Norwich Coach- US wants to focus on players playing in American league for WC qualifying.

Wait a minute, how exactly has Sargent "played himself on"?? When did this happen? What did he do?
Did I miss something here?

 

What he did was not be Zardes. What Zardes offered last night Sargent can too, with the added bonus of understand how to press and how to not head the ball into your own goal.

 

Stupid is probably enough

 

Fortunately for the USMNT, those are not the only two choices!
What is Sargent doing to deserve a national team call up? Guys like Dike and Pefok are actually scoring goals.

 

I think this particular story is 95% BS, but I have to say I'm a bit shocked by how many MLSers are in the top 15 for most minutes played under Berhalter:

#USMNT minutes under Berhalter:

1. Arriola 1,704
2. Ream 1,681
3. Lletget 1,661
4. McKennie 1,608
5. Long 1,534
6. Zardes 1,361
7. Roldan 1,260
8. Pulisic 1,258
9. Acosta 1,220
10. Cannon 1,161
11. M. Robinson 1,077
12. Zimmerman 1,059
13. Yueill 925
14. Dest 879
15. Sargent 874

— Garret Craig (@garretkc_fut) October 11, 2021

1. Arriola 1,704
2. Ream 1,681
3. Lletget 1,661
4. McKennie 1,608
5. Long 1,534
6. Zardes 1,361
7. Roldan 1,260
8. Pulisic 1,258
9. Acosta 1,220
10. Cannon 1,161 (guessing MLSer for ~75% of these minutes)
11. M. Robinson 1,077
12. Zimmerman 1,059
13. Yueill 925
14. Dest 879
15. Sargent 874

That's 10 of the top 15 from MLS. If you made a list of your top 15 players in the pool, how many would be from MLS? For me, maybe 3-4 (Robinson, Pepi, Turner, maybe Zimmerman or Acosta)...

But then Tim Ream has been in Europe for like a decade, and him being #2 on this list might be the most ridiculous thing on it... well maybe after Yueill being just above Dest lol

But again that shows the biggest problem isn't MLS vs not-MLS. Only 1.5 of *my* top MLSers are even on the list despite 10 being on it. And then you have Ream and Sargent from the Euro group who certainly wouldn't be in my top 15. That leaves 4.5 out of my top 15, in the top 15! (McKennie, Pulisic, M Robinson, maybe Zimmerman or Acosta, Dest).... WTF!!

 

Sarge didn't score for Panama. He wins.

 

Would be nice if our best Europe based players didn't get hurt so darn much.

 

Pefok, Hoppe and Dike didn't either.

 

Pulisic is probably the most injury-prone of the bunch (in terms of # of injuries not severity) and is still #8 on the list.

Aaron Long has been out with a major injury for like a year, missing everything from the post-lockdown friendlies, to Nations League, to the Gold Cup, to World Cup qualifying... and is still #5 on the list.

Lletget is #3 despite having a few fairly big injuries.

Arriola is #1 despite numerous injuries, including one major injury (torn ACL) that kept him out for a full year, and his fair share of Pulisic-level injuries, including a hammy that basically kept him out of the entire Gold Cup after the first 15 minutes or so.
It's actually a bit mind-boggling that Arriola manages to be #1 despite those... how is that even mathematically possible??

 

Yeah, this hasn't gotten a lot of attention as what can you say I guess, but I don't think anyone planned for the injury bug to hit our top names like it has in qualifying thus far. My expectations going in honestly would've been adjusted had I known about the various absences.

 

Back to the premise in thread title; if true I don't even want to root for my national team. And the USSF is worse overall than I ever imagined.
I hope this is bullcrap

 

Seems like this year’s GC would skew that.

 

True, but Arriola got like 15 minutes at the Gold Cup before his hamstring injury and is still #1...
And before that he was out for like a year with a torn ACL.
Does Gregg basically give Arriola every minute he's not injured?? Dude is a defensive winger who presents almost zero threat to score against non-minnows WTF!

Oh and #2 Tim Ream wasn't at the Gold Cup either, so that's the top two on the list...

 

Sargent saved us from losing to Honduras with that defensive header. The best part of his game is defending set pieces (a sad state for one of our best strikers). But we could've used him in Panama, if for nothing else than to defend that corner!

 

Damn good memory, I remember that. Another bit of karma, I'm sure no one gave a damn when that happens from Sargent but after last night it sure woulda been nice to have something like that.

 

well norwich invested in sargent...part of that investment is getting a starter for the us national team...that has real value on the open market. take that status away and it impacts the investment they made in him and there is skin in the game for that club, actually, imo.

if they expect the player they buy to be able to raise his value through national team play, that is something to consider when buying that playerr....if that angle gets taken away...there is indeed a benefit to exposing it ...if indeeed it is ridiculous as domestc league policices.

and i cannot beleive people think that the people involved would EVER EVER come out and admit that there is indeed preferential treatment towards MLSers in the USMNT or that there is even some informal agreement between either the coach and the mls and/or the fed and mls...they will never admit it openly! but its obvious

this isnt a berhalter preference thing...even if it is...thats why he was chosen as coach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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I dont think there is anything surprising about this. There were plenty of pointing out how the rosters were two thirds MLS in 2019. After the restart they flipped to one third with the exception of mostly euro/domestic camps. Long was the initial iron man and then Lletget became it in 2020. Guys that were cut early on were brought back once the most of the guys from MLS were so poor in 2019. You throw in January camps, the December camp, and the 2021 GC and is almost surprising it isnt worse.

From that list, I would only have Pulisic, Mckennie, Sargent, Dest, and Robinson on a healthy 23. That leaves 10 guys who Berhalter has continued to spend minutes on who just shouldn't be regulars. Injuries have made it hard to get our top guys all together, but there have been missed opportunities to bring the key guys in or to look at other options. I dont recall any coach wasting this many caps on poor players that don't belong.

 

“Some people” he talked to. Gonna need more than that.

 

Stop deflecting and trying to obfuscate and distract. This has zero to do with the issue at hand. The question is where is the Norwich manager getting that impression from?

Its not like this is the first time we have heard such sentiments. We heard similar comments from players and others during Arena's 2018 cycle tenure.

 

Just because JK did not take a player from each franchise does not mean he was not "asked" to do so.

Klinsmann did many things that were the exact opposite of what Garber and MLS wanted!

 

Those numbers wouldn't matter so much if Konrad or Weah DLT or lately Sonora had taken over for those guys. But right now, those guys still play tons of minutes. So it's not like it's misleading.

 

Why would Johan Cruyff sit around making stuff up about USSF to include in his book?

 

Including Klinsmann calling in Miguel Ibarra from the second division NASL, just to stick it to Garber and MLS. Ibarra who is an MLS journeyman and barely plays. Which may explain why he was in the second division NASL in the first place... Klinsmann in his infinite wisdom ignored Ibarra's more talented second division teammate Christian Ramirez, who was also nothing special in MLS, and is now in Scotland (that's in EUROPE) where his club's fans worship him as some savior.

 

It’th a conthpirathy!!!