USMNT fans, so I apologize)

 

That is an unpopular opinion....perhaps I shouldn't speak for others, but it is for me.

 

Is being good in the air outside the box a real advantage given the current NT's style of play? If it was Dike would be first choice number 9. In fact it would be refreshing if GB would switch to a more direct style of things weren't working.

Anyway, McBride had a lot of other talents.

I was in the US but didn't follow the NT even this happened but I thought it might make some of you teary eyed.

 

That is like comparing a red Ferrari to red Volvo cause they are both red.

 

Here is one that I'm sure will be highly unpopular:

If I were the soccer gods, and had the power to reverse the result of the game in Couva in 2017, I wouldn't do it.

Despite how devastated I was at the time, I think now that American soccer is better off today as a result of having gone through that adversity, far better off than it would be if it had won that game, squeaked into the 2018 World Cup and continued with business as usual.

 

I am not sure this is as unpopular as you might think.

It could well serve as the dynamite needed to blast us out of our past complacency.

 

We play better with 2 strikers up top.

 

Yea, Bernardo, Ferrari and Agulo.

 

Of course Altidore had a higher goals per game rate with the USMNT than McBride.
And scored against just as many good teams as McBride did.

Amongst players with at least 10 caps, only two players have a higher goals per game rate than Jozy Altidore. Clint Dempsey and Christian Pulisic. And if you want to round your decimal points, all three have a rate of 0.4. They're very close.

Also worth noting that Jozy Alditore had the same number of assists for the USMNT as Tab Ramos. More assists than a bunch of midfielders like Hugo Perez and John Harkes. More assists than Beasley.

Jozy just didn't do it at a World Cup, which will forever be a hole in his resume.
And of course he never "did it" in a top 5 league. These things are inarguable.

You wanna know my unpopular opinion?

Jozy Altidore was much, much, much, much better in his prime than USMNT fans give him credit for. And that's because USMNT fans think that if you don't perform in the Premier League, then you're somehow a failure.

When people say we didn't replace McBride, I'd argue we did. If Altidore hadn't gotten hurt in that first game of the 2014WC, and been a contributor in that group that made the knockout rounds..................I think we'd look on him in a vastly different way. But that's an alternate reality that didn't occur.

All he did was then return to MLS and be a key player on TFC's treble winning team in 2017. Go back and watch the 2017 playoffs. Giovinco was actually pretty marginal in the playoffs. It was Jozy that scored the game-winning goals in the semifinal and final. Kinda forgotten to history.

But anyway, I'm not saying anything you don't already know.

 

Jose Angulo? I saw him play our local HS powerhouse when he was at St Benedict's. He was lining up a corner kick in that match and you could see he was going for goal. Crashed his corner off the crossbar. Strong and very skilled but I think he just didn't have the pace and work rate to make it at NYRB.

 

What about Wondolowski's miss against Belgium?

 

Pulisic and Reyna are made of glass.

 

i agree it could, and should have been that.

but i disagree, cause other than the player pool i dont see much difference at all.

 

No real reason to think Reyna is. Pulisic certainly is.

 

Pulisic and Adams.

 

I'm with you on Jozy's undeserved general lack of respect. That being said, the fact that McBride is my favorite USMNT players of all time (to this point), is based on his attitude, as a team player, as a competitor, his toughness and my perception of humility that not all players have. Of course, a lack of humility is also a trait that I appreciate in a player, so perhaps I should only base it on the other traits.

I think Jozy's lack of success in EPL was due, in large part, to the fact that he got horrible service. He depended greatly on an ability to find spaces off the defender (either through movement, positioning or both). Donovan was great at getting him the ball but it was a symbiotic relationship. In TFC, he also thrived. On a different team in EPL, perhaps he would be remembered differently.

 

Sunderland played him as a lone center- forward. He's not a traditional center- forward.

 

They looked at his body and played him as they thought he should play instead of playing to his strengths.

 

And Berhalter.

 

Have we already done Juan Agudelo, Tab Ramos and Claudio Reyna?

 

Aaronson brings more to the usmnt at this point then Pulisic or Reyna.

 

Well he's healthy sooo..

 

It is a bit early for this statement, but it has potential.

 

True story. Brenden Aaronson has a higher goals/game rate for the USMNT than Christian Pulisic. He has the highest goals/game rate of any player in modern USMNT history with at least 5 goals. So he's started out really strongly. Let's see how it goes from here................

 

Kelyn Rowe could and should have been a vital cog in the team last cycle. If he was, our chances of qualifying go up drastically. Hell, he plays the TnT game, our chances go up drastically. We desperately, desperately needed a player like him on the team, and the Gold Cup gave us a taste of what we missed.